Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1908-08-29
PRAISESCANALWORK|
SPECIALC0MMISSI0N REPORTS
To PRESIDENT.
Roosevelt is Pleased With Report
Which Tells of the Success of the
Work Being Done on Panama Canal
Colonel Goethas, Superintendent.
Gets Much Praise.

President Roosevelt has made pub
lie a report submitted to him on
August by special commission con-
sisting of James Bronson Reynolds.
Samuel B. Donnelly and Henry Beach
Needham regarding conditions in
Panama. The commission was ap-
pointed April 25 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 expressed par
ticular pleasure over the fact that the
commissioners uphold the administra-
ton of Colonel Goethals, chairman of
the Isthmian canal commission, and
the president has had a copy mailed
to Colonel Goethals, requesting that
the recommendation made by the
commission be put into effect so far
as possible. The president will sub
NIT the report to congress with appro-
pirate recommendations.
The commissioners report that they
inspected the entire line of the canal
excavation from La Boca, the south
ern or Pacific terminus, to Cristobal,
the northern or Caribbean terminus,
and travelled through the excavation
several time interviewing the men at
work. Indicating the scope of the in
| spection, the commission reports that
| it visited the government workshops,
construction plants, warehouses, ship
yards, dredges, commissary stores,
living quarters (that is hotels, messes,
kitchens and camps, schools, club
houses, courts, police stations and the
convalescent home at Taboga."
Success on Canal Astounding.
President Roosevelt's letter to the
Investigators says:
81 doubt if there is any piece of
work undertaken on behalf of the
American people of recent years of
which the American people have more
reason to be proud than of the work
done on the Panama canal. The sue
cess has literally been astounding
Five years ago, when we undertook
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 and the rapidity of the rate
of progress has steadily increased.
Meanwhile the treatment of by
gienic conditions on the isthmus has
been such as to make it really the
model for all work of the kind in
tropical countries. Five years ago
the Isthmus 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 en-
ergy, is being prosecuted under condi-
lions so favorable to the health and
well-being of the workers that the
mortality among them is abnormally
small
Uncle Sam Model Employer.
FINALLY, in addition to the extreme
efficiency of the work under Colonel
Goethals and his assistants and the
extraordinary hygienic success achiev-
ed under DR.. GOrgas, there is the fur
Their and exceedingly gratifying fact
that on the isthmus the United States
government has been able to show it.
self 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 look
ing after the welfare and health and
comfort of those working for it as no
other government has ever done in
work of like character