Theodore Roosevelt Visits Panama
On November 9, 1906 (108 years ago today) Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.
A quarter century ealier, on February 1, 1881, a French company called Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique began work on a canal that would cross the Colombian isthmus of Panama and unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, led the project. His plan called for a sea-level canal to be dug along the path of the Panama Railroad. Some 50 miles in length, the canal would be less than half as long as the Suez. De Lesseps estimated that the job would cost about $132 million, and take 12 years to complete. Earlier in the century, President Ulysses S. Grant had sent seven expeditions to study the feasibility of such a work.
On January 20, 1882, construction commenced. In the first months, the digging went well, slowly but steadily. But when the rainy season began the work was impeded by torrential rain, insects, snakes, swamps, intense heat, smallpox, malaria, yellow fever-and the Chagres River. The Chagres cut across the canal route a total 14 times. De Lesseps' decided to dam and divert the river, but in the rainy season, the Chagres turned into a torrent.The rain and the Chagres destroyed what engineering and hard labor had wrought. Mudslides buried men, supplies, and machines. The French recorded about 600 deaths from disease alone. As the toll mounted, so did discontent. French investors grumbled at the lack of progress. By December,1888, thousands of French investors lost their money and Panama became synonymous with fraud. About $287 million had been spent, eleven miles of canal had been dug and twenty thousand men had died. The canal remained unfinished, until Theodore Roosevelt came along.
Shortly after becoming President, Roosevelt raised the subject of the Panama Canal in a speech to Congress. He said "No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is as of such consequence to the American people." In 1902, the United States reached an agreement to buy rights to the French canal property and equipment for a sum not to exceed $40 million. The U.S. then began negotiating a Panama treaty with Colombia. The U.S Department of War would direct excavation.
When Colombia became difficult in its negotiations, Roosevelt and Panamanian business interests collaborated on a revolution. Colombian soldiers in Colón were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms and the U.S.S. Nashville cruised off the Panamanian coast in a show of support for the insurgents. On November 3, 1903, the nation of Panama was born.
The U.S quickly assumed parental interest. Americans had written the Panamanian Constitution in advance; the wife of pro-canal lobbyist Phillipe Bunau-Varilla had sewn the country's first flag. A payment of $10 million secured a canal zone and rights to build. Bunau-Varilla, installed as Panamanian minister to the U.S., signed a treaty favorable to American interests.
The Americans' first year in Panama (1904) mirrored the French experience. Disease struck, and three out of four Americans booked passage home. The Americans had spent $128 million into the project with little to show for it. But the arrival of new engineer John Stevens marked a change of luck for the beleaguered canal. Steven decided that what was needed was a well-housed, well-fed, disease-free labor force. Stevens began work not by not digging, but by cleaning. Dr. William Gorgas, who had helped to eradicate yellow fever in Havana years before, directed sanitation efforts. Workers drained swamps, swept drainage ditches, paved roads and installed plumbing.
After nine months of lobbying Congress, the push for a canal succeeded. Stevens would dam the Chagres River to create Gatun Lake in Panama's interior. A series of locks would raise ships from the Atlantic side to the level of the lake. The boats would cross the lake, then descend by another set of locks to the Pacific. Ironically, the plan was nearly identical to one proposed by the French engineer Godin de Lépinay in 1879, at the same meeting in which M. de Lesseps promoted his sea-level plan.
On November 9, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt left the United States on a trip to Panama to inspect construction of the Panama Canal. The trip made Roosevelt the first president to make an official visit to a foreign country while in office. Roosevelt traveled by sea aboard the USS Louisiana and then by train to the Canal Zone, arriving on November 14, 1906. Roosevelt spent three days in Panama, and he recorded some of the events in letters to his sons Kermit and Ted. He wrote to Kermit:
"We were [in Panama] three days and we worked from morning till night. The second day I was up at a quarter to six and got to bed at a quarter of twelve, and I do not believe that in the intervening time, save when I was dressing, there were ten consecutive minutes when I was not busily at work in some shape or form. For two days there [were] uninterrupted tropic rains without a glimpse of the sun, and the Chagres River rose in a flood, higher than any for fifteen years; so that we saw the climate at its worst. It was just what I desired to do."
To his son Ted, he wrote:
"In the next place it is a tremendous sight to see the work on the canal going on. From the chief engineer and the chief sanitary officer down to the last arrived machinist or time-keeper, the five thousand Americans at work on the Isthmus seemed to me an exceptionally able, energetic lot, some of them grumbling, of course, but on the whole a mighty good lot of men."
Roosevelt left Panama on November 17 aboard the Louisiana and continued his trip on to Puerto Rico. In another letter to Kermit, he wrote that he and Mrs. Roosevelt were welcomed warmly and enjoyed a state dinner at the palace in San Juan. The Roosevelts returned to the United States on November 26, 1906.
The Panama Canal opened officially on August 15, 1914. But the significance of this news was lost as other world affairs overtook the front pages of the newspapers. At the time German troops were driving across Belgium toward Paris. Panama was no longer front page news. The greatest engineering project in the history of the world wasn't as newsworthy as World War I.
A quarter century ealier, on February 1, 1881, a French company called Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique began work on a canal that would cross the Colombian isthmus of Panama and unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, led the project. His plan called for a sea-level canal to be dug along the path of the Panama Railroad. Some 50 miles in length, the canal would be less than half as long as the Suez. De Lesseps estimated that the job would cost about $132 million, and take 12 years to complete. Earlier in the century, President Ulysses S. Grant had sent seven expeditions to study the feasibility of such a work.
On January 20, 1882, construction commenced. In the first months, the digging went well, slowly but steadily. But when the rainy season began the work was impeded by torrential rain, insects, snakes, swamps, intense heat, smallpox, malaria, yellow fever-and the Chagres River. The Chagres cut across the canal route a total 14 times. De Lesseps' decided to dam and divert the river, but in the rainy season, the Chagres turned into a torrent.The rain and the Chagres destroyed what engineering and hard labor had wrought. Mudslides buried men, supplies, and machines. The French recorded about 600 deaths from disease alone. As the toll mounted, so did discontent. French investors grumbled at the lack of progress. By December,1888, thousands of French investors lost their money and Panama became synonymous with fraud. About $287 million had been spent, eleven miles of canal had been dug and twenty thousand men had died. The canal remained unfinished, until Theodore Roosevelt came along.
Shortly after becoming President, Roosevelt raised the subject of the Panama Canal in a speech to Congress. He said "No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is as of such consequence to the American people." In 1902, the United States reached an agreement to buy rights to the French canal property and equipment for a sum not to exceed $40 million. The U.S. then began negotiating a Panama treaty with Colombia. The U.S Department of War would direct excavation.
When Colombia became difficult in its negotiations, Roosevelt and Panamanian business interests collaborated on a revolution. Colombian soldiers in Colón were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms and the U.S.S. Nashville cruised off the Panamanian coast in a show of support for the insurgents. On November 3, 1903, the nation of Panama was born.
The U.S quickly assumed parental interest. Americans had written the Panamanian Constitution in advance; the wife of pro-canal lobbyist Phillipe Bunau-Varilla had sewn the country's first flag. A payment of $10 million secured a canal zone and rights to build. Bunau-Varilla, installed as Panamanian minister to the U.S., signed a treaty favorable to American interests.
The Americans' first year in Panama (1904) mirrored the French experience. Disease struck, and three out of four Americans booked passage home. The Americans had spent $128 million into the project with little to show for it. But the arrival of new engineer John Stevens marked a change of luck for the beleaguered canal. Steven decided that what was needed was a well-housed, well-fed, disease-free labor force. Stevens began work not by not digging, but by cleaning. Dr. William Gorgas, who had helped to eradicate yellow fever in Havana years before, directed sanitation efforts. Workers drained swamps, swept drainage ditches, paved roads and installed plumbing.
After nine months of lobbying Congress, the push for a canal succeeded. Stevens would dam the Chagres River to create Gatun Lake in Panama's interior. A series of locks would raise ships from the Atlantic side to the level of the lake. The boats would cross the lake, then descend by another set of locks to the Pacific. Ironically, the plan was nearly identical to one proposed by the French engineer Godin de Lépinay in 1879, at the same meeting in which M. de Lesseps promoted his sea-level plan.
On November 9, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt left the United States on a trip to Panama to inspect construction of the Panama Canal. The trip made Roosevelt the first president to make an official visit to a foreign country while in office. Roosevelt traveled by sea aboard the USS Louisiana and then by train to the Canal Zone, arriving on November 14, 1906. Roosevelt spent three days in Panama, and he recorded some of the events in letters to his sons Kermit and Ted. He wrote to Kermit:
"We were [in Panama] three days and we worked from morning till night. The second day I was up at a quarter to six and got to bed at a quarter of twelve, and I do not believe that in the intervening time, save when I was dressing, there were ten consecutive minutes when I was not busily at work in some shape or form. For two days there [were] uninterrupted tropic rains without a glimpse of the sun, and the Chagres River rose in a flood, higher than any for fifteen years; so that we saw the climate at its worst. It was just what I desired to do."
To his son Ted, he wrote:
"In the next place it is a tremendous sight to see the work on the canal going on. From the chief engineer and the chief sanitary officer down to the last arrived machinist or time-keeper, the five thousand Americans at work on the Isthmus seemed to me an exceptionally able, energetic lot, some of them grumbling, of course, but on the whole a mighty good lot of men."
Roosevelt left Panama on November 17 aboard the Louisiana and continued his trip on to Puerto Rico. In another letter to Kermit, he wrote that he and Mrs. Roosevelt were welcomed warmly and enjoyed a state dinner at the palace in San Juan. The Roosevelts returned to the United States on November 26, 1906.
The Panama Canal opened officially on August 15, 1914. But the significance of this news was lost as other world affairs overtook the front pages of the newspapers. At the time German troops were driving across Belgium toward Paris. Panama was no longer front page news. The greatest engineering project in the history of the world wasn't as newsworthy as World War I.