Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-12-25

Yellow Fever Being Driven Out
workmen Are Seen at Work and
in Their Quarters and Are Inter
viewed by the President.
President Roosevelt sent special
message on the Panama canal to Con-
gress Monday. He tells at great length
of his personal experiences on his re-
cent trip to the canal zone. and scores
the critics and slanderers of the canal
commission. On this point the Presi-
dent says:
where the slanderers are of foreign
| origin l have no concern with them.
Where they are Americans l feel for
them the heartiest contempt and indig-
nation: because in a spirit of wanton
! dishonesty and malice they are trying
! to interfere with and hamper the exc
cution of the greatest work of the
kind ever attempted and are seeking
! to bring to naught the efforts of their
countrymen to put to the credit of
America ole of the giant feats of the
ages.
THE outrageous accusations of these
slanderers constitute gross libel upon
body of public servant S who for
trained intelligence, expert ability,
high character and devotion 20 duty
have never been exceIled anywhere"
Following is the Presidents message
in part:
! In the month of November l visited the
| Isthmus of Panama, going over the Canal
| Zone with considerable care and also Wis
tied the cities of Panama and Colon,
| which are not in the Zone or under the
| United States flag, but as to which the
| United States government, through its
agents, exercises control for certain san
itary purposes. l was three days ashore
! not sufficient length of time to allow
| an exhaustive investigation OF the min
utia of the work of any single depart
ment, still less to pass Judgment on the
| engineering problems, but enough to en-
| able me to get clear idea OF the salient
| features of the great work and OF the
progress that has been made as regards
| the sanitation of the Zone, Colon and
| Panama, the caring for and housing OF
| the employees, and the actual digging OF
| the canal. The Zone is narrow strip
| OF land and it can be inspected much as
| one can inspect fifty or sixty miles OF
a great railroad, at the point where it
runs through mountains or overcomes
other natural obstacles.
chose the month of November for my
| visit partly because it is the rainiest
month of the year, the month in which
the work goes forward at the greatest
disadvantage, and one of the two months
which the medical department Of the
| French Canal Company found most I'M
| healthy.
| inspected the Ancon Hospital, going
| through various wards both for white pa
tents and for colored patients. | inspect
ed portions of the constabulary Gone po-
| lice), examining the men individually
also examined certain of the schools and
saw the school children, both white and
colored, speaking with certain of the
teachers.
At the Culebra cut-the spot in which
| most work will have to be done in any
event, we watched the different steam
shovels working; we saw the drilling and
blasting we saw many of the dirt trains
! (of the two different types used), both
carrying the earth away from the steam
shoyels and depositing it on the dumps
some of the dumps being run out in the
| jungle merely to get rid of the earth.
for double tracking the railway and in
preparing to build the great dams. l
visited many of the different villages, in
specting thoroughly many different build
ings-the local receiving hospitals, the
houses in which workmen live. as well as
! the commissary stores and the machine
shops.
Talks with Scores of Worl<1nen.
talked with scores of different men
superintendents and head of departments,
| divisions and bureaus; steam shovel men,
| machinists, conductors, engineers, clerks,
wives Of the American employees, health
officers, colored laborers, colored attend
ants, and managers of the commissary
stores where food is sold to the colored
laborers wives of the colored employees
who are married.
| Each day from twelve to eighteen hours
were spent in going over and inspecting
| all there was to be seen, and in eXamin-
! ing various employees. Throughout my
| trip | was accompanied by the surgeon
| general of the army, DIR. Rixey; by the
| chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commits
| sion. Mr.. Shonts by Chief Engineer Ste
| vens: by DIR. Gorgas. the chief sanitary
| officer of the commission; by Mr. Bishop,
| the secretary of the commission; by Mr..
| Ripley. the principal assistant engineer;
| by Jackson Smith, who has had practical
| charge of collecting and handling the la
boring force by Mr. Bierd, general man
| ager of the railway, and by -. Rogers,
| the general counsel of the commission
| and many other officials Joined US from
| time to time.
Pays Tribute To Work of French.
| wish to pay tribute to the amount
| OF work done by the French Canal Com
| pany under very difficult circumstances.
| Many of the buildings they put up We're
! excellent and are still in use, though.
| naturally. the houses are now getting out
| of repair and are being used as dwellings
only until other houses can be built. and
much of the work they did in the Guile
| bra cut. and some of the work they did
| in digging has been of direct and real
| benefit. This country has never made
| better investment than the S40,O00.000
which it paid to the French company for
| work and betterments. including espe-
! cialy the Panama railroad.
An inspection of the ground at the
! height of the rainy season served to con-
| vince me of the wisdom of Congress in
| refusing to adopt either a high-level or
| a sea-level canal. There seems TO be
universal agreement among all people
/ competent to judge that the Panama
route. TIE one actually chosen. is much
| superior % both the Nicaragua and
/ Darien routes.
The wisdom of the canal management
has been shown in nothing more clearly
| than in the way in which the foundations
| of the work have been laid. To have
| yielded to the natural impotence of i'll
| informed outsiders and begun all kinds of
| experiments in work prior to thorough
| sanitation of the isthmus, and to fairly
satisfactory working out of the problem
of getting and keeping a sufficient labor
/ supply. would have been disastrous. The
| various preliminary measures had to be
/ taken first: and these could not be taken
| so as 10 allow US 10 begin the real work
l of construction prior TO Jan. ] OF the
/ present year. 1t then became necessary
/ t9e have the type OF the canal decided. and
| The only delay has been the necessary de-
| lay until the 29th day of June, the date
/ when the Congress definitely and wisely
/ settled that we should have an S'foot
level canal Immediately after that the