Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-05-20
PANAMA CANAL
Continued from First Page.D

MS Time. HAD ne IlV0Q now n6
would have made an excellent candi-
date for the progressive party, but
unfortunately for him he arrived too
soon. The Spanish governor being
more or less of the stand-pat persua-
sion grew jealous of Balboa and SO
had him hanged.
Of course Balboa would have passed
out early in his career anyway as he
was of a temperament which forbade
longevity in those times, but l would
have liked to see him have his chance,
just to see what he would have made
of it.
But nevertheless as [ looked down
into the muddy depths of the Panama
Canal my mind went back over the
long list of attempts; of hopes and
ambitions of one nation after another
and it was a source of satisfaction to
me that the job was finally completed,
and that by the accident of birth l
happened to belong to the nation
DuG OI1 CI1O COOCAAC0s
CREATING CONDITIONS.
Another thing which wish to put
down here at the outset. 1t is not
such remarkable job of engineering
as people suppose. Given three hun
dred millions and suitable conditions
and any nation could build the canal.
The trouble previously has been this
matter of conditions. Favorable con-
ditions simply did not exist. The
climate, the Jungle, the perpetual
rainfall, the tropical fevers and
plaques were more formidable than
the mountains. Given a chance to
work and it was only question of
time and money when the job would
be done. But there was no such
chance. Before making the dirt fly
it was necessary to make 1T possible
for men to live long enough to get to
the dirt.
PROBLEM FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OLD
This was the one feature of the
case which it took four hundred years
to understand. Instead of making
conditions possible for men to exist
the popular mistake had been in at
tempting to make men fit the condi-
lions and they died in the undertake
ing. The French failed, nor did they
realize the cause of failure even when
a death list of six hundred out of
every thousand stared them in the
face. Way back in 1893 the British
government sought to plant colony
on the isthmus and they chose a
band of Scotchmen for the undertake
ing. No harder race than the Scotch
can be imagined, but they could no
more live there than their native
vegetation. 1t was foreign to their
natures and they simply died.
CLIMATE NO BAR TO THE sPANIARD.
The only European race which
seemed to thrive in this climate with
out molesting conditions was the
Spaniard. He could stand it and
history fails to mention that in the
good old days he entered a protest be-
cause he couldn't get room with a
bath. And to this day, travellers in
the interior of South America where
the seed of these early Spanish ex-
plorers has multiplied, report the
existence of filth unbelievable and
yet the population seems to thrive
unhindered.
HUNTING THE MOSQUITO.
And SO I say again that the biggest
thing about the building of this ditch
is not in the building but in making
it possible to build. New York state
has spent already on it's barge canal
and good roads, enough to build the
Panama Canal. New York city has
expended on her subways and tubes
and aqueducts enough to build several
canals, all in themselves monuments
of engineering skill. But this was
done under conditions entirely
different than those confronting the
Panama Canal builders. But listen.
When the Commission got through
getting ready they had changed condi-
tions. Instead of trying to accli-
mate the men and burying them be-
fore the process was completed, they
cleaned up the isthmus and put it in
shape so that acclimitization was I'M
necessary. They filled up the swamps,
drained the pools, made it sanitary.
Instead of allowing the malaria mos
quito to make it unhealthy for the
men they made it unhealthy for the