When Jackson Smith, one of the two civilian members of the Canal Commission, resigned, he was succeeded by an Army officer, Col. Harry F. Hodges, who would have been a member of the commission from the first, upon the request of Colonel Goethals, had not the United States Engineer Corps required his services. Colonel Hodges was graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1881, and immediately entered upon seven years of duty on river and harbor improvements in the United States. This was followed by four years' service as assistant professor of engineering at West Point, and that duty, in turn, by six years of work on rivers and harbors and fortifications. During the Spanish American War he served in Porto Rico, and then returned to river and harbor duty for two years. In 1901-02 he was chief engineer of the Department of Cuba, from which duty he was transferred to the War Department, where he became assistant to the chief of engineers. His experience in river and harbor work, coupled with his success as the designer of the locks of the American Sault Ste. Marie Canal, fitted him for the work at Panama. He became assistant chief engineer and purchasing agent of the canal in 1907, and the following year was chosen a member of the commission to succeed Mr. Smith. The work of designing the locks and the lock machinery fell upon his shoulders. When President Roosevelt wanted a man to handle the delicate problems arising out of the peculiar relations with the Republic of Panama and the United States, he selected Joseph C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, who had just finished a long term of service in the United States Senate. Senator Blackburn was well equipped for such a position, combining that suavity indicated by the velvet glove with that determination of purpose which lies in the iron hand. The service of Col. William C. Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer on the Isthmus, began earlier than that of any of the higher officials. He went to the Isthmus immediately after it was taken over by the United States. He has been described as a man "with a gentle manner, but with a hard policy toward the mosquito." He was born in Mobile, Ala., in 1854, the son of Gen. Josiah Gorgas, of the Confederate Army. He became a member of the Medical Corps of the United States Army in 1880, and since his work at the head of the Cuban health campaign his name has been a household word in the United States. In establishing the Isthmian Canal Commission, which was destined to make the Panama Canal a reality, President Roosevelt selected Joseph Bucklin Bishop as its secretary. Mr. Bishop was made the editor of the Canal Record, a weekly paper which was the official organ of the Canal Commission. He is a born investigator and when any matter arose concerning the work on the canal, about which the chief engineer desired an impartial report, he usually referred it to Mr. Bishop.