The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1914-05-15

matter of conditions. Favorable con-
ditions simply did not exist The eli
mate, the jungle, the perpetual rain
fall, the tropical fevers, and plaques
were more formidable than the noun
tains. 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 it possible for men to live long
enough to get to the dirt.
This was the one feature of the case
which it took four hundred years to
understand. Instead of making con-
ditions possible for men to exist the
popular mistake had been in attempt
ing to make men fit the conditions
and they died in the undertaking. The
French failed. nor did they realize the
cause OF failure even when death list
of six hundred out Of every thousand
stared them in the face. Way back
in 1898 the British government sought
to plant colony on the isthmus and
theyschose a band Of Scotchmen for
the undertaking. 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.
The only European race which
seemed to thrive in this climate with
out molesting conditions was the Span
lard. He could stand it and history
fails to mention that in the good old
days he entered a protest because he
couldn't get room with bath. And
to this day, travellers in the interior OF
South America where the seed of these
early Spanish explorers has multiplied,
report the existence of filth unbeliev-
able, and yet the population seems to
thrive unhindered.
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 its barge canal and
good roads, enough to build the Pa
mama Canal. New York city has ex-
pended 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 Com
mission got through getting ready they
had changed conditions. Instead OF
trying to acclimate the men and bury
ing them before the process was COM
pleted, they cleaned up the isthmus
and put it in shape so that acclimitiza-
ton was unnecessary. They filed up
the swamps, drained the pools, made
it sanitary. Instead of allowing the
malaria mosquito to make it unhealthy
for the men they made it unhealthy
for the mosquito.
In fact they made the conditions to
fit the work instead of working under
old conditions.
And that brings me to another
phase of the situation. After complet-
ing ali this very necessary preliminary
work it seems to me it would have
been wiser to build a sea level, rather
than a lock canal. Men can live on
the island now. Once cleaned It is
easy to keep it clean. Those in
position to know tell me that in Pan
anna and Colon, where the American
invasion has enforced sanitary regula-
tons, that the natives themselves take
TO the new order OF things and would
not 90 back if they could. In other
words, they would have imbibed GER