The next person received is the representative of the Kangaroos, a fraternal order. "The Spanish American War veterans get free transportation on a special train on Memorial Day," he is informed, "and the fraternal orders on the Zone are crowded out." "Let a committee of all the fraternal orders appear next Sunday and talk it over with me and we will see what we can do," responds the chief engineer. Here comes a negro who says that his boss is a tyrant and abuses his men: "I will look into that," responds the presiding genius of the canal, and the Jamaican goes away with an expansive smile on his face. And so it went. Small affairs, big affairs, and indifferent ones were brought to his attention. In perhaps 80 per cent of them he could not do what was requested, but when able he did it so promptly, and in such a positive, straightforward manner, that his "at homes" have been compared, by the French ambassador to the United States, to the court of justice held by Saint Louis beneath the oak at Vincennes. A railroad engineer on one of the dirt trains got drunk and ran over a negro. He was sent to the penitentiary. The railroad men issued an ultimatum saying that if he were not released by a certain hour on a certain day, every dirt train on the canal would stop. A committee conveyed this ultimatum to Colonel Goethals and asked his decision. "You will get it at the penitentiary," he replied. "This man will remain in prison and every man who quits work on that account will be dropped from the rolls." There was no strike of engineers. At another time the waiters at the Tivoli Hotel went on strike. The whole force was promptly discharged, and the official paper of the Canal Commission carried their names with the announcement that thereafter they would not be eligible to employment in any capacity on the Canal Zone. If the chairman and chief engineer of the canal is just and firm in his relations with his men, he is no less generous in giving credit where credit belongs. Upon one occasion he was talking about the success of the canal project with a friend, and declared that the world would never give to John F. Stevens the credit that was due him in the construction of the canal. "You know," said he, "the real problem of building this canal has been that of removing the spoil; that problem was preeminently the problem of a railroad man and to solve it demanded the services of one of the best men in the railroad business. We have extended the facilities laid out by Mr. Stevens, and have modified them as experience and conditions have demanded, but they have been operated from that day to this under the general plan of transportation laid out by Mr. Stevens. I do not think that any Army engineer in the United States could have laid out such excellent transportation facilities."