The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-25

T STTTHE | row of steam cranes. at this place q
 vast park of nondescript machinery l and at that big dredge left high and l dry on the banks of the mighty Cha I gres at it's flood stage. All of these l are redolent with memories or buried hopes and defeated ambitions Ex- I posed to the rsvages of twenty tropi- | cal summers. decay runs riot, and put I for the scenes of life and industry be- | ing enacted by the Americans on the I Isthmus one might feel himself stalk | ing amid the tombs of ten thousand I departed hopes. and the burying ground i of the savings of hundred thousand French peasants | The attempt of the French to build 1 the canal will forever stand out as the | grandest fasco in history. Four hun | dred million dollars was raised to build l the Panama Canal From the gilded | palace and from the peasants humble | cottage came the stream of gold that l was to lay low the barrier that divided 1 the Atlantic and the Pacific. At frst | they estimated that they could dig a l twenty-nine foot sea level canal for 1 $114.000 o00 taking seven or eight I years to do 1t. At the end of the eight | years they figured that 1t would cost l $351, 100000 to make It a fifteen foot I lock canal, and that 1t would take | twenty years to build it. But after l spending approximately $40o,0Oo,00o ] they were farther from realizing their 1 fifteen foot waterway than the Ameri- | cans are today from realizing forty l foot waterway.
 Never was money so recklessly used. It flowed in faster than 1t could be spent--even by the French Company When they started they asked for $6O,- 900. 0.000. Double that amount was off, fered. The seeming inexhaustibility of ImA ra AXtTlV- agance led to profiigacy, and prohlga- cy to graft. The $400.000,000 which
 was subscribed first and last was all expended in less than ten years. One third Is said to have been spent on the canal. another third was wasted. and the remaining third was stolen.
 Extravagance ran riot on the Isth- mus. where they got only one-third Of the money. The Director General, at the stockholders expense, built him. self a house costing $100,000. His sum- mer house at La Boca cost $150,0O0. He drew $50,0o year salary, and $50 ex- tra for each day he travelled mile over the line in his sumptuous $42.00o private car. Stables were built which cost more than half a million dollars. The hospitals at Ancon and Colon cost S7, 1000, ,O00 and ofice buildings cost over S5 100000. Where a S50,000 building was needed a s100.000 building was erected, and the canal stockholde were charged double that amount for 1t.
 Supplies were bought almost wholly without reference to whether they were needed or not. Ten thousand snow shovels were brought to the Isth- mus. Some 15,000 torch lights were carried there to be used in the great celebration at the completion of the canal. Steamboats. dredges. launches, and what not. were bought and hauled, knocked down, into the interior. to await the completion of the canal. There Is even today some machinery, left on the Isthmus by the French whose use no American has yet been able to figure out At Tabernalia there is machine which every engineer from Wallace to Goethals has exam ined but none of them will yet venture prediction as to what use 1t was in- tended to be put. It looks something like big rock crusher. but it is not one.
 One of the things which brought about the defeat of the French was the mosquito. Yellow fever and malaria were prevalent. Ample provision was made to take care of the sick: hut no effort was made to prevent sickness. In fact, without the knowledge of the mosquito theory. which has been given to the world since then, 1t was just about as well that they did not make much effort at sanitation, for their ef- forts could not have been fruitful. Per- haps never before in the history of the world was there such high percent. age of deaths among a working force of men. And certainly there was never time when such large percentage was -tncapacitated for work.
 The great project of digging the ca- nal was 'inaugurated' on January 1, 1880. On that date a party of ladies and gentlemen. headed by Count de the mouth of the Rio Grande, at La Boca. There his little daughter turned the first shovelful of earth, marking the beginning of the project whose end should be the union of the Allan tic and the Pacific. Ten days later this same little girl touched the button which was to explode the first of the thousands of tons of dynamite with which CulebrA Mountain was to be laid low.
 During the first three years the com pany devoted most of It's efforts to getting ready, although at the end of February. 1883. a half million cubic meters of dirt had been removed and a working force of 5000 men had been established. At the very beginning the laborers struck for higher wages. They had been getting 90 cents silver per day and wanted $1,20. They got 1t, and later another increase to S1.50 per day.
 In the Isthmus the people still talk in a reminiscent way about the good times under the French. They will tell you that the Americans are doing vast ly more work. but are not spending half the money-where the Isthmian folk can get a share of it. So plenti- full was gold and silver in the old days that even the economical people be- came spendthrifts. And when the crash
 finally came it caught everybody. Thousands were without dollar. Ja- maican negroes had lived up to the last cent of their earnings and they found themselves practically destitute. The English Government bore the ex- pense of repatriating some 5000 ne- groes. The Chilian Government made a bid for immigration from the Isth- months every departing passenger steamer carried from 400 to 600 emil grants of all classes except negroes and Chinese.
 The report of the receiver shows that the Old French Colony spent $156. .000.- 900 on the Isthmus, of which they ac- counted $S9.0O0.O00 as having been ex- pended in engineering and construc- ton. The organization of the new French Company. it's launching of a new stock issue upon the troubled wa ters of canal endeavor and it's pPos- ecution of the work only rapidly enough to keep alive their concession right, is familiar history. So also is the negotiations and final purchase by the United States.