Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/205

Rh of the politicians of Panama as a basis for prophesying that the new treaty was only a forerunner of forcible annexation. What Mr. Taft had to do, therefore, was not only to build the canal, but to reëstablish the shaken faith of the Panamans. To this intent he visited the isthmus, taking with him as many as practicable of those members of Congress who would handle canal legislation later. The party went over all the ground, looked into the problems then apparent, and satisfied the local authorities that the American government was dealing fairly with them, and was anxious and able to fulfil all its obligations under the lease.

The founding of a government in the canal strip resembled in some particulars the corresponding work in the Philippines. The resident population had never been educated in that respect for law and order which prevails in the United States; neglect of public sanitation had given the isthmus a bad name for yellow fever and malarial epidemics; and it was so far from headquarters in Washington that Americans drawn to it officially or as wage-earners might be tempted to relax their standards of conduct. Clothed, for these reasons, with a practical dictatorship, the secretary distributed his various responsibilities among a group of experts. For purposes of civil administration a governor was appointed who had already had experience in handling a similar situation; the