by David McCullough
published 1978
rating: 4.8
David McCullough uses his masterful story-telling skills to present the story of the dream, the struggle, the folly and failures and ultimately of the triumph of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the jungles at Panama. The story spans the forty year period from the beginning of the disastrous French effort to the completion of the successful American effort to build the canal. He draws from diverse sources spanning centuries to portray the vast interests and obstacles facing virtually everyone whose lives were touched or consumed by the canal project. Ultimately he succeeds in writing an entertaining page-turner for this non-fiction story where we already know the outcome.
The author mentions that as far back as Columbus, explorers and governments were intrigued with the prospect of a canal through the isthmus separating the Atlantic and Pacific. Such a canal would save 8,000 miles for thousands of ships every year, greatly increasing world trade and reshaping the geopolitical map.
But not until the charismatic Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps completed the Suez canal in 1869, did the world take notice and begin to seriously consider that such a massive feat of engineering might be at hand. If they could do it at Suez, ‘why not Panama’ was the inevitable thinking of the day. As perhaps the most key figure in the early part of the canal story, de Lesseps gets credit for Suez effort. Though not a scientist, engineer, businessman or politician, de Lesseps used his charm, wit and unfailing belief in the power of modern science to conquer anything. He alone convinced key Egyptian and French leaders that the canal was possible and he alone, at least in the minds of most ordinary citizens, is credited as the main force behind Suez.
McCullough pays tribute to this accomplishment with lively stories of Lesseps and Egyptian sultans riding horseback through the desert, arguing his case and gradually converting all who would listen into believers of the possible. Upon the successful completion of Suez, Lesseps turns his attention to Panama as his next logical conquest.
Here the author is thorough and patient in taking the reader through the same painful process that French and American investigators endured in surveying the isthmus, trying to find the best route for a canal. Unlike Suez, which is a dry, low-lying desert, relatively free of disease, unpopulated and geographically close to Europe, the American isthmus is a remote mountainous jungle, replete with disease-carrying insects, venomous snakes, huge annual rainfall, impoverished and work-adverse peoples, and a wholly inhospitable environment for the likes of French or American builders.
At the start of the California gold rush in 1849, thousands of fortune seekers chose to sail to Panama, cross that isthmus by mule then sail north to San Francisco. This was often quicker and less dangerous than crossing the North American continent, despite the dangers of the jungle. Seeing this huge volume of traffic across the isthmus, entrepreneurs secured land rights from Columbia to build a railroad traversing the 46 miles between the Atlantic and Pacific at Panama. Completed in 1853, the railroad, owned by Americans, was a huge commercial success, even though traffic tapered off when the California gold fever subsided and especially when the transcontinental railroad opened in 1870.
In France, greed and patriotism fueled the formation of the French canal company to undertake the grand project of a sea-level canal across Panama. Despite vigorous protests from various engineers on this unwise approach, and despite hopelessly unreal budgets, inadequate surveys and insufficient preparations, money was raised and work was started by the French. Trouble began immediately, untold thousands died of disease, and work progressed at a hopelessly slow pace. After scandalous cover-ups, extensive graft and tragic deaths, the French company finally collapsed amid shame and extensive losses, primarily borne by average French citizens who, fooled by their own greed, accepted the rhetoric of their own leaders.
Despite the miserable failure of the French, they did display moments of brilliance and ingenuity in their work, which eventually gave the Americans a head-start some twenty years later. Some American engineers on site in Panama would come to respect their French counterparts for the thousands of buildings, huge excavations and other accomplishments in infrastructure, especially considering the miserable conditions the French faced on the isthmus.
The American story, which began around 1900, when Roosevelt was still vice president, was initially a contentious debate as to where to locate the canal. Some favored Nicaragua while others favored Panama. We will probably never know all of the facts, but McCullough is careful to convey that the issue had many vested interests as well as technical opinions on both sides of the controversy. Ultimately one of the central figures in this period was Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French citizen who had worked on the French canal effort and who owned shares in the failed canal company. He and his brother, plus an American attorney-lobbyist hired by the French (Cromwell) had huge personal stakes in seeing that the Americans would choose to build in Panama and that they would pay the failed French company for the idle equipment, empty buildings and work already completed.
After several years of formal debate in congress and the senate, and after direct lobbying by Bunau-Varilla on dozens of key Americans, including Roosevelt himself, the decision was made to pay $40 million to the French company and to begin work in Panama. This left the remaining issue of signing a treaty with Colombia, which leads directly into the next problem, and perhaps the most controversial action of Roosevelt’s career: he is credited with the unlawful Panama revolution in which Columbia lost control of the isthmus.
The telling of this episode suggests that the Americans really did very little to participate in the creation of the independent Panamanian state, other than to quietly and unofficially give the impression that they stood ready to lend military support to the very small number of Panamanian rebels in their efforts to gain independence from Columbia. The fact that the Colombian military was easily bought off and that no shots were fired by either side makes this ‘revolution’ seem nearly comical. The mere belief of U.S. military might held by the Colombian soldiers probably contributed to the ease with which they were encouraged to run without a fight. There was misunderstanding, misrepresentation, greed and apathy on all sides. There were no heroes and no casualties, yet in a matter of hours, Panama become an independent state and Columbia was out of the picture.
The U.S. government quickly signed a very lopsided treaty with the newly formed Panamanian government, hugely favorable to the U.S.. Then the U.S. paid the French company $40 million for their assets on the isthmus. Finally the Americans began the long campaign to build the canal where the French failed. From the beginning, the Americans made many of the same mistakes that the French made, including the arrogant disregard of the threats of disease, despite the warnings and pleading of experts who had learned how to combat yellow fever and malaria. As always, nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error. This maxim was proved in spades by the thousands of needless deaths from mosquitos, as stubborn administrators ignored the evidence from recent successful efforts in eradicating those diseases in Havana. The U.S. even put Dr. Gorgas in charge of health care in Panama. He had virtually eliminated yellow fever a few years earlier in Cuba after painstakingly observation there. He now pleaded with the canal administrators for funding and permission to employ the same techniques in Panama, yet was repeatedly ignored as thousands died needlessly.
Eventually, after wasting a year, a lot of money and many lives, the chief engineer at Panama, John Wallace, quit his job. So for all of the talk of French inefficiency and failure, the Americans up to to this point had actually underperformed the French.
Upon the resignation of Wallace, Roosevelt appointed John Stevens as chief engineer of the canal project and gave him wide authority to run the project as he saw fit. A self-made, accomplished railroad engineer, Stevens attacked the Panama project head-on. He insisted that all work stop until the facilities were cleaned up. He gave Gorgas everything he requested and full authority to do whatever needed to eliminate mosquitoes, unsanitary conditions and rats (there was a case of bubonic plague). He cleaned up the cities and towns, fixed the railroads, repaired the equipment and took careful stock of the work to be done.
Stevens primarily saw the canal project as a railroad task in that the major challenge was not digging dirt, but rather of removing and disposing of the dirt once dug. As an experienced railroad builder, he greatly improved the scope, size, capacity and efficiency of the railroad along the canal project before finally resuming work. Also, unlike Wallace, Stevens was seen every day among to rank-and-file workers, asking questions, observing, staying familiar with every detail of the project and of the lives of the workers. And finally, Stevens embraced the theories of Gorgas, and thus gave the doctor carte blanche to employ his techniques to rid the area of disease.
Stevens and Roosevelt shared a mutual admiration and respect for each other. After Roosevelt’s famous two-week tour of the canal project in 2007, the president paid high praise to Stevens in a public speech. So it was particularly disturbing to the President when Stevens resigned shortly after the president’s Panama tour. Though he gave no specific reason for his resignation, the best guess is that he was simply exhausted from the relentless detail and wholly absent leisure that a man of Steven’s age would inevitably begin to crave after a life of hard work. Not a glory-seeker, Stevens simply wanted a break, to enjoy the fruits of his labors for whatever years he might have remaining.
Wasting no time, Roosevelt and his war secretary Howard Taft decided to appoint George Washington Goethals as the new head of the canal project. They also reorganized the administration of the project so that Goethals became the absolute czar, able to avoid red tape or budget concerns. Goethals indeed had full authority and virtually unlimited funds to do whatever it took to complete the canal. The other important departures from previous canal administrations were that Goethals would run the operation from Panama, and that Goethals was a colonel in the army corps of engineers. So the canal project, to date the biggest engineering task ever attempted, would be run by the United States Army.
Goethals was not a people person, though he was without question a talented engineer, and more importantly to Taft and Roosevelt, as a military man, he would be extremely unlikely to quit as his predecessors had. As a military officer, he would do exactly as he was commanded - he would follow orders. Goethal’s reception on the isthmus was cold and hostile, as most workers assumed they would be forced to work in military conditions, with uniforms and such. Canal workers made an emotional, festive farewell to Stevens and all but ignored the arrival of Goethals.
But their fears were badly misplaced. Goethals, while not a ‘man of the people’ as Stevens had been, was fully aware of the task at hand and how best to accomplish it. He began by announcing that neither he nor anyone working for this project would wear a uniform. He readily fired anyone who caused trouble and quickly established both his absolute authority as well as his fairness and good judgement. He would remain on the job until completed, and under Goethal’s administration, canal zone employees would come to enjoy what many would come to see as the best years of their lives. Pay was ample, vacation and sick leave benefits were generous for the times, food and stores were well-stocked items and inexpensive and living arrangements, social life, the arts, and all forms of entertainment were widely enjoyed, all in the service of the larger-than-life project that would benefit humanity for centuries to come. It was truly a workers’ paradise. In fact, the anti-socialists of the day worried that when the canal project ended and all of those happy workers returned to U.S. soil, their experience would form a frightening socialist lobby. However others noted that unlike a true socialist society, the canal project was a benevolent dictatorship. Goethals was the undisputed leader with access to the bottomless pocket of Uncle Sam, so the socialist comparison had only limited viability.
Many of the tourists and journalists who had visited Panama during Goethal’s time remarked that to their surprise, the canal project, though impressive in its own right, was not what caught their attention. Particularly for those who had viewed the canal project in the earlier, mosquito-infested days, the transformation of the jungle into a sparkling and efficient tropical work zone was nothing short of a miracle. Fear of yellow fever and disgusting living conditions had been replaced with a genuine enthusiasm for working in idyllic living conditions on an exciting project of world importance. Indeed, when the canal opened, Goethals was asked what was the most important factor in competing the work. He answered that the fact of a motivated workforce was certainly the most critical element.
Toward the end of the story McCullough shifts into a more statistical and qualitative mode, covering the human, financial and engineering aspects of the canal without regard to timeline. He provides statistics, body counts, amounts of excavation and measurements of every sort relating to the canal project. He also provides a description of the great disparity between black and white workers on the project, both during the French era and the American era. Here he supplies plenty of statistics where available and keeps his story in context with the politics and common beliefs regarding skin color during the canal years. By far the majority of the workers were black men from the West Indies, who as uneducated, black and non-Americans were paid less and given much less in the way of housing, entertainment and other benefits, yet served a critical role in the construction of the canal. Due to the nature of their work and their poor housing conditions, this population suffered a higher death rate from all causes during the entire project. Still, they were provided free medical care, and McCullough includes one lengthy description written by one of those black patients.
Despite the lack of spending restraints, the canal project was completed both in less than the allotted time and less than the allotted budget - a truly rare occurrence, particularly for such a large project. And according to McCullough, at the time of his story some six decades after the canal opened, there was still no evidence or graft or corruption in the American effort, which clearly sets it apart from the French effort. The canal mechanisms have worked flawlessly for a century.
McCullough finally closes his story with a quote from John Stevens, who ran the canal project in 1906 - 1907, and like Lesseps before him, had great faith in human intellect and creativity. Stevens, who died in 1943 at the age of 90, addressing young engineers, wrote “ . . the great works are still to come. I believe that we are but children picking up pebbles on the shore of the boundless ocean.”
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