Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-27
BROADER TRADE
FOR UNCLE SAM
Theodore P. Shonts Discusses
the Panama Canal
IN CHICAGO LAST NIGHT
Before the Commercial Club of That
City.
FRENCH PURCHASE A BARGAIN
Recounts Extent of Work Done and
Satisfactory Conditions on
the Isthmus.
IN CHICAGO LAST NIGHT
FRENCH PURCHASE A BARGAIN

the address delivered by Theodore P. Shonts
ON the Panama canal before the Com
mercial Club of this city last evening:
Mr.. President and Gentlemen of the Com
mercial Club:
Inc French were altogether about twelve
years on the isthmus, about ten years of
winch We're devoted to the active work of
construction. During that period they spent
over S2oO,QO0OO0 and accomplished a total
excavation of about $1,000 600 cubic yards
1t is generally believed that a large portion
OF this money was misapproprated, and
great deal of it was squandered undoubted-
~ In the purchase of useless machinery
AS the greater part of the excavation was
for sea-level canal, much of it will be of
no value in the construction of a lock canal
Roughly speaking, however it may be said
that one-half the excavation was In the
backbone of the divide and was useful
work. A substantial part of the excavated
material was SO deposited along the pro-
posed line of canal that it will have to be
moved again in the present work. because
the canal we are constructing will be more
than twice the width of that proposed by
the French. Their sea-level plan contem-
plated canal q feet wide and 29.5 feet
oeep, their subsequent lock plan was for a
canal 9S feet wide and 29.5 feet deep.
The canal we are constructing will have
through the great cut a bottom width of
~ feet and a depth of 45 feet For two
thirds OF its entire length it will have a
width exceeding 500 feet. If the French
had finished either one Of the canals con-
templated by them it would now be SO in
adequate to the demands Of existing ship
ping that 1t would be closed to navigation
and be IN process of reconstruction into a
canal of double width and depth. AS the
french left the great cut, the distance
across from the highest point on each side
was about $50 feet. When our canal is
completed this distance will be about 900
feet. The additional 250 feet must be taken
from the slopes on either side for their en-
tire distance. and whatever the French
placed there or elsewhere within the lines
Of our canal prism will have to be rehan-
died.
French Work on Isthmus.
The French had on the isthmus when they
gave possession to the Americans about
1000 buildings, mostly houses for the en-
ployes, some excellent hospitals, and some
storehouses and machine shops Many of
these buildings were capable of repair and
have been put into service. They left
vast quantity of machinery, all of it TWEEN
ty or twenty-five years out of date and vir-
tually worthless. Their locomotives and
rolling stock for the railways, as well as
the rails of the road, were also out of date
100 light for modern use, and utilized only
because no others were available. They
had constructed only such docks and
wharves as were absolutely necessary for
the discharge of material and machinery
shipped from abroad, and they had no ter
minal or switching yards on the railway
worthy of the name.
Aside from erecting fine hospitals they
had done nothing for the preservation of
health. Modern methods of preventing dis
ease We're unknown in their time. Yellow
fever was believed to be due to poison
ever present, to which a certain proportion
of newcomers, especially Europeans and
Americans, expected SlIccunb
they had always done. The disease was be-
leved to be contagious and to be transmit
ted by personal contact. Malaria was be-
lieved to be caused by a miasma exhaled
from the soil or by decaying vegetat ion
and to ne spread by newly upturned earth
Nothing was done in the direction of sup
plying pure water or providing sewerage.
The men were poorly housed and poorly
fed, and the mortality among them was so
appalling that it spread throughout the
world the belief that the Isthmus of Pan
anna was the pest hole of the earth-a
veritable hell of disease and death.
Uncle Sans Purchase Bargain.
When the United States purchased from
the French company it's rights. privileges,
and property It paid the sum of $4,000. OvO
for them. This was not poor bargain, as
is sometimes popularity supposed. 1t was
reasonable estimate Of the value of the
property of the Panama Canal Company.
The offer to sell at that price came from
the French company itself. and was not
suggested by any official of the United
States For two years the isthmian canal
commission had tried to get from the
French company a specific statement of the
amount it was willing to accept for its
property, but could not. Finally when it
became evident that the United States was
going to have a canal Of its own, either at
Panama or at some other point on the
isthmus, the French company concluded to
sell for $1O9,OOO.OOO. AS this was far in ex-
cess of the value of their unfinished work
that proposition was not favorably received
and the House Of Representatives promptly
passed a bill for the construction Of a canal
in Nicaragua.
In this preliminary work we have spent
down to January 1, 1907, about $50, 100000.
OF this amount about 81, 500 600 have been
expended in government and sanitation;
about 81 100000 in construction of quarters
and other buildings, docks, wharves, rail-
way enlargement waterworks and sewers
in the zone. and in engineering work; about
ST., 100000 in permanent plant; over 81, $780,
600 in miscellaneous material and supplies,
and over s., 100000 in the construction of
SOME PEOPLE KNOW