Path Between the Seas

Book Report 7- Path between the Seas –Panama Canal 1870-1914 copyright 1977

“Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers.” Victor Hugo 1826

“…and I maintain that Panama will be easier to make, easier to complete, and easier to to keep up than Suez. “ Ferdinand Lesseps. 1879

Science cults, death, lots of bribery and a large cast of eccentric characters make up most of ‘The ‘Path Between the Seas’ by David McCollough. The two main characters of this true life saga were Ferdinand de Lesseps and Theodore Roosevelt. Both made it a religious crusade to sever the Isthmus of Panama that divided the two oceans.  Though England is not often mentioned in this book, the few sentences about it indicate that England (and it’s bank) was the driving force of the canal crusade.  

Suez Spawned Panama

England’s shortest road to India(it’s most profitable ‘colony’) was via a boat to Egypt, then a train across Egypt, and finally another boat from Egypt to India. That journey could be made entirely by boat if there was a canal to connect Mediterranean with the Red Sea.

Unfortunately, decades of England’s bad trade deals had made Egypt nearly bankrupt. Consequently,  in 1848, Abbas, the newest Egyptian leader, banished all foreign trade deals and canal projects(i.e. England was banished) .

So England quietly looked around for a proxy to build the canal, and someone wholesome who could befriend the Egyptian leader.

Prosper Enfantin

Help with that came from Prosper Enfantin, a French engineer and leader of the new engineering religion called St. Simonians. They believed an elite class of experts would rule and save the world through massive public engineering projects. He foresaw that great canals would be built in Egypt and Panama because of their religious significance(He didn’t explain how a canal could be religious). Private property would cease to exist to make way for these spiritual engineering projects that would catapult humanity to a glorious future.

Enfantin also believed he was one half of a sacred ‘Couple’. It was his mission to find his other lost half, ‘The Divine Female’. He had to wear flowing purple tunics, silk pants and lots of gold so she would recognize him. He hosted religious parties to interview ‘candidates’ for hours, in his sacred ornate bedchamber. This was to confirm if she was the one. The fabulously dressed Enfantin was eventually brought to court for his probably illegal ‘free love’ policies.

  ‘Asked by the court, “How do you defend yourself?” Enfantin stood in silence and then answered solemnly, “I wish the court to take a quiet moment to reflect on my beauty.” '

Despite this eccentricity, Enfantin had drawn to his ‘church’ many top engineers, scientists, journalists and, most importantly, financiers(who all helped promote big government projects for holy reasons) . He also gained the devotion of Ferdinand de Lesseps (Lesseps), a French diplomat-turned-gentlemen-farmer (who was between jobs at the time) from a prominent family.

Enfantin told Lesseps that he had a premonition that he would find his ‘other half’ in Egypt, where he and his engineer followers believed the sacred Suez Canal had to be built. So they went into the desert to start the canal, but half the team got cholera and died. The others went home.

Enfantin considered that event a temporary setback and Lesseps agreed. Then, somehow, Lesseps believed he himself would build the great Suez canal for the glory of France. Not being an engineer, Lesseps needed a kind of crash course on canal building, which Enfantin provided.

So Enfantin coached Lessep for years until, miraculously, in 1854, the Egyptian anti-canal leader Abbas was assassinated. His pro-canal nephew, Said, became the new leader.

Lesseps Wins Suez

Said knew Lesseps as the only childhood friend who didn’t mock Said for being fat. So when Lesseps messaged congratulations, Said invited him to Egypt. They had a fun weekend glamping in the desert, wearing silk robes like sheiks, and riding Arabian horses. Then Lesseps realized Said had not actually agreed to let him build a canal, partly because Lesseps was not actually an engineer. So, on the final morning of the visit, while everyone was watching, the silk dressed Lesseps mounted a beautiful Arabian horse and galloped over a high wall and did not die, as everyone expected. Lessep believed this great act persuaded Said and his entourage that Lesseps should build( and pay for) the canal. Lesseps was thrilled

Fortunately, Egypt was just in the process of creating the ‘Bank of Egypt’, that could finance the canal. (Said knew that the Bank of Egypt was an English chartered bank operating with his approval.) www.persee.fr/doc/bie_1110-1938_1938_num_21_1_3511

Lesseps became chairman and president of the Suez Canal Company that dug the sea level canal out of the sand for $80million. The Suez Canal was 100 miles long and took 15 years to complete.

Lesseps was awarded a medal by Her Majesty the Queen of England for some reason, and then he married a rich, pretty girl half his age who adored him(they had 12 kids).

Lesseps believed all this good fortune was a result of his faith in the ascending dominance of science and engineering that Enfantin had preached about all over Europe. It was the future.  

Unfortunately, Lesseps knew very little about how much the canal actually cost. Said had borrowed money to invest in the canal from Bank of Egypt (i.e. England). Lesseps was shocked that the debt was so great that Said said they had to sell their controlling shares in the Suez Canal Company to England. Sadly, this instantly gave England financial control of the Suez Canal. This was humiliating for Lesseps and France, who imagined the Canal was for French glory.

“The beloved Suez canal had been the pride of France, but is now a life-line for the British empire.” de Lesseps 1870,

So basically, Lesseps worked so England could get its canal built, get someone else to pay for it, and after completion, get financial control of it. That was the standard for English deals. Lesseps didn’t dwell on it because his mission was accomplished.He built Suez.

Lesseps Panama

Lesseps then founded the ‘Societe’ Civile Internationale du Canal Interoceanique de Darien’ as if it was his new church; its mission was to build a sea level canal in Panama.

He did all the same tasks of gaining funding, support, and permission from the owner to build the canal on the sparsely populated Colombian Province, adjacent to the Darien Gap. This was the same place that the English explored 20 years earlier, and where American expedition members died or went insane while lost in that hostile jungle. One example of natures hostility is when an ordinary nut they had all eaten soon burned the enamel off their teeth.

In 1879, Lesseps was ready to recruit the faithful. He pitched  his new Panama Canal project to an inter-oceanic Canal Congress in Paris. It was embarrassing when an American delegation brought maps of the area that showed how the huge, mountain-fed Chagras river would flood and decimate any sea level canal below it. Lesseps scowled at the faithless maps in stunned silence. Enfantin didn’t mention that Panama had mountains.

Panama has mountains.

One engineer, Lepinay, who worked on the isthmus before, tried to help Lesseps. He said that a sea level canal was futile, but that an easier, cheaper option was to dam the Chagras on two sides to create a water bridge, or artificial lake, for ships to float cross. The river would replenish the lake, as needed, with the canals on each side to receive the ships. The only problem would be the mudslides of the strange blue clay of Panama.

As soon as Lepinay said ‘the sea level canal was futile’, Lesseps saw him as a non-believer, as did most everyone else.So Lepinay was ignored as a heretic. It was also unfaithful to say that a canal in Nicaragua was a better option just because it wasn’t a death trap.

Lesseps announced to the congress, made up of mostly French citizens, that the Panama sea level canal would be built as planned and would bring glory and honor to France. The crowd went wild.  

It was later discovered,  that several covert agents had bribed almost everyone involved to ignore science, go along with the sea level Panama plan, and mock competitors like Nicaragua. Unfortunately, the many hundreds of bribes were paid with signed checks, all archived for record keeping in banks. There were so many public officials on the bribed list that it became the biggest joke in France. Comedians got rich just from the endless satire, like from the song, “Who Hasn’t Gotten a Little Cheque?”

Canal Keepers

To ensure the canal was built at Panama, or not at all, three men arranged for the bribing on behalf of their anonymous client. They did not know of each other until close to the end of the project.

1-Cornelius Herz, an American medical worker, was implicated in the biggest most cruel deals that paid his exorbitant fees. He charged Lesseps’ Canal Company $3 million for just staying quiet. He also apparently provoked some to suicide for non-payment. He admitted to earning alot of money, but denied any wrongdoing. By 1888 he became so exposed, unpopular, and sick that he ‘fled to England where the Queen invited him to tea.’ Still no one knew who he worked for.

2 -Phillipe Bunau Varilla was a well spoken French engineer, investor, and hardcore believer in the Panama Canal. He too felt his path was divinely guided to bring glory to France through feats of engineering(and bribes). He was secretly paid to shepherd Panama’s split from Colombia, but the Panamanians wanted a more equitable treaty with US and other nonsense. - “ So once again I decided I must remove the matter from ‘inexpert hands’ and place them in my own for the treaty to be signed.” B.B. Varilla

3 -William Cromwell started as a poor Brooklyn bookkeeper and worked his way up to working deals with millionaire banker JP Morgan, all by age 33. His main job though was to be the eyes and ears of his unnamed client and earned $800,000 fees for the service. The Panama Canal was his most lucrative project which made him a multi millionaire by 40. “ [Cromwell] has not failed to appear everywhere in this whole [Panama] affair.” Senator Morgan 1902 with extreme suspicion of foul play.

Trouble

There was good reason for Panama to be as sparsely populated as it was. The combination of extreme temperatures, relentless rain, shifting swamps, steep slippery mountain sides and armies of mosquitos made it a punishing existence. The few native Panamanians would not work in it for any price.

Lesseps was told by his scientists that yellow fever and malaria were spread by ‘vespers rising from the swamps’ and sloppy housekeeping. So the builders sent by Lesseps to erect shelter for soon-to-arrive foreign workers, had no reason to put screens on any of the buildings. Houses, offices and the hospital had thin curtains on the windows, poor barrier to insects. None of the workers knew the mosquitos of Panama carried deadly diseases.

The digging started for a sea level canal, but instead of sand, there were mountains of rock and slippery blue clay mudslides. The more digging there was, the more digging was needed. Since mere shovels could not break the rock, tons of dynamite were jammed into holes to blast the rock away. Too often a stick of dynamite would explode while it was being jammed into the rock. The ‘jammer’ was blown to bits, pieces of him dropping all around the horrified survivors. The end of the day brought exhaustion but not just from work. Yellow fever and malaria would both drain anyone of all energy. Sometimes death followed fatigue in just hours. The gruesome reality made everyone jittery and looking for an exit.

So, to boost morale, Lesseps visited Panama for the first and only time, in the dry season, for two weeks. He found it lovely, not at all hazardous as everyone said it was. He did not get sick nor did he get blown up. He openly stated that he had faith the canal could be dug at sea level in just 2 years. Privately, he told his son of his concern that it might take longer.

There was progress on getting the canal path cleared of jungle, but several chief engineers and their families died, even though they avoided ‘vespers’ and their houses were not sloppy. Some gave up and went home. The religous zeal was gone.

After a decade of faithful determination, the money ran out and work had to stop. Lesseps’ Canal Company went bankrupt, the French people lost their money. When some profited from the bankruptcy due to insurance payout if it failed, rumblings of fraud rattled France. That’s when all the corruption bubbled to the surface, and everyone realized faith in science could not save France.

Lesseps denied having any knowledge of fraud. He did not get convicted only because he was a national treasure of France. His son did have to serve a few months in prison for fraud.

The Isthmus.

“I Took The Isthmus!” Theodore Roosevelt 1904

A little known fact is that the French part of the canal building was done by mostly black Americans. Most of the equipment and supplies came from America. The main language spoken was English, not French.

Since it would benefit America more than anyone else, it was logical that America would resume construction of the canal in 1901.

Then it was announced that a treaty with England was signed two years previous. It was grossly unbalanced.

“The British had given up nothing[but demanded rights to the canal]. They just agreed to let America do all the work and pay for it too[just like with the Suez}.” Senator Lodge 1900

President McKinley had to postpone the Canal project until issues with the UK treaty were resolved. It made him seem like a non-believer. His assassination in 1901 was unfortunate for him, but expedient for the canal. It allowed the faithful canal- loving vice-president Theodore Roosevelt to become president.

The canal was back on track, thanks to Roosevelt’s evasive regulations, and a small war with Cuba to show skeptical Americans that a canal was needed for American glory.  Roosevelt was also persuaded (by Cromwell and  Varilla  separately) to reject the already chosen non-death trap Nicaragua and insist on a sea level canal in Panama. Then Roosevelt grumbled that Panama needed to be liberated from Colombia. A manufactured coup was orchestrated by Cromwell and Varilla.

Roosevelt was implicated in the coup,mainly because he kept yelling, “I took the Isthmus!” Aside from that admission, Roosevelt claimed ignorance of such thievery and resented anyone who implied he stole Panama.

“[Roosevelt] defended himself so strongly and repeatedly he finally asked me how he was doing. I replied, “ Well, they suspected you guilty of seduction, but you convicted yourself of rape.” Anonymous friend of Roosevelt

Money no object-

By 1904 Panama’s reputation for being a death trap was so well known, no country would allow their labor to work there. The only exception was England, who happily let it’s West Indian island subjects work in Panama(for a fee).

Almost 90 % of the labor was black and came mostly from Barbados. They were paid in pure silver Balboa coins because they were wise enough to reject paper money. The Whites were paid in gold coins.

Cromwell arranged for JP Morgan to be financier for new Republic of Panama and its canal building. It shipped the precious metals monthly via train ‘Pay Cars’. Each year of construction the workers sent about $300,000 worth of their silver back to their families mainly in Barbados.

John Stevens became the next and best chiefe ngineer to manage the canal building. With deaths from tropical diseases piling up, he finally conceded that yellow fever and malaria might be spread by mosquitos, as one scientist said. So, mosquito habitat was destroyed and screens were put on every building, old and new. Death from disease dropped quickly. Morale and productivity increased.

Yet after 5 years in the still maddening project,Stevens snapped and sent an emotional letter to Roosevelt basically saying he thought the ditch was stupid.It was never going to be at sea level. To Roosevelt, Stevens had just exposed himself as a non-believer. Roosevelt instantly accepted his resignation, and also denied that mosquitos were a threat to anyone.

Stevens’ replacement, Goethals, pretended to be a believer, but he really just liked power. When he saw the sea level canal plan was never going to happen, he said so. He also advocated a plan of damming the Chagras to form a water bridge( as Lepinay suggested years before). Roosevelt was furious but had no choice. Chief engineers were scarce and labor was waning too because their death rate was still high.

The Non-Dead

Congress needed progress reports on the canal from Roosevelt. Yet admitting the high labor death rate, often 3 mainly black workers a day, would cause problems. Their deaths needed to appear to not have occured. His solution was to report just the American death rate because any non-American dead labor did not technically have to be reported.Barabados was an English jurisdiction.

So he was proud to say that, thanks to his mosquito abatement plan, the American death rate was lower than in the U.S. Congress believed him, with no further questions.

It is estimated 10,000 people died over the decade of the American part of canal construction. Death records for the French phase were almost nonexistent for blacks. Barbadians probably have a number somewhere in their museums, but most Americans did not know how many people were dying for this cruel ditch.

Goethals got the canal finished by 1914. The total US cost for the canal was about $300 million. It was a debt that had to be paid plus interest.

Conclusion

If the goal was to have total physical and financial control over a valuable asset like an inter-ocean canal, then the Panama ‘Death’s Nursery’ option was a strategic move. The treacherous Darien Gap was a protection from neighbors. Panama had to be severed from Colombia because control of the canal and its profits could not be shared. So Nicaragua was out too.

The charismatic religious leaders were needed to persuade the people to consent to go into deep debt for such gargantuan projects.

Post 1977 -Drought and Mudslides

The mudslides that plagued the canal before, still occur somewhere on the canal route a few times every year. It typically causes a halt to traffice until the mud can be taken away.

When traffic was light there was enough water from the Chagras river to replenish the canal, which was designed to be gravity fed. This means when the locks drain, the water flows down and out to the ocean, and not up and back to the river.

In recent times, the river labors to replenish the locks fast enough, partly due to increased traffic, and partly due to drought.

According to Woodwell Climate, ‘Panama is currently suffering a prolonged drought…For the area around the canal, 2023 was one of the driest since record keeping began in the country[in 1904].’ www.woodwellclimate.org/drought-panama-canal-7-graphics/

Without sufficient water, the Panama Canal will cease to function. It will then be little more than big ditch.

The future?

Thank you for reading.

Helen Mirth