The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-06-24
THE PANAMA CANAL.
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 Now that ths .Ssxeaaast enzineering protect of all history is almost com DIeted. the attention of the whole world is turned upon it-tlae Panama Canal. After more than four hum dred years we of the twentieth cen turT are about to realize the dream Of the. earliest explorers; the dream of Basddas, Columbus, and Balboa who were searching for hidden Btrait's and of Hernando Cortez, who was the first to propose the idea of g. canal in 1522 In more modern. times the English General, Horatio Nelson looked over the land in view of com ed nothlngs and later the German acientzst, Baron von Humboldt, made plans of nine routes. one of which. I sth3nk 1t is interesting to note, was the one finally adopted De Witt Clinton and Henry Clay were the first Americans to plan for a canal and there were many others. But the credit must go to the French for ac- tual1y beginning the work s#
 In 1878. Ferdinand de Lesseps, af- ter receiving national honors as e re- sult Of his success with the Suez Ca who had surveyed the land and re- cetved a concession from Columbia, to head this undertaking also. The con cession gave Wyse the right to form a, company put required a payment or two hundred and fifty, thousand dol- lars annually to Columbia after the seventy-fifth year from the opening af the canal. The project necessitat- ed much money. which, strange to say was immediately forthco ming, part1y because a. plan with De Les seps' name Connected with it was all that was necessary and partly be- cause 1t seemed a cha nee for great prC4t- Very much encouraged by tthis. De Lesseps next called an Inter- national Scientific Congress at Paris, which met on May ffteenth,s 1879, E11d consisted mostly of Frenchna en. Of the one hundred and sixty-four present, there were but forty-two who 7 were engineers, and of these only I've are told, "the Congress gave a luuasi-pubIic and scientific appearance ito a project which was really con eelTed only as a money making prop osftfon by a group of f1nanciers."
 But with all the emotion and en- sff1ustasm of the French people, after having spent three hundred million sdoI1ars, the canal was @, failure while lfhe Americans succeeded in it's con- ntruction. having spent only seventy five million dollars more the-n the French And there are many rea- sons for this failure on the one hand and success on the other. In tho hrst place, the underlying reasons of the two nations were entirely dtner- ent-the French undertook its con- gtruction merely as a money making proposition. the Auaeri cans SIS a. ns,- tfona1 undertaking Thens too. the French were extravagant, corrupt, prof1i gate and the canal was neglect ed But perhaps the most important reason was the havoc wrought by dis ease on French lives because of their ntter disregard of sanitation. It is sa4d that the natives and the French both waded ank1e-deep in filth which would have driven blooded Berk- ah4re hog rfron hissstysi s.o
 So with these facts in mind, we can readily see why the French failed and yet bymthefr failure we have had at least two great advantages over them Tn the first place, we realized the magnitude of the undertaking and secondly, we understood the ne- cegsis sy of perfect sanitation, and through w. c. Gorgas caused the Inthmus s-to be changed from a. pest