THE OPERATING FORCE
It will require a force of about 2,700 persons to operate the Panama
Canal. The major portion of this force will be engaged on the port
works at the two ends of the waterway. With a large mechanical plant
at Balboa, with large docks for the transhipment of cargo, and with
other facilities required for making the canal the best equipped
waterway in the world for handling marine business, more men will be
needed for the conduct of the auxiliary works than for actually
putting ships through the locks.
The force required at the locks will be comparatively small. It will
consist of men in general charge of the lock operations, men in charge
of the towing operations, men who handle the various mechanism and
operate the several types of valves for the regulation of the water in
the locks; and the general labor force consisting of a few hundred
operatives at each end of the canal. A force will be required to
operate the big hydro-electric station at Gatun Spillway, where the
electricity for the operation of the locks and for the lighting of the
canal will be generated. Another force will be required at the
auxiliary power plant at Miraflores which will be operated by steam.
Fewer than a thousand men will be required in putting ships through
the canal.
When the question of placing the canal on a permanent operating basis
arose one of the first considerations was the scale of salaries to be
fixed. Having in mind the fact that salaries paid during the
construction period (which were 50 per cent above the standard in the
United States) were based upon conditions existing in the early days
of the American occupation, it was decided that this was an unfair
basis for the permanent organization. The salaries for the
construction period were made high because they had to be. It was more
a question of reducing men to risk their lives than of fixing fair
rates of compensation. The conclusion reached was that there was no
longer any reason why the Government should pay salaries so much
higher than obtained in the States, especially in view of the fact
that all positions under the permanent organization would carry with
them free quarters, free medical attendance, free fuel, free light,
free hospital service and the like. It was finally determined that it
would be fair to both the employee and the employer to establish as a
basis of compensation for services in the permanent organization a
scale of salaries not to exceed 25 per cent higher than obtained for
similar positions in the United States. This decision was made on the
basis that it would be fair to the employee and at the same time would
allow the canal to be operated at a cost which would impose no undue
burden on shipping.
When Congress took up the matter in the enactment of the permanent
canal law, it reflected the recommendations of the chairman and chief
engineer of the Canal Commission in almost every particular. With
reference to the canal employees, that body provided that they should
be appointed by the President or by his authorities, and that they
should be removable at his pleasure; also, that their compensation
should be fixed by him until such time as Congress should regulate it
by law.
The head of the permanent force on the Canal Zone will be known as the
Governor of the Panama Canal. He is to be appointed by the President
with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a four-year term, or
until his successor shall be appointed and qualified. He will receive
a salary of $10,000 a year, and will be the personal representative of
the President on the Isthmus. Indeed, the permanent organic act
provides that the President himself is authorized, after the
disbanding of the Isthmian Canal Commission--which is to take place
whenever the President thinks the work has approached a sufficient
degree of completion to warrant it--to complete, govern, and operate
the Panama Canal, and to govern the Canal Zone, if he desires to do it
himself; or "cause it to be completed, governed, and operated through
a governor of the canal." Of course, the President will prefer to
"cause it to be completed, governed, and operated" through such a
governor. As a matter of fact, when the question of selecting a
governor comes before the President it may be expected that he will
choose a man in whom he has every confidence to carry out the organic
law on the Canal Zone, and to place the canal in operation. This man
will be as much of an autocrat on the Zone under the permanent
organization as the chairman and chief engineer was during the
construction.
When President Roosevelt undertook to carry out the provisions of the
Spooner Act, and to have the canal dug by a board of seven
commissioners, each independent of the other, he soon found that it
would not work. After repeated trials he came to the conclusion that
the control of affairs on the Isthmus should be concentrated largely
under the chairman and chief engineer. He therefore issued an
executive order requiring that all officials on the Isthmus should
report to the chairman and chief engineer, giving him practically all
control over the entire project. This brought both the Canal Zone
Government and the sanitary department under the supervision of the
chairman and chief engineer. The result was a coordination of the work
and a satisfactory organization for its prosecution.
When Congress came to make the permanent canal law it profited by the
unsatisfactory results that would have grown out of a rigid adherence
to the principles of the Spooner Act, and concentrated all authority
under the governor of the Canal Zone. There were those who thought the
sanitary department should not be under the control of the governor,
and still others who felt that the operation of the canal probably
should be under one man and the civil government under another. But
these suggestions were not followed, and the act as finally adopted
makes the President practically a czar of the Isthmus, and under him
the governor need give account to no one but the President.
It has been the ambition of the present chief engineer of the canal to
see the operating force fully installed and things moving along on a
satisfactory working basis before leaving the Isthmus. He thinks
arrangements should be made whereby acute changes of policy should be
prevented. This he would do by having a principal assistant who would
succeed the governor at the end of his four-year term. This would
permit a continuous policy and an unbroken line of action which,
according to his view, would make for the efficiency of the operating
force. In speaking of this phase of the matter, he stated that were a
new man chosen at the end of the four-year term of his predecessor--a
man who had had no previous experience on the Isthmus--there would
always be a tendency to make radical changes.
He would have on the governor's staff a doctor from the Army to have
charge of the work of sanitation on the Canal Zone, who would report
directly to the governor. The quarantine officer, in his opinion,
should be under the Public Health Service of the United States. Under
the plan as adopted in the permanent canal law, any officer of the
Army or of the Navy chosen to fill a position in the canal operating
force will be paid the same salary as a civilian, with the exception
that he would get only the difference between his regular Army or Navy
pay and the salary his position carried.
It is estimated that the expense of operating the canal will amount to
about $3,500,000 a year. This includes the cost of operating a number
of dredges which will have to be maintained in connection with the
canal work. The estimate was made upon the amount of business handled
at the Sault Ste. Marie Canal which has the largest traffic of any
canal in the world.
There will be five departments for the operation of the canal outside
of the work of maintaining the civil government and sanitation. The
operating department will have charge of the operation of docks and
wharves at the terminals, pilotage, lockage, and the lighting of the
canal. It is estimated that it will cost $400,000 a year to maintain
the terminals, $150,000 a year to light the canal, and that it will
require 60 pilots, at $1,800 each a year, to take ships through.
During the first years of operation it is believed that a single shift
can handle all the business that comes, but, as the years go by, it
may require two shifts and eventually three to keep the work going.
The engineering department will require about 500 men and will have
charge of all the construction and repair work pertaining to the canal
property, and of all excavation and dredging in the canal. It will
cost approximately a million dollars a year to maintain this
department, of which three-fourths will be required for the operation
of the dredges and other equipment for keeping the canal open.
The quartermaster's department will have charge of the construction,
repair, and maintenance of all buildings, roads, and municipal
improvements in the Zone settlements and of the receipt, care, and
issue of all property and material. This department will require
nearly a thousand men and the total expense will be in the
neighborhood of $600,000.
The electrical and mechanical department will have charge of the
mechanical and electrical apparatus belonging to the canal, and of the
permanent works at its two ends.
The accounting department will require some 60 men with annual
salaries amounting to approximately a hundred thousand dollars. It is
estimated that the cost of materials for the operation of the canal
will range around three-fourths of a million dollars a year.
The force which will be maintained on the Isthmus, with their
families, will make a Canal Zone population of approximately 5,000.
These, in addition to the eight or nine thousand troops and marines
which will be quartered there, will bring the total population up to
about thirteen or fourteen thousand. Of these perhaps three-fourths
will be along the southern 10-mile section of the canal. But, in spite
of the greater population at the Pacific side, the Atlantic end will
probably not lack for attraction. It is likely that Gatun Lake will be
stocked with a supply of fresh-water fish, and that shooting preserves
will be established adjacent to Gatun, to be conducted in connection
with the Washington Hotel at Colon. There is also some talk of
constructing golf links adjacent to Gatun, which will be open alike to
the employees of the canal and to the guests of the two big Government
hotels--the Washington and the Tivoli.
While a freight-carrying steamer will make its stay as short as
possible, the probabilities are that the passenger-carrying steamer
will require at least 48 hours to make its calls at the two terminal
cities and pass through the canal. They will probably handle the major
portion of the package cargo, leaving the bulk cargo business entirely
for freighters. When going through the canal from the Atlantic to the
Pacific they probably will have cargo bound for a large number of
Pacific ports on diverse routes. This would be discharged at Balboa
and there be put into other ships to be carried to its destination.
During the time the shipping and unshipping of cargo, replenishing
stores, taking on coal and like operations are being performed, the
traveler will be afforded opportunity to get acquainted with dry land
again, and to enjoy for a day or two a respite from his long sea
journey.
The plan advocated on the Isthmus for perfecting the permanent
organization was as follows: The chairman and chief engineer would
call upon each of the departments to furnish a list with the ratings
of the best men. The man having the best record would be offered a
position under the permanent organization similar to the one held by
him under the construction organization. If he chose to accept this
position under the wage standard laid out he could do so; if he did
not, the next man would be given the opportunity, and so on down. In
this way it was expected that the entire force would be chosen because
of records made in the service.