WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED BY THE 

 UNITED STATES TOWARD BUILDING 

 THE PANAMA CANAL* 



By Theodore P. Shonts 

 Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission 



WHEN I received Vice-Presi- 

 dent Lupton's invitation to 

 come before your association 

 and talk on the Panama Canal, I ac- 

 cepted it with pleasure because of the 

 opportunity it afforded of talking to busi- 

 ness men in a business way of what is a 

 great business project. As I view it, the 

 building of the Panama Canal is a busi- 

 ness, not apolitical, proposition. I pro- 

 pose, in what I have to say to you, to 

 talk as a practical man to practical men 

 who are themselves engaged in large 

 commercial enterprises and who know 

 from experience the difficulties to be met 

 and the enormous amount of thought 

 and labor involved in the inauguration 

 of great undertakings in the United 

 States. You will be able to appreciate, 

 therefore, how every difficulty was ag- 

 gravated in an enterprise of the magni- 

 tude of the Isthmian Canal, in which 

 the preparatory work had to be carried 

 on 2,000 miles from the base of supplies. 

 But this is not all. The work had to be 

 done in a hostile climate and under health 

 conditions which, through centuries of 

 neglect of all sanitary principles, had be- 

 come a menace to the lives of all persons 

 save natives of the tropics. 



In order, therefore, to make the Isth- 

 mus a place fit to live in and to work 

 in, there were three fundamental tasks 

 which had to be performed in advance 

 of all others : 



First. Thorough sanitation of the 

 Isthmus. 



Second. Providing suitable habita- 

 tions for all classes of employes. 



Third. Providing a system of food 

 supply which would afford to all em- 

 ployes opportunity of obtaining whole- 

 some food at reasonable cost. 



First. In regard to sanitation : When 

 the United States began this work there 

 were no systems of water works, of sew- 

 erage, or of drainage on the Isthmus. 

 The people depended largely on unpro- 

 tected cisterns for their water supply, 

 filled during the rainy season, and on 

 barrels filled from neighboring streams, 

 all breeding places for mosquitoes. The 

 filth of ages had accumulated around 

 the dwellings and in the streets, undis- 

 turbed except when washed away by 

 torrential rains. Pools of stagnant water 

 had existed for years in proximity to 

 dwellings, and insect-breeding swamps 

 lay undrained adjacent to the cities and 

 many of the towns. Seventy per cent 

 of Panama is now supplied with pure 

 mountain water, fed from a storage 

 large enough to furnish sixty gallons 

 per day to each inhabitant after its 

 present population shall have increased 

 one-half. Fifty per cent of a complete 

 modern sewerage system has been in- 

 stalled, and work on the remainder is 

 being carried rapidly forward. The first 

 million of brick for paving its streets 

 are on the ground. The city has been 

 fumigated time and again, first house 

 by house, to stop the spread of disease, 

 and again as a unit — that is, the entire 

 city at one time. A large force is just 

 finishing a thorough cleaning of the 

 city — the first scrubbing it has had dur- 

 ing its centuries of existence ; and Gov- 



* Ah address to the American Hardware Manufacturers' Association, Washington, D. C, 

 November 9, 1905. 



