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The National Geographic Magazine 



LABOR IS THE DETERMINING FACTOR 



I come now to a branch of this subject 

 to which I have referred in my address 

 before the Manufacturers' Association, 

 and also in the Commission's report to 

 Congress, and I bring it up again because 

 there is nothing connected with the con- 

 struction of the canal that surpasses it 

 in importance in its bearing on results. 

 I refer to the labor question. 



The character of labor employed on 

 the Isthmus has more to do with the time 

 it will take to build the canal — more to do 

 with the cost of construction — than any 

 other determining factor. 



There is no insuperable difficulty in the 

 way of the construction of the canal from 

 an engineering point of view and with 

 any ordinary class of labor. The serious 

 problem is to get what will be considered 

 in this country anything like an ordinary 

 class of labor. In examining this ques- 

 tion we have studied and discussed the 

 merits of labor of nearly all nationalities 

 available for the purpose. The chief 

 difficulty with which we have to contend 

 in the employment of oriental labor, lies 

 in the laws which hedge about its use. 

 In order to comply with the letter and 

 spirit of these laws, the best that we can 

 do is to let out the work by contract, ad- 

 vertise and secure the lowest bidder, who 

 will be nothing more or less than an 

 agent. He will secure the labor, deposit 

 the money required by the government 

 of the country from which the laborer 

 comes for the sustenance necessary to 

 the support of his family while he is 

 away, and advance the money for the 

 necessary transportation. All this is to 

 be included in the cost of the labor de- 

 livered on the Isthmus, in addition to the 

 agent's remuneration, making it very 

 high-priced. The government must pro- 

 tect itself against the charge of forcing 

 involuntary servitude, and hence it can 

 adopt no safeguards which will prevent 

 the labor from leaving the Isthmus the 

 day after arrival, thus losing the 

 money necessary to get it there, with no 



return whatever. The result of this is 

 practically to make oriental labor pro- 

 hibitive in the construction of the canal. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH ITALIANS, SPANIARDS, 

 AND WEST INDIANS 



Experiment with Italian laborers, 

 while not made on a large scale, has not 

 been satisfactory, for the reason that 

 they do not seem possessed of great 

 vitality and succumb quickly to tropical 

 fevers. 



The West Indian negro that we are 

 using has but little life and ambition in 

 him. We are practically trying to wield 

 an inert mass, with the result that we are 

 not getting over 25 per cent or, from a 

 most liberal point of view, 33^ per cent 

 of the efficiency of the most ordinary 

 labor in the United States. We are now 

 arranging to experiment with 1,000 

 laborers from the north of Spain. This 

 class of labor was used to great advan- 

 tage by Sir William Van Horn in the con- 

 struction of his 350 miles of railroad in 

 Cuba. While not tall, they are of muscu- 

 lar build, docile in temperament, and will- 

 ing and industrious workers, with enough 

 ambition to want to become subforemen 

 and foremen in their work. In other 

 words, besides being laborers they have 

 a spark of ambition which makes it pos- 

 sible to develop them into something 

 better than brute force. These men have 

 the further advantage of being white, 

 and of speaking the language which most 

 of our foremen either know or rapidly 

 acquire after reaching the Isthmus. 



So far as the labor in the United States 

 is concerned, we might as well recognize 

 the facts. The best quality of this labor 

 is regularly employed, because of the 

 great industrial activity here. This con- 

 fines our selection to those employed only 

 as extra men and those seeking employ- 

 ment, who of course will not grade as 

 high as those regularly employed. In 

 order to get these men in some branches 

 of trade, it is necessary to pay larger 

 wages than are paid in this country, for 



