Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1913-05-24
VIVID DESCRIPTION
PROGRESS ON
West Virginia Attorney I'M
pressed by Magnitude Of
Great Achievement.
vERY inLerestlng picture B

M
canal zone is conveyed by an
article written by Colonel vii.
liam Seymour Edwards, an attorney Of
Charleston-kanawha, w. Va, for the
Wheeling CIV. Va) Intelligencer and
published recently in that newspaper
Colonel Edwards wrote from the ca
nal zone while the impressions he had
obtained were fresh in his mind, and
his description Of our modern wonder
of the world is therefore exceptionally
vivid.
With the exception of the introduc-
ton and other sections in which refer
enee is made to personal affairs or
things of purely local interest, Colonel
Edwards article is here reprinted:
Here is a ditch fifty miles long and
some Of it 800 feet deep and half
mile wide wide at the top of the
slopes now being dug at Panama, and
there isn't a pick or a shovel or a
wheelbarrow being used on the job.
! ] watched for fortnight, and | saw
| 10000 men at work, working like
| Turks, and | never saw man lift
pm VI hNNf z q HtiON VI VI tdltA Oll
the canal. And yet never have nor
has any other man seen so prodigious
an amount of digging and moving of
earth and rock as l have here beheld
train of twenty standard fat cars
all loaded full in fifteen minutes and
all emptied in seyen-trains of TWEEN
ty full loaded cars moving out of the
Culebra cut every minute and a half
for eight bours every working day.
which means every day but Sunday
Il Humankind has never seen SO gigan-
tic an enterprise done in so gigantic
way before. The world stands stag
gered at the sight.
lFGf Big Men on Job.
7 t1nOnly, you Americans could do a
job 40 big as this and so quick" a
German said to me. "See that old
French dredge they are still trying to
use 1t looks like pewee alongside
an eagle" said an Englishman, point
ing to the monstrous dredge of Ameli-
can make digging beside it,
Yes, everything Is big down here
Big men are running the joba Goethals
and Bishop, Gaillard and Hodges. Slpe
and Coupler, Drs. Gorgas and Darling
are all big men, and thousands more
big men are helping them. Every man
is big man down here. No other
kind are wanted. They are the biggest
get our American people have yet pro
duced and some of them are kids
men, big men in the making
Hello, boy!Y | shouted. 'Wheie did
you come from?' The man addressed
shook his curly yellow head, and his
blue eyes twinkled. I'm from near
Boston" and he ordered couple Of
yellow brown helpers to hold back
boat moment. How long have you
been here?' | asked. Going on three
years." he shouted. Been siekT"
queried Never a bit"
DO you want to go back to the
States?" l dared to query further
Not on your llfe," he shouted I'm
here till we finish the job. I'm cap
tain of this boat" And at Il nod from
him the engine sprang to work and he
was splashing up the already more
than two-tlirds completed canal. to
carry an order to one of the multitudes
of busy dfedges.
We stood ON the almost completed
Miradores locks at the southern end
of the canal a brawny white boss
over a multitude OF busy men stood
near me- How long have you been
here?' / asked. Seven years" he re-
Piled Game at the start and mean
to stay till the finish"
Been sick?" asked "SlckY' he re
piled. "Why. I've never been SO hearty
in my life; haven't lost day, and my
wife says this is the finest place to
live in she ever knew They give us
a dandy house. It's netted in with cop
per wire, and fly or mosquito can't
even peek in.