A Patriot's History of the Modern World (10 page)

Efforts to direct American interest toward Panama were greatly enhanced by Philippe Bunau-Varilla and William Nelson Cromwell, a pair known in Washington as the “Panama lobby.” Bunau-Varilla, physically small, proud, a former soldier and engineer whose serious but youthful countenance boasted a full red mustache, arrived in Panama in 1884 with de Lesseps's company. Patriotically French to the core and personally courageous, Bunau-Varilla came from limited means, yet impressed canal administrators on the journey over to Panama, eventually becoming the quartermaster of the organization. He observed firsthand the intervention of the Americans in the so-called Prestan uprising, which greatly reoriented him toward U.S. power. Historian David McCullough dismisses notions that Bunau-Varilla was a flim-flam artist, or a schemer who somehow interposed himself into Panamanian politics. Quite the contrary, Bunau-Varilla's writings and books, such as
Panama: The Past, Present, and Future
(1892), proved pivotal in keeping the dream alive, and his excellent English allowed him to effectively convey his vision to American audiences during his 1901 speaking tour.

But in 1888, when de Lesseps's company began to run out of money, Bunau-Varilla found himself stranded in Panama with dashed hopes and few prospects except for a great deal of canal company stock, which someone could ostensibly buy to build the canal. He journeyed back to France in 1898 and enlisted the New York firm of Sullivan & Cromwell for the New Panama Canal Company (founded 1894). The fast-talking Cromwell bore a resemblance to a graying Mark Twain. Working his way up the legal ladder, he became part of the corporate restructuring wave of the late 1800s pioneered by J. P. Morgan, and even worked with Morgan on the U.S. Steel purchase. His corporate activities put him in contact with the captains of industry, from Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt to Edward H. Harriman to Collis Huntington, and it was through the Panama Canal Railroad Company that he came to represent, and later serve as lobbyist for, the new canal company. Cromwell dove into the new task ferociously, mailing materials to
Capitol Hill, buttonholing congressmen in Washington, negotiating with the Colombians, and ultimately becoming the driving force behind the formation of the Canal Commission, providing the members with all of the evidence they would need to make a decision in favor of the Panama route.

For all their common interests, Bunau-Varilla was contemptuous (or possibly jealous) of the attorney, referring to him as “the
lawyer
Cromwell.” The two did not meet in person until 1902; nevertheless, they were linked by destiny. They were arrangers, people who “knew people,” string pullers, and with Cromwell working in the shadows and Bunau-Varilla in the spotlight, they dragged the canal back to life.

It was William Nelson Cromwell who circulated a Nicaraguan postage stamp that featured a belching volcano in the background, underscoring the testimony before the Morgan commission about the dangers of building in the region. The stamp affected the votes of at least three senators, who voted for the Panama route after receiving the stamps, and the Senate voted $40 million for the new Panama Canal Company in the Spooner Act of 1902.
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But one condition had to be met for the Spooner Act to go into effect: a treaty had to be negotiated with Colombia. Two previous agreements—the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (between the United States and Britain in 1850, in which the parties agreed that any canal built would not be militarized, but that each would protect rail or canal shipping in the region) and the 1901 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (in which the same nations modified Clayton-Bulwer and recognized American rights alone to build and control a canal in Central America, provided all nations would be allowed transit)—governed any construction in the region.

In the ensuing mini-revolution, Panama declared independence from Colombia, and, thanks to the presence of nearby American gunboats and Marines, Colombia was unable to reinforce its garrisons and restore the isthmus to its previous condition. David McCullough admits that without America's military presence, “the Republic of Panama probably would not have lasted a week.”
⁹⁸
An equally accurate observation would have been that had the people of Panama viewed themselves as Colombians, or had Colombia maintained a serious presence in Panama, the Republic wouldn't have been born. Criticized for encouraging a revolution, Roosevelt's characteristic reply was “Tell them I'm going to make the dirt fly!”
⁹⁹
And so he did. Purchasing the French holdings—the largest real estate deal in history up to that point, at roughly $40 million paid to J.P. Morgan & Company, the agent for the transaction—the United States set up an Isthmian Canal
Commission to run the ten-mile Canal Zone as a U.S. territory. The Zone was complete with hotels and bars playing ragtime music, married housing, bachelor quarters, country clubs, and the YMCA, which had gymnasiums, bowling alleys, and billiards, movie theaters, and every touch of Americana. Tourists by the thousands flocked just to see the work in progress, and nothing was more awe-inspiring than the Culebra Cut, a nine-mile swath chopped through the mountains.

The man chosen to actually dig the canal, John Frank Stevens, came at the recommendation of railroad genius James J. Hill, who called him the best construction engineer in the United States. Burly, rough, and handsome, Stevens was admired by Teddy Roosevelt as well; his approach to great projects resembled that of Andrew Carnegie, whose faith in ordinary men doing extraordinary things was a cornerstone of his empire. While working for Hill, Stevens had cut the Marias Pass through the Continental Divide, personally scouting the path alone, staying alive in the freezing cold only by marching back and forth at night. Likewise, he discovered another pass in the Cascades, named for him, and would eventually tunnel through that mountain range, cumulatively building over one thousand miles of railroad. He liked to work without interference, and expected his job would speak for itself. This classical American entrepreneurial attitude was exactly the kind Roosevelt liked, telling Stevens only “get busy and buttle like hell!”
¹⁰⁰
Arriving in Panama in 1905, Stevens found the project mired in indecision—no final plan had been drawn up yet, and indeed the review board hadn't even convened!—and debt, having spent $120 million with little to show for it.

Stevens could be found on the work lines daily, noting that there were three diseases in Panama, yellow fever, malaria, and cold feet, the worst of which was cold feet. Told no collisions had occurred on the railroad line, he scoffed that it just meant nothing was moving. Perhaps Stevens's most impressive act involved a general halt to all work on the Culebra Cut to organize a sensible plan of work. He even sent some steam shovel and crane men back to the United States.

A quick assessment revealed that, before any real work could be done, yellow fever needed to be dealt with. Stevens's main ally in the war against the disease was Dr. William Gorgas, a devout and modest Christian who had learned from Dr. Walter Reed and Dr. Carlos Finlay in Cuba, who had already proven that mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever. Gorgas, and the prior Yellow Fever Commission, had issued reports and published their
work, yet the Army and Congress ignored it, even after a scientific congress in Paris the following year declared Walter Reed's conclusions about the transmission of the disease to be “scientifically determined fact.” “What's that [mosquito] got to do with digging the canal?” Gorgas was asked.
¹⁰¹
Nevertheless, with the patience of Job, Gorgas forged ahead, insisting that defeating the mosquito remained a key to a successful canal.

After his assessment, Stevens broke the Washington logjam and ensured that the doctor got everything he needed. Panama City and Colón were fumigated; soap, brooms, garbage cans, and other essentials were brought in by the thousands; oil was applied to cisterns and cesspools; and the major cities were all outfitted with running water. Stevens wisely didn't get caught up in the squabbles over what
caused
yellow fever, and made no public endorsements of Gorgas's positions. Rather, he simply de jure implemented Gorgas's solutions. Theodore Shonts, the new head of the Panama Canal Commission, opposed Gorgas, and the issue finally landed in Roosevelt's lap. “You must choose between Shonts and Gorgas,” Dr. Alexander Lambert, a hunting pal of TR's, told the president.
¹⁰²

And so he did. Roosevelt sided with Gorgas, Shonts fell in line, and suddenly the Panama doctor had millions of dollars at his disposal to fight the disease. It took a year and a half to eradicate yellow fever in Panama, but as quickly as water supplies were cleaned up, the situation improved from area to area, enabling work to begin. By December 1906, the last death from yellow fever was reported in Panama. Next, Stevens—a railroader—decided the old Panama line was too light, some four times smaller than what he worked with on the Great Northern. Setting up new warehouses, telegraph lines, and shops along the route, Stevens replaced the existing track with new and heavier stock. He hired a whole new force of trainmasters, superintendents, dispatchers, and mechanics, all trained in the Great Northern's techniques. Quickly, a healthy symmetry unfolded: as the tracks moved forward next to the cleaned-up, disease-free towns, fresh food arrived, and within six months the construction force had tripled. At one point, Stevens had 12,000 men constructing only buildings. Agents recruited in New York, New Orleans, and Caribbean islands, offering jobs for over 4,000 skilled workers available in the first year alone. Transportation to Panama was free, as was housing and medical, and the average pay for a skilled worker was $87 per month in an age when a men's suit was only $10 and a steak dinner, at most, a quarter.

Even so, applications fell behind labor force requirements, with many
of those who showed up being unsuitable for the necessary machinist and plumbing jobs. Barbados proved one of the major suppliers of laborers, particularly at the wages the Americans offered. At one point, 20 percent of the Barbadian population, and some 40 percent of the adult males, were employed in Panama, sending back nearly $300,000 a year. It was devilishly hard work, loading and unloading, pouring cement in the steamy Panamanian climate, cutting brush, cutting lumber, and above all, digging. Supposed “laziness” among the West Indians disappeared with better diets—particularly more meat—impressing even the skeptics. Above all, Stevens appreciated the need to create in Panama working conditions equal to those for industrial laborers and tradesmen in the United States. Yet throughout, he considered it a basic engineering calculation of moving dirt from one location to another, mostly via train.

Looming ahead, however, was the Culebra Cut, the most difficult engineering obstacle for the project. Stevens and his associates considered massive hydraulic mining via water blasts, or using compressed air that would send the dirt to the sea through giant pipes. Stevens ultimately preferred a simple assembly line of dirt, disposed of by the railroad, using the excavated soil to fill in for the locks. The most important aspect of the operation, as Stevens saw it, was not the distance from excavation to dumping, but rather that the dirt kept moving. He envisioned an endless chain of rail cars in constant motion. Devising a remarkable network of tracks, Stevens kept empty cars poised next to the massive shovels, while filled cars rolled out on a downgrade.

Stevens also had to wade into the political fray, helping swing the decision from a sea-level canal to one with locks, and in stark opposition to the report delivered to the White House in January 1906 called
Report of the Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal
. A minority report called for a canal built with a series of locks, creating a larger Gatún Lake out of Lake Bohio, and in February, the Isthmian Canal Commission chose the lock design. Roosevelt personally visited the canal project in November, climbing into one of the massive steam shovels for a photo opportunity: it was classic TR, with a giant banner greeting him at the Culebra Cut reading, “
WE'LL HELP YOU DIG IT
.” But it would be dug without Stevens, who resigned in 1907 for reasons that were never disclosed. He was replaced by Major George Goethals, a silver-haired, messy chain smoker who “detested fat people.”
¹⁰³
But Goethals met with everyone, talked to everyone, and listened to virtually anyone, allowing private meetings on Sundays with workmen or any other person who had a gripe.

Work did not suffer under Stevens's replacement. Goethels had the operation carving out the equivalent of the Suez Canal every three years, ultimately excavating a pile that would, if shaped as a pyramid, reach 4,200 feet high. About half of the workforce at the Culebra Cut was involved in dynamiting, with a single ship bringing in one million pounds of dynamite at a time. By March 1909, sixty-eight giant mechanized shovels chopped out two million cubic yards in a month, with a single shovel excavating 70,000 yards in a twenty-six-day period. More than seventy-five miles of railroad track was laid within the nine-mile canyon, not counting the Panama Railroad itself, allowing 160 trains a day to run in and out of the Culebra Cut.

An endless stream of visitors, many of them influential, toured Panama during construction of the canal, including the son of President John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (then seventy-six years old). Adams expressed astonishment at the transformation of a handful of disease-ridden jungle outposts into “civilization.” Congressmen made regular junkets to “inspect” the work, enjoying a tropical vacation most of the time. At its peak, the Panama workforce numbered over 45,000, including 2,500 women and children—the families of American workers who moved to the Canal Zone. Overwhelmingly, however, Panama was a region full of men, and as such, it featured 220 saloons in Panama City and another 131 in Colón. Incentives to get married (an immediate grant of a rent-free, four-room apartment) combined with the prevalence of brothels meant more than a few men married prostitutes. But the finer side of life was present, too. Cities sported bakeries, excellent shopping, libraries, restaurants; regular social events included dances, bowling clubs, dramatic and theater presentations, and a variety of exclusive men's clubs. Taboga Island, in the Bay of Panama, could be reached through a three-hour boat trip, and offered a close vacation resort with sheltered beaches. Historians, scientists, and archeologists began to trickle into the Zone, conducting research.