Part 3 (1/2)

Much can be said with regard to this matter, and it is one which should, and no doubt will, receive the most careful consideration of the engineers in charge of the work. Seismic disturbances have occurred in all parts of the world, and they have occurred at Panama. Where they are not directly of volcanic origin they appear to be the result of subsidence or contraction of the earth's crust, and they have occurred and caused serious destruction far from centers of volcanic activity, among other places, at Lisbon, Portugal, and at Charleston, S.C. Some sections of the earth, as for ill.u.s.tration j.a.pan and the Philippines, are no doubt more subject to these movements than others, and sections subject to such movements at one period of time may be exempt for many years if not forever thereafter.

The fearful earthquake which affected Charleston, S.C., in 1886 had no corresponding precedent in that section, nor has it been followed by a similar disturbance. Regardless of the terrible experience of 1886, the government has now in course of construction at Charleston a navy-yard, and a great dry-dock, costing many millions of dollars, which will be operated by locks or gates, and, I presume, the question of earthquakes or earth movements has not been raised in any of the reports which have been made regarding this undertaking. Earthquakes formerly were quite frequent in New England, and they extended to New York during the early years of our history, and for a time Boston and Newbury, Ma.s.s., Deerfield, N.H., and particularly East Haddam, Conn., were the centers of seismic activity, which by inference might be used as an argument against our navy-yards at Portsmouth, N.H., and Charlestown, Ma.s.s., our torpedo station at Newport, or the fortifications at Willets Point. The earthquake which destroyed Lisbon in 1755 might with equal propriety be used as an argument against the building of the extensive docks and fortifications at Gibraltar, but no one, I think, has ever questioned the solidity of the Rock.

Seismology is a very complex branch of geologic inquiry and it is a subject regarding which very little of determining value is known.

Theories have been advanced that under certain geological conditions earth movements would be comparatively infrequent, if not impossible.

Whether such conditions exist at Panama would have to be determined by the investigations of qualified experts. It would seem, however, from such data as are available, that the local conditions are decidedly favorable to a comparative immunity of this region from serious seismic shocks, at least such as would do great and general damage. Nor can it be argued that the locks and dams would be exposed to special risk. The earthquake of 1882 did more or less damage, but the reports are of a very fragmentary character. Newspaper reports in matters of this kind have very small value. Injury was done to the railway, but not of very serious consequence.

If the risk exists, it would affect equally a sea-level ca.n.a.l, in that it would threaten the tidal lock, the dam at Gamboa, and the excavation through Culebra cut. Very little is known regarding earthquake motions, and there are very few seismic elements which are really calculable in conformity to a mathematical theory of probability. It is a subject which has not received the attention in this country of which it is deserving, but enough of seismic motion is known to warrant the conclusion that the Senate committee of 1902 was, in all human probability, entirely correct when it made light of the danger of the probability of seismic shocks at Panama.

In fine, the earthquake argument has little or no force against a lock-ca.n.a.l project, and it has never received serious consideration as such or been used in arguments against a lock ca.n.a.l until the recent San Francisco disaster brought the subject prominently before the public. It is a danger as remote as a possible destruction of the proposed terminal plants at Colon and Panama by flood waves equal in magnitude to the one which destroyed Galveston in 1900, but such dangers are inherent in all human undertakings. They must be taken as a matter of chance and remote possibility, which for all present purposes may be left out of account, except that the subject should receive the due consideration of the engineers and perhaps be made a matter of special and comprehensive inquiry by the Geological Survey. In any serious consideration of the facts for or against a lock ca.n.a.l, I am confident that the earthquake risk may safely be ignored. The comprehensive report of the minority members of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Affairs is a sufficient and conclusive answer to all the important points which are in controversy, and it remains for Congress to cut the ”Gordian knot” and put an end to an interminable discussion of much solid and substantial conviction on the one hand and of a vast amount of opinion and guesswork on the other hand. All of the evidence, all of the supplementary expert testimony which may be obtained upon the merits of the two propositions, will not change the position of those who rest their conclusions upon American experience and upon the judgment of American engineers, and who favor a lock ca.n.a.l. While there is no doubt that such a ca.n.a.l can be constructed and can be made a practicable waterway, there is a very serious question whether a sea-level ca.n.a.l can be constructed and made a safe and practicable waterway, at least within the limits of the estimated amount of cost and within the estimated time.

The view which I have tried to impress upon the Senate is nothing more nor less than a business view of what is, for all practical purposes, only a business proposition. If a lock ca.n.a.l can be built, useful for all purposes, at half the cost and within half the time of a sea-level ca.n.a.l, then I can come to no other conclusion than that a lock ca.n.a.l would be decidedly to our political and commercial advantage. A decision, however, should be arrived at. The ca.n.a.l project has reached a stage where the final plan or type must be determined, and it is the duty of Congress to act and to fix, for once and for all time, the type of ca.n.a.l, with the same courage and freedom from prejudice or bias as was the case in the decision which finally fixed the route by way of Panama.

Any amount of additional testimony and expert opinion will only add to the confusion and tend to produce a more hopeless state of affairs. Let Congress fix the type in broad outlines and leave it to responsible engineers in actual charge to solve problems in detail, and to adapt themselves to local conditions and to new problems which in the course of construction are certain to arise. Let us take counsel of the past, most of all from the experience gained in the construction of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, an engineering and commercial success which challenges the admiration of the world. We know how near it came to utter defeat by the conflict of opinion, by the intrigue of conniving and jealous powers, and last, but not least, by the ill-founded apprehensions and fears of those who were searching the vast domain of conjecture and remote possibilities for arguments to cause a temporary delay or ultimate abandonment.

It is not difficult to secure the opinion of eminent authority for or against any project when the facts themselves are in dispute, and when the objects and aims are not well defined. The great Lord Palmerston, the most bitter opponent of the Suez Ca.n.a.l scheme, in want of a more convincing argument, seriously claimed that France would send soldiers disguised as workmen to the Isthmus of Suez, later to take possession of Egypt and make it a French colony. By one method or another Palmerston tried to defeat the scheme in its beginning and to bring it to disaster during the period of construction. It is a far from creditable story.

History always more or less repeats itself, whether it be in politics or engineering enterprise, but in few affairs are there more convincing parallels than in the ca.n.a.l projects of Panama and Suez. Lord Palmerston and Sir Henry Bulwer, then the amba.s.sador at Constantinople, did all in their power to destroy public confidence in the enterprise, and they were completely successful in preventing English investments in the stock of the ca.n.a.l.[2]

It was the same Sir Henry Bulwer who, in 1850, succeeded by questionable diplomatic methods in foisting upon the American people a treaty which was contrary to their best interests and which for half a century was a hindrance and barrier to an American Isthmian ca.n.a.l. We owe it chiefly to the masterly and straightforward statesmans.h.i.+p of the late John Hay that this obstacle to our progress was disposed of to the entire satisfaction of both nations. I refer to these matters, which are facts of history, only to point out how an interminable discussion of matters of detail is certain to delay and do great injury to projects which should only receive Congressional consideration in broad outlines and upon fundamental principles. If we are to enter into a discussion of engineering conflicts, if we are to deliberate upon mere matters of structural detail, then an entire session of Congress will not suffice to solve all the problems which will arise in connection with that enterprise in the course of time. I draw attention to the Suez experience solely to point out the error of taking into serious account minor and far-fetched objections which a.s.sume an undue magnitude in the public mind when they are presented in lurid colors of impending disasters to a national enterprise of vast extent and importance.

So eminent an engineer as Mr. Robert Stephenson by his expert opinion deluded the British people into the belief that the Suez Ca.n.a.l would not be practicable; that, even if completed, it would be nothing but a stagnant ditch. Said Palmerston to De Lesseps:

All the engineers of Europe might say what they pleased, he knew more than they did, and his opinion would never change one iota, and he would oppose the work to the end.

Stephenson confirmed this view and held that the ca.n.a.l would never be completed except at an enormous expense, too great to warrant any expectation of return--a judgment both ill advised and erroneous as was clearly proved by subsequent events. I need only say that the Suez Ca.n.a.l is to-day an extremely profitable waterway, and that although the work was commenced and brought to completion without a single English s.h.i.+lling, through French enterprise and upon the judgment of French engineers, it was only a comparatively few years later when, as a matter of necessity and logical sequence, the controlling interest in the ca.n.a.l was purchased by the English government, which has since made of that waterway the most extensive use for purposes of peace and of war.

These are the facts of history, and they are not disputed. Shall history repeat itself? Shall we delay or miscarry in our efforts to complete a ca.n.a.l across the Isthmus of Panama upon similar pretensions of a.s.sumed dangers and possibilities of disaster, all more or less the result of engineering guesswork? Shall we take fright at the talk about the mischief-maker with his stick of dynamite, bent upon the destruction of the locks and the vital parts of the machinery, when history has its parallel during the Suez Ca.n.a.l agitation in ”the Arab shepherd, who, flushed with the opportunity for mischief and with a few strokes of a pickax, could empty the ca.n.a.l in a few minutes”? Shall we be swayed by foolish fears and apprehensions of earthquakes or tidal waves, and waste millions of money and years of time upon a pure conjecture, a pure theory deduced from fragmentary facts? Again the facts of ca.n.a.l history furnish the parallel of Stephenson and other engineers, who successfully frightened English investors out of the Suez enterprise by the statement that the ca.n.a.l would soon fill up with the moving sands of the desert, that one of the lakes through which the ca.n.a.l would pa.s.s would soon fill up with salt, that navigation of the Red Sea would be too dangerous and difficult, that s.h.i.+ps would fear to approach Port Said because of dangerous seas, and, finally, that in any event it would be impossible to keep the pa.s.sage open to the Mediterranean.

It was this kind of guesswork and conjecture which was advanced as an argument by engineers of eminence and sustained by one of the foremost statesmen of the century. How absurd it all seems now in the sunlight of history! The Panama Ca.n.a.l is a business enterprise, even if carried on by the nation, and with a thorough knowledge of the general facts and principles we require no more expert evidence, so called, nor additional volumes of engineering testimony. The nation is committed to the construction of a ca.n.a.l. The enterprise is one of imperative necessity to commerce, navigation, and national defense, and any further discussion, any needless waste of time and money, is little short of indifference to the national interests and objects which are at stake.

Of objections to either plan there is no end, and there will be no end as long as the subject remains open for discussion. To answer such objections in detail, to search the records for proof in support of one theory or another, is a mere waste of time which can lead to no possible useful result. Among others, for ill.u.s.tration, there has been placed before us a letter from the chief engineer of the Manchester s.h.i.+p Ca.n.a.l, who is emphatically in favor of a sea-level waterway. It would have been much more interesting and much more valuable to the members of Congress to have received from Mr. Hunter a statement as to why he should have changed his opinions; or why, in 1898, he should have signed the unanimous report of the technical commission in favor of a lock ca.n.a.l, while now he so emphatically sustains those who favor the sea-level project. It is not going too far to say, appealing to the facts of history, that Mr. Hunter may be seriously in error in this matter and may have drawn upon his imagination rather than upon his engineering experience, the same as Mr. Robert Stephenson was in serious error in his bitter opposition to the ca.n.a.l enterprise at Suez.

Mr. Hunter, in his letter, argues, among other points, that the lifts of the proposed locks would be without precedent. Without precedent? Why, of course, they would be without precedent. Is not practically every large American engineering enterprise without precedent? Was not the Erie Ca.n.a.l, completed in 1825, without precedent? Were not the first steamboat and the first locomotive without precedent? Were not the Hoosac Tunnel and the Brooklyn Bridge feats of American engineering enterprise without precedent?

Without precedent is the great barge ca.n.a.l which the State of New York is about to build, which will mean a complete reconstruction of the existing waterway which connects the ocean with the Great Lakes.[3]

All this is without precedent. But it is American. It is progress, and takes the necessary risk to leave the world better, at least in a material way, than we found it. In the proposed deep waterway, which is certain some day to be built to connect the uttermost ends of the Great Lakes with tide-water on the Atlantic, able and competent engineers of the largest experience have designed locks with a lift of 52 feet.[4]

That will be without precedent. On the Oswego Ca.n.a.l, proposed as a part of the new barge ca.n.a.l of the State of New York, there will be six locks, two of which will each have a lift of 28 feet,[5] and that will be without precedent, but neither dangerous nor detrimental to navigation interests.

Need I further appeal to the facts of past ca.n.a.l history? Is it necessary to recite one of the best known and most honorable chapters in the history of inland waterways--I mean the problems and difficulties inherent in the great project of constructing the ca.n.a.l of Languedoc, or ”Ca.n.a.l du Midi,” which forms a water communication between the Mediterranean and the Garonne and between the Garonne and the Atlantic Ocean, one of the best known ca.n.a.ls in France and in the world? Need I refer to that pathetic story of its chief engineer, Riquet, one of the greatest of French patriots, who, in his abiding faith in this great engineering feat, stood practically alone? Need I recall that he met with scant a.s.sistance from the government, with the most strenuous opposition from his countrymen; that he was treated even as a madman and that he died of a broken heart before the great work was finished?