Chairman Shonts, himself a builder of long experience and well accustomed to dealing with contractors, was firmly of the opinion that the canal could best be built by letting contracts to private bidders for the work. In this he was opposed by most of his associates, and particularly by Mr. Stevens who had been working hard and efficiently to build up an organization that would be capable of building the canal without the interposition of private contractors looking for personal profit. The employees on the Zone, naturally enough, were with Stevens to a man, and time has shown that he and they were right. There is something about working for the nation that stirs a man’s loyalty as mere private employment never can. But in this instance Mr. Shonts was in Washington, convenient to the ear of the President while Mr. Stevens was on the Zone. Accordingly the President approved of the Chairman’s plan, and directed the Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, to advertise for bids. Mr. Stevens was discontented and showed it. That his judgment would be justified in the end he could not know. That it had been set aside for the moment he was keenly aware, and that he was being harassed by Congress and by innumerable rules such as no veteran railroad builder had ever been subjected to did not add to his comfort. [Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_ A DRILL BARGE AT WORK The sea and tidal waters are underlaid with coral rock necessitating much submarine blasting] His complaints to the Secretary of War were many, and not of a sort to contribute to that official’s peace of mind. When the bids came in from the would-be contractors they were all rejected on the ground that they did not conform to the specifications, but the real reason was that the President at heart did not believe in that method of doing the work, and was sure that the country agreed with him. This should have allayed Mr. Stevens’ rising discontent. It certainly offended Chairman Shonts, who stood for the contract system, and when the bids were rejected and that system set aside promptly resigned. The President thereupon consolidated the offices of Chairman of the Commission and Chief Engineer in one, Mr. Stevens being appointed that one. Given thus practically unlimited power Mr. Stevens might have been expected to be profoundly contented with the situation. Instead he too resigned on the first of April, 1907. [Illustration: _Photo by S. H. Elliott_ PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO THE CANAL] About his resignation as about that of Mr. Wallace there has always been a certain amount of mystery. He himself made no explanation of his act, though his friends conjectured that he was not wholly in harmony with the President’s plan to abolish the civilian commission altogether, and fill its posts by appointments from the Army and Navy. On the Isthmus there is a story that he did not intend to resign at all. Albert Edwards, who heard the story early, tells it thus: