Panama fever (90 page)

345    ”the most important document in the engineering history”
Engineering Record
, January 10,1906, p. 211.

346    ”narrow gorge” would be “tortuous”
Shonts quoted in Pepperman,
Who Built the Panama Canal?
, p. 208.

346     “Such a waterway is far from meeting the conception”
Abbot, “The Panama Canal: Projects of The Board of Consulting Engineers,”
Engineering Magazine
, July 1906, p. 483.

348     “personal study of the conditions”
Stevens, “An Engineer's Recollections,”
Engineering News-Record
, September 5, 1935, p. 40.

348     “the difficulties and dangers of navigation”
Washington Post
, February 20, 1906.

350     “simply preposterous piece of work”
Quoted in Bigelow,
The Panama Canal and
the Daughters of Danaus
, p. 35.

350    ”the greatest engineering conflict of the canal”
Bates,
Crisis at Panama
, pp. 32–34.

351    ”Hard rains had set in by this time”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 47.

351    ”came bounding up the steps three at a time”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 44.

352    ”The rule marked the first definite break”
“The Early Days,” by John J. Mee-han,
Chagres Yearbook
, 1913, p. 142.

353    ”Distinctive social lines were drawn on the Isthmus”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 98.

353     “sounded as though some one was throwing boulders”
Chatfield,
Light on
Dark Places
, p. 118.

353     “The meat served is almost always beef, and such beef!”
Ibid., p. 127.

353    ”was
worse than usual
, which was only just possible” Ibid., p. 155.

354    ”severely manhandled”
Taft to Magoon, June 4, 1906, quoted in Major,
Prize Possession
, p. 121.

355    ”guarantee public order and constitutional succession”
Mellander,
Charles Edward Magoon
, p. 78.

355     “in that territory [in] which [disorder] can be prevented”
Ibid., p. 80.

356    ”party feeling is very bitter”
Magoon annual report, 1905, RG185.

356     the
Diario de Panama
, described the choice for the voters
El Diario de Panama
, April 21, 1906.

356     “a senior Conservative declared”
De La Guardia quoted in Mellander,
The United-States in Panamanian Politics
, p. 88.

356     “suppress any insurrection in any part of the Republic”
Taft to Magoon, April 26, 1906, General Correspondence (ICC) 1905–14, RG185.

356     “customary” for government candidates to win elections
Mallet to Foreign Office, May 21, 1906, FO371/101.

356    ”explicit directions have been given to the police”
Star and Herald
, May 18, 1906.

357    Mallet put this down
Mallet to Foreign Office, May 30, 1906, FO371/101.

357     “Negro influence”
Quoted in Major,
Prize Possession
, p. 118.

357    ”The police [who owed their jobs to the ruling government] voted the first time in uniform”
Sands,
Our Jungle Diplomacy
, p. 65.

358    ”prevailing clannishness”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 115.

358     “There is no sense in putting so many different races together”
Slosson and Richardson, “An Isthmian Carpenter's Story: A Jamaican Negro,”
The Independent
, April 19, 1906.

358     “some sort of hazy idea had gotten into their heads”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 115.

358    ”three separate nationalities of laborers”
Stevens to Shonts, May 4, 1906, Panama Canal Commission File (PCC) 2-E-1.

359    ”The American is too proud to work with his hands!”
Lewis,
The West Indian in Panama
, p. 35.

359    ”Everybody in his area was so scared of disease”
Interview with Mr. William Donadío, Panama City, August 17, 2004.

360    ”The Spaniard is certainly the more intelligent and better worker”
Thompson, “The Labour Problems of the Panama Canal,”
Engineering
(London) May 3, 1907.

360    ”It did exactly what was expected in changing the self-confidence of the negroes”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 118.

361    ”practically all with malaria”
Carr, “The Work of the Sanitary Force,”
The Outlook
, May 12, 1906.

361     During the headline-grabbing yellow fever epidemic of May to August
Bishop,
The Panama Gateway
, p. 243.

361     seventy-five people a day with the disease
Chatfield,
Light on Dark Places
, p. 142.

361    ”This rainy season has been a heavy trial on the canal builders”
New York Herald
, August 1, 1906.

362    the cases that came to the attention of the medical system
Newton,
The Silver Men
, pp. 152–54.

362     an astonishing 80 percent of the overall workforce
Le Prince and Orenstein,
Mosquito Control in Panama
, p. 228.

362     West Indian Rufus Forde
“Competition for the Best True Stories.”

362    Jamaican James Williams
Ibid.

363    St. Lucian Charles Thomas
Ibid.

363    Barbadian Clifford Hunt
Ibid.

364    ”The question of controlling malaria”
Le Prince and Orenstein,
Mosquito Control in Panama
, p. 24.

365    ”like fighting all the beasts of the jungle”
Gorgas and Hendrick,
William Crawford Gorgas
, p. 226.

365    ”Very patient negroes were necessary”
Le Prince and Orenstein,
Mosquito Control in Panama
, p. 113.

366    ”larvae of dragon flies and water beetles”
Ibid., p. 185.

367    ”the cause of many break downs in the constitution”
Mallet private letter, June 10, 1906.

367     John Prescod
“Competition for the Best True Stories.”

367     “The prevailing illness is malaria”
Chatfield,
Light on Dark Places
, p. 103.

367     “I went to the Cristóbal dispensary this morning”
Ibid., p. 150.

367     Albert Peters
“Competition for the Best True Stories.”

367    Barbadian Amos Parks
Ibid.

368    ”the horrible and unfamiliar noise at night”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 49 ff.

369    Therefore the excavation was planned to proceed
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 77.

370    The U.S. locomotives could haul four or five times the volume
Pepperman,
Who Built the Panama Canal?
, p. 38.

370     a single rock weighing some thirty-four tons
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 89.

373     “ran over a colored man”
Chatfield,
Light on Dark Places
, p. 198.

Chapter Twenty-one: Segregation

376     “There is much talk about the anticipated visit of the president”
Chatfield,
Light on Dark Places
, p. 150.

376     “seemed obsessed with the idea that someone was trying to hide something from him”
Maltby, “In at the Start at Panama,”
Civil Engineering
, September 1945, p. 422.

376     “when the president was at Cristóbal”
Chatfield,
Light on Dark Places
, p. 210.

376    ”A Strenuous Exhibition on the Isthmus”
McCullough,
The Path between the Seas
, p. 496.

377    ”He was intensely energetic”
Maltby, “In at the Start at Panama,” p. 421.

378    ”Every man seems animated with the idea that he is doing a necessary part of the canal”
Thompson, “The Labour Problems of the Panama Canal,”
Engineering
(London), May 3, 1907.

378     At Gatún over a hundred new borings had been made on the dam site
Mallet to Grey, January 31, 1907, FO881/8897.

378    ”something which will redound immeasurably to the credit of America”
Pepperman,
Who Built the Panama Canal?
, pp. 13–14.

379    ”the heartiest contempt and indignation”
Ibid., p. 292.

379     “Those cooking sheds with their muddy floors”
McCullough,
The Path between the Seas
, p. 502–3.

379    ”The higher death rate is, in our opinion, due to circumstances”
Colón Independent
, August 24, 1906.

380    ”Wretched little houses rest on stilts”
Chatfield,
Light on Dark Places
, p. 137.

381    ”a striking lack of appreciation”
Lindsay-Poland,
Emperors in the Jungle
, p. 35.

381     “racial and ethnic discrimination by the U.S. Government”
Conniff in Publication of the Proceedings of Symposium held at the University of the West Indies, p. 43.

381     “Panama is below the Mason and Dixon Line”
Franck,
Zone Policeman 88
, p. 65.

381    ”If the stronger and cleverer race is free to impose its will”
Woodward,
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
, p. 72.

382    In 1896 Louisiana had contained 130,000 black voters
Ibid., p. 85.

383    These included foremen, office clerks, and teachers.
Petras,
Jamaican Labor Migration
, p. 150.

383     “solution to troubles growing out of the intermingling of the races”
Haskin,
The Panama Canal
, p. 160.

383     “It would, I think, be very impolitic to separate”
Commissary manager to Stevens, February 15, 1907, RG185 2-C-55.

385     “Any northerner can say ‘nigger’ as glibly as a Carolinian”
Franck,
Zone Policeman 88
, p. 225.

385     “was made to feel the prejudice against her color”
New YorkAge
, quoted by the
Colón Independent
, December 29, 1905.

385    ”My father read of Panama and thought it a wonderful place”
Mrs. Taylor, interviewed by Eunice Mason.

386    Jeremiah Waisome
“Competition for the Best True Stories.”

386     “often seen the threat of the slave-driver in the foreman's eye”
Carr, “The Silver Men,”
The Outlook
, May 19, 1906, p. 118.

386    ”Among the white employees on the ‘gold roll’ some times an employee would use his hands”
Letter of Ralph B. Irwin, MCCZ, Box 35.

387    ”the he-man type”
Hardeveld,
Make the Dirt Fly
, p. 114ff.

387     “it cost twenty-five dollars to lick a Jamaican negro”
Grier,
On the Canal Zone
, p. 71.

387    ”straighten himself up and say to the foreman”
Karner,
More Recollections
, p. 40.

388    ”developed an excessive regard for the English”
Publication of the Proceedings of Symposium held at the University of the West Indies, p. 64.

388     “‘Pay me,’ I says, ‘or I'll stick de British bulldog on all yo’ Omericans!’ “
Walrond,
Tropic Death
, p. 42.

388     “You couldn't talk back”
Constantine Parkinson, in
Diggers
documentary.