The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-18

to our work because the bulk of the col
| ored laborers come from the British West
| Indies. | also saw the French consul. Mr..
| Gey, a gentleman of equally long service
| and honorable record. | saw the lieuten-
| ants, the chief executive and administra-
| tive officers, under the engineering and
| sanitary departments. | also saw and had
| long talks with two deputations-one of
maehinists and one representing the rail-
| way men of the dirt misunderstanding to
/ what they had to say as 10 the rate of
| pay and various other matters and going
/ over, as much in detail as possible, all
| the different questions they brought up.
! As to some matters ] was able to meet
| their wishes: as to others, | felt that what
| they requested could not be done con-
! sistently with my duty to the United
States government as a whole; as to yet
! others l reserved judgment.
Third Day.
On Saturday morning we started at
o'clock from the hotel. We went thru
the Culebra cut, stopping off to see the
marines. and also to investigate certain
] towns; one, of white employees, as 10
which in certain respects complaint had
| been made to NE; and another town
where l wanted to see certain houses of
| the colored employees. We went over the
site of the prosopsed Gatun dam, having
on the first day inspected the sites of
| the proposed La Bosa and Sosa dams We
went out on a little toy railway to the
reservoir, which had been built to supply
| the people of Colon with water for their
| houses. There we took lunch at the
engineers mess We then went thru
the stores and shops of Cristobal inspect
| ing carefully the houses of both the white
| and colored employees. married and un-
married, together with the other build
! ings. We then went to Colon and saw the
| fire department at work in four minutes
! from the signal the engines had come
. down to Front street, and twenty-one 21z7
| inch hose pipes We're raising streams of
| water about seVentY-five feet high. We
rode about Colon, thru the various streets,
! paved. unpayed, and in process of paving,
/ looking at the bitches, sewers, curhng,
| and the lights. | then went over the
! Colon hospital in order to compare it
| with the temporary town or field receiv-
:, ing hospitals which | had already seen
! and inspected | also inspected some OF
| the dwellings of the employees. In the
, evening | attended a reception given by
| the American employees on the Isthmus,
witch took place on one of the docks in
Colon, and from there went aboard the
, Louisiana
, Each day from twelve to eighteen hours
were spent in going over and inspecting
all there was to be seen, and in examining
various employees. Turnout my trip | was
| the navy Doctor Rixey; by the chairman
of the isthmian canal commission, Mr..
| Shonts; by Chief Engineer Stevens; by
Doctor Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer
| of the commission; by Mr. Bishop, the
! secretary of the commission; by Mr. Rip
ley, the principal assistant engineer: by
Mr. Jackson Smith, who has had practical
charge of collecting and handling the
laboring force; by Mr.. Bierd, general man
ager of the railway, and by Mr.. Rogers,
the general counsel of the commission;
and many other officials Joined from
time to time.
At the outset I wish to pay a tribute
| to the amount of work done by the French
| Canal company under very difficult cir
cumstanoes. Many of the buildings they
| put up were excellent and are still in use,
| tho, naturally, the houses are now get
ting out of repair and are being used as
dwellings only until other houses can be
J built, and much of the work they did in
the Culebra cut, and some of the work
| they did in digging has been of direct and
real benefit. This country has never made
| a better investment than the $40, 100000
| which it paid to the French company for
work and betterments, including escpe-
| cially the Panama railroad.
An inspection on the ground at the
| height of the rainy season served to
| convince me of the wisdom of Congress
| in refusing to adopt either a high-level
| or 81 sea-level canal. There seems to be
| a universal agreement among all people
| competent to judge that the Panama
route. the one actually chosen is much
| superior to both the Nicaragua and Da-
| rien routes.
Preliminary Work Being Done.
| The wisdom of the canal management
| has been shown in nothing more cleat-
| ly than in the way In which the founda-
Of hppn
| yielded to the natural impatience of ill
informed outsiders and begun all kinds of
| experiments in work prior to a thoro sam
| itation of the isthmus, and to fairly
satisfactory working out OF the problem
/ of getting and keeping sufficient labor
supply would have been disastrous. The
| various preliminary measures had to be
! taken first; and these could not be taken
| so as to allow us to. begin the real work
| of construction prior to January / of the
| present year. 1t then became necessary
| to have the type of the canal decided,
and the only delay has been the neces-
sary delay until the Goth day of June,
| the date when the Congress definitely
and wisely settled that we should have
| an S5-foot level canal. Immediately after
| that the work began in hard earnest and
has been continued with increasing vigor
| ever since; and it will continue so to
PROGRESS in the future. When the con-
as to insure a constantly increasing
| amount of performance.
Successful Sanitation.
The first great problem to be solved,
upon the solution of which the success
of the rest of the work depended, was
the problem of sanitation. This was from
the outset under the direction of Dr. W.
c. Gorgas who is to be made full
member of the commission, as the law
as to the composition of the commission
remains unchanged. 1t must be remem-
bered that his work was not mere SAM
tation as the term is understood in our
ordinary municipal work Turnout the
zone and in the two cities of Panama
and Colon, in addition to the sanitation
work proper, he has had to do all the
work that the marine hospital service does
as regards the nation. that the health de-
partment officers do in the various states
and cities. and that Colonel Warning did
in New York when he cleaned its streets
The results have been astounding. The
isthmus had been by-word for deadly
unhealthfulness. Now. after two years
of our occupation the conditions as re-
cards sickness and the death rate COM
pare favoraby with reasonably hcalthy
localities in the United States. Especial
care has been devoted to minimizing the
risk due to the presence of those species
of mosquitoes which have been found
to propagate malarial and yellow feyers.
In all the settlements, the little tenn
porary towns or cities composed of the
white and black employees, which grow
UP here and there in the tropic jungle