Chapter XI: A Citizen of the World: Herbert C. Hoover 295 (4)

Before Sir Francis Drake, the daring pirate whom destiny and patriotism made into an explorer and an admiral, died in his ship off the Isthmus in 1596, a survey had been made of the trail along which the Spanish adventurers had been carrying the plunder of their conquests in South America across the narrow neck of land from the town of Panama to Porto Bello, where it could be loaded on great galleons and taken to Spain. For three centuries men of different nations--Spain, France, Colombia, and the United States--made surveys and considered various routes for a canal, but when they came face to face with the project at close range, the tropical jungle and the great rocky hills put a check on their ventures before they were begun.

In 1875, however, when the Suez Canal was triumphantly completed by the French canal company it seemed as if Count de Lesseps, the hero of this enterprise, might well be the man to pierce the New World isthmus. Blinded by his brilliant success, the venerable engineer (de Lesseps was at this time seventy-five years old) undertook the leadership of a vast enterprise to dig a similar canal across Panama. A canal was a canal; an isthmus was an isthmus. Of course, the man who had made a way for ships through Suez could join the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific at Panama. No one seemed to realize that the digging of a ditch through one hundred miles of level, sandy desert was an entirely different problem from cutting a waterway through solid rock and removing mountains, to say nothing of diverting into a new channel the flow of a turbulent river and reconciling the widely different tides of two oceans.

Other engineers realized that the difficulties in the way of a sea-level ditch were stupendous and that the lock canal was the type for Panama. Trusting, however, in the careless plans of Lieutenant Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse of the French Navy, who did not cover in his hasty survey more than two thirds of the territory through which the canal was to pass, Count de Lesseps estimated that the work could be completed for $120,000,000, and promised that in six years the long-sought waterway to the Pacific and the East would be open. None could doubt that the tolls paid by ships which would no longer be compelled to round Cape Horn in order to reach the western coast of the continents of North and South America, the islands of the Pacific, and the rich trading centers of the Orient, would repay tenfold the people who supplied the money for the great enterprise.

Trusting in the magic name of the engineer who had brought glory to France and wealth to those who had supported his Suez venture, thousands of thrifty people throughout France offered their savings in exchange for stock in the canal company. But the only persons who ever made any money out of the enterprise were the dishonest men in high positions who took advantage alike of the unsuspecting optimism of de Lesseps and the faith of the public in his fame. They drew large salaries and lived like princes, while, for want of proper management the money expended for labor and machinery on the isthmus was for the most part thrown away. Many of the tools imported were suited to shoveling sand, not to removing rock. The matter of transportation for men and supplies seemed not to have been considered at all. And the engineers and workmen fell prey in large numbers to yellow fever and malaria, for at that time it was not known that the mosquito was responsible for the spread of these diseases. Even the splendid hospitals built by the French provided favorable breeding-places for the carriers of the fever germs.

The success of any large enterprise depends above everything else on the skilful handling of the problems of human engineering. For the quality of any work depends on the character of the workers. This means that a master of any great undertaking that involves the labor of many must first of all be a master of men. The successful engineer of the Panama Canal had not only to secure the loyalty and coöperation of all the workers of many races and prejudices, but also to provide comfortable houses, wholesome food, and healthful living conditions, alike for body and mind, of his army of workers. The French did not know the country in which they worked--the difficulties and dangers it presented. They did not know the men who worked for them--their needs and how to meet them. They did not know the men they worked with--their inefficiency and graft and how to forestall them. The de Lesseps enterprise was, therefore, doomed to failure. After expending $260,000,000 (more than twice as much as the entire cost of Suez) in nine years, less than a quarter of the canal was dug and the chief problems, presented by the unruly Chagres River and the floods of the rainy season, were still untouched.

This is not the place to describe the disorderly retreat of the French forces, who hastily abandoned work and workers, tools and machines, like so much wreckage of a hopeless disaster. Some of the rascals and swindlers were punished; many others escaped. The aged de Lesseps--acclaimed as a hero yesterday, denounced as a traitor to-day--died of a broken heart. Thousands of poor people lost their little savings and with them their hope of comfort in their old age. When the United States offered to pay forty million dollars for all that the French company had accomplished, and all that it possessed in the way of equipment, plans, and privileges, the stockholders were only too glad to close the bargain.

The whole story of how the United States went about this world job makes one of the most interesting chapters of our history. It is, however, “another story.” We cannot here go into the matter of how Panama became a republic independent of Colombia, and how the United States purchased for ten million dollars a strip of land ten miles wide, five miles on either side of the canal, across the isthmus. This Canal Zone is “as much the territory of the United States as the parade-ground at West Point,” the ports of Balboa and Cristobal are

Major Goethals, as Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Washington, D. C., 1908]

American, and the United States holds the right to enforce sanitary regulations in the cities of Panama and Colon at either end of the canal and to preserve order when the Panama authorities prove unequal to the task.

The shout went up from all over America: “Make the dirt fly! Show what the spirit of ‘get there’ and Yankee grit can do!” Of course, the temptation to produce immediate results was great. But the clear-seeing men in control said: “There must be no headlong rush this time. We will be content to make haste slowly and take steps to prevent the evils that have defeated those who have gone before. We must clean the cities, drain the swamps, make clearings in the rank growth of the jungles. We must make a place even in the tropics where health and happy human living are possible.”

But the “clean-up” slogan was not able alone to conquer the specter of disease. Yellow fever still haunted the sanitary streets and byways. Only through the heroism of brave men who loved their neighbors better than themselves and who were willing to die that others might live was the secret learned. The experiments to which they gladly offered up their lives proved that the bite of a particular kind of mosquito was responsible for the spread of the disease, and that, if this insect could be destroyed, yellow fever would be destroyed with it. Colonel Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer, whose watchword was “First prevent, then curb, and, when all else fails, cure,” was the leader in the fight for healthful conditions on the isthmus.

But all this time we have been talking much about the battle-ground and little about the general who led the forces to victory.

It was clear that the time was ripe. The moment cried out for a man of power--one whose might as an engineer could command the forces of earth and ocean, and whose understanding of the even more difficult problems of human engineering would make him a true leader of men.

In 1905 Mr. Taft, who was at that time secretary of war, journeyed to Panama to see how the work was going forward and to plan for the fortifications of the canal. He took with him an officer of engineers, a tall, vigorous man of forty seven, with gray hair, a strong, youthful, bronzed face, and clear, direct, blue eyes. No trumpet sounded before Major Goethals to announce the man of the hour--the one whom destiny and experience had equipped for the great work. He studied every phase of the giant enterprise, and, when he returned to Washington, prepared a report that showed not only a thorough understanding of every detail, but also a broad comprehension of the problems of the whole. His recommendation of a lock canal was submitted by the secretary of war to the President, and with it went Mr. Taft’s recommendation of Major Goethals for the position of chief engineer. Experience had proved that divided authority and changes in policy through changes in management were serious drawbacks.

“If I can find an army officer equal to the job, he will have to fight the thing out to the finish,” said President Roosevelt. “He must manage the work on the spot, not from an office in Washington. He must be given full power to act and to control; and he must be a man big enough to realize that large authority means only large responsibility.”

After carefully considering Major Goethals’ record and reports and then talking with the man himself, the President became convinced that he had found the right chief for the work and the army of workers. But when it was generally known that an army officer was to command at Panama, people shook their heads. “The high-handed methods of the military will never succeed there,” they said. “Shoulder-straps cannot do the work!”

On the occasion of Major Goethals’ first appearance before his staff of engineers and other assistants it was very clear that they looked upon the departure of their late chief, Mr. Stevens, with regret that became keener as they anticipated the formality and rigors of military control. When it was the new leader’s turn to speak they faced him silently. Major Goethals stood tall and firm like a true descendant of the “Good Neck” of old, but he looked them in the eyes frankly and pleasantly.

“There will be no militarism and no salutes in Panama,” he said. “I have left my uniform in moth-balls at home, and with it I have left behind military duties and fashions. We are here to fight nature shoulder to shoulder. Your cause is my cause. We have common enemies--Culebra Cut and the climate; and the completion of the canal will be our victory. I intend to be the commanding officer, but the chiefs of division will be the colonels, the foremen the captains, and no man who does his duty has aught to fear from militarism.”

Let us see how they went against the first enemy, Culebra Cut; the channel that was to be made through the formidable “peak in Darien” known as Culebra Mountain. It is only seven o’clock, but the chief engineer--Colonel Goethals, now--is at the station ready to take the early train.

“Suppose we walk through the tunnel,” he remarks. “You know the dirt-trains have right of way in Panama. We should hesitate to delay one even for the President of the United States or the Czar of all the Russias.”

At the end of the tunnel a car that looks like a limousine turned switch-engine is waiting on a siding for the “boss of the job.” Painted light yellow, like the passenger-cars of the Panama Railroad, it is known among the men as the “Yellow Peril,” or the “Brain-wagon.” But if any one expects, as a matter of course, to see the colonel in the “Yellow Peril,” he is as likely as not doomed to disappointment. The chief engineer drops off, now to see men drilling holes for dynamite, now to watch the loading of the dirt-trains from the great steam-shovels.

As we see the solid rock and rocklike earth of Culebra we realize that without dynamite the canal would be impossible. Let us watch for a moment the tearing down of the “everlasting hill.” Deafening machine-drills pierce the rock or hard soil with holes from three to thirty or forty feet in depth. These holes, which have been carefully arranged so as to insure the greatest effect in an earth-quaking, rock-breaking way, are filled with dynamite and then connected with an electric wire so that the pressure of a button will set off the entire charge. A rumble and then a roar--the earth trembles--heaves--then great masses of rock, mud, and water are hurled high in the air. A fraction of Culebra larger than a six-or seven-story building is frequently torn down by one of these explosions and the rock broken into pieces that can be seized by the steam-shovels and loaded on the dump-cars.

It is interesting to see how, through an ingenious arrangement of the network of tracks, the loaded cars always go on the down grade and only empty trains have to crawl up an incline. Much of the rock taken from the cut is used to build the great Gatun Dam, that keeps the troublesome Chagres River from flooding the canal. The rest goes to the construction of breakwaters at the ends of the waterway or to the filling of swamps and valleys.

The “brain-wagon” is going along without the head. He is climbing blithely over the roughest sort of ground, now dodging onrushing dirt-trains, now running to shelter with the “powder-men” at the moment of blasting. A question here, a word there, and on he goes. It seems as if even the steam-shovels know that there is a masterhand at the helm and vie with one another to see which can take up the most earth at a bite. You would think any man would be completely played out after such constant jumping and climbing under the hot rays of a tropical sun, as the hours draw near to noon, but the colonel pulls up the long flight of steps that lead from the cut and remarks briskly, “Nothing like a little exercise every morning to keep your health in this climate!”

“There never was such a man for being on the job!” exclaimed one of his foremen, admiringly. “The only time the colonel isn’t working is from ten P.M. to five A.M., when he is asleep.”

No despotic monarch in his inherited kingdom ever had more absolute power than had the Man of Panama. The men from the chiefs of divisions down to the last Jamaican negro on the line realized that he was master of the business and that his orders sprang from a thorough understanding of conditions and a large grasp of the whole. He was a successful engineer, however, not only because he knew the forces of nature that they were working to conquer in Panama, but also the _human_ nature he was working _with_. He knew that no chain is stronger than its weakest link, and that no matter how perfect his plans and how powerful his huge machines and engines, the success he strove for would depend first of all on the character and the coöperation of the workers.

“The real engineer must above all feel the vital importance of the human side of engineering work,” he declared. “The man who would move mountains and make the flow of rivers serve human ends must first be a master of human construction.”

He knew that if there were to be able and willing workers in Panama, they must be provided with the means of comfortable and contented living. It was not enough to defeat death in the form of plague and fever; it was necessary to make life worth while. For man could not live by work alone in a land of swamps and jungles. Houses with screened porches, with gardens, and all the comforts and conveniences to be found at home were provided for the five thousand American engineers, clerks, and foremen. Ships with cold-storage equipment brought food supplies from New York or New Orleans, and every morning a long train of refrigerator-cars steamed across the isthmus carrying fresh provisions to all the hotels, town commissaries, and camps.

“You needn’t pity us because we live in the Zone,” said Mrs. Smith. “We get just as good meat and green vegetables as you can in market and at wholesale prices. Our house is rent free, with furniture, linen, and silverware provided. We have electric lights and a telephone. We even have ice-cream soda and the movies!”

The Man of Panama knew that all work and no play would not only make Jack a dull boy, but also a poor workman. Recreation buildings were provided where one could enjoy basket-ball, squash, bowling, or read the latest books and magazines. There were clubs for men and for women, band concerts, and a baseball league.

“The colonel not only gave time and thought to the things that kept us contented and fit,” one of the engineers said, “but he always had time for everybody who felt he wanted a word with him. The man who was handling the biggest job in the world nevertheless seemed to think it was worth while to consider the little troubles of each man who came along. Have you heard the song they sing in Panama?

“Don’t hesitate to state your case, the boss will hear you through;
It’s true he’s sometimes busy, and has other things to do,
But come on Sunday morning, and line up with the rest,--
You’ll maybe feel some better with that grievance off your chest.

See Colonel Goethals, tell Colonel Goethals,
It’s the only right and proper thing to do.
Just write a letter, or, even better,
Arrange a little Sunday interview.”

The colonel’s Sunday mornings were remarkable occasions. You might see foregathered there the most interesting variety of human types that could be found together anywhere in the world--English, Spanish, French, Italians, turbaned coolies from India, and American negroes. One man thinks that his foreman does not appreciate his good points; another comes to present a claim for an injury received on a steam-shovel. Mrs. A. declares with some feeling that she is never given as good cuts of meat as Mrs. B. enjoys every day. Another housewife doesn’t see why, if Mrs. F. can get bread from the hospital bakery, she can’t as well; because she, too, can appreciate a superior article!

“Of course, many of the things are trivial and even absurd,” said the colonel; “but if somebody thinks his little affair important, of course it is--to him. And that is the point, isn’t it? He feels better when he has had it out; and if it makes the people any happier in their exile to have this court of appeal, that is not a thing to be despised. Besides, first and last. I come to understand many things that are really important from any point of view.”

“He is the squarest boss I ever worked for,” declared one of the locomotive engineers, “and I’ll tell you the grafters don’t have any show with him. He had a whole cargo of meat sent back the other day because it wasn’t above suspicion. I happen to know, too, that he turned back a load of screening on a prominent business house who thought that they could save a bit on the copper--that for a government order it would never be noticed if it was not quite rust-proof.”

The canal was finished not only in less time than had ever been thought possible, but also with such honest and efficient administration of every detail that nowadays, when the statement is sometimes made that no great public enterprise can be carried through without more or less mismanagement and jobbing, the champion of Uncle Sam’s business methods retorts, “Look at Panama!”

The colonel’s quiet mastery in moments of stress was perhaps the most interesting phase of his human engineering. The representatives of a labor union threaten a strike unless he orders the release of one of their number who has been convicted of manslaughter. “When will we get our answer?” asked the spokesman.

“You have it now,” replied Colonel Goethals. “You said that if the man was not out of the penitentiary by seven this evening you would all quit. By calling up the penitentiary you will learn that he is still there. That is your answer. It is now ten minutes past seven.”

“But, Colonel, you don’t want to tie up the whole work?” protested the leader.

“I am not proposing to tie up the work--you are doing that,” was the reply.

“But, Colonel, why can’t you pardon the man?”

“I will take no action in response to a mob. As for your threat to leave the service, I wish to say that every man of you who is not at his post to-morrow morning will be given his transportation to the United States, and there will be no string to it. He will go out on the first steamer and he will never come back.”

There was only one man who failed to report the following day, and he sent a doctor’s certificate stating that he was too ill to be out of bed.

Human engineering was especially called into play when the Man of Panama faced committees of inquiry and investigation from Congress. A pompous politician once demanded in a challenging tone and with a sharp eye on the colonel, “How much cracked stone do you allow for a cubic yard of concrete?”

“One cubic yard,” was the reply.

“You evidently do not understand my question,” rejoined the investigator in the manner of one who is bent on convicting another through his own words. “How much cracked stone do you allow for a cubic yard of concrete?”

“One cubic yard.”

“But you don’t allow for the sand and concrete.” The implied accusation was spoken with grave emphasis.

“Those go into the spaces among the cracked stone,” was the unruffled reply. The smile that went around the room was felt rather than heard, but the pompous politician had no further questions.

This master of men, who was never known to yield his ground when he had once taken a stand, was always a man of few words. He preferred to let acts and facts do the talking.

“You know, Colonel Goethals,” said a prominent statesman on one occasion, “a great many people think we are never going to carry this job through to the finish. What would you say when diplomats of the leading powers come at you with questions and declare it will never be done?”

“I wouldn’t say anything,” was the reply.

On another occasion the boss of the job said: “Some day in September, 1913, I expect to go to Colon and take the Panama Railroad steamer and put her through the canal. If we get all the way across, I’ll give it out to the newspapers--if we don’t, I’ll keep quiet about it.”

It was said of old that if one had faith enough he could move mountains. We cannot doubt that the Man of Panama carried through his great work because he had faith--not a passive faith that hoped and waited, but an active _faithfulness_ that worked in full confidence that destiny worked with him. And this faith and loyalty was a living power that enkindled like faithfulness in those who worked with him.

The Man of Panama is General Goethals now, but when any admirer would imply that his generalship--his administration and human engineering--was the chief factor in the success of the great work, he invariably replies that he was but one man of many working shoulder to shoulder in a common cause. The simple greatness of the “prophet-engineer” and leader of men was shown in the words with which he accepted the medal of the National Geographic Society:

“The canal has been the work of many, and it has been the pride of Americans who have visited the isthmus to find the spirit which has

The “Man of Panama” at Panama]

animated the forces. Every man was doing the particular part of the work that was necessary to make it a success. No chief of any enterprise ever commanded an army that was so loyal, so faithful, that gave its strength and its blood to the successful completion of its task as did the canal forces. And so in accepting the medal and thanking those who confer it, I accept it and thank them in the name of every member of the canal army.”

Since the completion of the canal, its master-builder has been called to serve his country in more than one great crisis. At the time of the threatened railroad strike in the fall of 1916, he was made chairman of the commission of three appointed by President Wilson to investigate the working of the eight-hour law for train operators, which was the subject of dispute between the managers of the roads and the men who ran the freight-trains. In March, 1917, he was selected by Governor Edge of New Jersey to serve as advisory engineer on the construction of the new fifteen-million-dollar highway system of that State.

A SHEPHERD OF “THE GREAT COUNTRY”: BISHOP ROWE

“Love is a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than
animate faith and love, as flowers are the animate springtide.”

LONGFELLOW.

Have you heard the story of Offero, the mighty giant of Canaan, who made a vow never to serve any master but the most powerful of all the rulers of earth?

“As my strength is great, so shall my service be great,” he said, “and my king must be one who stands in fear of no man.”

He wandered over all lands, looking in vain for the greatest monarch, for each king plainly stood in dread of some other power. At length, however, he was told by a holy hermit that the King of kings was an invisible Lord who reigned through love in the hearts of men.

“How can I serve him?” asked Offero.

“You must fast and pray,” answered the hermit.

“Nay,” cried Offero, “not so! For I should then lose my strength which is all that I have to bring to his service.”

For a moment the holy hermit prayed silently to be given wisdom. Then his face shone as if from a light within.

“There is a river over which many poor people must cross,” he said, “and there is no bridge. The current is often so swift and treacherous at the ford that even the strongest are swept from their feet and lost. With your great strength you could help one and all to safety. It would be a work of love--meet service for the Lord of Love.”

And so Offero, the giant, built him a little hut by the side of the stream and dwelt there all his days, lending his strength to all who needed it in the name of the unseen King whom he served. It is said that one night in a wild storm a little child came praying to be carried across. Now, for the first time, Offero knew what weakness and faltering meant. He staggered and all but fell in the foaming current.

“Oh, little child,” he cried out as he stumbled, panting and spent, to the farther bank, “never before have I borne such a weight! I felt as if I were carrying the whole world on my shoulders!”

“And well you might, strong one,” said the child, “for you have this night carried the Master whom you serve. Henceforth your name shall be not Offero but Christopher, which means one who has carried Christ.”

And the good giant was called Saint Christopher from that day. You have perhaps seen pictures of him, for more than one great artist has tried to paint the story of his faithful service of love.

We are going to hear to-day the story of a strong man of our own time, who, like Offero of old, vowed to serve with his strength the greatest Master of all--the King of kings. The tale of his life began November 20, 1856, when Peter Trimble Rowe was born in Toronto, Canada. He was a tall, sturdy lad, who early learned to laugh at cold weather and strenuous days in the open. The more wintry it was without, the more glowing the warmth within his hardy, alert body. If you had met him as he returned from a holiday afternoon spent on snow-shoes, your pulses would have throbbed in sympathy with his happy, tingling vigor. You would have felt as if you had “warmed both hands before the fire of life.”

He had bright Irish eyes, a ready Irish laugh, and the merry heart that belongs with them. His heart was, moreover, as warm as it was glad. He laughed with people, not at them; and he had a quick understanding of their troubles and difficulties as well as of the fun that lay near the surface of things. This means that his heart caught the beat of other hearts, and that he early learned the lessons that love alone can teach.

It was while he was still a student that he decided what his life work must be. “Man cannot live by bread alone”--these words had a very vital meaning for him. There were many in the world, he knew, who spent all their days struggling for bread, as if that alone could satisfy their longing for life. Very simply he said to himself: “I must use my strength to help where help is most needed. I must go to the far-off, frontier places where people live and die without light and without hope.”

As soon as he had graduated from Trinity College, Toronto, and was ordained a minister of the church, he went as missionary to an Indian tribe on the northern shore of Lake Huron. In caring for this wild, neglected flock the young shepherd needed all his splendid, vigorous health and hardihood. He went around in summer drought and winter storm, often sleeping by a camp-fire or in an Indian wigwam, in order that he might bring the light of a new hope into the dark lives of these first Americans.

“The Indians have learned little good from the white men or from civilization,” he said ruefully. “They have acquired some of our weaknesses and diseases--that is about all.”

He longed to bring to them in exchange for the old free life in their vast forests and broad prairie country, a new freedom of the spirit that should enable them to understand and use the good things in the white man’s world. Do you think that he tried to do this through preaching? He really did not preach at all. He lived with the people and talked to them as a friend who was ready to share what he had with others on the same trail.

Do you remember Emerson’s much-quoted challenge?--“My dear sir, what you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you are saying.” What a person is will always be heard above what he says. In the case of Mr. Rowe, the strong, self-reliant, sympathetic, kindly spirit of the man ever talked with a direct appeal to his people. He tramped and hunted, canoed and fished with them, and shared with them the fortunes of the day around the evening camp-fire. No one had a cheerier word or a heartier laugh. They were ready to hear all that he had to tell them of the things that make life happier and better, and of the Master he served, who loved his red children no less than the white.

When the work was well under way on the Indian reservation, the young man accepted the call to a new field at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Here he had again the challenge and inspiration of pioneer work. There were six members of his church when he took charge; when, ten years later, he left his flock to another pastor it numbered two hundred and fifty. He had, moreover, pushed out into the surrounding country and established missions at several different points. He was sure that his strength and endurance, his power to conquer cold, fatigue, and other unfriendly conditions, should be used in the greatest cause of all--in going “to seek and save those that are lost” in the wild places of the earth.

“I love battling with wind and weather and pulling against the stream,” he used to say. “I was born tough, and it’s only common sense to put such natural toughness to some real use.”

So it was that, like Saint Christopher, he was resolved to serve his King with his strength.

In 1895, when a bishop was wanted to take charge of the great unexplored field of all Alaska--scattered white men who had gone there for fish, furs, or gold; Indian tribes in the vast, trackless interior; and Eskimos in the far North within the Arctic Circle--people said without hesitation, “Mr. Rowe is the man to go as shepherd to that country.”

A bishop, you know, is an “overseer,” one who is responsible for the welfare of the people of a certain district or diocese, as it is called. He is a sort of first shepherd, who has general charge of all the flocks (churches and missions), and who tries to provide for those that are without care. The man to undertake this work in Alaska would have to be one of the hardy, patient explorer-missionaries, like Father Marquette, who in 1673 traveled in a birch canoe through the Great Lakes and along the Mississippi, ministering to the Indians and making a trail through the New World wilderness.

Alaska is an Indian word which means “the Great Country.” It is, indeed, not one but many lands. Most people think of it as a wild, snow-covered waste, whose arctic climate has been braved by white men only for the sake of its salmon, seals, and later for the gold that was found hidden away in its frost-locked soil. The country along the Pacific coast is warmed by the Japan current just as the British Isles are by the Gulf Stream, and its climate is milder in winter and cooler in summer than that of New England. It is a land of wonderful, inspiring beauty, with lordly, snow-crowned mountain peaks; forests of enchanting greenness bordering clear, deep fiords; and fields bright with poppies, bluebells, wild roses, and other flowers of the most vivid coloring. The interior, through which flows the Yukon, that great highway of Alaska, is much colder, but it is only the northern portion reaching into the Polar Sea that has the frigid conditions that many people associate with “the Great Country.”

When in early April, Bishop Rowe took the steamer from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, he found that two hundred of his fellow passengers were bound for the newly discovered gold fields. Many of them were fine, rugged fellows who loved strenuous endeavor better than easy, uneventful days. Some few of them were “rolling stones” of the sort that would make trouble anywhere.

“When I looked forward to what might be done for the lonely settlers and forlorn natives in Alaska,” said Bishop Rowe, “I did not at first realize that an important part of the work would be with the great army of gold-seekers who suddenly find themselves in the midst of hardships, disappointments, and temptations that they have never known before.”

Of course the men on board were anxious to learn everything they could about the “Great Country.” Each person who had been to Alaska before was surrounded by a group of eager questioners.

“It is the richest country on God’s earth,” declared a merchant. “There are no such hauls of salmon and halibut anywhere else. Why, the fisheries alone are worth more in one year than the paltry sum of $7,200,000 that we paid Russia for Alaska. And think how the people in America made fun of Seward for urging the purchase. Said it was fit for nothing but a polar bear picnic grounds.”

“Wasn’t it hinted that the United States was paying Russia in that way for her friendship during the Civil War--by offering to take a frozen white elephant off her hands and giving her a few million dollars into the bargain?” asked another.

“Yes,” rejoined a man who was evidently a hunter, “and we’re just beginning to wake up to the bargain we have. I’ve been there before for the sport--bear, moose, caribou. You never knew such a happy hunting ground for the chap who goes in for big game. But now I’m for the gold fields. And, believe me, I’ve the start of you other fellows in knowing what I’m up against. There are no Pullman sleepers where we are going, let me tell you. We’ll have to make our own trails over snow-covered mountains, across glaciers, and through cañons, but the prize is there, boys, for those who have the grit to win out.”

“You talk about knowing Alaska,” put in another, scornfully, “and you see there nothing but fish, big game, and the chance to find some of the yellow dust that drives men mad. It’s a fairer land than you have ever even dreamed of, with greener pines and nobler fiords than Norway can show, and mountains more sublime than the Alps. Do you know it’s a country that will feed a people and give them homes where the air is fresh and fragrant with snow, sunshine, and flowers? You hunters and fishers and prospectors who go to Alaska just to make money and then run away to spend it, make me tired. You look upon that magnificent country--white man’s country, if there ever was such--as nothing but so much loot.”

“You fellows remind me of the story of the blind men and the elephant,” said Bishop Rowe, with his hearty laugh. “You remember how one felt a tusk and said the creature was just like a spear, while the one who touched the side said it was a wall, and the last beggar who chanced to get hold of the tail said it was like a rope. There is evidently more than one Alaska, and each one knows only the country that he has seen. We shall soon see for ourselves--what we shall see.”

Of all the men who landed at Juneau, Bishop Rowe was in a sense the only real Alaskan, for he alone intended to make his home in the country. Even the man who had called it “white man’s country” was going there in the character of tourist-reporter to take away impressions of its marvelous scenery; its inspiring contrasts of gleaming, snow-capped peaks and emerald watersides vivid with many-colored blossoms; its picturesque Indian villages with their grotesque totem poles; its gold “diggings” with their soldiers of fortune.

Everybody was busy getting together the necessary outfit for the journey on the trail across the coast range to the Yukon, along which the adventurers made their way to Circle

Bishop Peter T. Rowe]

City, a mining center eight hundred and fifty miles from Juneau.

On April 22, the bishop, with one companion, left the seaport for his first journey in the land of his adoption. Sometimes he was climbing steep mountains where he had to dig out with his stick a foothold for each step; sometimes he was walking through narrow cañons not more than twelve or fourteen feet in width, where overhanging rocks and snow slides threatened to crush him; sometimes he was creeping along the edge of cliffs so high and sheer that he dared not trust himself to look down; sometimes he was treading warily over the frozen crust of a stream whose waters seethed and roared ominously beneath the icy bridge.

As he pushed on, hauling his heavy sled (it weighed, with the camping outfit and provisions, four hundred and fifty pounds), you can imagine that he had an appetite for his dinner of toasted bacon and steaming beans. Sometimes his gun would bring down a wild duck to vary this hearty fare.

He knew what it was, however, to be too tired to eat or sleep. That was when he was felling trees and whipsawing the logs into boards for a boat. The men who had promised to furnish him with transportation as soon as the ice was broken up had not kept their agreement, and he faced the open season with no means of continuing his journey.

“If you’ll just camp here with us fellows for a spell, comrade,” said the men in whose company he found himself at Carabou Crossing, “we’ll all pitch in and give you a day’s help when we’ve got our own lumber sawed.”

Then the good-natured miners had a shock of genuine surprise. The preacher whom they proposed to pull out of his difficulty proved that he was neither a tenderfoot nor a shirker.

“I think I’ll see what I can do for myself before I ask you men to come to the rescue,” he said.

The blows of his ax resounded merrily as he put himself to his task. Then after the logs were rolled on the saw-pit he whipped out the lumber in something less than two days. When night came his muscles ached but his pulses sang.

“What a friend a tree is!” he said, smiling happily at the leaping, crackling flames. “Here it is giving us a rousing fire and boughs for our beds, as well as lumber for our boats and gum and pitch to make them watertight.”

The rude but plucky little craft was finished and mounted on runners to take it to the place of launching before those who had volunteered to help him had their own lumber sawed. The rough men were much impressed. This missionary who was not above sharing their toil and hardships must have a message that was worth hearing. They gathered about him with respectful attention when he said:

“We’re hundreds of miles from a church here, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t feel the need of one, does it? Let’s have a service together about the camp-fire before we go on our way.”

The firelight shone on softened faces and earnest eyes as the gold seekers sat gazing up at the man who spoke to them simply and fearlessly of the treasures of the spirit which he that seeks will be sure to find.

“You men have given up comfort and friends and risked life itself to find your golden treasure,” he said. “Some of you may win the prize you seek; many more may be doomed to disappointment. Will you not take with you something that will make you strong to bear either the temptations of success or the trials of failure? It is yours for the asking; only reach out your hand and you will touch it.

“’Tis heaven alone that is given away,
’Tis only God may be had for the asking.”

As Bishop Rowe talked, his hearers seemed to lean on his words as naturally as one leans on a trusty staff when the way is rough and steep. And when he had gone, much that he had said lingered with them through the feverish rush forward and the long desolate winter that followed, when the cracking ice and the howling wolves alone broke the awful stillness about their remote camp.

The steadfast faith and the cheerful endurance of our pioneer missionary were tried more than once as he drew his boat, which weighed with the load of provisions some 1400 pounds, over the frozen surface of a chain of lakes where he had to exercise ceaseless vigilance to avoid bad ice. Then there were three days of ice breaking after the spring thaw was well under way before he could begin to paddle with the stream.

It was now the pleasantest time of the year--the time of the long days when you can almost see the grasses and flowers shoot up as they take advantage of every moment of life-giving sunshine. The warm wind brought the smell of clover and the voice of leaping water-falls. It seemed as if one could taste the air; it was so fresh with the pure snow of the heights and so golden-sweet with sunshine and opening blossoms.

The paddler on the Yukon, however, cannot become too absorbed in the beauties by the way. There are dangerous rapids and unexpected cross currents that require a steady head and a strong hand, and the new bishop frequently had reason to be grateful for the skill in canoeing that he had won in his camping days in Canada.

If he had been out for game he would have found more than one opportunity for a good shot. There were brown bears looking at him from the brush along the banks, and bears fishing for salmon in the swift water. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of an antlered moose among the trees, and now and then he saw an eagle swoop down to seize a leaping fish in its claws. Flocks of ducks with their funny, featherless broods scurried over the water, disturbed by the sudden appearance of the canoe.

The bishop visited the Indian villages along the stream, as well as the missions that had been planted at various points to minister to the natives. Imagine what his cheering presence meant to the lonely workers in the wilderness. As he went along he was planning how best he might meet the needs of the people with new missions, hospitals, and schools.

“Why is it that all you tough, rough-riding Alaskan fellows set such store by this Bishop Rowe?” a man from Fairbanks was asked.

“Well, for one thing his works have not been in words but in deeds,” was the reply. “Let me tell you how it was with us when he came over the ice from Circle City in the winter of 1903. He looked us over and saw the thing we most needed. He saw no dollars, either in sight or in the future. He saw only that a poor lot of human creatures, up against a dead-hard proposition, needed a hospital. ‘You have the ground,’ said he; ‘you raise half the money and I will leave the other half for the building. Then I will take care of the nurses, medicines, and everything else you need.’ Of course he is for his church, but he and his church are always for their people--and their people are any that fare over the trail.”

It was soon said of this master missionary that he was “the best musher in Alaska,” “Mush!” or “Mush on!” is the cry that the men on the winter trails give to their dog teams. It is, perhaps, a corruption of the French word _marchons_, which means “Go on!” There is seldom a winter when Bishop Rowe does not travel from one to two thousand miles with his team of six huskies to visit his people.

Do you picture him sitting comfortably wrapped in fur robes on the sledge while the dogs pull him as well as the store of food for the six weeks’ journey on which he is bound? Look again! There he is walking on snow-shoes ahead of the team leader; he is “breaking trail” for the dogs who have all they can do to drag the laden sled. In order to lighten their load he selects a tree at each camping-place to serve as a landmark, and hides there a store of food for the return trip.

“That is a plan that works well unless the sly wolverines manage to get on the scent of the cache,” he said. “But you must go as light as possible when you travel over a waste of snow, and are forced at times to cover forty miles a day. It is a trip that takes all the unnecessary fat off you; and you get as strong as a mule and as hungry as a bear.”

You would think that the mountain climbing, canoeing, and marching on snow-shoes which are part of his yearly round would be all that he could possibly need to take off the “unnecessary fat” and keep him in the “pink of training.” The winter trip with the dog sledge, however, brings many situations when life itself depends upon one’s physical fitness. In preparation for those journeys, the bishop goes through a regular series of exercises--long distance running, hill-climbing, and even jumping rope. The following extract from one of his diaries kept during a six weeks’ trip over the Arctic waste when mountains and valleys alike were muffled in a white silence, and all the streams were voiceless, spell-bound rivers of ice, will show what making the rounds in the diocese of all Alaska means:

Our sled was loaded with robes, tent, stove, axes, clothing, and
food for sixteen days for dogs and selves. Wind blew the snow like
shot in our faces. I kept ahead of the dogs, leading them, finding
the way. We had to cross the wide river; the great hummocks made
this an ordeal; had to use the ax and break a way for the dogs and
sled. In the midst of it all the dogs would stop; they could not
see; their eyes were closed with the frost; so I rubbed off the
frost and went on. The time came when the dogs would--could--no
longer face the storm. I was forced to make a camp. It was not a
spot I would choose for the purpose. The bank of the river was
precipitous, high, rocky, yet there was wood. I climbed one hundred
feet and picked out a spot and made a campfire. Then returned to
the sled, unharnessed the dogs, got a “life line,” went up and tied
it to a tree by the fire. By means of this we got up our robes and
sufficient food. Here after something to eat we made a bed in the
snow.... It was a night of shivers. Froze our faces.

After a sleepless night we were up before daybreak. It was still
blowing a gale; had some breakfast; tried to hitch the dogs, but
they would not face the storm, so I resigned myself to the
situation and remained in camp. It was my birthday, too. I kept
busy chopping wood for the fire.... In carrying a heavy log down
the side of the mountain, I tripped, fell many feet, and injured
shoulder slightly.

After another cold and shivering night we found the wind somewhat
abated and without breakfast hitched up the dogs, packed sled, and
were traveling before it was light.... Early in the day while
piloting the way I encountered bad ice, open water, broke through
and got wet. After that I felt my way with ax in hand, snow-shoes
on feet, until it grew dark. In the darkness I broke through the
ice and escaped with some difficulty....

A worker in a lonely frontier post where there were plentiful discouragements once said: “When I am tempted to think that I am having a hard time I just think of Bishop Rowe. Then I realize that it is possible to feel that creature comforts are not matters of first importance. How splendidly he proves that a man can rise above circumstances, and still march on and laugh on no matter what may be happening about him or to him!”

We have seen how the Bishop of Alaska fares in winter when the world is a vast whiteness save only for the heaving dark of the sea; when the avalanches are booming on the mountains; when the winds are sweeping through the cañons, and all the air is filled with ice-dust. What can he accomplish through these journeys that he should forego all comfort and risk life itself?

First, he brings light and cheer to the homesick miners--to the dull-eyed, discouraged men who have struggled and toiled without success, and to the excited, watchful ones who fear to lose what they have won.

“Where are all the people going?” asked a stranger in Fairbanks one Sunday.

“Bishop Rowe is here,” replied the hotel clerk smilingly. “Everybody turns out when he comes to town. You see,” he added thoughtfully, “he somehow knows what a man needs no matter where he is or what he is. There is something that goes home to each one who listens.”

But the adventurers from civilization are not the bishop’s chief care. His first thought is for the Indians and Eskimos, who, if they have gained somewhat, have suffered much through the coming of the white men to their shores.