The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterpriseMills, J. Saxon (John Saxon)
Philosophy
The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterprise
Mills, J. Saxon (John Saxon)
Panama Canal (Panama)
From time to time various publications have been made, and
from time to time in the future various similar
publications, doubtless, will be made, purporting to give an
account of jobbing or immorality or inefficiency or misery
as obtaining on the isthmus. I have carefully examined into
each of these accusations which seemed worthy of attention.
In every instance the accusations have proved to be without
foundation in any shape or form. They spring from several
sources. Sometimes they take the shape of statements by
irresponsible investigators of a sensational habit of mind,
incapable of observing or repeating with accuracy what they
see, and desirous of obtaining notoriety by widespread
slander. More often they originate with or are given
currency by individuals with a personal grievance. The
sensation mongers, both those who stay at home and those who
visit the isthmus, may ground their accusations on false
statements by some engineer who, having applied for service
on the commission and been refused such service, now
endeavours to discredit his successful competitors, or by
some lessee or owner of real estate who has sought action or
inaction by the commission to increase the value of his
lots, and is bitter because the commission cannot be used
for such purposes, or on the tales of disappointed bidders
for contracts, or of office-holders who have proved
incompetent, or who have been suspected of corruption and
dismissed, or who have been overcome by panic and have fled
from the isthmus. Every specific charge relating to jobbery,
to immorality, or to inefficiency, from whatever source it
has come, has been immediately investigated, and in no
single instance have the statements of these sensation
mongers and the interested complainants behind them proved
true. The only discredit adhering to these false accusations
is to those who originate and give them currency, and who,
to the extent of their abilities, thereby hamper and
obstruct the completion of the great work in which both the
honour and the interest of America are so deeply involved.
It matters not whether those guilty of these false
accusations utter them in mere wanton recklessness and
folly, or in a spirit of sinister malice to gratify some
personal or political grudge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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