Illustrated South America; a Chicago publisher's travels and investigations in the republics of South America, with 500 photographs of people and scenes from the Isthmus of Panama to the Straits of Magellan

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Contents

CHAPTER

I. SOUTHWARD BOUND

II. THE CANAL ZONE AND ITS ORGANIZATION

Chapter I. Southward Bound

N LEAVING the United States I took passage for the Isthmus by what is known as the "long route," that is to say, a sea course that leads along the coast of Central America's five republics, one colony of Great Britain and one State of the Mexican Republic. I was going to investigate the conditions and resources of South America, yet I watched with keen interest the shore line and coast towns of the Central American republics as we passed by them.

It is only human to be curious about our neighbors, and the nearer the neighbors live to us the more eagerly we watch for moments when their window shades are up.

At present I will only remark that Central America is reputed to be the real home of revolutionists, earthquakes, volcanoes, bananas, tarantulas (both human and entomological), and much pleasant sunshine. But it must not be forgotten that these things also flourish still farther south. After two days on the Gulf of Mexico, the first land we sighted was the State of Yucatan, the southeastern corner of (now) Mexico. The coast is low, without harbors, and thinly settled.

Presently we came to British Honduras, a small country.

but well governed from England, and with one port of some importance. It is called Belize. The grand sport of getting up revolutions is distinctly unpopular in this country, and the people are prosperous and at peace. Next we came to Guatemala, the most progressive of the Central American republics. In Guatemala they take no chances on revolutionary fires breaking out. The method they employ to "squelch" such perils, though drastic, is very effective. As soon as the Government suspects that an individual harbors a desire to start a revolution they promptly take that person out and shoot him. It saves a deal of trouble and anxiety, and the Government, no doubt, figures that in the end it also saves a great many human lives. All telegrams and cablegrams are censored by the Guatemalan Government, and it has refused to permit a wireless cable station to be installed in the country, being evidently afraid it could not tell what messages might be transmitted. It seems a bit "hidebound," doesn't it? But they do not have revolutions and are quite prosperous. We stopped at Barrios, the only port on the eastern coast, where we landed mail and passengers. Fourteen of our twenty-four passengers disembarked here to hurry home, the following day being Christmas.

We spent Christmas at sea off the uninviting coast of Spanish Honduras. It looked to be a "tipped and tumbled country." A famous Honduranian once tersely illustrated the topography of his country when he crumpled up a sheet of paper and threw it upon his desk and said : "That is an outline map of Honduras." We stopped at Puerto Cortez, the principal seaport on the Atlantic coast, and learned that the inhabitants of the country were just then, as usual, busy with a revolution, the "ins" having canceled all the commercial concessions of the "outs," thus ^xciting another, tempest in the much shaken Spanish Honduran teapot.

Six hundred miles after that we were off the coast of Nicaragua, where a successful revolution was fought out three years ago. During the progress of that historical ruction the United States Government seemed rather partial to the "outs," and when the "outs" became the "ins" Uncle Samuel adroitly tucked the new President and his Government under the protecting wing of the American eagle. The significance of this is that if they do not behave themselves Uncle Sam will have to step in and straighten things out. Ultimately this will probably occur.

On board our ship there was, naturally, a great deal of discussion, pro and con, relative to the Panama Canal. Usually the "pros" seemed to have the best of the argument. The question frequently arose as to what nationality of men were the best fitted for digging the big ditch, and I recall a story that was told. Said one Irishman to another : "Say, Patrick, what is this they be tellin' me ? I hear ye are thinkin' of goin' down to work on the Panama Canal ?"

"I am," replied Patrick.

"Sure," said the other, "but you'll find it very hot down there, as much as 115 degrees in the shade, they tell me."

"Well, what of it ?" said Patrick. "Ye don't think I'll be fool enough to work in the shade all the toime, do ye?"

An interesting gentleman, seated next to me at the Captain's table, during the voyage, was formerly President of the Republic of Costa Rica. From him I gathered much valuable information relative to his country. He had been long absent, and admitted that he was returning with a broadened mind, and with the hope that his countrymen could be induced to see that there was more to be gained by pushing affairs along commercial lines than in perpetually wrangling over the offices.

I am prompted at this point to speak critically of the peculiar policy of my own country in the matter of ocean commerce, since the vessel on which I sailed was a representative illustration of the absurdity of that policy. The vessel was owned by the United States Fruit Company, a United States corporation, commonly called the "Fruit Trust." This corporation owns and sails under foreign flags over ninety ships. These were built abroad, mostly in Scotland, and cost about two-thirds of the price of ships of equal tonnage and quality if built in American ship yards. In order to avoid the payment of duties imposed by the United States they fly foreign flags, and have officers who are citizens of and carry papers of foreign countries. Yet our United States ship yards compete with and undersell foreign countries in building ships for foreign navies !

This is a United States corporation, selling all its fruit in the United States, and controlling the tropical fruit market as completely as the Standard Oil Company has controlled the oil business. In the event of war with a foreign nation this "Fruit Trust," being a United States corporation, would demand and receive protection for its shore property from the strong arm of the United States. It is rather an anomaly, isn't it? Captain Lamb, our ship's chief officer, was an Irishman ; her purser, a Scotchman ; her chief cook, an Englishman ; her flag, British ; and her firemen all Chinamen. Doubtless all the company's ninety vessels are similarly manned. The questions that arise are these :

1. Why should the ships of a United States corporation fly foreign flags ?

2. Why should our Government be called upon to protect the shore property in a foreign country of a Trust that has its ships built in other lands ?

3. Why should not our laws be so made that it would be possible to build ships in the United States, fly the Stars and Stripes, and officer them with our own brave men ?

During the two years immediately preceding my journey to South America, I had traveled more than fifty thousand miles on water, and in that time had been in many of the chief ports of the world, but with the exception of vessels belonging to our navy, and private yachts, I saw the Stars and Stripes floating over only three steamers ! Only three, mark you, out of at least ten thousand ships that I saw in different ports and passed at sea.

Our navy, the second in the world, was built and is maintained chiefly on the theory that we should be able to protect our "merchant marine." But we have no merchant ships flying our flag to protect ! One wonders if, as a people, we Americans are really as wise as we believe ourselves to be.

Arriving at Colon, the eastern doorway to the gigantic theater of the Panama Canal, we were soon busy inspecting the herculean task the United States has here set itself. After some riding about" without seeming to get to the bottom of things, I was impressed with the fact that the only honest way to really examine the big ditch was to get right into it and walk. An illustrative incident came to my mind. A small boy that I heard about wanted to buy a puppy, and went to a man who had some for sale.

"How much do you ask for your little dogs?" he asked politely.

"Two dollars apiece," replied the man.

"But I don't want a piece — I want a whole dog," was the boy's reply.

We were not after a piece of the canal, but the whole canal, so we walked more miles than the reader would probably believe in an effort to get the whole truth.

As an achievement the canal promises to be one of the major performances of the human race, and because the changes it will likely effect are beyond computation, I fancy that a a few paragraphs relative to the history of the barrier here being pierced may seem worth the space.

For centuries it had been a foregone conclusion that some nation would ultimately try to cut through the obstruction placed by nature in the path of progress at Panama. England, Spain, Portugal and France, at different periods seriously considered or actually attempted the task. Balboa, famed in history as a great explorer and adventurer, touched at the Isthmus of Panama in the year 1501. He was a Spanish nobleman, who dissipated his fortune, and chose exile from his native land to escape imprisonment for debt. In 15 10 he returned to the Isthmus, and, history says, married the beautiful daughter of a savage Indian chieftain, and thus became a great man in this wild country. A year later he made a journey into the interior from the Atlantic coast, learning from an Indian chief that there was an open sea farther toward the south. This journey occupied him twenty-three days, as he traveled over what is now known as the Caledonian Canal route. When Balboa returned to Colon his faithful Indian wife showed him a route across the Isthmus, farther to the east, and by this route, in 15 13, he made another trip, discovering the Pacific Ocean. When Balboa reached the great ocean he drew his sword, waded into the water and claimed all it contained for his country and King.

Later he managed to take a small ship (it must have been very small) across the Isthmus, by conveying it at one point ten miles across land. In 1884 Captain Eads, the great American engineer, attempted to organize a company to construct a canal and ship-railway, the latter to take the ships from the water, transport them across a section of land and then put them back into the water again. He was simply intending to attempt what it is said Balboa accomplished four hundred years before. His scheme was no doubt practical.

In those early days, when the existence of the Straits of Magellan was in doubt, the idea of a canal was advanced. The first advocate of such a scheme was a Spaniard named Saavedra, a follower of Balboa. He sent his plans to Charles V., King of Spain, who was favorably impressed, but hesitated on account of the vast expenditure of money involved. His successor, Philip II., was approached on the matter, and he asked the advice of the priests, who, it is said, killed the proposition by quoting, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

Antonio Galvao, a Portuguese navigator of note, tells in his book of his country discovering, about the year 1550, four possible routes for a canal, but the investigators reported such extreme difficulties in the way that Portugal went no further with the project.

After that the matter rested in quiet until the latter part of the eighteenth century, owing to the discovery of a passage at the south end of South America. Then Great Britain took up the idea that it would be of great value to her if she could control a passage through the Isthmus from ocean to ocean, and in 1778 she sent an expedition out under Lord Nelson to make a survey. The expedition, however, was not successful and the matter was finally abandoned.

Two concessions for building a canal were given by the Government of Colombia to Frenchmen, one in 1825 and the other in 1838, but both failed for lack of capital. In 1878 a company was formed in Paris by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the famous French engineer, and his company secured a concession from the United States of Colombia to construct a canal on any part of the Isthmus. De Lesseps convened a congress of engineers, which decided in favor of a sea-level canal from Limon

Bay to Panama Bay. It was thought the undertaking would cost $240,000,000 and they estimated it would require twelve years to complete the canal. The company bought control of the Panama Railway, built by Americans, for $18,000,000. This was a very large sum in those days. However, the fare across the Isthmus was $25, and the road had paid in twenty-five years over 600 per cent profit.

De Lesseps had achieved great success in the building of the Suez Canal, and those interested with him were confident of his ability to repeat his success on the new project. He plunged into the work with great enthusiasm, but great as he was as an engineer, he lacked other qualifications necessary to combat successfully conditions that existed on the Isthmus. Deep in the plans of his great enterprise, he apparently paid no attention to the health of his men, sending them to work in the miasmatic swamps, where they died by thousands. No effort was made to improve the insanitary conditions that existed, and that alone was cause sufficient to doom the great undertaking.

But there was yet another reason for his failure. His en-

THE NATIONAL THEATER, CITY OF PANAMA.

gineers and staff lived in the city of Panama, where they gave more attention to enjoying themselves than they did to building the canal. But the insanitary c o n d itions were not only out in the swamps where the laborers toiled and died, but the gay city reeked with almost equally unhealthful surroundings. The officials and engineers failed to protect themselves from the germ-carrying mosquitoes, which inoculated them with yellow fever and many of them died as miserably as the laborers in the swamps.

De Lesseps had projected a sea-level canal twenty-eight feet deep, with a bottom width of seventytwo feet, and included a tunnel through the continental divide at

Culebra. The currents, due to the difference in tides of the two oceans, were to be reduced by sloping the bottom of .the canal on the Pacific side. The Chagres River was to be regulated by division channels and a dam below. Later, owing to the cost, a plan making locks necessary was substituted. Work was continued until 1889, when the company went into

A CORNER OF ONE OF THE ANCON HOS- PITAL BUILDINGS, PANAMA CANAL ZONE.

IO bankruptcy, having spent $300,000,000. It is said that one-third of this went for construction, one-third to the promoters in Paris, and one-third for the fast living of the officials and engineers.

A new French company took over the old company's rights, and continued enough work, principally in Culebra Cut, to keep the franchise. In 1904 our Government bought the rights, franchise and equipment, which for the most part was simply junk, for $40,000,000. Colombia refused to extend to our country the other necessary rights and privileges, so Panama, then a province of Colombia, seceded and became an independent republic.

The United States made a treaty with the new republic which included the payment of $10,000,000, and an annuity of $250,000, the latter to begin nine years after the treaty was signed. The United States Government guaranteed the independence of Panama and secured absolute control of what is now called the Canal Zone, a narrow ribbon of land ten miles

ONE OF THE DREDGES ABANDONED BY THE FRENCH CANAL COMPANY, PANAMA CANAL ZONE.,

PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND CANAL n

in width and forty-five miles in length, having an area of 448 square miles. The United States has jurisdiction over the water three miles from either shore of the Canal Zone. This means a perpetual lease of all governmental privileges in this territory. Its residents, however, do not acquire the rights of United States citizenship.

For the $40,000,000 paid by the United States to the New French Canal Company we received the following :

Excavation by the French, useful to us, valued at $2J,- 500,000.

The Panama Railway Company, valued at $7,000,000. This was a valuable acquisition, as it made transportation of materials easy. Forty-three thousand acres of land went with the railway property, and thirty-three thousand acres were acquired from the New French Canal Company.

Maps and technical data were valued at $2,000,000; buildings, machinery, etc., at $3,500,000, the whole totaling $40,000,000, a really extravagant price. However, when a purchaser is compelled to have what another possesses just dealing is hardly possible. The people of the United States seemed to demand that the canal be built, and probably the best price obtainable was accepted in order that the work might proceed.

In studying the canal, I observed in many places French engines, dredges and other machinery, lying along the route of the old canal, overgrown with tropical vegetation and rusted beyond the point of usefulness. Possibly it might pay a junk firm to remove them, but about that there is some doubt.

For the $10,000,000 paid to the Republic of Panama there was turned over to the United States, in addition to all public lands in the Canal Zone, one hundred and twenty thousand acres. Therefore, we own 70 per cent of the land in the Canal Zone, the remainder being owned by private citizens, mostly Panamanians. We exercise governmental rights over all. In point of fact, we paid ten dollars an acre for land worth ten cents an acre, but perhaps it was necessary.

An act passed by the United States Congress placed the building of the canal in the hands of the President of the United States, the direct functions to be administered by a commission of seven members, one member to act as chairman.

T i»0B

VIEWS IN THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE.

For convenience the operations have been under the direction of the Secretary of War. Until January, 1907, the work was preparatory — procuring machinery and equipment, righting insanitary conditions, getting rid of yellow fever and malaria, reconstructing and double-tracking the Panama Railway, building houses for an army of five thousand Americans and some thirty thousand Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, negro and other sorts of laborers. Then a stable civil government had to be established with courts, schools, police and fire departments — in short, transforming a jungle full of germ-carrying mosquitoes and injurious vegetable life into a healthful place in which to work. The old French hospital at Ancon was rebuilt and equipped with everything of the best known to medicine and surgery, that the sick and injured might be properly cared for.

In this connection I would like to say that I believe the money spent, though almost fabulous in amount, will still have been well invested, since here has been demonstrated that any unhealthful tropical country can be completely freed from the diseases common to such a climate by the proper enforcement of the laws of sanitation, and protection from the ravages caused by the germ-carrying mosquito. The object lesson here given the world, and especially other South American republics, will ultimately have effect upon human progress in all the tropics and miasmatic regions, and the benefits accruing, finally, to humanity should not be put on a dollar basis.

All this preparation that I have mentioned took a lot of money and two years and a half of hard work. At the same time excavation was continued with the French tools, excavators, locomotives, dump cars and drills. Then modern American equipment superseded the inadequate French machinery, and since that time the work has gone on rapidly. I am presenting the reader with a good many pictures of the canal in course of construction, for the time will presently arrive when the locks will be completed and the great ditch filled with water; then these pictures will become historically valuable and of interest to the next generation.

But, after all, we really owe the building of the Panama Canal to three American heroes. Not such heroes as go to the front with flags flying and bands playing to face the bullets of an armed foe, but just three quiet, brave army doctors, Reed, Lazarre and Carol. These men risked their lives when they allowed themselves to be bitten by infected mosquitoes in Cuba, and with the observations obtained before they died, aided science so greatly in the fight on the germ-carrying insects that it became possible to eliminate the dreaded pests from the Isthmus so completely that what had been the "hell hole" of the world became a place where white men can live and work in security. I think it a shame, however, that our Government never provided for the widows and families of these three doctors who died for all of us.

The canal, when we studied it, was partly completed, and after viewing it from Gatun Dam, Culebra Cut, and Pedro Miguel locks, and seeing the vast army at work with the great dredges and gigantic excavators, the immensity of the whole project was very nearly overwhelming. It made me feel somewhat like the cowboy who started across the Atlantic on the gigantic steamer, Mauretania. He was so awestruck by the enormous bulk of the steamer and the vast expanse of water that he was spellbound until some one inquired what he thought of it, when he solemnly replied, "This is sure some skiff on some creek !"

T

Chapter II. The Canal Zone And Its Organization

HE United States Government divides its administrative functions into two distinct branches, civil and military, in the Canal Zone. These governmental departments dovetail together so harmoniously that it is difficult for the ordinary observer to distinguish where one leaves off and the other begins. Yet, the reader will have some realization of the peculiarity of the situation when he considers that while the cities of Panama, with 30,000 population, and Colon, with 20,000 inhabitants, are within the boundary lines of the Canal Zone, over which flies the Stars and Stripes, they belong to the Republic of Panama, and Uncle Sam has nothing to say — out loud — about their government.

The Governor's duty is to enforce the civic regulations and laws of the Zone. The Canal Commission, the members of which are army and navy officers, except the Governor and Secretary of the Canal Zone, control the construction of the canal.

To Colonel George W. Goethals, chairman of the Commission, the "man who turned white" in his first three years of duty in the tropical heat, is due in great part the success of the construction and engineering work of the canal, and it is said that if he were not held back by our Government, two thousand miles away, in administering the canal affairs, work would go on faster and the canal would reach completion sooner and cost less.

The United States Government was, at the time of my visit, paying out $1,500,000 each month to some thirty-five thousand canal employes. Americans and Europeans were paid in gold and the Chinese, East and West Indians and negroes were paid in Panama Republic silver, worth fifty cents oh the dollar. Forty-two tons of silver were paid out monthly.

MR. BOYCE AT CAMP ELLIOTT, PANAMA CANAL ZONE.

Canal Zone revenues, collected by the Governor, have always exceeded civil expenditures. These revenues are obtained from real estate taxation and rentals, fines and liquor licenses. Saloons are allowed at certain points and the granting of licenses is under the control of the Canal Commission. The annual license is $1,200 gold, and there are some thirty-eight saloons within the limits of the Zone. There is, of course, a business difference between the Canal Commission selling liquors and granting permits to others to do so, but the moral difference is not very plain to me. Result — the men get poorer liquor and more of it.

The Zone is well supplied with public schools, there being twenty-four in operation, and the education of the children seems to be quite as carefully looked after as in the United States. The white children have American teachers, who are paid from sixty to one hundred dollars a month, while the teachers of the colored children are educated Panamanians or West Indians. The children are allowed to ride free on the 2

Panama Railway in going to and from school, to which, as an instance of "governmental paternalism," one certainly cannot object.

The fire department of the Zone would command the admiration of any one conversant with such departments, as it is equipped with engines of the most approved pattern. The horses are fine specimens brought from the States and South America, while the firemen are all men who were trained in the United States.

There are two hundred policemen in the Zone, one hundred of whom are white. These men are either ex-policemen from the United States or former sergeants of the United States army. The black policemen are recruited from the biggest and most intelligent of the Jamaicans. There is a large penitentiary at Culebra, and each police precinct has its jail. Convicts

WORKINGMEN'S QUARTERS AT CRISTOBAL, PANAMA CANAL ZONE.

are condemned to hard labor and are put to work constructing highways, a distinct example of progressive ideas.

I visited the United States marines at Bas Obispo (Low Bishop), where four hundred officers and men are stationed. The marines are the real guardians of Uncle Sam's property on the Isthmus, being ready to start at a moment's notice for any place in Central America, if a revolution should break out and they should be needed to protect our countrymen or their property.

The Young Men's Christian Association operates six clubhouses in the Zone, the buildings occupied having been erected and equipped by the Canal Commission. It costs one dollar a month to belong to the association, and as the clubrooms have gymnasiums, ice cream parlors, billiard rooms, bowling alleys, and good libraries, they are real homes to the white canal workers in their hours of recreation, a decided improvement over the old French order of things in this region.

The houses of the officials are built of wood, the porches

LABORERS AT LUNCH PANAMA CANAL.

PEDRO MIGUEL TWIN LOCKS, PANAMA CANAL, LOOKING NORTH.

and windows being equipped with wire screens to keep out the insects. The houses are commodious, well furnished, and are made quite beautiful by the tropical flowers which surround them. One thing, however, is lacking to complete the picture of real homelike places. I refer to the absence of vegetable gardens.

To Colonel W. C. Gorgas and his assistants credit should be given for making it possible for men to live and work on the Isthmus without danger of yellow fever and other epidemics peculiar to a tropical climate. In the extermination of the mosquito nearly 3,000,000 gallons of petroleum oil were poured on the streets of the cities and towns, and into the lagoons and low places of the Zone, during the first year, and this plan has been continued ever since. In addition, the cities and towns were fumigated, tons upon tons of paper were used to plaster up the holes in the walls of houses, and every source of infection was destroyed. The natives of the Isthmus stood aghast at the "scouring and scrubbing" Uncle Sam's men gave the region, but as the United States was paying the bills they were content to keep their hands off and await the outcome.

The United States also paid for the installation of modern sewerage systems in the cities of Panama and Colon, and for the paving of their streets. Large, splendidly equipped hospitals were built at Ancon and Colon, and smaller hospitals at all settlements along the route of the canal. The lepers and insane had been housed at Miraflores, a station on the Panama Railway six miles from Panama City. Colonel Gorgas built new quarters for the insane at Ancon, and the lepers are now isolated in comfortable quarters up the coast. You see what admirable things may be done by a strong and honest man, when given power and backed up by a great nation.

The labor question in the Zone is one of the questions of the greatest importance and requires most skilful and arbitrary handling, as the laborers area mixed crowd of many nationalities. While in Uganda, Africa, with my expedition, I was the guest of Archbishop Walker of the Church of England Mission, and I noticed that whenever a converted negro met a missionary on the road, or appeared before him at his residence, he always dropped on his knees. About the same relationship is sustained in the Canal Zone between the Government officials and the poor men who are really doing the work. The employes on the canal are not permitted to accept other employment, and if any one should attempt to hire any man working, or who wants to work, on the canal, whether the Canal Commission has employed him or not, that person is subject to fine and imprisonment.

In nearly every State in the Union it is unlawful for any manufacturer, mine owner, or employer of labor, to operate what is known as a "company store" to which their employes are given orders for goods, provided they have wages due them. Not so when your Uncle Samuel goes into business. Our Government owns all the stock in the Panama Railway, and the railway company operates a commissary department or "company store," and every employe on the canal and railway is given a "book," or credit for a certain amount on the com-