Panama fever (91 page)

389     “little better than the West Indian negro”
Gaillard to Goethals, July 12, 1907, RG 185.

389     “the efficiency of the Spaniards did not hold up”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 118.

389    nearly half of those recruited during 1906 were gone by the beginning of the following year
Mallet to Grey, January 31, 1907, FO881/8897.

390    But clashes between Spaniards and police continued
Navas,
El movimiento obrero en Panamâ
, pp. 143–44.

390     “People are falling ill the whole time”
El Socialista
, December 21, 1906, quoted in Marco,
Los Obreros espanoles
, p. 18.

390     “The labourers’ lives are not highly valued”
El Socialista
, May 14, 1909, quoted in Marco,
Los Obreros espanoles
, p. 32

390     A Naples paper claimed that most of the workers had died
Boni,
Panamá, Italia y los Italianos
, p. 144.

390    ”My own private opinion”
Stevens to Shonts, January 18, 1907, RG 185 2-E-1.

391    the deployment of no less than sixty-three Bucyrus shovels
Waldo, “The Present Status of the Panama Canal,
Engineering
, March 15, 1907.

392    ”Stevens must get out at once”
Roosevelt to Taft, February 12, 1907, Taft Papers, Taft-Roosevelt, Box 3, quoted in
Duval, And the Mountains Will Move, p.
259.

392     “blow up the Republican Party”
McCullough,
The Path between the Seas
, p. 506.

392     “an immoderate amount of adulation”
Mallet to Foreign Office, April 9, 1907, FO 881/9201.

392    ”well-planned and well-built machine”
Stevens, “An Engineer's Recollections,”
Engineering News-Record
, September 5, 1935, p. 52.

393    ”I know you pretty well now”
Maltby, “In at the Start at Panama,”
Civil Engineering
, September 1945, p. 423.

393    ”Don't talk, dig”
Star and Herald
, March 1, 1907.

394    ”in the charge of men who will stay on the job”
Mack,
The Land Divided
, p. 501.

Chapter Twenty-two: “The Army of Panama”

396     “Colonel Goethals here is to be chairman”
Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 1, p. 466.

396     “most absolute despot in the world”
Bishop,
Goethals: Genius of the Panama Canal
, p. 239.

396     “It was asserted that the Department of Government”
Goethals, ed.,
The
Panama Canal: A.n Engineering Treatise
, vol. 1, p. 46.

396    ”a case of just plain straight duty”
Bishop,
Goethals: Genius of the Panama Canal
, p. 149.

397    ”I expect to be chief of the division of engineers”
Star and Herald
, March 19, 1907.

397    ”The magnitude of the work grows and grows on me”
Goethals to his son, March 17, 1907, Goethals Papers, Library of Congress.

398    ”Yellow Peril”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 99.

399    ”the President, in his talks”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 268.

400    ”was not necessary to the work of building the canal”
Petras,
Jamaican Labor Migration
, p. 180.

400    ”I have no complaint of any kind”
Panama Police Department Report, May 14, 1907, RG185 2-E-1.

401    ”Supposed ill treatment”
U.S. Senate,
Report of Special Commission Appointed to Investigate Conditions of Labor and Housing of Government Employees of the Isthmus of Panama
, December 8, 1908, p. 51.

401     “professional agitators”
Canal Record
, March 25, 1908.

401     “At the present time all of our superintendents and foremen are unanimously of the opinion”
Goethals to Spanish chargé d'affairs at the legation in Panama, April 17, 1909, RG85.

403    ”The biggest boss is King Yardage”
Blythe, “Life in Spigotty Land,”
Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post
, March 21, 1908.

404    ”the last vestige of fear and uncertainty seemed to have left”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 131.

405    ”we were surrounded”
Jessie Murdoch account,
Chagres Yearbook
, 1913, p. 58.

405     By May 1908 there were well over a thousand families in the Zone
Report of Special Commission Appointed to Investigate Conditions of Labor and Housing of Government Employees of the Isthmus of Panama
, December 8, 1908, p. 7.

405     “It is doubtful, to be sure, whether one-fourth of the ‘Zoners’ “
Franck,
Zone Policeman 88
, p. 220.

405    ”one of the brand new cottages over the hill”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 11 off.

406    ”not until the business depression”
Report of Special Commission Appointed to Investigate Conditions of Labor and Housing of Government Employees of the Isthmus of Panama
, December 8, 1908, pp. 11–12.

406     the turnover of skilled workers was nearly 60 percent
Haskin,
The Panama Canal
, p. 529.

406    ”Anyone who stays here through a year of it becomes depressed”
Ghent, “Work and Welfare on the Canal,”
Independent
, April 29, 1909, p. 910.

407    ”They fill a necessary place in the somewhat artificial life on the canal zone”
Report of Special Commission Appointed to Investigate Conditions of Labor and Housing of Government Employees of the Isthmus of Panama
, December 8, 1908, p. 19.

408    ”to be furnished by Sidney Landon, character delineator”
Canal Record
, September 11, 1907.

408    ”a really active American community”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 130.

409    ”He says it is not home, but on the order of a boarding school,”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, May 8, 1907, MCCZ, Boxes 9 and 10.

409     “Every day I am better pleased that I came”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, June 12, 1907.

409     “things are not always very clean”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, July 6, 1907.

409     “I have adapted myself pretty well”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, July 27, 1907.

409     “The Tivoli is giving a reception and dance tonight”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, July 6, 1907.

409    Pineapples are only 15 cents
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, July 17, 1907.

410    ”things have already begun to slack up”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, June 27, 1907.

410     “Now what can they tell about it?”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, November 12, 1907.

410     “the novelty has worn off”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, December 1, 1907.

410    ”Empire Lady Minstrels”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, March 22, 1908.

411    ”Nothing ever happens here”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, November 6, 1908.

411     “Am beginning to like Culebra better”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, December 7, 1908.

411     “broke into Culebra society”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, January, 10, 1909.
411 “that a dry season night down here, with a moon”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, October 28, 1910.

411    ”She's just about the nicest thing in the girl line there is”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, November 17, 1911.

412    ”The commissary is an assured success”
Ghent, “Work and Welfare on the Canal,”
Independent
, April 29, 1909, p. 914.

412    412 “First of all, there ain't any democracy down here”
Edwards,
Panama
, p. 572.

412     “the establishment of an autocratic form of government”
Thompson, “The Labour Problems of the Panama Canal,”
Engineering
(London), May 3, 1907.

412     “enlightened despotism”
Franck,
Zone Policeman 88
, p. 205.

412     “omnipresent”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, pp. 99–100.

412    ”Goethals dominates over everybody and everything”
Mallet's Annual Report 1910, FO881/9841.

413    ”You can't realize what the Chief Engineer is”
Letter of Courtney Lindsay, April 3, 1908.

413     “The system is one that would be very repugnant to Englishmen”
Thompson, “The Labour Problems of the Panama Canal,”
Engineering
(London), May 3, 1907.

413     “judicial terrorism”
Ghent, “Work and Welfare on the Canal,”
Independent
, April 29, 1909, p. 913.

413    ”there has grown up in Panama circles somewhat of a tendency to monopolize patriotism”
Waldo, “The Panama Canal Work, and the Workers,”
Engineering Magazine
, January 1907, p. 15.

414    ”Caste lines are as sharply drawn as in India”
Franck,
Zone Policeman 88
, p. 219.

414     a “drearily efficient state”
Sands,
Our Jungle Diplomacy
, p. 25.

414     “a chestless youth”
Franck,
Zone Policeman 88
, p. ioff.

416     “We have such control in Panama”
Major,
Prize Possession
, p. 126.

416     “extremely tactful and friendly towards everybody”
Mallet's Annual Report 1910, FO881/9841.

416     “a racial inability to refrain long from abuse of power”
George Weitzel quoted in Major,
Prize Possession
, p. 125.

416    ”It is really farcical to talk of Panama as an independent state”
Mallet to Grey, August 22, 1910, FO371/944.

417    ”docile to American wishes”
Mallet to Foreign Office, May 8, 1913, FO881/10293.

417    a story that accused Taft's influential brother Charles
New York World
, October 3 and 6, 1908.

418    ”I have never known in my lengthy experience in company matters”
Harding,
The Untold Story of Panama
, p. 35.

418     “There are many peculiar circumstances about the Panama canal business”
Niemeier,
The Story of Panama
, p. 124.

Chapter Twenty-three: “Hell's Gorge”

420     “a tropical glacier—of mud instead of ice”
Smithsonian online exhibition,
http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Make-the-Dirt-Fly
.

420    ”it required night and day work to save our equipment”
Mallet to Foreign Office, January 31, 1908, FO 881/9201.

421    ”most formidable of the canal enterprise”
Goethals, ed.,
The Panama Canal: A.n Engineering Treatise
, vol. 1, p. 337.

421     “like snow off a roof”
McCullough,
The Path between the Seas
, p. 551.

421    Spaniard Antonio Sanchez
Interview “with Mr. William Donadío, Panama City, August 17, 2004.

422    ”the old hill politely slid back again”
Smithsonian online exhibition,
http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Make-the-Dirt-Fly
.

422     “Today you dig and tomorrow it slides”
Albert Bannister in “Competition for the Best True Stories.”

422     “was a land of the fantastic and the unexpected”
Bishop,
The Panama Gateway
, pp. 193–94.

422     “The difficulties we are liable to encounter are unknown”
Mallet to Foreign Office, January 31, 1908, FO 881/9201.

422     “this material has or will ultimately make its own design”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 166.