It is not necessary to dwell upon the judicial proceedings that gave the final tragic touch to this dismal failure. Convictions of a criminal nature were secured against the De Lesseps, father and son, but the sentences against them were not enforced. Many other prominent persons, including a number of Senators, Deputies and Government officials, were found guilty of corruption. Despite the gross mismanagement that characterized the French undertaking, they did a large amount of work. Much of this has been turned to account by our engineers and has greatly lessened our task. In the matter of surveys they were especially thorough during the later years of their operation. The plan which we are following is based on their investigations and the data received from them. Furthermore, the study of their mistakes saved us from falling into similar errors. Their experiments in machinery and methods were also useful to our engineers and a large quantity of their material and many of their buildings have been used by us. In short, the effort of the French to construct a canal paved the way for us and facilitated our task. CHAPTER V THE TRANSFER OF THE CANAL THE assets in hands of the receiver of the Panama Canal Company, which included the work done on the Isthmus, were conservatively valued by him at $90,000,000, but, of course, they were worth little or nothing unless the operation should be continued. To abandon it would be to entail upon upwards of two hundred thousand persons, most of them poor, or in moderate circumstances, losses which they could ill afford to bear. The receiver addressed himself with vigor to the task of renewing confidence in the enterprise as the first step towards securing the necessary funds for its continuance. He appointed an able committee to investigate the situation on the Isthmus and determine the future possibilities. In the last month of 1890, this committee repaired to Panama and after a careful examination of the work and the conditions to be met, reported that a lock canal could be completed in eight years at a cost of $100,000,000 of additional money. It recommended that a company should be organized for the purpose. In pursuance of this object, Lieutenant Wyse was sent to Bogotá by the receiver. Wyse secured an extension of the original concession for ten years on the condition that the prospective company should be fully organized by February, 1893, and that the waterway should be open to traffic before the close of 1904. In October, 1893, the New Panama Canal Company was organized, an extension of time having been granted by the Colombian Government for a consideration. The Company had a capital of $13,000,000 to begin with, and the ownership of all the material assets of the old company. When the Canal should be completed sixty per cent of the profits were to be paid to the latter for the liquidation of its liabilities. The Government had by extraordinary action in the matter of legislation enabled the New Panama Canal Company to get started, but its assistance stopped there and it assumed no responsibility for the Company's future. The directors took a wise step at the outset. A technical committee was appointed to direct the operations and determine upon the precise plan for the Canal. The Comité Technique was composed of seven French engineers and seven foreigners, including two Americans. The body represented an aggregation of extraordinary talent and several of the members had extensive knowledge of canal work. The committee performed its task in the most thorough and painstaking manner. It began by examining all the technical data derived from the old company, endorsing it, or rectifying it, as the case might be. It made new surveys and, while securing information upon which to base a plan for the projected waterway, directed the continuance of excavations where they would be sure to serve in any course of operation that might ultimately be adopted. The work of this committee was by far the most valuable that had been accomplished upon the Isthmus up to that time. When the American authorities took over the assets of the New Panama Company, the Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission declared that the maps and documents which originated with the Comité Technique were worth one million dollars, or more. In its final report, which was submitted at the end of 1898, the committee estimated the cost of a canal which should be equal to the utmost demands of commerce and could be finished in ten years, at $100,000,000. It recognized three principal difficulties to be contended with. These were the problem of sanitation, the cut through the Culebra pass, and the control of the Chagres River. "The studies of the New Company were based on three fundamental principles: (1) To reject any plan that did not, independently of considerations of time and expense, offer every guarantee of a serviceable canal. (2) To reject any fanciful scheme depending on the application of new and untried devices not justified by experience; and (3) to give due weight to the peculiar tropical conditions under which the work must be executed. These must compel the employment of a class of laborers inferior to those available in better climates, and the work will be exhausting to those supervising the constructions. No technical details should therefore be admitted involving operations of exceptional difficulty."1 While the plans of the French Company and the opinions of its engineering experts were of general interest so long as the form of water 1 Problems of the Panama Canal. Brig-Gen. Henry L. Abbott U. S. Army (retired). Late member of the Comité Technique New York, 1905. |