Perth Amboy evening news., 1907-03-09
U. S. ARMY TO
DIG THE CANAL

Mr. Lindsay Denison. writing in
Golfers for March 8 on the change
of administration in the work of Dig
ging the Panama Canal, has. in part,
this to say about the resignation of
Chief Engineer Stevens, who has been
directing the work of worldwide i'm
portance:
John F. Stevens, chief. engineer
of the Panama canal, and acting
chairman of the Isthmian Canal COM
mission, sat on the evening of Feb
ruary in the cool hall of his house
on the top of Culebra Hill, and talk
ed to me for an hour or more about
his work, his men and himself He
gloried In what the Americans had
overcome, in what they. were doing,
and in the spirit they we're showing.
OF the canal itself, he spoke dispar-
agingly; he had gone stale in his en-
thusiasm. 1t no longer represented
to him Highway of the Nations"
or the New Wonder of the World.'
He could see iii it merely an enor-
nous hole in the ground in which he
| and the thirty thousand men under
ais command were to labor YEARLY
| from morning until for seven long
years to come. Frankly, he said he
was tired of 1t.
| called back out of the dark, as
| was leaving, that | hoped to drop
in on him again in about a year. He
smiled an Indifferent, rather a bitter,
smile,
= may not be here them he said.
THE United States looks pretty good
/ to me tonight.
Then he walked back to the little
desk just inside the door and took up
the letter writing at which he had
! been busy when / interrupted him.
! And before he had finished he had
written his letter of resignation to
! the president of the United States,
and had brought about the most SER |
ious and vital reverse since the Unit
Z ed States took over the French canal |
/ concession. 1t is far more serious !
than the detection of Wallace, be- !
cause Wallace, no matter how great |
4 his capacity as an engineer, lacked /
I the capacity 10 coerce his superiors
70 let him do things in his own way I
4 The recent retirement of Shonts was
4 a positive help to the harmonious and I
orderly prosecution of the contract.
! But John f. Stevens is the one man, /
who, up TO the moment of his resigna-
/ NANhB htiu SOllt CltNtlN0lN anu az
gressively and economically at his I
huge task, and had achieved a sue
cess developed since January /, COM
pletely astounding to everybody who
has kept in close touch with things
on the lsthmus. Absurd as the words
seem, there are many OF us who must
believe that this success surprised the (
man himself, and that his resigna-
ton may be indirectly traced to this
surprise. But his letter went to
I Washington on the steamship Colon,
the president received it on February
10; the wdroing of II seemed to him
so ineXplicably offensive and the
spirit of it so far from that which he
4 believed ought to animate the man
directly in charge of the Panama ca
nal. that he accepted the resignation,
only asking that the news should not
be given TO the public until arrange
ments for installing his successor
could be made and decision could
be reached on the bids for the canal
contract. Major George W. Goeth-
ais of the war college was assigned
to act as chief engineer of the canal.
and il was determined that hereafter
the work should be under the super
vision of the engineer corps of the
United States army Major David
Du B. Gaillard was assigned to assist
Major Goethals. The whole Isthmian
Canal Commission was removed. Jo-
seph G. s. Blackburn was made chair
man of a new commission of which
the army engineers are the only oth-
er members.
Stevens is out. But It does not
even yet seem credible to me that the
s man to whom I talked that Friday
: night on Culebra Hill had it in his
: heart to quit. To any one who knows
John F. Stevens well, the imputation
5 that he could be quitter is laugha-
Bile. He seemed, rather. on the night
/ of February s. TO be a man who was
going through the reaction which fol
lows a great achievements reac-
tion which ought not to have come
until after the canal was finished !,
r but which had come prematurely be-
( cause Of the tremendous physical
I strain Of the last three years with all
its fantastic complications OF climate.
. politics, and diplomacy In other
words. he seemed like An flvnrffainsi