Panama fever (86 page)

155    ”The State will never be free from such revolutionary nonsense”
Star and Herald
, March 20, 1885.

156    ”were ignorant of Isthmian affairs”
Mallet to Foreign Office, August 10, 1885, FO55/313.

156    Arthur Webb, a Jamaican
Eyewitness reports submitted to vice-consul Leay, sent to London by Mallet, August 10, 1885, FO55/313.

157    ”I have never before witnessed anything so horribly sickening”
Statement to Leay by C. H. Burns, May 10, 1885.

158    ”In all these fights between Jamaicans and Colombians”
Star and Herald
, May 9, 1885.

158    ”It must also be borne in mind,”
Mallet to governor of Jamaica, July 6, 1885, FO55/313.

159    ”that the enterprise will be ready for the world's commerce”
Mallet to Foreign Office, March 4, 1885, FO55/313.

159    ”The Panama canal is in such a state that its ultimate completion is beyond question”
New York Tribune
, May 8, 1885.

160    ”Mr. Varilla's tremendous mental capacity”
Letter from Wulsin, May 28, 1906, in Bigelow Papers, New York Public Library, Box 24.

160    ”His versatility was fantastic”
Quoted in Anguizola,
Philippe Bunau-Varilla
, p. 68.

161    Menocal visited in August
New York Times
, August 18, 1885.

161     “Is Monsieur de Lesseps a Canal Digger, or a Grave Digger?”
Harper's Weekly
, September 3, 1881.

163     “like a human bunch of grapes”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 54.

163     “Rain poured in torrents”
Star and Herald
, December 4, 1885.

163     “I saw they were covered with the most enormous and deadly spiders”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 55.

163     Lieutenant William Kimball, who toured the works soon after
Kimball,
SpecialIntelligence Report on the Progress of the Work during the Year 1885.

166     “The contagion of my confidence in our success”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 53.

166     “It is an impressive fact that there is money value in the prestige of M. de Lesseps”
New York Tribune
, August 16, 1885.

166    ”As for human life, that is always cheap.”
Kimball,
Special Intelligence Report on the Progress of the Work during the Year 1885
, p. 32.

167    ”under no circumstances would negroes be admitted”
J. B. Poylo to Mallet, August 8, 1885.

167    ”Many a man of them had been happy to enlist”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 44.

168    ”I had reached a state of semi-coma”
Mallet,
Pioneer Diplomat.

168     “should the works cease”
Consul Sadler to Marquis of Salisbury, January 27, 1886, FO 55/325.

Chapter Thirteen: Collapse and Scandal

170     “that it was probably a scheme to use my name as an ex-Minister to France”
Bigelow private diary, January 31, 1886.

170    ”The success of the Panama business”
Molinari,
A. Panama
, p. 25.

171    ”I was pleased to find that Grace and the old Baron got on admirably together”
Bigelow diary, February 18, 1886.

171    ”When we left they gave us repeated cheers”
Bigelow diary, February 19, 1886.

172    ”take a share in its management”
Bigelow diary, February 22, 1886.

172    ”His stay is one continued fête”
Sadler to Foreign Office, February 26, 1886, FO55/325.

173    ”Even if the piercing of the Isthmus presents enormous difficulties”
Molinari,
A Panama
p. 68.

173     “often conflicting and rarely more than approximative”
Bigelow,
The PanamaCanal. Report of the Hon. John Bigelow
, p. 4.

173     “insalubrity”
Ibid., p. 12.

173    ”people of small means”
Ibid., p. 22.

174    ”secure to the United States”
Ibid., p. 24.

176     “a violent vibration of my bed”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 61.

176    ”They are trying to shelve me”
The Times
, July 13, 1886.

177    Of thirty Italians who had arrived together twelve months earlier
New York Tribune
, August 22, 1886.

177     “Every month or two I would lose a man, perhaps two men”
Hearings no
, Sen. Doc. 253, 57th Cong, 1st Sess., p. 100.

177    ”insane recklessness”
New York Tribune
, August 29, 1886.

178    ”a dismal failure”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 68.

179    ”creditable”
Rogers,
Intelligence Report of the Panama Canal
, p. 34.

181    ”During my stay in Colón”
Sweetman,
Paul Gaugin
, p. 169.

182    ”the perfect, the final, project”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 80.

185     “All France is joined in the completion of the Panama Canal”
Chambredes Députés,
je Législature, Session de 1893, Rapport Général…
, pp. 101–2.

186    ”I appeal to all Frenchmen”
Bulletin du Canal Interocéanique
, December 2, 1888.

186     journalist Emily Crawford
New York Tribune
, December 13 and 14, 1888.

188     “like a stroke of paralysis”
Robinson,
Fifty Years at Panama
, p. 147.

188    ”There are hundreds [of destitute Jamaicans] absolutely starving”
Star and Herald
, April 6, 1889.

189    But stern warnings from the new U.S. president Benjamin Harrison
President Harrison's inauguration speech, March 4, 1889.

189     “What have you done with the money?”
Drumont,
La Dernière Battaille
, p. 362.

189     “He had apparently recovered all his strength”
Smith,
The Life and Enterprises of Ferdinand De Lesseps
, p. 310.

189     “dissipating” funds “in a manner … more consistent with the personal views and interests of the administrators”
Chambres des Députés,;
e Législature, Session de, No. 2921
, vol. 3, pp. 217–18.

191    ”excessive optimism”
Cour d'Appel de Paris, Première Chambre:
Plaidoirie de Me. Henri Barboux pour MM. Ferdinand et Charles de Lesseps
, p. 185.

192    ”face was drawn and his skin yellowed”
Courau,
Ferdinand de Lesseps
, p. 237.

194    ”one of the enterprises which made some of the most scandalously excessive profits”
Quoted in Skinner,
France and Panama
, p. 75.

195    ”It would never have come to anything”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 156.

Chapter Fourteen: Heroes and Villains—the “Battle of the Routes”

200    ”The construction of a such a maritime highway”
Annual Message, December 5, 1898.

201    ”The Nicaragua canal is a purely national affair”
New York Herald
, January 30, 1902.

202    ”He is one of the readiest talkers in town”
New York World
, October 4, 1908.

202    ”involved almost every branch of professional activity”
Quoted in Harding,
The Untold Story of Panama
, p. 3.

203    ”There was a hole in Panama into which a lot of French money had been sunk”
United States Congress House of Representatives,
The Story of Panama
, p. 6.

204    ”the lawyer Cromwell”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 10.

204     “Once you have touched Panama, you never lose the infection”
Harding,
The Untold Story of Panama
, p. 88.

204    ”the revolutionist who promoted and made possible the revolution”
United States Congress House of Representatives,
The Story of Panama
, p. 61.

205    ”masterful mind, whetted on the grindstone of corporation cunning”
Quoted in Ibid., p. 94.

205     “no one in the United States doubted that the Panama Canal in itself was an

205    impossibility”
Harding,
The Untold Story of Panama
, p. 5.

205     “We must make our plans with Napoleonic strategy”
Ibid., p. 5.

205    ”ubiquitous and ever present”
McCullough,
The Path between the Seas
, p. 273.

206    ”mysterious influences”
Harding,
The Untold Story of Panama
, p. 2.

206     “under the control, management and ownership of the United States”
Quoted in Skinner,
France and Panama
, p. 138.

206    ”for hours on the most profound study of the technical sides of the question”
United States Congress House of Representatives,
The Story of Panama
, p. 224.

207    ”the scales had fallen from their eyes”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 166.

208    ”all the difficulties of obtaining the necessary rights … on the Panama route”
Sen. Doc. 5, 56th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 43–44, quoted in Mack,
The Land Divided
, p. 425.

209    ”Towards midnight as I was about to go out for a breath of fresh air”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 184ff.

212     “No single great material work which remains to be undertaken”
Quoted in McCullough,
The Path between the Seas
, p. 249.

212    ”If that canal is open to the warships of an enemy”
Thayer,
Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography
, vol. 2, p. 339.

213    ”strengthen our position enormously”
Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of American Power
, pp. 147–48.

213     “ruptured the dikes placed against so-called American imperialism”
Miner,
The Fight for the Panama Route
, p. 232.

215     “legitimate means”
United States Congress House of Representatives,
The Storyof Panama
, p. 169.

215    ”The Colombians … have negro blood enough to make them lazy”
Harper's Weekly
, August 23, 1902.

216    ”Talk about buying a lawsuit”
New York World
, quoted in
Star and Herald
, February 22, 1902.

217    ”poison the minds of people”
Senate debate, 57th Cong, 1st Sess.

217     “It is the certainty of moral defilement”
Anguizola,
Philippe Bunau-Varilla
, p. 215.

217     “If the vote were to be taken under this impression”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 247.

Chapter Fifteen: “I Took the Isthmus”

220     “a crowd of French jail-birds”
Collin,
Theodore Roosevelt's Caribbean
, p. 218.

220    ”Few of the members who will assemble in Bogotá”
Star and Herald
, March 14, 1903.

221    ”a great deal of illness”
Mallet private letter, June 1, 1903.

221    ”give rise to unpatriotic feelings”
Miner,
The Fight for the Panama Route
, p. 292.

222    ”Not an atom of our sovereignty nor a stone of our territory”
El Correo Naçional
, February 3, 1903.

222    ”our nation has insisted”
John Bigelow Papers, New York Public Library, Box 24.

223    ”It is the conviction of his irresistible superiority and vigor that makes the Yankee”
Quoted in Miner,
The Fight for the Panama Route
, p. 265.