The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-05-19

common carriers as this Panama Canal
bill. Not that this hostility was born
of the Eastern roads, the ones whose
Western terminals lie jn Chicago, or ST.
Louis, or New Orleans, unless, indeed,
they were hostile from sympathy. The
transcontinental roads, so-called, the
ones whose lines begin where the others
stop, were against it till the last card
had been played. The construction of a
canal across the Isthmus of Panama
meant something TO these roads. 1t
spelled loss of traffic. The practical
loss of sll heavy business from the
East TO the West, and from the West
to the East, the business from port TO
port. For the competition of a water
route with a railroad, in most cases,
ends in favor of the water route.
Shadow of Big Stick.
When the personal power of Mr..
Roosevelt, or the shadow of the Big
Stick, or something else that is in
deinable, but very good in it's results,
caused the bill TO pass both houses, the
railroads had lost the first hand in
this game. The first hand, in such a
all Indicative Of the last hand, so
that the railroads sbufhed the cards
with a confident air and dealt \out an
other set, The press (the subsidized
portion) began to below of the calami-
ties that befell the French when they
attempted, under the great De Les
seps, To construct this tropic ditch;
they told of the uncopquerable diff
cultles of construction; of the millions
that had been sunk in rusted ma
chinery and few holes in the ground.
Muckrakers who had never seen a
mosquito outside of Newark, n. j..
talked of the dangers of the tropics,
and the mIsmanagement of affairs.
Writers who wouldn have known the
Erie canal if they had dropped into
it, took flying trips to Panama, dipped
their gold plated fountain pens in
vitrol. and told of how huge and truly
improbable 1T was that anyone could
ever build that canal Meanwhile the
government engineers sorted over the
old and rusted French engines,
tinkered some up, so that they could
go at half the speed of good Ameri-
can machine, threw the rest away,
rolled up their sleeves and wadcd in.
The sanitary experts cut a swath as
wide as the canal zone, routed every
thing that looked like a mosquito from
the. place, built a few hospitals,
and watched the death rate 90 from
away above to away below that Of
any city III the States. While the en-.
gineers and the experts got together,
they usually laughed about BIgeIow or
Denisop.
So the railroad lost the second hand
Of the contest, and with its loss came
to see that some sort Of counter move
was necessary. The game was not to
he won by Gripping the other side
with the darts of momentary writers
and hacks; there must be a strengthen
ing of their own hand, so that the
game should at least continue after
the canal was built.
Becomes More Complicated.
Here the whole affair becomes more
complicated. for it is now no longer
the play Of a half dozen railroads
against onr Uncle Samuel, the ex-
pressed, IN no vague. but still indirect
terms, desire that the big ditch shall
not be built, or that it shall not
be long IN the building. This cry
of the railroad heart is not dead
and may yet be pregnant OF other
things. The desire to enter the field
that the canal endangers, the knowl
edge that to participate in the wealth
of this field at all, they must
hasten, must fight one with the
other, grew TO be the first thought in
the minds of the railroad managers
So the play resolved itself into a game
IN Which inc HoVcrnment found that
1t Is playing a very long game with
six or more transcontinentaI railroads,
that are in turn not only playing with
It,, but with side games among them.
selves.
Although they have taken a million
yards Of earth from the Culebra cut
IN one month, and although the en-
gineers sweat and work and hustle.
trying to increase that record, the im.
mcnsity OF the task comes to light
when one considers that, according to