Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/620

Rh the conveniences which science and experience can command. There is probably no institution in the world where patients receive better treatment or more faithful service than in Ancon Hospital."

Second. In regard to providing quarters for the employes: The commission inherited from the French company more than 2,100 buildings, all in bad condition. During the past year 649 of them have been repaired, 58 new build- ings have been erected, and 67 more are in course of construction ; two new hotels, three stories high and containing from 55 to 60 rooms each, have been completed, and authority has been granted for eight others, a portion of which are under construction at the present time. Work is in progress also on cottages for married employes and on bachelor quarters. In this work of construction 2,400 men are employed, and additional carpenters are being sent out with every steamer. This work is being pressed forward with the utmost vigor.

Third. In regard to food supplies : This was the most serious problem that confronted us. If we couldn't feed the men, we couldn't build the canal. Owing to the fact that the natives never look beyond their present necessities, no surplus food supply ever accumu- lates. This normal condition of no surplus was greatly intensified by the almost total failure of the crops for the two preceding years, by the abandon- ment by agricultural laborers of their farms back in the hills for work on the canal, where they received higher pay for shorter houis, and by quarantine against the port of Panama on account of bubonic plague, which prevented the arrival of foodstuff from neighboring provinces.

We were thus brought face to face with the problem of feeding twelve thousand (12,000) men, with base of supplies 2,000 miles away.

We immediately arranged to open local commissary stores at every important labor camp, to provide mess- houses, and to furnish food, both cooked and uncooked, to all employes at cost. We cabled orders to have our steamers equipped with refrigerating plants ; we arranged for the erection of a temporary cold-storage plant at Colon, and we pur- chased refrigerator cars for immediate shipment to the Isthmus, thus establish- ing a line of refrigeration from the mar- kets of the United States to the com- missary stations of the Isthmus. We also purchased from individual lessees the equipment in existing hotels and assumed their management ourselves. The net result of these efforts is that today we are affording to all employes opportunity to obtain an abundant supply of wholesome food, cooked and uncooked, at reasonable prices. The silver men — by which I mean the common laborers — are being fed for 30 cents per day, and the gold employes — by which I mean those of the higher class — at 90 cents per day, and it is good food in place of bad. There may be dispute about the blessing of tainted money, but there can be none about the curse of tainted food.

But in addition to these fundamental tasks of improving the health conditions on the Isthmus and providing for the physical comfort and well being of all classes of employes, another essential preliminary to actual canal building has been receiving our earnest attention. I refer to the enlargement and improvement of our facilities for receiving and distributing the immense quantities of materials and supplies which will enter into the construction of the canal, as well as into the work referred to. The only really valuable instrument essential to canal building acquired by our government in its purchase from the French was the Panama Railroad. But this instrument, like all the others whose wrecks cover the Isthmus, had been neglected and its equipment allowed to be-