Arizona republican., 1908-07-16

ture as the. construction of the Gatun Dam. These men also know how to get all hands under them to doing a maximum amount of work, and are ac-
 complaining wonders by combining the
 intelligent direction of those higher up
 with the main strength and awkward
 ness of the illliterate Spaniard and
 the ignorant West Indian negro.
 Nearly every American member of | the force has some pet ambition in
 connection with the work. There is Captain Michaelson of the big sea-go-
 ing dredge, AncOn, which can suck up
 half million cubic yards of earth a
 month and cafry-it out to sea. His pet ambition is to pilot the first ship through the canal. He says he intends to stick to the work until the job is finished, if his health allows and then he hopes to be the head pilot at the big celebration when the canal is fin ished.
 Another employe with a worthy am bition is Paymaster's Clerk Page. He already has the record of being the old est employe in point of service on the canal He has been connected with the canal project for twenty-two years. He was on the pay-force under the old French regime and was inherited by the new company with the other assets of the canal He was employed by the Americans when they began oper- ations, and wants to see the job fin ished. He can pay off as many men in given time as any man on the isth- | l,r as few and far between as four -leaved clovers.
 There are nearly 5000 white people | in the Canal Zone, out of a total pOpu- llation of more than 35,000. Of these about 1900 are women and HOO are children who live in the canal cOmmis- sion quarters. About seventeen per cent of the white men in the zone are aliens, mostly Spaniards and Italians, but only a very small per cent of the women and children are not Ameri
 cans. The working force averages about 2500 men with the canal com mission, and about $500 with the Pan ana railroad. Approximately 11,00O ! are at work on the excavations. On dredging there are some 5000 at work. | On other contributory construction work there are about 5000 engaged,
 making a force of approximately 21,- ! 900 at work on the construction work of all kinds on the canal.
 There are slightly more than 200 women employed on the canal of whom about ninety per cent are with the commission and the remainder are with the Panama railroad. The high
 est salary paid to a woman is $175 month and the lowest $50 The av craze is about s73 It is not the policy of the commission to employ many women, and those it does employ are mainly related to men living in mar ried quarters whos furnish them a home The commission finds that it would cost more proportionately to furnish homes for women than for men.
 No one can imagine the difficulties that beset the Americans who man. age the great work of digging the ca nal. Many is the day when it rains two or three inches in an hour or two. Of course this makes veritable seas of mud of the big dumps where they deposit the excavated material, and these seas are almost without bottom. To stop hauling until these dried out would be out of the question. for it would cut down the total monthly eX- cavations very seriously. On the Oth- CT hand to run their dirt trains on the dumps means that many of them will literally sink into the mud. Yet the dump foreman, the yard masters and the others in command, courageOusly take the responsibility and the work goes forward. Sometimes it is hours and hours before they can get a train off of a sunken track, but here in the canal zone no one ever says die, and the work goes merrily on, rain or no rain.
 No one in the states ever saw it rain much harder than it did here one day not long ago. In less than two hours nearly three inches of rain had fallen. And yet when I asked the division su perintendent how much dirt they had gotten out of Culebra that day he