LIFE ON THE ZONE
Transplant a man or a woman from a home in a temperate climate to an
abode in the Tropics, and there is bound to be trouble. Disturbances
in the body are expected and, proper precautions being taken, most
often are warded off. Disturbances in the mind are not anticipated,
preventive measures are seldom taken, and there comes the trouble.
That is why the Young Men's Christian Association and the American
Federation of Women's Clubs had their part to do in digging the Panama
Canal, a part second in importance only to the sanitary work under
Colonel Gorgas.
It's an odd thing--this transplanting a man from the temperate to the
torrid zone. It affects men of different nations in different ways. It
is disastrous in inverse ratio to the adaptability of the man
transplanted. A German or a Dutchman goes to the Tropics and almost
without a struggle yields to the demands of the new climate all his
orderly daily habits. Your Dutchman in Java will, except on state
occasions, wear the native dress (or undress); eat the native food;
live in the native house; and, like as not, take a native woman to
wife. One thing only--he will retain his schnapps. The German is only
a little less adaptable, clings only a little longer to the routine
of the Fatherland, but he, too, keeps his beer.
Your Englishman, on the contrary, defies the tropical sun and scorns
to make any changes in his daily habit that he had not fixed upon as
necessary and proper before he left his right little, tight little,
island. He does, it is true, wear a pith helmet. That is due partly,
perhaps, to his fear of the sun, but it is much more due to the fact
that he associates it with lands where faces are not white; therefore
he wears it in Egypt in the winter when it is shivery cold with the
same religious devotion that he wears it in India when the mercury is
running out of the top of the thermometer. Your Englishman, it is
true, wears white duck clothes in the Tropics, but not the fiercest
heat that old Sol ever produced could induce him for one moment to
exchange his flannel underwear for cotton or to leave off his woolen
hose. It is a pretty theory and not without much support, that it is
this British defiance of tropical customs that has given him the
mastery over Tropic peoples. And wherever goes the Briton there goes
also Scotch-and-soda.
The Americans steer a middle course. They dress for the heat and make
themselves comfortable as possible. They consume even greater
quantities of ice than they do at home, and the average American eats
every day in summer enough ice to kill a score of Englishmen. At
least, that's what the Englishmen would think.
But the American in the Tropics tenaciously clings to many of his home
habits, despite the changed conditions of his place of sojourn. He
must have his bath, even though he talks less about it than the
Englishman. He must have his three square meals a day, and breakfast
must be a real breakfast. He demands screens to protect him from
pestiferous insects, no less for comfort's sake than health's. And
then he demands two other things--a soda fountain and a base-ball
team.
It is true that he often will indulge in a British peg of
Scotch-and-soda, or in a German stein of beer, but the native drink
that he takes with him to the Tropics, and one that he alone consumes,
and the one that he, in season and out of season, demands, is the
sweet, innocent, and non-alcoholic product of the soda fountain. How
incomprehensible is this to the sons of other nations no American may
ever understand.
It may seem to be going far field to discuss even in the general way
the differing tempers of men of different nations transplanted from a
temperate to a torrid clime. But, as a matter of fact, it has a direct
bearing on the accomplishment at Panama, of which Americans are so
proud.
[Illustration: FLOYD C. FREEMAN
I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE AT CULEBRA]
[Illustration: A. BRUCE MINEAR
READING ROOM IN THE I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE, CULEBRA]
When the Americans first undertook the task, the denizens of the
Isthmus prepared for them only such entertainment as had been
acceptable in other days. The only places open to the tired worker in
the evening were the saloons, selling bad whiskey and worse beer; or
darker hells of sure and quick damnation. There were no theaters that
would appeal to the American taste, no sports that the clean American
would tolerate. In short, when the American in the early days of the
construction was wearied with that weariness that would not respond
to resting, there was but one thing left. He got home--sick and drunk.
In those early days there were few women. Most of the men who came
then were moved rather by a spirit of adventure than by a
determination to share in a tremendous job of work, and such men were
not married. It was not long until the men at the head discovered that
the married men were more content, that they lost less time from the
work, and produced more results when on the job than did the
bachelors. (This, of course, must not be taken as an indictment
against every individual bachelor who worked at Panama, but rather as
a characterization based on the average of that class.) Thus in the
very order of things it became the policy of the commission to
encourage unmarried men at work to marry, and to bring married men
from the States rather than bachelors. Inducements were held out,
putting a premium on matrimony. The bachelor worker had good quarters,
but he perhaps shared but a room in a bungalow, whereas the married
man had a four-room house of his own, with a big porch, and free
furniture, free light, and the problem of the cost of living solved by
the paternal commissary.
So matrimony flourished. But when the women came in increasing
numbers, and with them many children, another problem arose. Women
born in temperate climes suffer more in the Tropics than do men. The
dry, dry heat of the dry season is succeeded by the wet, wet heat of
the rainy months. There is never any escape from that horrible,
hateful, hellish heat. Is it to be baked or steamed? The changing
seasons offer no other alternative. And the Fear! Not for a moment may
one forget that sickness and death stalk in the jungle; that a glass
of water or an unscreened door may be the end of it all. There is no
normality, no relaxation, no care free rest for the woman in the
Tropics.
At Panama her housekeeping duties were lightened by the excellence of
the commissary system, so that they were not enough to keep her mind
occupied. She became homesick and hysterical.
So, then, it being desirable to have married men on the job, it became
necessary to do something to keep the women at the minimum stage of
unhappiness. The Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, with their gymnasiums, their
libraries, their games, their sports, and their clubiness, had been
the substitute for home offered to the lonely American man at Panama.
The Civic Federation was invited to do what it could for the women. It
sent an agent of the American Federation of Women's Clubs to Panama,
who organized women's clubs, and these, by putting the women to work,
made them, in a measure, forget the Heat and the Fear.
Miss Helen Varick Boswell visited the Isthmus in the fall of 1907 and
assisted the women in forming their clubs. She found them literally
hungry for such activities and they responded with a will to her
suggestion. The result was frequent meetings in every town in the
Canal Zone and innumerable activities on the part of the women
interested in club work.
The transformation was most remarkable. Where almost every woman on
the Isthmus seemed to be unhappy, now everyone who needed an outlet
for her mental and social instincts found it in club work. Where once
they quarreled and disputed about their house furnishings, life on the
Isthmus, and the general status of things on the Canal Zone, now the
women seemed to take a happy and contented view of things, and became
as much interested in the work of building the canal as were their
husbands, their fathers, and their brothers. Looking back over the
task, and realizing how much longer the married men stayed on the job,
and how much more essential they were to the completion of the canal
than the bachelors, the cares of the canal authorities to keep the
women satisfied was a master stroke.
When the club movement was launched one of the first steps was to
organize classes in Spanish. Women from every part of the Zone
attended these Spanish classes and took up the work of learning the
language with zeal. Comparatively few of them had any opportunity to
learn Spanish, even in its most rudimentary form, from household
servants, since the same lethargy that characterized the native men of
Panama, and made them totally indifferent to the opportunities for
work on the Canal Zone, also characterized the Panaman women, with the
results that most of the American households at Panama had
English-speaking Jamaican servants instead of Spanish-speaking
Panamans.
The servant problem was not as serious as it is in the average
American city. There was always a full supply of Jamaican negro women
ready for engagement as household servants. They were polite and
efficient. Almost without exception they had a deeply religious turn
of mind, although they might transgress the Mosaic law far enough to
substitute plain water for violet water on the boudoir table of their
mistresses. Usually they were very neat of person and very careful in
the manner of doing their work. The wages they commanded were
approximately equal to those asked in the ordinary American city.
The greatest social diversion of the Isthmus, of course, was dancing.
Every two weeks the Tivoli Club gave a dance at the Tivoli Hotel.
Trains to carry visitors were run all the way across the Isthmus and
no American ever needed to miss a dance at the Tivoli Hotel because of
unsuitable railroad accommodations.
Each small town had its own dancing clubs and in those towns where
there were Y. M. C. A. buildings, the dances were held in them. The
new Hotel Washington proved a very popular rendezvous for the dancers,
and in the future the big functions of this kind probably will
alternate between the Tivoli at one end of the canal and the
Washington at the other.
The university men maintained the University Club in the city of
Panama, directly on the water front. This club frequently opened its
doors to women and its functions were always regarded as events in
Isthmian social history. In Colon there was organized several years
ago a club known as the Stranger's Club. This club, as did the
University Club at Panama, welcomed the American stranger.
The Isthmian Canal Commission always looked carefully after the
religious activities of the people of the Canal Zone. Its provision of
places of worship and facilities for getting to them was strictly
nonsectarian, and directed solely to giving every sect and every faith
opportunity to worship in its own way. Several chaplains were
maintained at Government expense, and railroad and wagonette service
for carrying people to their places of worship was maintained
throughout the years of the American occupation.
The West Indian negroes were provided with churches and with homes for
the leaders of their spiritual flocks. Church buildings were erected
at every settlement, and in many cases were so constructed that the
lower story could be used for a church and the second story for lodge
purposes. These buildings were 70 by 36 feet, with lodge rooms 60 by
36 feet.
The women on the Canal Zone were interested in religious work from the
beginning of their residence there. An Isthmian Sunday School
Association maintained church extension work. When the Women's
Federation of Clubs finally disbanded, in April, 1913, it presented
its library to this association and its pictures to the Ancon Study
Club. There was an art society at Ancon, which did much to foster art
work on the Zone during the days of the canal construction. The
organization of Camp Fire Girls extended its activities to Panama, and
many leading women there contributed both means and time to help the
girls on the Isthmus.
The women of the Zone did not fail to enlist themselves in any
movement for good in their communities. A few years since there was a
little blind boy on the Isthmus and the Federation of Women's Clubs
decided that he ought to have better educational advantages than could
be provided at Panama. Therefore, they agreed to finance his going to
Boston to enter an institution for the education of the blind. When
the Federation disbanded, owing to the gradual departure of members
for the States, it did not do so until it had created a committee
which was to continue indefinitely in charge of the education of this
blind boy.
Many secret societies existed on the Isthmus, the oldest one made up
of Americans being the Sojourners Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons,
organized in Colon in 1898. There were Odd Fellows' lodges and lodges
of Redmen, Modern Woodmen, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Junior Order of
American Mechanics, and representative bodies of many other American
secret orders. An Isthmian order is that of the Kangaroos, whose motto
is: "He is best who does best." This order was organized in 1907 under
the laws of Tennessee, and the mother council was organized at Empire
the same year. The object of the Kangaroos is to hold mock sessions of
court and to extract from them all of the fun and, at the same time,
all of the good that they will yield.
The men on the Isthmus, almost completely isolated as they were from
American political concerns, never allowed their interest in political
affairs at home to become completely atrophied. There was a common
saying that the Panamans were the only people on the Isthmus that
could vote, but at times the Americans would at least simulate
politics at home with the resulting campaigns and elections. During
the presidential campaign of 1912 it was decided to hold a mock
election in several of the American settlements. The elections were
for national offices and for municipal offices as well. There were a
number of parties, and in the national elections there were the usual
group of insurgents, progressives, reactionaries, and the like.
There were nominations for dog catchers and town grouches, while the
party platforms abounded in all the political claptrap of the ordinary
American document of like nature. Cartoons were circulated showing the
Panama Railroad to be a monopolistic corporation; flaring handbills
proving that the latest town grouch had not acquitted himself properly
in office; statistical tables showing that the dog catcher had allowed
more dogs to get away from him than he had caught; and all sorts of
other campaign tricks and dodges were brought into play, just as
though there were real issues at stake and real men to be elected. At
Colon the presidential returns showed 33 votes for Taft, 200 for
Wilson and 224 for Roosevelt. There were 204 votes in favor of Woman
Suffrage, both state and national, and 75 votes against it.
As has been said, when the American first went to Panama the only
diversion a man could find was to go to a cheap saloon and meet his
friends. It was a condition that was as unsatisfactory to the men
themselves as it was to the moral sentiment of those behind the work,
and almost as dangerous to the success of the undertaking as would
have been an outbreak of some epidemic disease. This led the
commission to urge the erection of clubhouses in several of the more
populous settlements, to be conducted under the auspices of the Young
Men's Christian Association, but to be operated on a basis that would
bring to the people those rational amusements of which they stood so
much in need.
From time to time clubhouses of this type were established in seven of
the American settlements and the work they did in promoting the
contentment and happiness of the people can be appreciated only by
those who have witnessed the conditions of living in Canal Zone towns
where there were no such clubhouses.
Almost the first effect of the construction of a clubhouse was a heavy
falling off in barroom attendance, and simultaneously a decline in the
receipts from the sales of liquor. It is estimated that these receipts
fell off 75 per cent within a short time after the clubhouses were
opened. The men who had been buying beer at 25 cents a bottle, or
whiskey at 15 cents a thimbleful, were now frequenting the clubhouses,
playing billiards, rolling tenpins, writing letters, reading their
home papers, or engaging in other diversions which served to banish
homesickness.
When the Y. M. C. A. clubhouses were opened a practical man was put at
the head of each. While no one would think of card-playing or dancing
at a Y. M. C. A. in the States, both were to be found in the
association clubhouses of the Isthmus. Bowling alleys, billiard
rooms, gymnasiums, and many other features for entertainment were
established in the clubhouses. Bowling teams were organized; billiard
and pool contests were started; gymnastic instruction was given;
pleasant reading rooms with easy chairs, cool breezes, and good lights
were provided; circulating libraries were established; good soda
fountains were put in operation where one could get a glass of soda
long enough to quench the deepest thirst; and in general the
clubhouses were made the most attractive places in town--places where
any man, married or single, might spend his leisure moments with
profit and with pleasure.
Every effort was put forth to capitalize the spirit of rivalry in the
interest of the men. The result was that in each clubhouse there were
continuous contests of one kind or another, which afforded
entertainment for those engaged and held the interest of those who
were looking on. Then the champions of each clubhouse, whether
individuals or teams, were pitted against the stars of other places,
and in this way there was always "something doing" around each
clubhouse.
In addition to maintaining a supervision over the sports of the
Isthmus, the clubhouses provided night schools for those who desired
to improve such educational opportunities. These night schools were
rather well patronized by the new arrivals on the Isthmus, but there
is something in that climate which, after a man has been there for a
year, makes him want to rest whenever he is off duty. Going to night
school became an intolerable bore by that time, so very few men kept
up their attendance after the first year. The study of Spanish was
found to be one exception to this rule, for, besides the satisfaction
of being able to talk with native Panamans and the Spaniards, there
was the hope of financial reward. Any employee who could pass an
examination in Spanish stood a better show of getting promotion in the
service. Besides, the man who had grit enough to carry through a
course of study on the Isthmus, with its enervating climate, was
almost certain to climb the ladder of success wherever he went.
A review of the work of the seven Y. M. C. A. clubhouses for 1912
gives a good idea of what they did during the entire construction
period. It required a force of 42 Americans and 64 West Indians to
operate these seven clubhouses. Twelve of the Americans were paid out
of the funds of the Canal Commission and 30 out of the funds of the Y.
M. C. A. Of the negro employees 43 were paid by the Canal Commission
and 21 by the Y. M. C. A. The American force for all seven clubhouses
consisted of one superintendent, four secretaries, four assistant
secretaries, one clerk, ten night clerks, six bowling alley night
attendants, six pool room night attendants, and seven barbers. At the
end of that year there were 2,100 members of the Y. M. C. A., no less
than 58 per cent of all the American employees living in towns having
clubhouses being members of the association.
During the year seven companies of players and musicians were engaged
to provide amusement a the clubhouses. They gave 85 entertainments
which had a total attendance of 21,000. Local talent and moving
pictures provided 406 entertainments with a total attendance of
96,000. Amateur oratorio societies, operatic troupes, minstrel
troupes, glee clubs, mixed choruses, vaudeville and black-face
sketches were organized during the year through the efforts of the
members cooperating with the secretaries. These organizations made the
whole circuit of the Isthmus. Weekly moving-picture exhibitions were
given and a man was employed who gave his entire attention to them.
Carefully chosen films were ordered from the United States, special
attention being given to educational features.
Special tournaments in bowling, billiards, and pool were organized and
gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded the winners. Over a
hundred thousand bowling games and nearly 300,000 games of pool and
billiards were played during the year. Trained physical directors were
employed to direct the gymnastic exercises at the clubhouses and there
was an attendance of 15,000 at these classes during the year. A
pentathlon meet was held at Empire for the purpose of developing
all-around athletes. Religious meetings and song services were held at
such times as not to interfere with the organized religious work on
the Zone, the average attendance at 214 meetings being 50 and the
average attendance at Bible and discussion clubs 52. The average
enrollment was 65 in the Spanish class. Forty-two thousand books were
withdrawn for home reading during the year.
Soft drinks, ice-cream, light lunches, and the like were served on
the cool verandas of the clubhouses, the receipts from these sales
amounting to approximately $50,000. Nearly 4,000 calls on hospital
patients were made by committees for the visitation of the sick. Boys
from 10 to 16 years of age were allowed special privileges in the
clubhouses, and the secretaries arranged several outings during the
year. The total boys' membership was 146. The disbursements from the
funds of the Isthmian Canal Commission amounted to $50,000 and those
from clubhouse funds amounted to $114,000. The total receipts for the
year amounted to $118,000. The affairs of the clubhouses were in the
hands of the advisory committee appointed by the chairman and chief
engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission.
In providing amusements the Canal Commission overlooked no opportunity
in the way of furnishing special trains and affording other facilities
for encouraging play by the canal workers. Each town had its ball team
and its ball park, and there was just as much enthusiasm in watching
the standing of the several clubs in the isthmian League as in the
States in watching the performances of the several clubs in the
American and National leagues. When there was a championship series to
be played there was just as much excitement over it as if it were a
post-season contest between the Athletics and the Giants.
It is probable that better amusements will be provided under the
permanent régime than were during the construction period. With ships
constantly passing through the canal, many opera companies, especially
those from Spain and Italy, will have opportunity to stop for a night
or two at Panama, while their ships are coaling or shipping cargo. In
Panama City there is a splendid theater built by the Panaman
Government largely out of funds derived from payments made by the
United States on account of the canal rights.
As the major portion of the permanent force will be quartered at Ancon
and Balboa, they will be able to drive to the theater or take the
street car. A new street-car system has just been established, and
those who can not afford the luxury of carriages will find in it
opportunities for taking airings as well as going to the theater. This
system runs from the permanent settlement at Balboa through the city
of Panama and down over the savannahs towards old Panama. It is the
first street-car system ever operated on the Isthmus, and will
probably prove much more satisfactory than the little, old, dirty
coaches which have afforded the only means of transportation on the
Zone.
The building of a number of roads along the canal to facilitate the
movement of military forces has made it possible to get a satisfactory
use of automobiles. Agencies already have been opened for a number of
the lower-priced cars in anticipation that a large number of the canal
employees will buy automobiles in order to get the benefit of these
good roads. There are few places where automobiling affords more
pleasant diversion than at Panama. After the sun goes down the
evenings are just cool enough and the breezes just strong enough to
make an automobile ride a delightful experience.
There are good opportunities for lovers of hunting and fishing on the
Isthmus. There is wild game in plenty--deer abounding in the entire
region contiguous to the canal and alligators being found in all of
the principal streams. There are both sea and river fishing, and some
tapirs and other wild animals still are left to attract the efforts of
the modern huntsman.
The entertainment headquarters on the Canal Zone under the permanent
occupation will be the big clubhouse at Balboa, which is being built
at a cost of about $50,000. This clubhouse will not only have all of
the features of the clubhouses of the construction period, but will be
equipped with a large auditorium, with a complete library and with
every facility for amusement and entertainment that experience on the
Isthmus has called for.
It can not be said that social life on the Isthmus during the period
of canal construction was ideal. Its inspiration was to be found in
the desire to make the best of a bad situation. Men and women all knew
that their stay in Panama was but temporary, none of them looked upon
the Canal Zone as home, and all of them counted time in two
eras--Before we came to Panama, and When we leave Panama.
Of course there was dining and dancing, and the bridge tables were
never idle. But every dinner hostess knew that every guest knew
exactly what every dish on the table cost, and she knew that guest
knew she knew. The family income was fixed and public. All one had to
do was to read the official bulletins.
The same paternalistic commissary that reduced the cost of living and
made housekeeping so easy, also tended with socialistic frankness to
bring everybody to a dead level. It was useless to attempt any of the
little deceits that make life so interesting at home.
Although the American is a home-loving animal, he managed to get on
fairly well in the alien atmosphere of the Tropic jungle. He brought
with him his home life, his base ball and his soda fountain. And,
considering how such things go in the Tropics, he managed to live a
clean life while he was doing a clean piece of work.