The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-06-20
SHIPS THROUGH PANAMA CANAL IN SEPT. 1913 COLONEL GOETHALs. ANNOUNCES DEFINITE TIME FOR COMPILE
 TON AT YALE ALUMNI
 DINNER. sU. s. Army Man, in Charge of the
 Great Engineering Feat, De- clares in Favor Of Forti- fication

1 Col George w. Goethals, U. S. A., | the builder of the Panama Canal, told the Yale alumni at the luncheon in the Yale dining hall yesterday after noon that the great engineering feat would be finished on Julyi15 of next year and that in September, 1913 everything will be ready so that the first ship may pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
 | President Hadley called upon Colo nel Goethals as the third speaker of dinner The army man who is carry ] ing to a successful finish the biggest 1 engineering feat of modern times, first paid his respects to Yale for the de-
 gree confered upon him. He said his lieutenants and the rank and file at him as they had shared the work with
 him.
 "The canal" he said, twill be com
 pleted on January 1, 1915, in time for ! the official celebration, but we are in such shape now that it will be prac-
 tically completed on July 1, 1913. The
 water in the lake is now at 30 feet
 above sea level, and will gradually be
 raised to 50 feet at the middle of Au-
 gust. It will be held at that level dur I ing the next wet season or until the 1 middle of December. All the concrete work will be completed and we will shut off the spilway by .April I, 1918
 That will practically be the end or the
 next dry season. ,s,z- r.s sss..- s
 '1t is the purpose now to have the
 first ship pass through in September,
 1913. We have been about to advance
 the date. of the official opening but
 there are many things to do: We
 must organize an operating corps and
 we must take away all the operating
 onf nd
 advisers have urged upon Congress
 the necessity of legislation governing
 the organization of an operating corps
 and fixing the tolls, but there seems to be little prospect of such Ieglsla- tion at this session. The existing law
 provides for the construction of the
 canal alone
 | "As a matter of fact those who Op- posed the canal bill in the first in- stance believed that it would never
 reach a stage where 1t could be oper- lated. ..t We are very badly in need of leg islation to meet the conditions which will confront us next year. The steam ship companies say they need eighteen months advance notice of the tolls in order that they may fix the routes of their vessels and to meet the chang ed conditions which the opening Of the canal. will force upon the commerce of the WOffu.
 heretofore the. executive has been in control of the canal work. A conn mission has been nominally in charge of the work, but the canal has been built in spite of the commission. Pres ident Taft in 1907, when the commits sion would not act, urged upon the president that the executive take con trol and the canal has been built by executive direction.
 "We want depopulation of the canal zone We have been criticized for that by the newspapers who say that the jungle will grow again. They don't seem to know that the zone Is now jungle except for that small DOT ton outlying the American settle ments at either end of the zone. Some of the towns we have used in building the canal and which have been aban- doned have already been overgrown by the jungle. ~ We advocate depopulation of the zone because we, as Americans, have no property rights in 1t. All we have is a leasehold. The criticism that the depopulation of the zone would al low an enemy to reach the locks as sumes that we have so constructed | the locks that an enemy could reach them."
 Col. Goethals said he was in favor |of the fortification of the canal be- Ecause the canal was military neees-
 sity to the United States. ;a9s@ zs