The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-03
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Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

nCALA, Fla, March 3. - Army
~ engineers had been waiting for
the go ahead" on the Florida Canal
for long time. They had surveyed
it, and made many reports. and
knew just what to do.
Last Aug. 81 President Roosevelt
signed the papers allotting $1,000. 900.
TO start the canal. Three days later
the engineers arrived at Ocala and
set up headquarters. Two days
later they raked up a pile of sand
in a field, put some dynamite in
it, had some speeches, and lit the
fuse. The canal was under way.
This was Sept. 5.
Two miles and a half south of
Ocala they leased some scrub pine
land along a highway. They got it
for dollar.
Sixty days later that spot was q.
little city. Seventy-siX cool-looking
white bungalows, with green roofs.
sat among the pine trees. And two
dormitories, and a half dozen big
administration buildings, and draft
ing rooms and Office quarters. All
with streets and yards and lights
and running water-in go days.
They call it Camp Roosevelt. 1t
cost 100000.
VXTHILE this was going on. they
w were getting the actual work
started.
The route Of the canal runs two
miles south of the camp. So that's
where they began. They rented rs
mule teams from up in Georgia,
hooked them to Army scrapers.
hired men from the Florida relief
rolls to run them, and started
scraping in a field.
Today that field is a hole 40 feet
deep, and down in the bottom the
mules and the men are still scrap
ing away. That's the mule picture
which the canal opposition has used
so much--to show how backward
these Twentieth Century canal
builders are
But there is method in their
backward madness. Much of the
canal digging is to be let out I'M
der contract. But the engineers al
ways do an item or two themselves,
just a yardstick, so the contrac-
tors can't put anything over. This
mule gang is the yardstick.
It's the only spot where work is
being done directly by the govern
ment. The rest is under private con-
tract.
~REWS were sent out to clear
~ the right-of way the minute
the canal was assured. They cut
down trees and brush too. They
burned the brush and cut up the
wood for lumber and f1rewood. The
canal right-of -way is mile wide.
This mile strip, by now stretching
pretty we'll across Florida, is IS
bare as the Mojave Desert.
One day last September hundreds
of contractors assembled under the
trees at Camp Roosevelt. Bids were
opened. Nine of them were success
full.
Some IS items" were assigned to
these contractors. An item" is
certain area of the canal, usually
about a mile long
The 25 items were stretched from
Ocala west, for 90 miles. The con-
tractors built work camps near their
items" camps such as the CCC
uses.
zach contractor is required to
7 use so much man power. His
official requirement is one man
year" of work for every $1,000
spent. This is so they won't do it
all by machinery, and leave Florida's
unemployed thousands out on a
limb.
Also, in these present early stages,
they are experimenting with ma
chinery. Nearly all of the contrac-
tors use different methods of dig
ging. Some use plain trucks and
trailers, with shovelers filling them
by hand.
Some have tractor scrapers, and
use up their man power by making
men push wheelbarrows full of
sand. incidentally, these wheelbar-
rows have big pneumatic rubber
tires. They say man can wheel
twice as many trips through sand
with these tires. Sometimes they
hit nail, and blow out)
Some contractors stretch an end
less conveyor belt across the floor
of the excavation, and have hum
dreds of men shoveling dirt on to it.
The belt dumps the dirt up on the
bank.
The contractors and their 5000
men are moving 100000 tons of sand
every "a hours. If you think that
isn't lot of sand, try shoveling half
r-ord Como tirno