Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . reasonable esti-mate of the final cost of the great world enterprise;the measure in dollars and cents of the greatest giftever made by a single nation to the world. had to do with an administration which vanishedsix or more years ago. Today that chronic libelerthe man in the street has nothing to say aboutgraft in connection with Canal contracts, andcommon notoriety, which usually upholds allsorts of scandalous imputations, and is cited tomaintain various vague allegations, is decidedly onthe side of official integrity at Panama. This is not to sa
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . reasonable esti-mate of the final cost of the great world enterprise;the measure in dollars and cents of the greatest giftever made by a single nation to the world. had to do with an administration which vanishedsix or more years ago. Today that chronic libelerthe man in the street has nothing to say aboutgraft in connection with Canal contracts, andcommon notoriety, which usually upholds allsorts of scandalous imputations, and is cited tomaintain various vague allegations, is decidedly onthe side of official integrity at Panama. This is not to say that the work has been conductedwith an eye single to economy. It has not. Thatis to say it has not been conducted in accordancewith the common idea of economy. All over theland contractors, apprehensive of the effect of thePanama example of government efficiency in publicwork, are telling how much more cheaplj they couldhave dug the Panama Canal. Probably they couldif they could have dug it at all. But the sort of 4o8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL. Copyrigtit by Undeniood d Vndtru-ood THE TUG BOHIO WITH BARGES IN MIDDLE GATUN LOCK economy they are talking about was definitelyabandoned when Col. Gorgas convinced the Com-mission that it was reckless extravagance to save$50,000 or so on wire screens and lose forty or fiftylives in a yellow-fever epidemic. The contractorsidea of economy was emphatically set aside whenCol. Goethals determined that it was cheaper topay engineers one-third more than the current rateat home, and make such arrangements for theircomfort on the Zone that they wotild stay on thejob, rather than to pay ordinary prices and havethem leave in haste after a month or two of dis-satisfied and half-hearted work. From which it ap-pears that a new defi-nition of economyis needed in the appli-cation of the word tothe Canal work. Whatever may bethe influence of theCanal on the positionof the United Statesas a world power, itsinfluence on the in-dustrial life at home islikel
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
