LIFE AT THE ISTHMUS.
Before we go on to describe the canal and its method of construction, we
must look at the sort of social life and civil administration which has
prevailed since the Americans arrived. Construction camps in tropical
climes are not usually distinguished for order and good morals. The
Americans determined to make an exception at Panama. They had a
perfectly free hand and the enjoyment of all sovereign rights at the
isthmus, and were able to construct a brand-new little state on the most
approved and ideal principles. We have seen what instructions were given
by President Roosevelt to the first commission. An entire administrative
system had to be established within this little plot 10 miles wide and
50 long. Laws had to be framed and civil government established, with
all the needful accessories of judicial courts, police force,
fire-brigades, customs and revenue service, post-offices, public works
and financial department. The administration carried what is known as
"paternalism" to all lengths. That is, it did all the catering and
providing itself, and left little or nothing to private companies. Of
course, everything had to be imported, for the little territory itself
produced nothing. Whole villages and settlements with all the
accessories of social life had to be built along the line of works. Over
2,000 structures, including offices, hospitals, hotels, messes,
kitchens, shops, storehouses, and living quarters, were constructed, and
more than 1,500 buildings taken over from the French, which were made
available by necessary repairs.
Colonel Goethals gives us a brief insight into the work of the
Commissary Department of the Panama Railroad:--
The Commissary Department of the Panama Railroad Company was
enlarged until it is now [1911] a great department store,
supplying to the employees whatever may be necessary for
their comfort and convenience. Manufacturing, cold-storage,
and laundry plants were established, and turn out each day
about 90 tons of ice, 14,000 loaves of bread, 2,400 rolls,
250 gallons of ice-cream, 1,000 pounds of roasted coffee,
and 7,500 pieces of laundry. Four or five refrigerator cars,
loaded with meats, vegetables, and such fruits as can be
obtained, are sent out on the night freight to distant
points, and every morning a supply train of about 16 cars,
of which number six to eight are refrigerator cars, leaves
Cristobal at 4.30 to distribute foodstuffs and laundry to
the local commissaries along the line, where the employees
make their purchases, and where the hotels, messes, and
kitchens secure their supplies for the day.
A graphic and representative picture of one of the construction
settlements along the canal was given by the correspondent of _The
Times_ at Panama.[13] He chose "Emperador," or "Empire," as the typical
village. This is the headquarters of the central division of the
construction work, and is situated about halfway along the great
Culebra Cut. The correspondent writes:--
According to the census just completed, it contains 7,152
inhabitants, of whom 1,757 are whites, 3,701 negroes, 1,569
mestizos, 101 Chinese, and 24 East Indians. North of the
main street is a section called the "native town,"
apparently because it is inhabited by natives of other
countries than Panama, but really because here was situated
the native hamlet alongside which the French built their
construction camp in 1881. It is occupied by the part of the
population not employed by the government, and here are the
American saloons, the Spanish _cantinas_ and restaurants,
Chinese shops, East Indian fancy-work shops, and negro
tailoring and shoemaking places. On the south side of the
American settlement are the labour "camps," consisting of
barracks and eating-places. All the buildings are of wood,
constructed to last not over ten years; and none are large,
excepting the administration buildings and the club-house.
On three sides of the village are the huts of the labourers
who prefer the half-jungle life with its freedom; and here,
with discomfort and squalor and liberty, is the only
picturesque part of the settlement; all else is orderly, of
one pattern, almost smug. On the fourth side the village is
limited by the canal itself.
In the centre of the village is the commissariat, where the
canal and railroad workers buy their food and clothing. Here
congregate every morning the housewives of the village to do
their shopping, and at night, after work, the men, to
complete the family purchases. There is a similar store in
each canal village--eighteen in all. The commissariat does
away with the middleman's profit and buys in such large
quantities, and for cash, that it obtains the lowest prices,
while the many ways in which the materials purchased can be
used prevent waste. If there is cause for complaint on the
part of any class in the canal workers, that class is the
bachelors, for they are discriminated against in the matter
of quarters. But good provision is made for their meals, at
the so-called "hotels" for the white employees, and the
messes and kitchens for Spanish and negro labourers.
Another remarkable evidence of how the canal administration stands _in
loco parentis_ to all its work-people is that it has provided twenty-six
churches and maintains fifteen ministers of religion. This is
interesting because it shows how the state, when conducted on
common-sense principles, may provide for religious instruction without
causing any offence or inflicting any injustice. The administration
treated all denominations with perfect impartiality. Of the fifteen
ministers it supported, four were Episcopalian, four Baptist, three
Roman Catholic, one Wesleyan, and one Presbyterian. But this was not the
entire provision of churches and chapels on the isthmus. There were
fourteen other churches not under direct government control, but
assisted by the government in many ways. Of the forty in all, thirteen
were Episcopalian, seven Baptist, seven Roman Catholic, two Wesleyan,
and eight undenominational.
As I have pointed out, the moral sanitation of the isthmus was cared for
as well as the physical. For example, in September 1905, a man living in
the canal zone was charged with running a roulette table. He pleaded
that he owned a concession from the Republic of Panama. That excuse was
not allowed, and he was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for
transgressing one of the canal zone laws. Gambling, which had always
been one of the Panamanian vices, was quite forbidden within the zone.
Remembering the descriptions given of the state of morals at the isthmus
during the French occupation, one cannot help being struck with the
contrast afforded by the American regime. Criticisms of the canal
scheme, of climatic and social conditions in the zone, appeared in the
early days from time to time. Mr. Johnson quotes an example which is so
amusing as to bear repetition:--
A land as feverish to the imagination as to the body is
Panama. It is a land making a fitting environment to the
deeds of conspiracy, piracy, loot, cruelty, and blood that
have principally made its history for centuries. This
gloomy, God-forsaken isthmus is a nightmare region. One
descriptive writer has truly said of it that it is a land
where the flowers have no odour, the birds no song; where
the men are without honour and the women without virtue. He
is not far wrong. The birds, brilliant as is their plumage,
have no musical notes. The dense forests teem with
bright-hued parrots, parroquets, and other birds, which
squeak and scream but do not sing. There are beautiful
orchids to be found in the swamps and jungles--fair to look
upon, but they have no odour. The oranges have green skins
instead of golden, the plantains must be fried to make them
fit to eat, the reptiles and insects are often venomous, and
myriads of parasites are ever ready to invade the human body
and bring disease and death. In the atmosphere itself is
something suggestive of the days of the old pirates and
their fiendish cruelties and orgies. There is no life in the
air; it is depressing, damp, miasmatic, and intensely hot.
For a great part of the year thunder-showers succeed each
other all day long and half the night, with sheet lightning
all around the horizon after dark. There is practically no
twilight, day passing almost instantly into night. It is no
wonder that this uncanny land has made its residents
degenerate into plotters, revolutionists, murderers, and
thieves. Its aspect is one of darkness, treachery, and
curse.
President Roosevelt had something to say on these recurring criticisms
in a message to Congress in January 1906. He wrote:--
From time to time various publications have been made, and
from time to time in the future various similar
publications, doubtless, will be made, purporting to give an
account of jobbing or immorality or inefficiency or misery
as obtaining on the isthmus. I have carefully examined into
each of these accusations which seemed worthy of attention.
In every instance the accusations have proved to be without
foundation in any shape or form. They spring from several
sources. Sometimes they take the shape of statements by
irresponsible investigators of a sensational habit of mind,
incapable of observing or repeating with accuracy what they
see, and desirous of obtaining notoriety by widespread
slander. More often they originate with or are given
currency by individuals with a personal grievance. The
sensation mongers, both those who stay at home and those who
visit the isthmus, may ground their accusations on false
statements by some engineer who, having applied for service
on the commission and been refused such service, now
endeavours to discredit his successful competitors, or by
some lessee or owner of real estate who has sought action or
inaction by the commission to increase the value of his
lots, and is bitter because the commission cannot be used
for such purposes, or on the tales of disappointed bidders
for contracts, or of office-holders who have proved
incompetent, or who have been suspected of corruption and
dismissed, or who have been overcome by panic and have fled
from the isthmus. Every specific charge relating to jobbery,
to immorality, or to inefficiency, from whatever source it
has come, has been immediately investigated, and in no
single instance have the statements of these sensation
mongers and the interested complainants behind them proved
true. The only discredit adhering to these false accusations
is to those who originate and give them currency, and who,
to the extent of their abilities, thereby hamper and
obstruct the completion of the great work in which both the
honour and the interest of America are so deeply involved.
It matters not whether those guilty of these false
accusations utter them in mere wanton recklessness and
folly, or in a spirit of sinister malice to gratify some
personal or political grudge.
The soundness and purity of the canal zone administration has long ago
been established beyond all question and cavil. The Americans have given
an example to the world how a great work of this kind, involving the
gathering together of a large multitude of workers from many races and
nations, may be carried on without those moral and physical evils which
have marked too many enterprises of the kind. In fact, the way in which
the Americans have arranged and controlled the life of the canal zone
stands quite as much to their credit as the skill and determination they
have shown in the actual construction of the canal.
But we have said nothing yet about the workers themselves on the canal.
The Americans, on taking over the work from the French, found about 700
West Indian negroes engaged in excavating the Culebra Cut. From this
contingent as a nucleus a much larger army of workers was built up. The
numbers rapidly grew. In December 1905 there were 5,000 employees; in
1906, 24,000; in 1908, 31,000; the highest figure being reached in 1910,
when there were 50,000 workers available for duty. Of the employees,
speaking roughly, one-seventh have been white Americans, all, of course,
skilled workers, one-seventh European labourers, and five-sevenths West
Indian negroes. The British West Indies, especially Barbados, have
continued to be the main source of labour supply. But the West Indian at
the outset left a great deal to be desired in his work and efficiency.
In 1905 complaints were made on the subject by the chairman of the
canal commission to the President of the United States. In 1906 the
chief engineer reported:--
The criticisms of the character of the common labour which
were made in last year's report still hold good. Our labour
consists almost entirely of West Indian negroes, and their
efficiency is very low, although we have a few of this class
who are fairly steady workers--by this it is meant that they
average to work all the time, but the great body of them do
not. The majority work just long enough to get money to
supply their actual bodily necessities, with the result
that, while we are quartering and caring for twenty odd
thousand of these people, our daily effective force is many
thousands less. Preliminary steps have been taken toward
securing a large number of Spanish labourers direct from the
north-west provinces of Spain, also for the securing of a
trial shipment of Cantonese Chinese, as it is believed that
the introduction of labourers of different nationalities
will be beneficial.
The Chinese project was frustrated through the influence of trade unions
in the United States, backed up by representations from the Pacific
coast states. The West Indian labourer quickly began to earn a better
report. It was found that his inefficiency was largely due to
insufficient and improper food. He speedily improved when turned on to
the generous and nourishing diet provided in the zone. In order to be
certain that he had the full advantage of the provided meals, the price
of them was very wisely deducted from his wages. Moreover, the American
foremen soon began to learn that the men from Barbados, Trinidad, and
elsewhere were British subjects and could not be treated as though they
were southern state "coons." With a better understanding and more
sympathetic treatment of the black employees, much more work was got out
of them, and a good deal of the credit for the building of the Panama
Canal is due to the 30,000 workers[14] who have been recruited mainly
from the British islands in the West Indies.
But the southern European contingent has been found to be excellent
material. It was thought that the work-people of Spain, Italy, and
Greece would take more easily to navvying work in the tropics than
people from more northerly regions of the temperate zone. The results
were, on the whole, satisfactory. The Greeks were, it is true, not equal
to the Italians or the Spaniards, and very few of them were recruited
for canal work. The Italians, also, though several thousands of them
were engaged, proved rather hard to handle. They were bitten with
collectivist ideas, and inclined to act on trade union lines. The
Spaniard was, in every way, the most satisfactory workman introduced
from Europe. He was taken in an unsophisticated state directly from his
village in Galicia or Castile. He was tractable and orderly, and quick
and ready to learn. Hard labour under the tropical sun and in the hot
damp of the isthmus seemed to have no exhausting or enervating influence
whatever upon him. The Spaniard shows no sign of settling down on the
isthmus. He either goes home with his savings or on to railway work in
Brazil. Some 9,000 have been directly recruited, but this number does
not include all the Spanish labourers whose muscle has helped to the
completion of this great work.
A word or two should be said about the wages earned on the canal. The
West Indian recruit was offered 6-1/2d. an hour for common labour and an
eight-hour day, in addition to free quarters, medical care, and
repatriation. Meals were supplied to him at the rate of 1s. 2-1/2d. per
day. Later the pay of all not under contract was reduced to 5d. per
hour, and the price of the three meals to 1s. 1-1/2d. Negro artisans,
such as carpenters, masons, blacksmiths and others, of whom there were
some 5,000 employed in connection with the canal works, received pay
varying from 8d. to 22d. per hour. There were in 1912 4,400 negro
artisans receiving 8d. an hour or more, while 400 received 1s. an hour,
and the work was constant.
The European labourer, in addition to free quarters, received $1.60 per
eight-hour day, and more for overtime work. He was charged 40 cents a
day for his three meals, which left him a minimum net wage per day of
$1.20, or a little less than thirty shillings a week. Many, however,
received more, and a good number of Spanish work-people must have gone
home with a nice little nest-egg in their pockets.
The skilled labour was done almost entirely by United States employees,
though the "gold roll," as it was called, included at first some
Europeans. The pay was excellent, the social life, with its gymnasia,
billiard-rooms, concerts and so forth, attractive, and the commissariat,
with its three good meals at a fixed charge, quite up to the standard of
a good hotel. The billets on the isthmus were therefore popular, and
about 7,000 Americans on an average have been in employment there.
As I have pointed out, the responsibility for the construction of the
canal was vested in the President of the United States, who acted
through an executive commission resident in the canal zone. The work was
organized in a large number of departments, each responsible for a big
task. These were excavation and dredging; locks and dams; machinery and
buildings (also responsible for paving and other improvements in Colon
and Panama); labour, subsistence, and quarters; material and supplies;
sanitation (responsible also for hygiene in Panama and Colon, which
towns are technically outside the zone); civil administration; the
Panama railroad. There were also some smaller divisions, such as
accounts and an office of a purchasing officer in Washington, nearly all
the supplies for the canal being obtained in the United States. It
should be added that the Republic of Panama is responsible for the
policing of the two big towns, but the department of civil
administration of the Panama Canal Commission employed 200 police, 88 of
which were native West Indians.
This busy hive of labour will soon present a very different aspect. With
the approach of the canal to completion the numbers of the workmen will
gradually be reduced. A drastic process of sifting and selection will be
carried out among the Americans employed on the works. Only about 2,500
men will be necessary to operate the canal, when it is in full working
order. These will be established at the locks and other important
points. In fact, the canal authorities recommend a complete depopulation
of the isthmus except, of course, the terminal cities and the operating
stations on the canal. Otherwise, they think, a large expense for
sanitation will be necessary which might thus be avoided. But the
question of defence must not be forgotten. It will certainly be found
advisable to maintain a pretty large American garrison at the isthmus,
and to the population we have mentioned perhaps even 8,000 American
troops must be added. The busy scenes still prevailing in the canal zone
will now soon have disappeared like a dream, and the future traveller
who looks from the ship-rail over the shining waters of Gatun Lake or
beyond to the vast and silent tropical forest will have difficulty in
reconstructing the spectacle which the narrow lands presented during the
ten strenuous years of construction.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] _The Times_, September 26, 1912.
[14] This is the figure of official recruiting. Very many more came to
the isthmus of their own accord.