Evening star., 1939-06-04
By William C.. McCloy.

Gaillard Cut during fleet maneuuer!
ing Secretary Of War Garrison and 200
guests including President Porras of
Panama, quietly made the canals transit
in nine hours-well within estimated
time-and that was ALL
On some distant day some Homer yet
unborn will write an epic of the making
of the Panama Canal. film may suf-
flee for sea-level Suez but only an epic
can do justice to the 400 years struggle
waged on behalf of the mighty water
bridge and its dozen titanic locks at
Panama.
Civilization Played Many Roles
Only very distant day can give the
true perspective by which the varied
factors contributing to the Panama
Canals success may be judged in their
just relation to each other and to the
whole. Politics, science, engineering, eco
nomcs, medicine, sociology, the humani-
ties-all had share in the evolution of
the enterprise. The emotional ingredi-
entS were there. too-ambition, greed.
Jealousy, ignorance, bigotry and super
Stition.
And what a cast of characters the fu-
ture epic has to draw upon Natures
forces operate at Panama in Homeric
fashion, but history has been generous.
too. From Christopher Columbus in 1892
to Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, the cast
includes Emperor Charles V, Balboa
confused in Keats immortal sonnet
with Cortez), King Philip II, Queen
Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh the begged
his Queen to canalize the Isthmus, and
by so doing you will wrest the keys of
the world from Spain'): Pizarro Sir
Henry Morgan (the town of Panama
was the first city of the New World
when it was ravaged by the buccaneers
the great Humboldt tafter exploring the
1sthmus in the early 18th century, he de-
clared, "the canal enterprise will immor-
tallze any government so occupied with
the interests of humanity'); Stephen A.
Douglas Qlke many others, he opposed
the canal because the plans assumed a
partnership of the United States with
Great Britain: Henry Clay (who hotlv
1900 oAie wv Soii6l coo VII GIle IldllOIldl neeO
Tor canal at Panama, urged on by De
Witt Clinton, who pointed to the great
success Of the Erie Canal Count de
Lesseps, fresh from his Suez triumphs:
the English historian Froude, Eiffel. the
French engineer who later designed the
tower bearing his name; James Russell
Lowell, Elihu Root. Guizot, the French
hlSt0rl9n' .1nhn How
famed French engineer: Maj. Walter
Reed and DR.. Jesse Lazaer, through
whose personal sacrifices yellow fever
and malaria were subdued making the
tropical 1sthmus habitable, and, finally,
Gems. Goethals and Gorgas, in whose
capable hands much of the honor of the
achievement must forever remain.
Beginning with John Adams in 1920
every president of the United States
shared in the canals history, notably
Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren,
Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland. and
of course, Theodore Roosevelt. who was
in office when the enterprise was finally
begun in 1904
400Year- Old Idea.
A four old idea is realized in
the Panama Canal-the solution of the
problem of international commerce first
thrust upon the Western World in 1883
when Constantinople fell to the Turks
and when the great land routes to India
and the Orient were closed to Christian
Europe. Columbus first had the idea of
canalizing the Isthmus after discovering
that 'the narrow place" the native In
dians told him about was not water. as
he had hoped, but land traversed by
rocky mountain ranges and the prey of
earthquakes, landslides volcanoes and
disease. Panama in Indian language
means Astounding in fishes"
The first formal step toward a Panama
canal was taken by Emperor Charles v,
in 1884, when he directed a survey to be
made of "the narrow place" for the pur-
pose of making water route. All the
10th century surveyors agree with those
of today-that just four canal routes are
possible; Panama, Darien, Tehuantepec
and Nicaragua.
Charles VS. project and a subsequent
one by his son, Philip II, were both side
tracked by their religious advisers, who
argued that such canal would be an
act of blasphemy. What God hath
joined together, let no man put asunder."
They didn't know what geology has since
told us, that not until the early Pleisto-
Gene era did the Isthmus exist. Before
that the oceans flowed freely between
the two continents.
For two centuries after Philip II, the
1sthmus was troubled by no attempts
at canal. Then, there was for years
a great deal of talk throughout Europe
and America, although nothing practical
materialized.
The real pioneers of the Panama
Canal were the builders of the first Pam
anna Railroad in 1855. Through virgin
jungle and pestilential morass they cut