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Show III Eilii fl te h UjrfJ fr- DE PALACE, -4 Colon, C. Z. "The engineer's dream if the cenTles has been realized." Jvcryone who writes of the Panama anal feels bound to use that phrase, ind though it is trite, it is uo lets rue. I'oKKtbly when Halboa first stood on ;he ' Teak of Darlen" and gazed en-ranced en-ranced at the waters of what he called h Southern sea the thought of cut-Ing cut-Ing through the Isthmus came to him. Certainly, within three years after his treat discovery or In 1516, be had ransported two ships, In pieces, across rrom the Atlantic to the Taclllc and ihere put them together. It could not have been very much later that the Idea of sn Isthmian canal was born, for during the reign Df I-hllip II. of Spain (1D561598) the Inquisition declared that any such pro-ect pro-ect to alter the face of the earth was Impious and the Spanish ruler forbado Its furtrer dlncussion. The ban of the church was effective for tome time, but In 1099 a Scotchman of the name of I'atterson revived the scheme, es tabllnhed a colony on the shores 1 1 tho Isthmus and even made a crude survey of the proposed route. Cal donian bay, on the north shore of Tan ama, alone preserves the memory ol that attempt. French scientists Ir 1735 advocated a Nicaragua canal, fiftj years later the Spanish government or ib-red a survey of the Darlen route and early In tho nlneteeth century vot Humboldt declared a canal was prac ticable. In 1825, Immediately afte Latin America had freed Itself fron Spain, the Central American am I'nlted States Atlantic and Pacific Ca nal company was organized, and om or the directors of the concern will the high-sounding name vat DeWIt Clinton. Various schemes were start ed and fell through, and In 1835 th United 8tates senate voted for th building of a Nicaragua canal. An ej pedttlon was sent to that country an reported thll the canal could be coi strucled st a cost of $25,000,000. After the Clval war there was muc negotiating by our government for canal concession, but when the Nlci ragua route seemed to be the favorlt the Hogota government became Impi tlent and gave the concession for Panama canal to Luclen Napoleo Honaparte Wyse. a French Ileutenan He made some maps and organised company which sold out to the final clers with whom Ferdinand de Lese bad associated himself. Albert Edwards In his sdmlrsb book on Panama thus describes tr beginning of the tragedy of do he sept anJ his company: "The digging of tho Suet canal wi the accomplishment of his life, i his vigor snd energy had gone Into 1 He came back to Paris literally carrb on the shoulders of bis nation. Tl government made hlrn a 'comte at the people called him le grand Fra cais.' Hut he fell among thieves. Tl old man tumbled blindly Into the tn of speculators, who foresaw a rich h vest In the drawing together of h great name and the shady concessit of Lieutenant Wyse. Tbey set tl atage by summoning the scientists the world to a great congress to d cuss an Atlantic-Pacific canai. i though It was called a 'scientific' cc gress. most of Its 136 members we speculators and politicians. Only fori two were engineers or geogrsphei They elected Count de Lesseps, ra roaded through a resolution that t Panama route was the only practical one, and formed the Universal Int oceanic Canal company by buying t Wyse concession for 10.000,000 fran before the bona fide members of I congress knew what had happened a In the face of much protest. Th' can be little doubt that the congr was packed like a ward caucus. 1 there is no evidence that do Lsb , realized that It waa. "The company was launched w many banquets, florid speerhee by grand Francals. and champagne wl out end. And a'.l the time those w - were on the Inside were playing t i market from both ends, sending t i stocks tumbling down the steps of I i bourse on s manufactured report tl i the United States was again wav the Monroe Doctrine, shooting th i up again with a misquotation from i president's tneeaage to the effect t ' we were enthusiastic In favor of i French enterprise. A sorrier eih tion of conscienceless finance has I dom been seen." Old de Lesp. howeter. was arnest He sent over engineers I discovered that Wyse's maps were i, arcurate and that yellow fever i L deadly. Then la I-r nitwr, ls7t. I connt himself, with his wife snd th k children, arrived from France. Al I receptions snd speech-making In Co I be crossed to Panama, and there. January 1. 10, the format openlni lbs canal was performed with s orate ceremony. Mile, Ferdinande de LetttiepK struck tho first blow of a pick ax at tho point where the canal waa to enter the I'ucllle, each of the party followed fol-lowed with a blow, and there wat a vast quantity of applause and champagne. cham-pagne. From the very first the French company com-pany was beset with troubles. At the canal wat not a government undertaking under-taking the work had to be let out to contractors, and many of these proved prov-ed to be dlahonest. They would take out the toft dirt, collect the stipulated stipulat-ed price per ruble yard, and then go Into bankruptcy. At Honota the politicians poli-ticians not only exacted tha usual blackmail, but annoyed the company with all manner of litigation, the native na-tive courta Invariably ruling agalnsl the French. Worst of alt, perhaps, were the yellow fever and malaria which killed off the engineers and laborers by the thousand. In the last , three months of 1N84 tho death rati i per thousand was nearly 1"0, and It September. 1SK5, It reached 176.97 ' Sanitary science had not yet learnet i how to cope with these diseases, ant there Is every reason to believe tha! - their ravages alone would have beei enough to Insure ,the failure of d( i Lesseps' enterprise, without the grosi r extravagance and the dishonesty tha characterized the work. "The cra.h came In 188S." says Mi Edwards. "After eight years of a " brave a fight as man had ever mad r against nature, the bubble burst. It I 1 estimated that stock had been Issue 1 to th,n value of two hundred and flft million dollars. It Is doubtful If ha! 9 this sum ever got near enough t 1 Panama to be expended on actui 1 work. Most of this paper was held t '' French peasants and people of moi 8 erate meant. Tbey had been led Int 9 It by Jtho great name of de Lessep You may be sure that none of the orl & Inal promoters were csugbt with stot If' M it. j ''L ' I id r - ,1 tr- J, .'-n j rjursrmr n traits'1 Of --'- ' ' ' ' 'f f rjrT-n rjrT-n T"T"'-1m1Si 'j ' ' 'm-' 'rs '-hM r,"; fiTATUt 3 G0LUnSU3.tCRl5T0W j on their handa when the final br PT. came. The scandal was Immen h,. Many government officials were cn volved. The shame of It drove the t nc' man la Grand Francals-Insane. n(j died a few years later In an asylum re Tha sorapany went Into the hands ss a receiver who organized the N mt lYench Canal company, and this c ps crn sold sll Its rights snd prope to tho United States In 1S02. Mi it, of Its bulldlngt. ranging In size fr 'l d I-sseps' palace In Cristobal tn. bouses for laborers, were found wo no preserving snd have been used by ln Americans. The hospital buildings tl,0 A neon and Colon were nearly all en lh ed by tha French, dat When Uncle Sam took bold of Ir.g canal work, the jungle all along Pin rouU across the Isthmus wss foi the full of expensive mschinery sbandoi hat to lhe ravages of rust snd decay. M the of this wss recovered snd used In ibl- earlier years of the American regl 11- and even now French dredges and co mot les may b seen st work th l Nesrly all the old French equlpm rao however, bas been sold to a Cblc jn. wrecking concern wblcn bas been ra, Ing It up In orderly heaps and dls tDA Ing of It as scrsp. re Two psrts ef !hs actual work d rter on tha canal by the French b lon proved of great help U the Amerlei on These were tbs dredging at the At t of tie entrance and th dry ascavaUot lab- tha CuVbrw cut. |