Duncan E. McKinlay

“ Thus, under army supervision the employees of the Canal Zone are as well supplied with rations and materials as they would be on an army reservation.
Following these necessary preparations for handling the big force of men, came the assemblage of the machinery and the mechanical implements necessary to perform the work. Without going into exhaustive details, it is only necessary to say that the very best materials, implements and machinery that money could supply, brought from all parts of the world, were sent to Panama. ”

“ A sea-level canal contemplated an excavation from shore to shore at the level of the sea; a lock canal contemplated the construction of a great dam across the valley of the Chagres and the course of the Chagres river, which dam would have the effect of holding the waters of the Chagres river. The accumulation of those waters in time would form a lake, the surface of which lake, of course, would be considerably above the level of the sea on either side. The dam would necessarily have to be surmounted through the agency of locks. ”

“ For a long time this was the most popular of all the routes with the American Congress and the American people. The Nicaraguan route contemplated the utilization of the San Juan River on the east, between the Atlantic Coast and the Nicaraguan lakes, the Nicaraguan lakes as far as they extended westward, and thence through a canal across the dividing land from the upper lake to Nicaragua to the Pacific Ocean at Brita. The Nicaraguan route would be 377 miles shorter between San Francisco and New York than is the Panama route, along which the United States is now constructing a canal. ”

“ And so, the idea of Columbus being to find a short water-route between Europe and the East Indies and coasts of Asia, by the completion of the Panama Canal, the United States is carrying out the original purpose of efforts of the discoverer of America and the orders of the King of Spain to Cortez, to make an artificial water-way which will shorten the lines of trade and commerce around the globe. ”

“ They come slowly, of course, but all large projects take time in their development, and those of us who today are so fortunate as to live in California, or anywhere upon the Pacific Coast, may easily look forward to the time, not far distant, when California will be at least the second State of the American Republic in wealth, and industrial and commercial power, and San Francisco the second city in importance under the American flag. ”

“ Practical bankruptcy came in the year 1889, and from that time on the French Canal Company simply held its franchise and concessions from the Republic of Colombia for speculative purposes only. Then the officers of the French company, seeing that the United States Congress was beginning to take a lively interest in canal construction, and was showing signs of a disposition to pass legislation that would commit the United States as a Nation to the building of a canal, began to look toward the United States as a prospective customer for their uncompleted canal project at Panama. ”

“ Men of even middle age today probably will live to see the fulfillment of the dreams and prophecies of the olden time in the opening up of our coasts and land to ship commerce with every country on the globe. ”

“ A splendid system of hospitals was built up by rehabilitation of the hospital system left by the French company and the addition of others. Thousands of cabins were built for the common laborers, the so-called “silver men,” and better cottages for white men who might take their families with them to the Zone while engaged in labor there. Dormitories for single white men were built at every construction point. Restaurants were established at which a meal of four courses was furnished the superior class of white employees at 35 cents. ”

“ At the town of Empire there are forty-five French engines piled in one heap that cannot be used by the Canal Commission. In fact, they are of such little power that they would hardly be used by a street contractor on a city job in the United States. ”

“ Of all subjects now occupying the attention of the world at large, and of importance not only to the State of California, but to all the territory west of the Rocky mountains and the islands and coasts of the Pacific Ocean, over which the American flag floats in sovereignty, none is paramount to the construction of the Panama Canal. ”

“ Between those early days and the present time every great maritime nation of the world has been interested in isthmian canal construction—Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy have all, at one time or another in the intervening years, considered the advisability and feasibility of constructing a canal somewhere across the narrow territory between the Atlantic and Pacific. ”

“ In those days the only safe routes were those over the land, but in this modern time of gigantic ocean vessels, capable of carrying thousands of passengers and hundreds of thousands of tons of freight, water travel and transportation is the cheapest and most agreeable of all forms. ”

“ The Panama Canal is the central link. The third link must be and will be, if the projects of the most eminent and patriotic American statesmen are carried out, the re-establishment of the American merchant marine, so that American ships may be used as the agency for the distribution of the products of our great industrial country to all the lands fronting the Pacific Ocean, as well as to all other parts of the earth. ”

“ Reed was one of the first army surgeons to become familiar with the theory that the yellow fever and the malarial fevers of the tropics were carried and distributed through the agency of mosquitoes. In fact, Dr. Reed himself became a victim to his desire for scientific knowledge, he having allowed himself to be bitten by a mosquito that had first filled itself with the virus of a yellow fever patient, and died as the result of the experiment. ”

“ Ice plants have been constructed so that ice may be distributed up and down the line of operations. Every morning at 3 o’clock a supply train leaves Colon, and furnishes every camp along the line of the canal with fresh supplies for the day’s consumption. ”

“ The terms of the treaty were that the United States, in consideration of the zone proposed to be transferred, should pay to the Republic of Colombia ten million dollars in cash on the ratification of the treaty by the separate governments, and commencing nine years from the date of ratification, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars a year for all time. [19] This tentative treaty found great favor in Washington, D. C., and was immediately ratified by the American Senate, and then sent back to Bogota for ratification by the Colombian authorities. ”

“ The result of the investigations of the commission was that the Panamanian Company offered their uncompleted canal, their franchises, their plans and specifications, the Panama Railroad, which was worth about $12,000,000, and a line of steamships from Colon to New York, consisting of five medium-sized steel vessels of modern construction, for the sum of $110,000,000. The Nicaraguan Company offered their concessions from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in addition to all their other property, for $6,000,000. ”

“ Provision was made for the issuance of cooked rations at a price of 10 cents per ration to the “silver men,” who are nearly all negroes, it being the policy of the commission to protect the life and health of every employee of the Zone, so that the health of the individual would become a guarantee of the safety of the whole body of working men. ”

“ A bake shop was built at Crystobal, out of which 30,000 loaves of bread are turned twice a day if necessary, and a batch of pies and cakes in proportion. Storage warehouses have been built for the storage of meats and vegetables and various other supplies, that are brought from the north by shiploads. ”

“ The up-to-date and progressive city of Chicago, the mighty metropolis of the center of the continent, is alive to the possibilities of the near future, and has made provision for the issuance and sale of bonds to the amount of $24,000,000, the proceeds of which are to be used in the deepening and widening of the Chicago drainage canal and the Illinois river, so that ocean-going vessels may not only penetrate as far as St. ”

“ In direct contrast to these are the splendid engines sent to the Isthmus by the commission—200 locomotives, not of the largest, but about of the medium size one sees on the American railways; 2000 splendidly constructed steel dump cars for the hauling of rock and debris; 300 air-compressed drills for boring into the rocks in blasting operations; 125 steam shovels of 75, 90 and 125 tons capacity; apparatus and machinery for the moving of railroad tracks, so effective that a railroad track can be slung 10 or 12 feet to one side or the other, laid down and spiked almost as fast as a man can walk ”

“ But great difficulties were encountered in perfecting the proper kind of an organization to successfully complete this stupendous project. The engineers taken from private life and entrusted with the work, after a little experience on the Isthmus, would be offered greater inducements to abandon their Governmental employment and take some other position, generally far more lucrative, in the United States. ”

“ The consequence was that the ignorant and the improvident ate food that was not properly prepared, and slept very often in tents or on the ground, subject to the night dews and miasmatic vapors of the tropics. ”

“ This lake will be a couple of miles across, and on the farther point, called Miraflores, two pairs of locks will lower our vessel to the level of the Pacific Ocean. From the Miraflores locks a channel will be constructed out into Panama bay—500 feet wide and 40 feet deep at low tide, the same as on the Caribbean side.
The engineering features of the Panama Canal are not intricate, and not in any sense difficult from an engineering standpoint, save for the great magnitude. ”