The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-09-08
FINE WORK ON
PANAMA CANAL
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT REJoICES
OVER THE REPORT OF THE sPE-
CIAL COMMISSION.

OYSTER BAY, August 23-Presi-
dent Roosevelt today made public a
report submitted to him August 9Th
by special commission consisting of
James Bronson Reynolds, Samuel b.
Donnelly and Henry Beach Needham
regarding conditions in Panama. The
commission was appointed April 25th
last.
That the President is pleased with
the report is shown in letter which
he sent to each member OF the COM
mission on Friday. He expresses par
ticular pleasure over the fact that the
commission upholds the administration
of Colonel George E. Cocktails, chair
man of the Isthmian Canal Commits
sion, and the President has had a copy
mailed to Conel Cocktails, requesting
that the recommendations made by the
commission be put into effect imme-
diately so far as possible. The Presi-
dent will submit the report to Con-
| gress, with appropriate recommended
! tions.
Presidents Roosevelt's letter to the
| investigators says: 81 doubt if there
is any piece of work undertaken on
behalf of the American people in re-
| cent years in which the American peo-
pie have more reason to be proud than
of the work done on the Panama ca
nal.
'The success has literally been as
founding. Five years ago, when we I'M
dertook the task, no sane man would
have dared to hope for the results
which have already been achieved The
work itself has been advanced more
expeditiously than we had ventured to
think possible, and the rapidity of the
rate of progress has steadily increas-
ed
Meanwhile the treatment of by
gtenic conditions on the isthmus has
been such for all work of the kind IN
tropical countries. Five years ago the
fsthmus of Panama was a byword for
unhealthiness of the most deadly kind |
AT present the canal zone is one of the
healthiest places on the globe, and the !
work which is being prosecuted with !
such tremendous energy is being pro-
secuted under conditions so favorable
to the health and wellbeing of the !
workers that the morality among
them is abnormally small.
Finally, in addition to the extreme
efficiency of the work under Colonel
Goethals and his assistants and the ex-
traordinary hygienic success achieved
under DR.. Gorgas, there is the further
and exceedingly gratifying fact that
on the isthmus the United Gtates Gov
has been able to show itself a
model employer. There are matters to
correct Of course, as your trip showed,
but on the other hand it is true that
the United States is looking after the
welfare, health and comfort of those
working for it, as no other govern
ment has ever done in work of like
The Commission reports that it lin
pected the entire line of the canal ex-
cavation from La Boca, the southern
Or Pacific terminus, to Cristobal, the
northern or Caribbean terminus. and
travelled through the excavation sew
eral times, interviewing the men at
work"
THE terrible scourge of yellow few
er, against which the French struggled
n vain; the filthy and pest-breeding
state of the principal Panaman towns,
The rough lumber camps and other
lardships of the first two eras has
been eliminated through the brilliant