Evening star., 1939-06-04

pathway which the canal of the future
was to follow. Theirs is a record of
American pluck and grit unequaled be-
fore or since. Those who followed them
in later canal work under French and
American enterprises encountered MOTH
ing comparable with what those po-
neers overcame, though at fearful cost.
Their very names-John Lloyd Stephens,
Col. George M. Totten, John c. Traut-
wine, James E. Baldwin and Capt John
J. Williams-are now unfamiliar to most
Of us, but they blazed the first and most
important trail for the canal.
French Lost Many Lives.
Ten years of French effort to canalize
the ISthmus, beginning in 1880, were a
failure, but they marked another great
step forward. Americas later opera
tions profted hugely from the French
experiment, dsillusioning though it was
politically and financially. Two out of
every three Frenchmen sent to Panama
died. Not yet had the nation that pro-
duced Pasteur learned how to maintain
public health in the tropics.
The Republic of Panama, established
in November, 1903, settled many of
Uncle Sans political and financial prob
lens regarding the proposed canal The
new republic, organized by those who
favored the canal recognized the value of
meeting the United States halfway in
uniting the Atlantic and Pacific.
Though the United States now has
entire sovereignty over the Canal Zone,
the two cities, Colon at the canals At
lantic and Panama at the Pacific end
are not under American jurisdiction save
in the important matters of public
health and public morals-policing.
After two engineering commissions
failed to function adequately President
Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 put the
canals construction in charge of the
United States Army, with Gen. Goethals
as engineering chief and Gen. Gorgas
in charge of public health. Under them
the work went forward rapidly and sat-
lsfactorlly. There were no real labor
troubles; never at any time after the
United States took over the enterprise
were there charges of graft" or
profiteering - disease diminished almost
miraculously.
Transcontinental Chinese Wall.
The soil excavated at Panama would
make wall as high and as wide as
the ancient Chinese Wall and reaching
all the way from San Francisco to New
York. 1t would make pyramid 1900
feet high or four-fifths of a mile.
oblterating the Washington Monument,
the White House, State, War, Navy and
Treasury Buildings and all the finest
official part of the City of Washington,
During six years the amount of uuinine
distributed free among canal employees
was $4,000 pounds, an average of 1000
pounds per year.
The money spent on the canal seems
small in these days of huge expendi-
lures, but at the time the expense of
the building was loudly denounced both
in Congress and out. Here is a brief
review of its costs: When the canal was
thrown open to commercial traffic on
August IS, 1915, a total of $4,000 900
cubic yards had been excavated, and the
estimated cost was $375 10000. During
the next few years slides or breaks called
for further excavations. When the canal
was declared formally completed by
President Wilson July IL, 1920. a total
Of about FAC, 10000 cubic yards had been
excavated and the actual cost to that
date was given as s366, $50, 900, exclusive
of the expenditures for its military and
naval defense.