Panama Canal Commission

“ Dredging operations are being carried on for the purpose of deepening and widening the channels at the Pacific and Atlantic entrances. Large wharves for the reception of steamers have been erected at Balboa, and dry docks for repairing have been constructed. In Panama itself, although the city does not belong to the United States Government, much money and time have been spent in putting it into a proper sanitary condition, for by treaty with the Panamanian Government the Canal Commission have jurisdiction over all matters connected with health. ”

“ With a view to government ownership and control, Congress directed an investigation of the Nicaraguan Canal, for which a concession had been granted to a private company. The resulting report brought about such a discussion of the advantages of the Panama route to the Nicaraguan route that by an act of Congress, approved March 3, 1889, a commission was appointed to "make full and complete investigation of the Isthmus of Panama, with a view to the construction of a canal." The commission reported on November 16, 1901, in favor of Panama, and recommended the lock type of canal. ”

“ The cities of Panama and Colon were cleaned up as never were tropical cities cleaned before. All the time, every day, men fought mosquitoes that the workers in the ditch might not be struck down at their labors.
The Americans, too, made mistakes. In the beginning they attempted to build the canal under the direction of a commission with headquarters in Washington. This commission, at long distance and by methods hopelessly involved in red tape, sought to direct the activities of the engineer in charge on the Isthmus. ”

“ The two governments, by the way, which protected the Panama merchants against American competition also protected a handful of Panamanians in their clutch upon certain municipal monopolies. With the completion of its power house at Gatun the Canal Commission will have a great volume of power to sell or waste. Wasted it will have to be, for a group of capitalists control the light and power company in Panama City, and the United States has agreed not to compete with them. ”

“ Very few question the statement that the sea-level canal would take15 longer for construction than a lock canal. The majority of the Board of Consulting Engineers estimated that from 10 to 13 years would be required. The Isthmian Canal Commission fixed the time at from 18 to 20 years and Lieutenant George W. Goethals, its chairman and chief engineer, states that the lock canal will be completed by January 1, 1915.
A great objection to the narrow sea-level canal is the difficulty of river control. The proposed plan was to construct a huge concrete dam 180 feet high across the Chagres at Gamboa. ”

“ If the Interstate Commerce Commission shall be of the opinion that any such existing specified service by water other than through the Panama Canal is being operated in the interest of the public and is of advantage to the convenience and commerce of the people, and that such extension will neither exclude, prevent, nor reduce competition on the route by water under consideration, the Interstate Commerce Commission may, by order, extend the time during which such service by water may continue to be operated beyond July first, nineteen hundred and fourteen. ”

“ After this, the Isthmian Canal Commission unanimously recommended the adoption of the Nicaragua route. Congress again took up the matter, upon a bill introduced by Representative Hepburn, making an appropriation of $180,000,000 for the construction of the canal. This measure was favorably reported by the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and also secured the approval of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals. ”

“ The Americans soon found that without extraordinary inducements it would be next to impossible to recruit a force able to build the canal. Therefore it was determined to make the rewards so great that extra dollars to be gained by going to Panama would outweigh the fears of those who had any desire to go. It was decided to pay the employees of the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad Company wages and salaries approximately one-half higher than those obtaining at home for the same work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The propaganda of the American Rivers and Harbors Congress, looking to the appropriation of $500,000,000 to be spent in a systematic program of inland waterway development, is meeting with encouragement in every part of the country, and it is the expectation of those who believe that the Government should commit itself to such a program, that within 25 years the stimulus to waterway development given by the opening of the Panama Canal, will give to the United States one of the finest systems of inland waterways in the world. ”

“ The result of the high standards of comfort thus imposed has been that the cost in wages and food to run American ships under American conditions across the Pacific is double that in European or Japanese steamers. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that some people in the United States regard the Panama Canal as a very disinterested gift from the United States to humanity at large, especially perhaps to Great Britain and Japan—as an example of altruism run mad. ”

“ If they do become greater the Panama Canal will be an inefficient servant and will come far short of fulfilling the purpose which prompted its building. The sea-level canal could be enlarged by dredges without stopping traffic through it,18 but with a lock canal it is different. When the locks as constructed become inadequate the only way to increase their capacity is to shut down the canal for years while new and larger ones are being built. ”

“ It is, therefore, rather a question which the practical experience and judgment of members of Congress must decide, and I have entire confidence that the will of the nation, as expressed in its final mandate, will be carried into successful execution, whether that mandate be for lock canal or sea-level waterway.
The Panama Canal presents at once the most interesting and the most stupendous project of mankind to overcome by human ingenuity "what Nature herself seems to have attempted, but in vain." ”

“ It is evident that the United States are not going to permit any competitive canal scheme in Central America if they can help it.
What will be the effect of the opening of the canal on Panamanian prosperity? The local [Pg 239] merchants fear that the system of state-supply, which has prevailed in the zone during the constructional period, will be continued after completion and extended to the shipping which will pass through the canal, and that coal and ship-chandlery will become American government monopolies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The result is that in traveling in these countries, one meets three or four foreign "drummers" where he meets one American traveling man, in spite of their nearness to the United States. It will take years, even with the Panama Canal in operation, to overcome the disadvantage which bad business policy has placed upon the American manufacturers. ”

“ The way to compel the canal to pay indirectly is to make it incidental to the development of a mighty commercial marine, that will carry American products to present foreign markets, and to new markets, under the Stars and Stripes. This accomplished, the United States will indisputably be the trade arbiter of the universe. With operations under way on the isthmus, is not the time propitious for popular discussion throughout the nation, and in official Washington, how best to create the commerce that will make the Panama Canal a success from its opening? ”

“ It will aid, however, if the success of the Panama Canal shall not reanimate the effort to secure deep-water channels from the Lakes to the Gulf and from the Lakes to the Atlantic. After Panama the nation is unlikely to be daunted by any canal-digging project. Having improved the ocean highway, the people will demand easier access to it. ”

“ It is certain that the United States made a good investment at Panama. Assuming that the coastwise traffic is worth to the Government the amount of the tolls it is exempted from paying, the canal becomes a self-supporting institution from the day of its opening, leaving all the military and trade advantages it affords the United States as clear profit. ”

“ We need not describe in detail effects which are likely to be felt over the entire range of American industry.
The United States appears, indeed, to be on the verge of tremendous developments. In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute, [20] that well-known physical geographer and economist, Dr. F. B. Vrooman, gave us a hint of further American enterprises in civil engineering, after the Panama Canal is opened:—
The isthmian canal is but a part of the greater American waterways project. ”

“ Every means was taken of testing such important matters as the effect of sea-water on this material, the time it takes for these huge masses of artificial stone to settle, and many other questions on the answer to which the permanence and stability of the locks and the entire waterway would depend. The Panama Canal, writes Mr. Showalter, is "the greatest effort man ever has made, and perhaps ever will make, to simulate the processes of geologic ages, and do in days what Nature required unreckoned years to accomplish." ”

“ There are not wanting those who hold that if the money which has been spent at Panama for the good of the whole world, had been expended in making a thirty-foot ship canal from Lake Erie to tide-water on the Hudson, the benefit to the people of the United States, and to American shipping would have been vastly greater. ”

“ The inability of Colombia to make an effective effort to assert its power on the Isthmus was due to naval weakness in the absence of communication by land. No army could march through the tropical forests which still isolate the Canal Zone from South America, and control at Colon and Panama still depends upon sea power. ”

“ The need to protect the canal, and to surround it with orderly conditions, social and political, will compel a good many states to [Pg 240] put themselves to amendment or force the big republic responsible for the canal to provide them with good government whether they like it or not. If the United States had to intervene in Cuba in order to put down anarchy or misrule, they may be persuaded by an even stronger necessity to intervene in the affairs of Central America in the defence of the Panama Canal. ”

“ During a recent year commercial vessels with an aggregate net register of over 7,000,000 tons used the Kiel Canal. The increase of business during the first decade of the present century amounted to 70 per cent, or a little more than the estimated increase for each decade at Panama. The net receipts from the operation of the canal are not sufficient to pay interest on the investment. No effort is made to levy tolls that will provide for interest charges, or for the amortization of the principal. The canal does not connect regions of enormous traffic, nor does it greatly shorten ocean routes. ”

“ There is in the act no provision making it applicable to domestic merchant ships when outside the waters of the United States, nor any provision making it inapplicable to merchant ships, either domestic or foreign, when within those waters, save in the Panama Canal. There is a special provision dealing with the Canal Zone [4] which excepts 'liquor in transit through the Panama Canal or on the Panama Railroad.' The exception does not discriminate between domestic and foreign ships, but applies to all liquor in transit through the canal, whether on domestic or foreign ships. ”