Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time--The Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker

Author:Matthew Parker [Parker, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780385515344
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2007-08-15T07:00:00+00:00

allace would complain that the delays in sorting out the problems in accommodation were down to “supplies taking for ever to arrive” and the labor “immediately available and who could be secured from the surrounding countries [being] incompetent, shiftless and lazy.” But much of the intake from the United States was also seriously below standard. A request was posted for twenty-five track foremen, and when they arrived there were only two who could drive a railroad spike. In further echoes of Blanchet's experience with his new arrivals in 1881, William Karner complained that recruits employed by the Washington office “were not examined at all.” One young man presented himself to Karner as a rodman. It was quickly realized that he was nothing of the kind, having no training or experience at all. It was then established that he had received his appointment through the efforts of his member of Congress.

In spite of all the worries about corruption or graft, this was the origin of many of the Panama appointments not just in the early years but throughout the American period. The Swinehart family were typical. At the end of 1904 Swinehart Senior, the chair of a local Republican group in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, wrote to his congressman: “I have two sons who wish to go to Panama to work on the Canal… I will consider it a great favor if you will see some member of Canal Com.” Less than a month later, the congressman delivered two plum appointments. “Please place my name on your list of working Republicans and command me at any time,” responded the delighted father.

Along with idealists, professionals, and the beneficiaries of political favors, the Isthmus was also drawing in “railroad men who were blacklisted on the American railroads, drunks, and what we called tropical tramps, American drifters in Latin America.” U.S. diplomat William Franklin Sands sailed for Panama in early October 1904. On his ship, a British Royal Mail Packet Company steamer, he was taken aback to read a notice outside the dining room which ordered: “Americans will put their coats on for meals.” Why pick on Americans? Then he discovered that the captain had frequently had to arrest U.S. mechanics on the way to the Isthmus for drunkenness, gambling, and even leading mutinies against the officers.

As in the days of the gold rush, such new arrivals inevitably caused friction and difficulties with the Panamanians. One British journalist reported that “the people of Panama look upon Americans as noisy, grabbing bullies.” In return, admitted a senior American administrator, “The average American has the utmost contempt for a Panaman and never loses an opportunity, especially when drunk, to show it.” In fact by the autumn of 1904 relations between Americans and Panamanians were strained at every level. This had led to dangerous, potentially violent fractures within the new Panamanian political establishment, as well as dissent between senior U.S. Zone officials. It was to report on the origins of this mess, and to suggest solutions, that diplomatic

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