Chapter II: Part 2

So that, summing up the evidence of twelve engineers examined before the committee (including Mr. Lindon W. Bates), there were eight American engineers strongly and unequivocally in favor of a lock canal, while four expressed their views to the contrary. Subjecting the mass of testimony to a critical examination, I cannot draw any other conclusion or arrive at any other conviction than _that the lock project, in the light of the facts and large experience, has decidedly the advantage over the sea-level proposition_. And this view is strengthened by the fact that the opinion of the engineers most competent to judge--that is, men like Mr. Noble, who has thoroughly studied lock-canal construction, management, and navigation, who as a member of the United States Deep Waterway Commission reexamined probably as thoroughly as any living authority into the entire subject of the mechanics and practice of lock canals--is emphatically opposed to the sea-level proposition.

When a man like Mr. Stearns, of national and international reputation as a waterworks engineer, who for many years has been in charge of the extensive construction work of the Massachusetts Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, and who probably has as large a practical and theoretical knowledge of earth-dam construction as any living authority, declares himself to be strongly in favor of the lock project and believes in the entire safety of the dams required in connection therewith, I hold that such a judgment may be relied upon and that it should govern in national affairs as it would govern in private affairs if the canal construction were a business enterprise and involved the risk of private capital. When we find a man like Mr. Harrod, who for many years has been in charge of levee construction in Louisiana, thoroughly familiar with the theory and practice of river and flood control, express himself in favor of the lock project and in opposition to the sea-level canal, I hold that we may with entire confidence accept his judgment as a governing principle in arriving at a final decision respecting the type of the canal to be finally fixed by the Congress.

And, going back to the minority report of the Board of Consulting Engineers, we find that Mr. Joseph Ripley, the general superintendent at present in charge of the "Soo" Canal, and Mr. Isham Randolph, chief engineer of the sanitary district of Chicago, and thoroughly familiar with canal construction and management, both American engineers of much experience and high standing, pronounce themselves in favor of a lock canal. When confronted by these facts, I for one would rely upon American engineers, American conviction and American experience, and accept the lock-canal proposition.

In this matter, as in all other practical problems, we may safely take the business point of view, and calculate without bias or prejudice the respective advantages and disadvantages; and the more thorough the method of reasoning and logic applied to the canal problem the more emphatic and incontrovertible the conclusion that the Congress should decide in favor of a plan which will give us a navigable waterway across the Isthmus within a measurable distance of time and with a reasonable expenditure of money, as opposed to a visionary theory of an ideal canal which may ultimately be constructed, possibly for the exclusive benefit of future generations, but at an enormous waste of money, time, and opportunity. I do not think we want to repeat at this late stage of the canal problem the fatal error of De Lesseps, who, when he had the opportunity in 1879 to make a choice of a practical waterway, being influenced by his great success at Suez, upon the most fragmentary evidence and in the absence of definite knowledge of actual conditions, decided beforehand in favor of a sea-level canal. It was largely his bias and prejudice which proved fatal to the enterprise and to himself.

I may recall that the so-called "international congress of 1879" was a mere subterfuge; that the opinions of eminent engineers, including all the Americans, were opposed to a sea-level project and in favor of a lock canal, but De Lesseps had made his plans, he had arrived at his decision, and in his own words, at a meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers held in January, 1880, said, "I would have put my hat on and walked out if any other plan than a sea-level canal project had been adopted."

The situation to-day is very similar to the critical state of the canal question in 1902. What was then a question of choice of route is to-day a question of choice of plan. What was then a geographical conflict is to-day a conflict of engineering opinions. It has been made clear by the reference to the report of the Board of Consulting Engineers and by the testimony of the engineers before the Senate committee that the opinion of eminent experts is so widely at variance that there is little, if any, hope of an ultimate reconciliation. It is a choice of one plan or the other--of a sea-level or a lock canal. In respect to either plan a mass of testimony and data exists, which has been brought forward to sustain one view or the other. In respect to either plan there are advantages and disadvantages. The majority of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals have reported favorably a bill providing for the construction of a canal at sea level. From this majority opinion the minority of the committee emphatically and unequivocally dissent, and in their report they express themselves in favor of the lock canal.

The minority report calls attention to the changed conditions and requirements, which now demand a canal of much larger dimensions than originally proposed. Even as late as 1901 the depth of the canal prism was to be only 35 feet, against 40 to 45 feet in the project of only five years later. The bottom width has been increased from 150 to 200 feet and over. The length of the locks has been changed from 740 to 900 feet, and the width from 84 to 90 feet. These facts must be kept in mind, for they bear upon the questions of time and cost, and a sea-level or lock canal, as proposed to-day, is in all respects a very much larger affair, demanding very superior facilities for traffic, than any previous canal project ever suggested or proposed. This change in plans was made necessary by the Spooner act, which provides for a canal of such dimensions that the largest ship now building, or likely to be built within a reasonable period of time, can be accommodated.

Now, the estimated saving in money alone by adopting the lock plan--that is, on the original investment, to say nothing of accumulating interest charges--would be at least $100,000,000. Granting all that is said in favor of a sea-level canal, it is not apparent by any evidence produced that such a canal would prove a material advantage over a lock canal. All its assumed advantages are entirely offset by the vastly greater cost and longer period of time necessary for construction, and I am confident that they would not be considered for a moment if the canal were built as a commercial enterprise. I do not think that they should hold good where the canal is the work of the nation, because a vast sum of money otherwise needed will be eventually sunk if the sea-level project is adopted, and entirely upon the theory that if certain conditions should arise _then_ it would be better to have a sea-level than a lock canal. We have never before proceeded in national undertakings upon such an assumption; we have never before, as far as I know, deliberately disregarded every principle of economy in money and time; we have never before in national projects attempted to conform to merely theoretical ideas, but we have always adhered to practical, hard common-sense notions of _what is best_ under the circumstances.

The majority of the committee attack the proposition that the proposed lock canal will have "locks with dimensions far exceeding any that have ever been made." If this principle were adopted in every other line of human effort all advancement would come to an end--even the canal enterprise itself--for, as it stands to-day, it far exceeds in magnitude any corresponding effort ever made by this or any other nation. They say that the proposed flight of three locks at Gatun would be objectionable and unsafe, but we have the evidence of American engineers of the highest standing, whose reputations are at stake, who are absolutely confident that these locks can be constructed and operated with entire safety. The committee say that "the entry through and exit from these contiguous locks is attended with very great danger to the lock gates and to the ships as well"; but if mere inherent danger of possible accidents were an objection there would be no great steamships, no great battleships, no great bridges and tunnels, no great undertakings of any kind.

The committee point out that accidents have occurred in the "Soo" Canal and in the Manchester Ship Canal; but the conditions, in the first place, were decidedly different, and, in the second place, they proved of no serious consequence as a hindrance to traffic and did no material injury to the canal. The "Soo" Canal has been in operation as a lock canal for some fifty years; it has been enlarged from time to time, and to-day accommodates a larger traffic than passes through all other ship canals of the world combined. It is a sufficient answer to the objections to say that this experience should have a determining influence in arriving at a conclusion, for the inherent problems of lock-canal construction are as well understood by American engineers as any other problems or questions in engineering science. The proposed deep waterway with a 30-foot channel from Chicago to tide-water, which has been surveyed by direction of Congress, proposes an expenditure of $303,000,000, and several locks with a lift of 40 feet or more. The enlargement of the Erie Canal by the State of New York, at an expenditure of $101,000,000, involves engineering problems, including lock construction, not essentially different from those inherent in the lock-canal project at Panama; and if these problems can be solved by our engineers at home, it stands to reason that we may rely upon their judgment that they can be solved at Panama.

The majority of the Senate committee object to the proposed dam at Gatun, and say that--

Earth dams founded on the drift and silt of ages, through which
water habitually percolates, to be increased by the pressure of the
85-foot lock when made, have been referred to by many of our
technical advisers as another element of danger. The vast masses of
earth piled on this alluvial base to the height of 135 feet will
certainly settle, and as the drift material of this base or
foundation has varying depth, to 250 feet or more, the settlement
of the new mass, as well as its base, will be unequal, and it is
predicted that cracks and fissures in the dam will be formed, which
will be reached and used by the water under the pressure above
mentioned, and will cause the destruction of the dam and the
draining off of the great lake upon which the integrity of the
entire canal rests.

But all of this is mere conjecture. The evidence of Engineer Stearns, a man of large experience, and of Engineer Harrod, familiar with river hydraulics and levee construction, and of many others, is emphatically to the contrary. There is not an American engineer of ability, nor an American contractor of experience, who would not undertake to build the proposed dam at Gatun and guarantee its safety and permanency without any hesitation whatever. The alternative proposal of a dam at Gamboa would be as objectionable upon much the same ground, and the dam there, which is indispensable to the sea-level project, has also been considered unsafe by some of the engineers. In all questions of this kind the aggregate experience of mankind ought to have greater weight than the abstract theories of individuals, and I am confident that our engineers, who have so successfully solved problems of the greatest magnitude in the reclamation projects of the far West and in the control and regulation of the floods of the Mississippi River, will solve with equal success similar problems at Panama.

The committee further says that the sea-level project contemplates the removal of some 110,000,000 cubic yards of material, while the lock canal would require the removal of only about half that quantity, or, in other words, that there is a difference of some 57,000,000 cubic yards, which, "to omit to take out ... is to confess our impotence, which is not characteristic of the American people or their engineers or contractors." By this method of reasoning a nation which can build a battleship of 16,000 tons displacement is impotent if it can not build one of twice that tonnage, and if this reason applies to quantity of material, why not say that a nation which can dig a canal 150 feet wide through a mountain some seven miles in length admits its impotence if it can not dig one 300 feet wide, or 600 feet, if it should please to do so? But why should it be less difficult or a declaration of impotency on the part of our engineers to build a safe lock canal including a satisfactory and safe controlling dam at Gatun? As I conceive the problem, it is one of reasonable compromise, and while I do not question the ability of American engineers and contractors to build a sea-level canal, I am convinced by the facts in evidence that they can not do it within the time and for the money assumed by the advocates of the sea-level project.

This question of _time_ is of supreme importance. Ten years in a nation's life is often a long space in national history. Many times the map of the world has been changed in less than a decade. No man in 1890 anticipated the war with Spain in 1898, and no man in 1906 can say what important event may not happen before the next decade has passed. The progress during peace is far greater in its permanent effect than the changes brought about by war. The world's commerce, the social, commercial, and political development of the South American republics and of Asiatic nations, all depend, more or less, upon the completion of an Isthmian waterway. It is the duty of this nation, since we have assumed this task, to construct a waterway across the Isthmus within the shortest reasonable period of time. Valuable years have passed, valuable opportunities have gone by. In 1884 De Lesseps, with supreme confidence and upon the judgment of his engineers, anticipated the opening of the Panama Canal in 1888. That was nearly twenty years ago. Shall it be twenty years more before that greatest event in the world's commercial history takes place? Had De Lesseps in 1879 gone before the International Congress with a proposition for a feasible canal at reasonable cost, free from prejudice or bias, had he then adopted the American suggestion for a lock canal, he would probably have lived to see its completion, and the world for fifteen years would have had the use of a practical waterway across the Isthmus.

As to safety in operation, which the committee discuss in their report, there is one very important point to be kept in mind, and that is that nine-tenths, or possibly a larger proportion, of shipping will be of vessels of relatively small size. If this should be the case, then the sea-level project contemplates a canal chiefly designed to meet the possible needs of a very small number of vessels of largest size, while the lock canal provides primarily for the accommodation of the class of steamships which of necessity would make the largest practical use of the Isthmian waterway. Now, it stands to reason that special precautions would be employed during the passage of a very large vessel, either merchantman or man-of-war, and even if necessity should demand the rapid passage of a fleet of vessels, say twenty or thirty, it is not conceivable that a condition would arise which could not be efficiently safeguarded against by those in actual charge and responsible for safety in the management of the canal. Considering the immense tonnage passing through the "Soo" Canal, which would not be equaled in the Panama Canal for a century to come, the very few and relatively unimportant accidents which have occurred during the fifty years of operation of that waterway are in every respect the most suggestive indorsement of the lock-canal project which could be advanced.

The time of transit, in the opinion of the majority committee of the Senate, would be somewhat longer in the case of a lock canal. This may be so, though much depends upon the class of ships passing through and their number. To the practical navigator the loss of a few hours would be a negligible quantity compared with the higher tolls that will necessarily be charged if an additional $100,000,000 is expended in construction and an additional interest burden of at least $2,000,000 per annum has to be provided for. I understand that the actual value of an hour or two in the case of commercial ships of average size would be a matter of comparatively no importance in contrast with the all-suggestive fact that the alternative project of a sea-level canal would provide no navigation whatever across the Isthmus for probably ten years more. If it is an advantage to gain an hour or two in transit ten years hence by having no transisthmian shipping facilities for the ten years in the meantime, then it might as well be argued that it would be better to project a sea-level canal 300 feet wide at every point, so that the commerce of the year 2000 may be properly provided for. But to the practical navigator of the year 1916, who leaves the port of New York for San Francisco by way of Cape Horn, a possible loss of two or three hours or more would be many times preferable, if the Isthmus were open for traffic, to a certain loss of from forty to fifty days to make the voyage all around South America.

Upon the question of cost of maintenance the majority committee in their report point out that the Board of Consulting Engineers did not submit the details of any estimate of cost of maintenance, repairs, etc., but they say that this factor was properly taken into account by the minority favoring a lock canal. Now, there is probably no more important question connected with the whole canal problem than this, for if the annual expense of maintenance, to be provided for by Congressional appropriations, should attain such an exorbitant figure as to make any fair return upon the investment impossible, it is conceivable that the most serious political and financial consequences might arise and the success of the enterprise itself might be placed in jeopardy. Upon a maximum cost, in round figures, of $200,000,000 for a lock canal, and of $300,000,000 as a minimum for a sea-level canal, the additional annual interest charge would be at least $2,000,000.

But Mr. Stearns estimates that under certain conditions a sea-level canal might cost as much as $410,000,000, which would add millions of dollars more per annum to the fixed charges which must be included in the cost of maintenance, to say nothing of a possibly much higher cost of operation. Nor can I agree to the statement that the cost of operation of a sea-level canal would be $800,000 per annum less than in the case of a lock canal; but, on the contrary, I am fully satisfied that the expense would be very much greater in the sea-level project, if proper allowance is made for interest charges upon the additional outlay, which cannot be rightfully ignored. Upon this important point the evidence of the engineers and of the minority members of the Board is strongly in favor of the lock-canal project.

As regards ultimate cost, the estimates of the majority are very much more indefinite and conjectural than the more carefully prepared estimates of the minority of the Board of Consulting Engineers. Upon this point the majority of the Senate committee say:

There are two estimates now before the Senate, both originating
with the Board of Consulting Engineers. The basis of computation of
cost at certain unit prices was adopted unanimously by the Board,
and we are told that the cost, with the 20 per cent. allowance for
contingencies, will be, for the sea-level canal, the sum of
$247,021,200. Your committee has adopted the figures stated by the
majority on page 64 of its report of a total of $250,000,000 for
the ultimate final cost of the sea-level canal.

The estimate of the minority for a lock canal at a level of eighty-five feet is, in round figures, $140,000,000, or about $110,000,000 less than for a sea-level canal, which would represent a difference of $2,200,000 per annum in interest charges at the lowest possible rate of two per cent. The majority of the Senate committee attempt to meet this difference by capitalizing the estimated higher maintenance charge, which they fix at $800,000 per annum, and they thus increase the total cost of a lock canal by $40,000,000; but this, I hold, involves a serious financial error, unless a corresponding allowance is made for the ultimate cost of the sea-level project. There is, however, no serious disagreement upon the point that a sea-level canal in any event would cost a very much larger sum as an original outlay, certainly not less than $120,000,000 more, and, in all probability, in the opinion of qualified engineers, including Mr. Stevens, the chief engineer, twice that sum.

Reference is made in the report to the probable value of the land which will be inundated under the lock-canal project with a dam at Gatun, the value of which has been placed at approximately $300,000. The majority of the Senate committee estimate that this amount might reach $10,000,000, or as much as was paid for the entire Canal Zone. The estimate is based upon the price of certain lands required by the government near the city of Panama, but one might as well estimate the worth of land in the Adirondacks by the prices paid for real estate in lower New York. The item, no doubt, requires to be properly taken into account, but two independent estimates fix the probable sum at $300,000 for lands which are otherwise practically valueless and which would only acquire value the moment the United States should need them. In my opinion, the value of these lands will not form a serious item in the total cost of the canal, and I have every reason to believe that independent estimates of the minority engineers of the Consulting Board, and of Mr. Stevens, may be relied upon as conservative.

The majority of the Senate committee further say that--

It is not necessary to dwell upon the fact that all naval
commanders and commercial masters of the great national and private
vessels of the world are almost to a man opposed unalterably to the
introduction of any lock to lift vessels over the low summit that
nature has left for us to remove.

I am not aware that any material evidence of this character has come before the Senate Committee on Isthmian Affairs, investigating conditions at Panama. I do know this, however, that until very recently it has been the American project to construct a lock canal. All the former advocates of an American canal by way of Panama or Nicaragua, or by any other route, contemplated a lock canal of a much more complex character than the present Panama project. All the advocates of a canal across the Isthmus, including many distinguished engineers in the army and navy, have been in favor of a lock canal, and almost without exception have reported upon the feasibility of a lock canal across the Isthmus and upon its advantages to commerce and navigation, and in military and naval operations in case of war. The Nicaragua Canal, as recommended to Congress and as favored by the first Walker Commission, provided for a lock project far more complex than the proposition now under consideration.

Colonel Totten, who built the Panama railroad, recommended as early as 1857 the construction of a lock canal; Naval Commissioner Lull, who made a careful survey of the Isthmus in 1874, recommended a lock canal with a summit level of 124 feet and with 24 locks. Admiral Ammen, who, by authority of the Secretary of War, attended the Isthmian Congress of 1879, favored a lock project, in strong opposition to the visionary plan of De Lesseps. Admiral Selfridge and many other naval officers who have been connected with Isthmian surveying and exploration have never, to my knowledge, by as much as a word expressed their apprehensions regarding the feasibility or practicability of a lock canal.

As a matter of fact and canal history, the lock project has very properly been considered "an American conception of the proper treatment of the Panama canal problem." Mr. C.D. Ward, an American engineer of great ability, as early as 1879 suggested a plan almost identical with the one now recommended by the minority of the Consulting Board, including a dam at Gatun, instead of Bohio or Gamboa; and, in the words of a former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Mr. Welsh, "The first thought of an American engineer on looking at M. De Lesseps' raised map is to convert the valley of the lower Chagres into an artificial lake some twenty miles long by a dam across the valley at or near a point where the proposed canal strikes it, a few miles from Colon, such as was advocated by C.D. Ward in 1879." The site referred to was Gatun, and this was written in 1880, when the sea-level project had full sway.

So that it is going entirely too far to say that all naval commanders and commercial masters are in favor of the sea-level project. Admiral Walker himself, as president of the former Isthmian Commission, and as president of the Nicaraguan Board, favored a lock canal. Eminent army engineers, like Abbot, Hains, Ernst, and others, favor the lock project. It requires no very extensive knowledge of navigation to make it clear that passing through a waterway which for 35 miles, or 71 per cent. of its distance, will have a width of 500 feet or more, compared with one which, for the larger part, or for some forty-one miles, will have a width of only 200 feet or less, must appeal to the sense of security of the skipper while taking his vessel through the canal.

But it is a question of general principles, and not of personal preference. Our concern is with a matter of fact, and not with a theory. No ship-owner on the Great Lakes considers it a serious hindrance to navigation for vessels to pass through the lock of the "Soo" Canal; no shipper running 1,000-ton barges through the future Erie Canal will have the least apprehension of danger or destruction; no captain navigating a vessel or boat through the proposed deep waterway from the ocean to the Lakes will hesitate to pass through locks with a proposed lift of over forty feet. These apprehensions are imaginary and not real. They are not derived from experience or from a summary statement of shipmasters and naval officers, but from the individual expressions and prejudice of a few who are opposed to the lock project. I am confident that if the matter is left to the practical navigator, to the ship-owner, and to the self-reliant naval officer, there will be no serious disagreement with the opinion that a lock canal, which can be built within a reasonable period of time, is preferable to any sea-level canal which may be built and opened to navigation twenty years hence or later.

There are two objections made by the majority of the Senate committee against a lock canal which require more extended consideration. These are, the protection of the canal in case of war and the danger of serious injury or total destruction by possible earth movements or so-called "earthquakes." Regarding the military aspects of the canal problem, the majority of the Senate committee say:

The Spooner act and the Hay-Varilla treaty contemplated the
fortification and military protection of the canal route. No
proposition affecting this policy is now before the Senate. In so
far as the type of canal to be adopted has a bearing upon the
jeopardy to or immunity of the canal from risk of malicious injury,
the subject of safety and protection is pertinent and most
important. If a canal of one type would be more liable to injury
than another, this liability should under no circumstances be
neglected in determining the type or plan. It does not require
argument that the use of the canal by the United States will cease
if the control passes to a hostile power between which and the
United States a state of war exists, but this is true whatever the
type may be.

As the majority of the committee point out, "no proposition affecting this project is now before the Senate." In my opinion, none is necessary. The neutrality of the canal is, by implication at least, assured, and we have pledged our national good faith that the waterway will be open to all the nations of the world. Some time in the future, when the canal is completed and an accepted fact, it may be advisable to adopt the course pursued in the case of the Suez Canal. The original concession for that canal provided, by section 3, for its subsequent fortification, but this was never carried into effect. By a convention dated December 22, 1888, among Great Britain, Germany, and other nations, the free navigation of the Suez Canal was made a matter of international agreement, and the same has been reprinted as Senate Document No. 151, Fifty-sixth Congress, first session, under date of February 6, 1900.

This, in any event, is a problem of the future. The canal is the property of the United States, and we shall always retain control. In the event of war we shall rely with confidence upon our navy to protect our interests on the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea, but even more may we rely upon the all-important fact that it could never be to the interest of any other nation sufficient in size to be at war with us to destroy this international waterway, which will become an important necessity to the commerce of each and all. No neutral nation engaged in extensive commerce or trade would for an instant allow another nation at war with the United States to injure or destroy the canal or to seriously interfere with the traffic passing through it. To destroy as much as a single lock, to injure as much as a single gate, would be considered equal to an act of war by every commercial nation of the earth. In this simple fact lies a greater assurance of safety than in all the treaties which might be made or in all the fortifications which might be established to protect the canal.

The majority of the committee well say in their report, that the power of mischief "is within easy reach of all." The possibility of an assumed occurrence is very remote from its reasonable probability. We have to rely upon our own good faith and the watchful eyes of our officers. Against possible contingencies, such as are implied in the assumed destruction of the locks by dynamite or other high explosives, we can do no more than take the same precautions which we take in all other matters of national importance. We have to take our chances the same as any other nation would; the same as commercial enterprise would. Certainly the remote possibility of such an event, the still more remote contingency that the injury would be serious or fatal to the operation of the canal, should not govern in a decision to construct a canal for the use of the present generation rather than for the generations to come. No canal can be built free from vulnerable points; no forts, no battleships, can be built free from such a risk. It would be folly to delay the construction of a canal; it would be folly to sink a hundred million dollars or more upon so remote a contingency as this, which belongs to the realm of fanciful or morbid imagination rather than to the domain of substantial fact and actual experience.

As a last resort, the opposition to a lock canal brings forward the earthquake argument. It is a curious reminder of the early and bitter opposition to the building of the Suez Canal; its enemies had to fall back upon the absurd theory that the canal would prove a failure because the blowing sands of the desert would soon fill the channel. It was seriously proposed to erect a stone wall four feet high on each side of the embankment to provide against this imaginary danger to the canal. Another early objection to the Suez Canal was that the Red Sea level was 30 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, only set at rest in 1847 by a special commission, which included Mr. Robert Stephenson, the great son of a great father, bitter to the last in his opposition to the canal, which he considered an impracticable engineering scheme. There was much talk about the assumed prevalence of strong westerly winds on the southern Mediterranean coast, and the danger of constantly increasing deposits of the Nile, it was said, would render the establishment of a port impossible. It was necessary to place a war-ship for a whole winter at anchor three miles from the shore to prove the error of this assumption and set at rest a foolish rumor which came near proving fatal to the enterprise.

Earthquakes have occurred on the Isthmus, and there is record of one shock of some consequence in 1882. The matter has been inquired into in a general way by the various Isthmian commissions, and assumed some prominence during the discussions and debates regarding a choice of routes. It was plain to even the least informed that the volcanic belt of Nicaragua constituted a real menace to a canal in that region; and one of the strongest arguments advanced in the minority report of the Senate committee of 1902, submitted by Senator Kittredge, now a leading advocate of the sea-level project, in opposition to the Nicaragua Canal, was the assertion of the practical freedom of the Panama Isthmus from the danger of earth movements.

The minority of the Senate committee of 1902 in their report, summing up the final reasons in favor of the Panama route (section 12), said:

At Panama earthquakes are few and unimportant, while the Nicaraguan
route passes over a well-known coastal weakness. Only five
disturbances of any sort were recorded at Panama, all very slight,
while similar official records at San Jose de Costa Rica, near the
route of the Nicaragua Canal, show for the same period fifty
shocks, a number of which were severe. (P. 11, S. Rep. 783, part 2,
57th Cong., 1st session, May 31, 1902.)

In another part of their report the committee said:

With the dreadful lessons of Martinique and St. Vincent fresh in
our minds, we should be utterly inexcusable if we deliberately
selected a route for an Isthmian canal in a region so volcanic and
dangerous, when a route is open to us which is exposed to none of
these dangers and is in every other respect more advantageous.

And they quote Professor Heilprin, an authority on the subject, in part, as follows:

It has, however, been known for a full quarter of a century that
the main Andes do not traverse the Isthmus of Panama, and that
there are no active or recently decayed volcanoes in any part of
the Isthmus. So far, however, as danger from direct volcanic
contacts is concerned, the Panama route is exempt. (Pp. 22-23.)

And further:

This district represents the most stable portion of Central
America. No volcanic eruptions have occurred there since the end of
the Miocene epoch, and there are no active volcanoes between
Chiriqui and Tolima, a distance of about four hundred miles. Such
earthquakes as have occurred are chiefly those proceeding from the
disturbed districts on either hand, with intensity much diminished
by the distance traversed. The canal lies in a sort of dead angle
of comparative safety.

The report continues:

The situation being, then, that the danger from volcanoes at Panama
is nothing, and that from earthquakes practically nothing, while at
Nicaragua the canal would be situated in one of the most dangerous
regions of the world from both these causes, the question should be
considered settled.

This was the opinion of the committee of 1902; it was emphatic and plain in its language; it had considered expert views and the available data. It had before it the full report of the Nicaragua Canal Commission, printed under date of May 15th of the same year, Chapter VII of which considers the subject at much greater length than has been done since that time and with a full knowledge of the facts and free from bias or prejudice. With the then recent occurrence at Mount Pelee in mind, and with a full understanding of the liability of the Isthmus to seismic shocks of minor importance, the committee emphatically indorsed the lock-canal project at Panama.

Much can be said with regard to this matter, and it is one which should, and no doubt will, receive the most careful consideration of the engineers in charge of the work. Seismic disturbances have occurred in all parts of the world, and they have occurred at Panama. Where they are not directly of volcanic origin they appear to be the result of subsidence or contraction of the earth's crust, and they have occurred and caused serious destruction far from centers of volcanic activity, among other places, at Lisbon, Portugal, and at Charleston, S.C. Some sections of the earth, as for illustration Japan and the Philippines, are no doubt more subject to these movements than others, and sections subject to such movements at one period of time may be exempt for many years if not forever thereafter.

The fearful earthquake which affected Charleston, S.C., in 1886 had no corresponding precedent in that section, nor has it been followed by a similar disturbance. Regardless of the terrible experience of 1886, the government has now in course of construction at Charleston a navy-yard, and a great dry-dock, costing many millions of dollars, which will be operated by locks or gates, and, I presume, the question of earthquakes or earth movements has not been raised in any of the reports which have been made regarding this undertaking. Earthquakes formerly were quite frequent in New England, and they extended to New York during the early years of our history, and for a time Boston and Newbury, Mass., Deerfield, N.H., and particularly East Haddam, Conn., were the centers of seismic activity, which by inference might be used as an argument against our navy-yards at Portsmouth, N.H., and Charlestown, Mass., our torpedo station at Newport, or the fortifications at Willets Point. The earthquake which destroyed Lisbon in 1755 might with equal propriety be used as an argument against the building of the extensive docks and fortifications at Gibraltar, but no one, I think, has ever questioned the solidity of the Rock.

Seismology is a very complex branch of geologic inquiry and it is a subject regarding which very little of determining value is known. Theories have been advanced that under certain geological conditions earth movements would be comparatively infrequent, if not impossible. Whether such conditions exist at Panama would have to be determined by the investigations of qualified experts. It would seem, however, from such data as are available, that the local conditions are decidedly favorable to a comparative immunity of this region from serious seismic shocks, at least such as would do great and general damage. Nor can it be argued that the locks and dams would be exposed to special risk. The earthquake of 1882 did more or less damage, but the reports are of a very fragmentary character. Newspaper reports in matters of this kind have very small value. Injury was done to the railway, but not of very serious consequence.

If the risk exists, it would affect equally a sea-level canal, in that it would threaten the tidal lock, the dam at Gamboa, and the excavation through Culebra cut. Very little is known regarding earthquake motions, and there are very few seismic elements which are really calculable in conformity to a mathematical theory of probability. It is a subject which has not received the attention in this country of which it is deserving, but enough of seismic motion is known to warrant the conclusion that the Senate committee of 1902 was, in all human probability, entirely correct when it made light of the danger of the probability of seismic shocks at Panama.

In fine, the earthquake argument has little or no force against a lock-canal project, and it has never received serious consideration as such or been used in arguments against a lock canal until the recent San Francisco disaster brought the subject prominently before the public. It is a danger as remote as a possible destruction of the proposed terminal plants at Colon and Panama by flood waves equal in magnitude to the one which destroyed Galveston in 1900, but such dangers are inherent in all human undertakings. They must be taken as a matter of chance and remote possibility, which for all present purposes may be left out of account, except that the subject should receive the due consideration of the engineers and perhaps be made a matter of special and comprehensive inquiry by the Geological Survey. In any serious consideration of the facts for or against a lock canal, I am confident that the earthquake risk may safely be ignored. The comprehensive report of the minority members of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Affairs is a sufficient and conclusive answer to all the important points which are in controversy, and it remains for Congress to cut the "Gordian knot" and put an end to an interminable discussion of much solid and substantial conviction on the one hand and of a vast amount of opinion and guesswork on the other hand. All of the evidence, all of the supplementary expert testimony which may be obtained upon the merits of the two propositions, will not change the position of those who rest their conclusions upon American experience and upon the judgment of American engineers, and who favor a lock canal. While there is no doubt that such a canal can be constructed and can be made a practicable waterway, there is a very serious question whether a sea-level canal can be constructed and made a safe and practicable waterway, at least within the limits of the estimated amount of cost and within the estimated time.

The view which I have tried to impress upon the Senate is nothing more nor less than a business view of what is, for all practical purposes, only a business proposition. If a lock canal can be built, useful for all purposes, at half the cost and within half the time of a sea-level canal, then I can come to no other conclusion than that a lock canal would be decidedly to our political and commercial advantage. A decision, however, should be arrived at. The canal project has reached a stage where the final plan or type must be determined, and it is the duty of Congress to act and to fix, for once and for all time, the type of canal, with the same courage and freedom from prejudice or bias as was the case in the decision which finally fixed the route by way of Panama.

Any amount of additional testimony and expert opinion will only add to the confusion and tend to produce a more hopeless state of affairs. Let Congress fix the type in broad outlines and leave it to responsible engineers in actual charge to solve problems in detail, and to adapt themselves to local conditions and to new problems which in the course of construction are certain to arise. Let us take counsel of the past, most of all from the experience gained in the construction of the Suez Canal, an engineering and commercial success which challenges the admiration of the world. We know how near it came to utter defeat by the conflict of opinion, by the intrigue of conniving and jealous powers, and last, but not least, by the ill-founded apprehensions and fears of those who were searching the vast domain of conjecture and remote possibilities for arguments to cause a temporary delay or ultimate abandonment.

It is not difficult to secure the opinion of eminent authority for or against any project when the facts themselves are in dispute, and when the objects and aims are not well defined. The great Lord Palmerston, the most bitter opponent of the Suez Canal scheme, in want of a more convincing argument, seriously claimed that France would send soldiers disguised as workmen to the Isthmus of Suez, later to take possession of Egypt and make it a French colony. By one method or another Palmerston tried to defeat the scheme in its beginning and to bring it to disaster during the period of construction. It is a far from creditable story. History always more or less repeats itself, whether it be in politics or engineering enterprise, but in few affairs are there more convincing parallels than in the canal projects of Panama and Suez. Lord Palmerston and Sir Henry Bulwer, then the ambassador at Constantinople, did all in their power to destroy public confidence in the enterprise, and they were completely successful in preventing English investments in the stock of the canal.[2]

It was the same Sir Henry Bulwer who, in 1850, succeeded by questionable diplomatic methods in foisting upon the American people a treaty which was contrary to their best interests and which for half a century was a hindrance and barrier to an American Isthmian canal. We owe it chiefly to the masterly and straightforward statesmanship of the late John Hay that this obstacle to our progress was disposed of to the entire satisfaction of both nations. I refer to these matters, which are facts of history, only to point out how an interminable discussion of matters of detail is certain to delay and do great injury to projects which should only receive Congressional consideration in broad outlines and upon fundamental principles. If we are to enter into a discussion of engineering conflicts, if we are to deliberate upon mere matters of structural detail, then an entire session of Congress will not suffice to solve all the problems which will arise in connection with that enterprise in the course of time. I draw attention to the Suez experience solely to point out the error of taking into serious account minor and far-fetched objections which assume an undue magnitude in the public mind when they are presented in lurid colors of impending disasters to a national enterprise of vast extent and importance.

So eminent an engineer as Mr. Robert Stephenson by his expert opinion deluded the British people into the belief that the Suez Canal would not be practicable; that, even if completed, it would be nothing but a stagnant ditch. Said Palmerston to De Lesseps:

All the engineers of Europe might say what they pleased, he knew
more than they did, and his opinion would never change one iota,
and he would oppose the work to the end.

Stephenson confirmed this view and held that the canal would never be completed except at an enormous expense, too great to warrant any expectation of return--a judgment both ill advised and erroneous as was clearly proved by subsequent events. I need only say that the Suez Canal is to-day an extremely profitable waterway, and that although the work was commenced and brought to completion without a single English shilling, through French enterprise and upon the judgment of French engineers, it was only a comparatively few years later when, as a matter of necessity and logical sequence, the controlling interest in the canal was purchased by the English government, which has since made of that waterway the most extensive use for purposes of peace and of war.

These are the facts of history, and they are not disputed. Shall history repeat itself? Shall we delay or miscarry in our efforts to complete a canal across the Isthmus of Panama upon similar pretensions of assumed dangers and possibilities of disaster, all more or less the result of engineering guesswork? Shall we take fright at the talk about the mischief-maker with his stick of dynamite, bent upon the destruction of the locks and the vital parts of the machinery, when history has its parallel during the Suez Canal agitation in "the Arab shepherd, who, flushed with the opportunity for mischief and with a few strokes of a pickax, could empty the canal in a few minutes"? Shall we be swayed by foolish fears and apprehensions of earthquakes or tidal waves, and waste millions of money and years of time upon a pure conjecture, a pure theory deduced from fragmentary facts? Again the facts of canal history furnish the parallel of Stephenson and other engineers, who successfully frightened English investors out of the Suez enterprise by the statement that the canal would soon fill up with the moving sands of the desert, that one of the lakes through which the canal would pass would soon fill up with salt, that navigation of the Red Sea would be too dangerous and difficult, that ships would fear to approach Port Said because of dangerous seas, and, finally, that in any event it would be impossible to keep the passage open to the Mediterranean.

It was this kind of guesswork and conjecture which was advanced as an argument by engineers of eminence and sustained by one of the foremost statesmen of the century. How absurd it all seems now in the sunlight of history! The Panama Canal is a business enterprise, even if carried on by the nation, and with a thorough knowledge of the general facts and principles we require no more expert evidence, so called, nor additional volumes of engineering testimony. The nation is committed to the construction of a canal. The enterprise is one of imperative necessity to commerce, navigation, and national defense, and any further discussion, any needless waste of time and money, is little short of indifference to the national interests and objects which are at stake.

Of objections to either plan there is no end, and there will be no end as long as the subject remains open for discussion. To answer such objections in detail, to search the records for proof in support of one theory or another, is a mere waste of time which can lead to no possible useful result. Among others, for illustration, there has been placed before us a letter from the chief engineer of the Manchester Ship Canal, who is emphatically in favor of a sea-level waterway. It would have been much more interesting and much more valuable to the members of Congress to have received from Mr. Hunter a statement as to why he should have changed his opinions; or why, in 1898, he should have signed the unanimous report of the technical commission in favor of a lock canal, while now he so emphatically sustains those who favor the sea-level project. It is not going too far to say, appealing to the facts of history, that Mr. Hunter may be seriously in error in this matter and may have drawn upon his imagination rather than upon his engineering experience, the same as Mr. Robert Stephenson was in serious error in his bitter opposition to the canal enterprise at Suez.

Mr. Hunter, in his letter, argues, among other points, that the lifts of the proposed locks would be without precedent. Without precedent? Why, of course, they would be without precedent. Is not practically every large American engineering enterprise without precedent? Was not the Erie Canal, completed in 1825, without precedent? Were not the first steamboat and the first locomotive without precedent? Were not the Hoosac Tunnel and the Brooklyn Bridge feats of American engineering enterprise without precedent?

Without precedent is the great barge canal which the State of New York is about to build, which will mean a complete reconstruction of the existing waterway which connects the ocean with the Great Lakes.[3]