560 The National Geographic Magazine 



the conveniences which science and ex- 

 perience can command. There is prob- 

 ably no institution in the world where 

 patients receive better treatment or more 

 faithful service than in Ancon Hospital." 



Second. In regard to providing quar- 

 ters for the employes : The commis- 

 sion inherited from the French company 

 more than 2,100 buildings, all in bad 

 condition. During the past year 649 of 

 them have been repaired, 58 new build- 

 ings have been erected, and 67 more are 

 in course of construction ; two new 

 hotels, three stories high and containing 

 from 55 to 60 rooms each, have been 

 completed, and authority has been 

 granted for eight others, a portion of 

 which are under construction at the 

 present time. Work is in progress also 

 on cottages for married employes and 

 on bachelor quarters. In this work of 

 construction 2,400 men are employed, 

 and additional carpenters are being sent 

 out with every steamer. This work is 

 being pressed forward with the utmost 

 vigor. 



Third. In regard to food supplies : 

 This was the most serious problem that 

 confronted us. If we couldn't feed the 

 men, we couldn't build the canal. 

 Owing to the fact that the natives never 

 look beyond their present necessities, 

 no surplus food supply ever accumu- 

 lates. This normal condition of no 

 surplus was greatly intensified by the 

 almost total failure of the crops for the 

 two preceding years, by the abandon- 

 ment by agricultural laborers of their 

 farms back in the hills for work on the 

 canal, where they received higher pay 

 for shorter houis, and by quarantine 

 against the port of Panama on account 

 of bubonic plague, which prevented the 

 arrival of foodstuff from neighboring 

 provinces. 



We were thus brought face to face 

 with the problem of feeding twelve 

 thousand (12,000) men, with base of 

 supplies 2,000 miles away. 



We immediately arranged to open 



local commissary stores at every im- 

 portant labor camp, to provide mess- 

 houses, and to furnish food, both cooked 

 and uncooked, to all employes at cost. 

 We cabled orders to have our steamers 

 equipped with refrigerating plants ; we 

 arranged for the erection of a temporary 

 cold-storage plant at Colon, and we pur- 

 chased refrigerator cars for immediate 

 shipment to the Isthmus, thus establish- 

 ing a line of refrigeration from the mar- 

 kets of the United States to the com- 

 missary stations of the Isthmus. We 

 also purchased from individual lessees 

 the equipment in existing hotels and 

 assumed their management ourselves. 

 The net result of these efforts is that 

 today we are affording to all employes 

 opportunity to obtain an abundant sup- 

 ply of wholesome food, cooked and un- 

 cooked, at reasonable prices. The silver 

 men — by which I mean the common 

 laborers — are being fed for 30 cents per 

 day, and the gold employes — by which I 

 mean those of the higher class — at 90 

 cents per day, and it is good food in 

 place of bad. There may be dispute 

 about the blessing of tainted money, but 

 there can be none about the curse of 

 tainted food. 



But in addition to these fundamental 

 tasks of improving the health conditions 

 on the Isthmus and providing for the 

 physical comfort and well being of all 

 classes of employes, another essential 

 preliminary to actual canal building has 

 been receiving our earnest attention. I 

 refer to the enlargement and improve- 

 ment of our facilities for receiving and 

 distributing the immense quantities of 

 materials and supplies which will enter 

 into the construction of the canal, as 

 well as into the work referred to. The 

 only really valuable instrument essential 

 to canal building acquired by our gov- 

 ernment in its purchase from the French 

 was the Panama Railroad. But this 

 instrument, like all the others whose 

 wrecks cover the Isthmus, had been neg- 

 lected and its equipment allowed to be- 



