Socialists, therefore, should be cautious in holding up the canal as an example of their theories in successful practice. Industrial life, even under Socialism, would have to do what the canal project has not done and is not required to do, namely, justify itself as a business proposition. The canal ultimately may do this, but it will not be because it was designed and constructed with that imperative end in view. Even the commissary and subsistence operations that usually evoke strong approval as evidences of governmental efficiency, possess no socialistic and slight communal aspects. The government has made them pay by arbitrarily exacting a profit under noncompetitive conditions. None of the forces of industrial life that tend to make for favorable or unfavorable economic conditions, can operate in a government job which secures its capital, not because of the intrinsic merit of the enterprise, but through the gratuitous function of taxation.

If we turn to the purely technical side of the project, unquestionably the highest praise is due to the Army engineers. On its engineering side, the canal proves that the government does not have to go outside its own forces to find the highest order of ability. The American people never again will clamor for private initiative and execution of any enterprise they may want accomplished.

Col. Goethals is indeed a great administrator. Even if the employees have had soft conditions of employment, it is an achievement to impress 35,000 men with a faith both in your capacity as an engineer and your

sense of justice. This writer knows of no higher tribute that can be paid to him than the statement that in five months in the Canal Zone he never heard anyone speak slurringly of the Chief Engineer. Col. Goethals has been no respecter of persons. In 1912, two officials drawing $300 a month salary each, were discharged as summarily as any common laborer would have been, for breaches of the rules. It has been his practice to give his Sunday mornings to hearing grievances from employees, and those without just grounds of complaint are sent about their business peremptorily, while those who have been wronged are given justice, no matter how high the official who is in error. The man's admirable poise is shown in the just way he has exercised the absolute power of a Czar, for when he sets his pen to paper a new law is made in the Canal Zone. Those who cannot square their conduct with his fiat, go out on the next steamer, whether an individual or a labor union en masse.

As Admiral Schley said of the controversy over the battle of Santiago, " there is honor enough for us all," so with regard to the Panama Canal. Col. Goethals, as the star of the last six years, gets the curtain calls, but even if we assign Messrs. Stevens and Wallace to the rôles of villains, they, too, did their parts well. And the whole company of Americans, composing the chorus or supernumeraries, have contributed vitally to the success of the play. After all, it is no one man, but the Spirit of Americanism, indomitable and triumphant, that we admire in Panama. Future generations will see in Col. Goethals the outward head

of this national characteristic, but the final verdict of approval will be much broader and more just than that, even to the admission that all praise belongs to the Americans in Panama.

A

CHAPTER XIV

LOCKS AND DAMS

N elevator system for ships is being installed at Panama at a cost of $58,000,000. These elevators, known as locks, will raise ships to and lower them from the great artificial, inland lake which is 85 feet above sea-level.

In a sea-level canal, such as Suez, ships steam through a dug-out channel from one ocean to another. But at Panama, the plan adopted involves the lifting of ships over the Isthmus and the locks are the means whereby they are lifted. For this physical operation there are six locks on the Atlantic side and six on the Pacific side, at each end of the Gatun Lake.

A ship arriving at Colon from New York, on its way to San Francisco, enters the sea-level channel in Limon Bay and steams for seven miles through the canal, which is 500 feet wide and 41 feet deep, to Gatun. Here its way is barred by a massive pile of masonry with impressive steel gates and towering 85 feet above the ship is the surface of the Gatun Lake. To the West of the ship runs the man-made mountain, the Gatun dam, which holds the lake in bounds. The problem is to lift the ship to this lake.

As if by magic, the gates swing open and an electric locomotive, which has run out on a guide wall and fastened to the ship, tows it into the first lock. The