One writes of "the French failure" at Panama with a consciousness that no other word but failure will describe the financial and administrative catastrophe that humbled France on the Isthmus, but at the same time with the knowledge that failure is no fit word to apply to the engineering accomplishments of the French era.

The French fiasco ruined thousands of thrifty French families who invested their all in the shares of the canal company because they had faith in de Lesseps, faith in France, and faith in the ability of the canal to pay handsome returns whatever might be its cost. The failure itself was due primarily to the fact that de Lesseps was not an engineer, but a promoter. The stock sales, the bond lottery, the pomp and circumstance of high finance, were more to him than exact surveys or frank discussion of actual engineering problems.

From the first, de Lesseps ignored the engineers. The Panama proposition was undertaken in spite of their advice, and at every turn he hampered them by impossible demands, and by making grave decisions with a debonair turn of the hand.

The next factor in the failure was corruption. Extravagance such as never was known wasted the sous and francs that came from the thrifty homes of that beautiful France. Corruption, graft, waste—there was never such a carnival of bad business.

And then the French had to fight the diseases of the tropic jungles without being armed with that knowledge that gave the Americans the victory over yellow fever and malaria. It was hardly to be expected that the French ever would discover the necessity of substituting the Y. M. C. A. and the soda fountain for the dance hall and the vintner's shop, if the canal were to be completed.

But the engineers did their work well, as far as they were permitted to go. It may have cost too much—but it was well done. The failure of the French Panama Canal project was due, therefore, to moral as much as to material reasons.

Long years after the French had retired defeated from the field, one could behold a thousand mute but eloquent reminders of their failure to duplicate their triumph at Suez. From one side of the Isthmus to the other stretched an almost unbroken train of gloomy specters of the disappointed hopes of the French people.

Here a half-mile string of engines and cars; there a long row of steam cranes; at this place a mass of nondescript machinery; and at that place a big dredge left high and dry on the banks of the mighty Chagres at its flood stage, all spoke to the visitor of the French defeat. Exposed to the ravages of 20 tropical summers, decay ran riot, and but for the scenes of life and industry being enacted by the Americans, one might have felt himself stalking amid the tombs of thousands of dead hopes.

Almost as much money was raised by the French for their failure as was appropriated by the Americans for their success. From the gilded palace and from the peasant's humble cottage came the stream of gold with which it was hoped to lay low the barrier that divided the Atlantic and the Pacific. At first the French estimated that in seven or eight years they could dig a 29-foot sea-level canal for $114,000,000. After eight years they calculated that it would cost $351,000,000 to make it a 15-foot lock canal and require 20 years to build it.

Never was money spent so recklessly. For a time it flowed in faster than it could be paid out—even by the Panama Canal Company. When the company started it asked for $60,000,000. Double that amount was offered. The seeming inexhaustibility of the funds led to unparalleled extravagance; of the some $260,000,000 raised only a little more than a third was spent in actual engineering work. Someone has said that a third of the money was spent on the canal, a third was wasted, and a third was stolen.

The director general at the expense of the stockholders built himself a house costing $100,000. His summer home at La Boca cost $150,000. It came to be known as "Dingler's Folly," for Dingler lost his wife and children of yellow fever and never was able to live in his sumptuous summer home. He drew $50,000 a year salary, and $50 a day for each day he traveled a mile over the line in his splendid $42,000 Pullman. The hospitals at Ancon and Colon cost $7,000,000, and the office buildings over $5,000,000. Where a $50,000 building was needed, a $100,000 building was erected, and the canal stockholders were charged $200,000 for it.

Supplies were bought almost wholly without reference to actual needs. Ten thousand snow shovels were brought to the Isthmus where no snow ever has fallen. Some 15,000 torchlights were carried there to be used in the great celebration upon the completion of the canal. Steam-boats, dredges, launches, and whatnot were brought to the Isthmus, knocked down, and taken into the interior to await the opening of the waterway. The stationery bill of the canal company with one firm alone amounted to $180,000 a year. When the Americans took possession they found among other things a ton of rusty and useless pen points, not one of which had ever been used.

Two years' service entitled employees to five months' leave of absence and traveling expenses both ways. There was no adequate system of accounting and any employee could have his requisition for household articles honored almost as often as he liked. In a multitude of cases this laxity was taken advantage of and quite a business was carried on secretly in buying and selling furniture belonging to the company. One official built a bath house costing $40,000. A son of de Lesseps became a silent partner of nearly every large contractor on the Isthmus, getting a large "rake-off" from every contract let.

Near the summit of the Great Divide the Americans who took possession in 1904 found a small iron steamer. It is said to have been the purpose of the canal promoters to put this little steamer on a small pond in Culebra Cut, and by the aid of a skillful photographer to get a picture showing navigation across the Isthmus. This steamer was hauled by the Americans to Panama, where during the years of the American construction work it did service in carrying the sick to the sanitarium at Taboga.

The different uses to which this steamer was put during the French and American rÉgimes illustrates the different aims of the Americans and the French in connection with the Panama Canal. There was little concern about the health of the canal workers under the French, in spite of great liberality in the construction of hospitals. The construction work was let out to contractors, who were charged a dollar a day by the French Company for maintaining the sick members of their force in the hospital. Of course, the contractors were not over anxious to put their employees into the hospitals. The result was that the death rate at Panama reached almost unprecedented proportions.

This was aided to a very large degree by the manner of living obtaining there at that time. In 1887 Lieutenant Rogers, of the United States Navy, inspected the canal work and reported that the laborers were paid every Saturday, that they spent Sunday in drinking and Monday in recuperating, returning to work on Tuesday. A prominent English writer declared after a visit to Panama that in all the world there was not, perhaps, concentrated in any single spot so much swindling and villainy, so much vile disease, and such a hideous mass of moral and physical abominations.

Add to these things the fact that no one then knew of the responsibility of the stegomyia mosquito for the existence of yellow fever, nor that the anopheles mosquito was the disseminator of malaria, and it is little wonder that the French failed. The hospitals, instead of aiding in the elimination of yellow fever, became its greatest allies. The bedposts were set in cups of water, and here the yellow-fever mosquitoes could breed uninterruptedly and carry infection to every patient. Wards were shut up tight at night to keep out the "terrible miasma," and the nurses went to their own quarters. When morning came there were among those thus left alone always some ready for the tomb.

The history of the French attempt to construct the Panama Canal begins, in reality, with the Suez Canal. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, a Frenchman connected with the diplomatic service, saw an opportunity to revive the plans for a Suez Canal that had been urged by Napoleon in 1798. His friend, Said Pasha, had just succeeded to the khediviate of Egypt, and his proposals were warmly received. The building of the canal, which presented no serious engineering problems, was begun in 1859 and completed 10 years later. There was a sordid side to its story, too; but as the losses were borne chiefly by the Egyptians, Europe ignored them and looked only to the great success of the canal itself.

As a result, de Lesseps became a national hero in France, and when it became known that he contemplated piercing another isthmus, the whole country rose to his support. In 1875, six years after the Suez Canal had been opened, and as soon as France had recovered her breath from the shock of the war with Prussia, a company was organized by de Lesseps to procure a concession for the building of a Panama Canal.

Already the world, as well as France, had come to regard de Lesseps as an engineer, rather than as a promoter of stock companies, and in this lay the germ of the disaster that was to overtake the whole scheme.

In 1876, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, a lieutenant of engineers in the French Army, was sent to Panama to determine the most feasible route and to conclude negotiations for the construction of a canal there. He made a perfunctory survey, commencing at Panama and extending only two-thirds of the way to the Atlantic coast; nevertheless, he calculated the cost in detail and claimed that his estimates might be depended upon to come within 10 per cent of the actual figures. However weak in engineering he may have been, he was strong in international negotiations, returning to France with a concession which gave him the right to form a company to build the canal, and which gave to that company all the rights it needed, subject only to the prior rights of the Panama Railroad Company under its concession. The concession was to run for 99 years, beginning from the date when the collection of tolls on transit and navigation should begin. The promoters were allowed 2 years to form the company and 12 years to build the canal. The Government of Colombia was entitled to a share in the gross income of the canal after the seventy-fifth year from its opening. Four-fifths of this was to be paid to the National Government and one-fifth to the State of Panama. The canal company was to guarantee that these annual payments should on no account be less than $250,000.

When Wyse returned to Paris he got de Lesseps to head the project. The hero of Suez summoned an international commission of individuals and engineers, known as the International Scientific Congress, which met in Paris, May 15, 1879. There were 135 delegates in attendance, most of whom were Frenchmen, although nearly every European nation was represented. The United States had 11 representatives at this congress. After two weeks' conference the decision was reached that a sea-level canal should be constructed from Colon to Panama. Only 42 of the 135 men who met were engineers, and it has been stated that those who knew most about the subject found their opinions least in demand. M. de Lesseps dominated the conference. Several members who were radically opposed to its conclusions, rather than declare their difference from the opinions of a man of such great distinction and high reputation as de Lesseps enjoyed at that time, absented themselves when the final vote was taken.

After it was determined to build a sea-level canal, the canal concession owned by Wyse and his associates was transferred to the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique (The Universal Interoceanic Canal Company) of which de Lesseps was given control. The canal company was capitalized at $60,000,000. The preliminary budget of expenses amounted to $9,000,000, of which $2,000,000 went to Wyse and his associates for the concession. The organizers were entitled to certain cash payments and 15 per cent of the net profits.

The canal company soon found it necessary to acquire a controlling interest in the Panama Railroad. That corporation insisted on charging regular rates on all canal business. In addition, it possessed such prior rights as made the Wyse concession worthless except there be agreement on all matters between the railroad company and the canal company. The result was that the canal company bought the railroad, and its rights, for the sum of about $18,000,000.

The first visit of de Lesseps to the Isthmus was made in the early weeks of 1880. He arrived on the 30th day of December, 1879, and was met by a delegation appointed by the Government, and one nominated by the State Assembly. There was the usual reception, with its attendant champagne and conviviality, and a fine display of fire-works at night. The next day, with a chart before him, de Lesseps promptly decided where the breakwater to protect the mouth of the canal from the "northers" sweeping into Limon Bay should be located. He declared that in the construction of the canal there were only two great difficulties—the Chagres River and Culebra Cut. The first he proposed to overcome by sending its waters to the Pacific Ocean by another route—a project which it has since been estimated would have cost almost as much as building the canal. The second difficulty he thought would disappear with the use of explosives of sufficient force to remove vast quantities of material with each discharge. There was a great hurrah, and an international celebration during de Lesseps' stay. The flags of all nations were prominently displayed, with the single exception of that of the United States.

Count de Lesseps was over 70 years old when he first visited the Isthmus, though he was still active and vigorous. Mr. Tracy Robinson described him as "a small man, French in detail, with winning manners and a magnetic presence. He would conclude almost every statement with, 'The Canal will be made,' just as a famous Roman always exclaimed, 'Delende est Carthago.' He was accompanied to the Isthmus by his wife and three of his seven children. Being a fine horseman, he delighted in mounting the wildest steeds that Panama could furnish. Riding over the rough country in which the canal was being located all day long, he would dance all night like a boy and be ready for the next day's work 'as fresh as a daisy.'"

On New Year's Day, 1880, de Lesseps formally inaugurated the work of building the canal. A large party of ladies and gentlemen visited the mouth of the Rio Grande where the first shovelful of sod was to be turned. An address was made by Count de Lesseps, and a benediction upon the enterprise was bestowed by the Bishop of Panama. Champagne flowed like water, and it is said that the speechmaking continued so long that the party did not have time to go ashore to turn the sod, so it was brought on board and Miss Fernanda de Lesseps there made the initial stroke in the digging of the big waterway.

Some days later the work at Culebra Cut was inaugurated. Tracy Robinson thus described the scene: "The blessing had been pronounced by the Bishop of Panama and the champagne, duly iced, was waiting to quell the swelter of the tropical sun as soon as the explosion went off. There the crowd stood breathless, ears stopped, eyes blinking, half in terror lest this artificial earthquake might involve general destruction. But there was no explosion! It would not go! Then a humorous sense of relief stole upon the crowd. With one accord everybody exclaimed, 'Good Gracious!' and hurried away for fear that after all the dynamite should see fit to explode. That was Fiasco No. 1."

After de Lesseps left the Isthmus he toured the United States where he was everywhere welcomed although he did not find a market in this country for his stock.

The scientific congress estimated the cost of building the canal, whose construction de Lesseps had inaugurated, at $214,000,000. M. de Lesseps himself later arbitrarily cut this estimate to $131,000,000, and announced that he believed that vessels would be able to go from ocean to ocean after the expenditure of $120,000,000. He declared that if the committee had decided to build a lock canal, he would have put on his hat and gone home, since he believed it would be much more expensive to build a lock canal with twin chambers than to build a sea-level waterway. There were those who declared that six years was the utmost limit that would be required for building the big ditch. Others asserted with confidence that it could be done in four years.

During the first three years the company devoted its time to getting ready for the real work. By 1885 the profligate use of the money subscribed by the French people brought the funds of the canal company to a very low ebb. M. de Lesseps asked for permission to establish a lottery, by which he hoped to provide additional funds for carrying on the work. The French Government held up the matter and finally sent an eminent engineer to investigate. This engineer, Armand Rosseau, reported that the completion of a sea-level canal was not possible with the means in sight, and recommended a lock canal, plans for which he submitted. The summit level of this canal was to be 160 feet, reached by a series of seven or eight locks. After this plan was adopted, to which de Lesseps reluctantly consented, lottery bonds of a face value of $160,000,000 were issued which were to bear 4 per cent interest. But the people failed to subscribe.

At the outset of the work de Lesseps established a bulletin for the dissemination of information concerning the canal; during the entire period of his connection with the project this bulletin was filled with the most exaggerated reports, and the most reckless mis-statements in favor of a successful prosecution of the work. By 1888 the confidence of the French people in de Lesseps waned. Unable to raise more money, and now popularly dubbed the "Great Undertaker," he found himself in such straits that he saw the French Government take over the wrecked organization by appointing a receiver with the power to dispose of its assets. This proved a terrible blow to the people on the Isthmus. Untold hardships befell the small army of laborers and clerks. The Government of Jamaica repatriated over 6,000 negroes. The Chilean Government granted 40,000 free passages to Chile, open to all classes except negroes and Chinese, and for several months every mail steamer south took away from 600 to 800 stranded people from the canal region. Where good times and the utmost plenty had prevailed for years, the Isthmus was now face to face with a period of want and privation, its glory departed and its hope almost gone.

The receiver of the Panama Canal Company assisted in the organization of another company known as the New Panama Canal Company. With a working capital of $13,000,000, it excavated more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of material. In 1890 it found itself in danger of losing everything by reason of the expiration of its concession. The services of Lieutenant Wyse were again brought into play, and he secured a 10-year extension of the concession. In 1893 another concession was granted, with the provision that work should be begun on a permanent basis by October 31, 1894, and that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1904. Toward the end of the nineties, it was manifest that the concession would expire before the work could be finished, so, in April, 1900, another extension was arranged, which stipulated that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1910. The New Panama Canal Company, as a matter of fact, had no other aim in view than to keep the concession alive in the hope that it could be sold to the United States.

With all of their profligacy, however, the French left to their American successors a valuable heritage. What they did was done with the utmost thoroughness. The machinery which they bequeathed to the Americans was of immense value. There was enough of this to cover a 500-acre farm 3 feet deep, with enough more to build a 6-foot fence around it all. The French equipment was of the best. Dredges and locomotives that stood in the jungle for 20 years were rebuilt by the Americans at less than 10 per cent of their first cost, and did service during the entire period of construction.

Although the New Panama Canal Company at one time asked $150,000,000 for its assets, it finally accepted $40,000,000. An appraisement made by American engineers a few years ago showed that the actual worth of the property acquired, aside from the franchise itself, amounted to about $42,000,000.

Count de Lesseps lived to a great age. His last years were saddened and embittered by the volumes of denunciation that were written and spoken against him. Certain it is that no man ever went further than he to maintain confidence in a project that was destined to fail, and yet his partisans declared that his sin was the sin of overenthusiasm and not of dishonest purpose. Under the torrents of abuse that fell upon his head his mind weakened, and, fortunately, in his last days he realized little of the immeasurable injustice his misplaced zeal and overenthusiasm had wrought against the people of France.