Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-08-10
CANAL D[FAMERS LIE
Superintendent of Motive Power
Brooks Tells of Conditions
on lsthmus
Ne LIKES THE 'sTH"us
s LIKES THE 'sTHMu'
Gays Panama Is a Fine Country in
Which to Live-FaIse Reports Sent
& Out by Designing Persons-Much Is
Being Accomplished on the Big Ca
Nal--13,ooo Men at Work.

Minneapolis, Aug. 10.-"Panama is
canal is the greatest and most inter-
esting engineering project the world
has ever known, and the men who have
been circulating stories about the evils
Of the country and the impossibilities
Of the work, are not telling the truth.
They are usually men who have been
DISCHARGED for cause or have some
Imagined grievance"
This statement was made emphat-
4cally to the press last night by
George d. Brooke, superintendent of
motive power and machinery of the
lsthmian canal commission. Mr.. Brooke
was formerly of Minneapolis, having
been superintendent OF motive power
OF the Minneapolis & st. Louis and
other railways. His family lives at
1742 Bryant avenue, S. He is spending
q six weeks furlough at home and will
return to Panama August %.
The sanitary conditions on the
isthmus are as good as, or better than,
those in Texas and the other southern
states" continued Mr. Brooke. "We
( now have more than 1900 men at
work on the canal and railroad and
during the twenty-one months of my
stay we have not had one case of
yellow fever. Malaria, of course, there
is, but this is brought on largely by
n IN ~ n \
man of fairly temperate habits can
go into that country without materially
changing his mode of living.
Not Summer Resort.
1--WE have made many changes and
improvements. We have paved the
streets of the town, furnished pure
water supplies, cut down the bacteria
breeding fungus which used to grow in
profuson about the streets, and in 9TH
er ways increased the healthfulness OF
the place. When I first went there,
4 New Orleans quarantined against Pa
mama; now Panama guarantees
against New Orleans. OF course the
isthmus is not a summer resort, and a
man must take reasonable care Of him
self and must take his two to four
grains of quinine every day. That is
L
touch of malaria brought me to it. 1t
Is peculiar, but in that climate quinine
in large quantities does not bother you
and has no effect on your sight or
hearing, as it does in the northern lat-.
itudes.
s.The most remarkable thing about
the canal work, and the one that all
ways impresses the visitor, is its mag
- f,r1a 1n ia 1oa OF, toc hoy
no conception of the size of this grea.
work, nor of it's difficulties. Before
went to Panama l thought 1 had had
enough experience in the engineering
work. When l began the work there
found that the only use my experience
was to me was to give me the ca
pacity to study out the best methods
to be used there. The conditions are
so entirely different, everything has to
be done on so much h.rger a scale than
anything l HAD, ever seen or heard of,
that the problems presented by the Pa
mama canal all have to be solved by
reverting to first principles. My ex-
perience there has meant more to- me
than I can tell and am thoroughly in
love with the work.
Gigantic Undertaking.
'Tn the first place, think of moving
{ $4,000 men away from their homes,
putting them all to work and provid-
ing for their board and lodging in a
Wild and unsettled country. is that
q little undertaking? We now have
things down to working basis. The
4 whole forty seven mile length of the
canal Is one camp or city. We have
three mammoth hotels, two more are
under construction for the laborers,
4 and we are now building one that will
have every modern improvement, con-
venience and elegance. This will be
done in time to receive President
Roosevelt when he visits the isthmus
next year.
Then came the problems of the en-
cheering work. The country is made
~ of series of hills that seem as tho
they had simply been pushed up to-
gether by some prehistoric cataclysm.
There are no defined strata and our
methods of handling the building Of
the canal have to be changed contin-
ually to cope with changed conditions
The 22-foot tide on the Pacific coast
and the 1S-inch tide on the Atlantic
also gave us food for thought, and
the indeeision as to whether the canal
should be made on sea level was an
other cause of much worry and extra
work.
Tho Railroad Work.
'oThe railroad also required much Ia
Dor. We have double-trac ked it's fifty
two miles, and will probably have to
Z triple-track We have two To-
B connective shops in operation and are
building others. We have forty-four
new mogus locomotives of ninety one
Z tons each We are building steam SHOW
ell shops, and the shovels that we use
are larger than any ever saw before.
They have a five-yard dip and handle
from five to six-ton rocks.
'sThe locks are also monster prob
lens, and think it is safe to say that
Il we use concrete for the mammoth
dam and locks that are planned, in the
next eight years before the completion
of the canal we will use more cement
than the entire worlds output for
year"
GOVERNORS IN DEATH TRAP.
WarfieId and Harris Narrowly Miss