The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1908-01-24
BISHOP STILL AT IT.
Only Transferred His Literary Bu-
reau from Washington to
Panama Canal Zone.
NOW ISSUES CANAL RECORD
Cot. Cocktails Estimates Cost Now at
Nearly 100000 ,ooo-Condemned
Contract Pan-Estimates
for This Year.

Washington, Jan. 1S.-The question
of the propriety of the Isthmian canal
commission issuing an official newspa-
per fof the dissemination of informa-
ton about the progress of the work at
Panama caused somewhat lively dis
calssion in the hearing before the SEN
ate committee on inter-oceanic canals
Friday. There was an echo of the de-
bate in the senate two years when
the literary bureau conducted by
James Bucklin Bishop, the present edi-
tor of the Canal Record, was roundly
scored as government institution
that had no right to exist, and which
eventually resulted in promise to
cease publication in the face of an
amendment by Senator Culberson abol-
ishing the bureau. Senator CU.Derson
Friday intimated that the promise had
not been kept.
While Col. Cocktails was being ques-
stoned as to the canal work by various
members of the committee, Senator
Culberson asked to have the remarks
he had made in the senate in 1905,
concerning the literary bureau OF
bishop placed in the record of the
hearings and he handed up copy of
his remarks for that purpose. After
reading them, Col. Cocktails told why
the paper had been established and
said it was now being run to show
the men on all parts of the line what
was being done at other points.
Senator Culberson Immediately re-
piled:
This proceeding in Panama is an
innovation and assurances were made
in the open senate that the publica-
tion would not be continued"
The senator is assuming that the
Canal Record is of the same character
as what he terms the literary bureau
that formerly existed" INTERCEPTED
Senator Blackburn.
Senator Flint expressed himself as
being in entire accord with the Canal
Record proposition. Col. Goethals
promised to deliver to the committee
some figurmes concerning its cost.
.Senator Brandegee questioned Col.
Goethals closely as to the price of the
canal and it developed that in the
opinion of Goethals it may possibly be
built at figure a trifle less than
$500. 900 900 He simply said that he
was in the habit of estimating the cost
of projects at high enough figure to
insure their being accomplished within
the price. He said that the Gatun
hoin0 nGtruPtpI
TWO or three times better than neces-
.;arv. This was due to public opinion,
which demanded all proper pre-
cautions in the building of the canal
Col. Goethals gave the estimates for
necessary appropriation for the vari'
s,us branches of the canal work lot
the ensuing year as follows: Engineer
ing department, including the WASH
ington office, s2S,3G5,333; sanitation
S2172.42O; expenses of canal zone
government, $6S2,007; Panama rail-
road. s1,1S3,94O; making a total OF
1872, 403,S63.
col. Goethals expressed emphatic
condemnation of any plan to Dulid
the canal under contract. He said he
had never known of any contractor
or combination of contractors that has
been able to do work as well and
cheaply as the government could do
IL. and asserted that the organiza-
tion and equipment now In OPP
GRAFTON at Culebra is better and
more effective than any contractor
could possibly install. He said that
a contractor would have trouble in
Keeping his labor on the isthmus,
owing to the reputation for cruel and
7nhuman treatment by workmen left
nv the French contractors.