Full transcript
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0:46[Music]
1:23it's been called one of the seven
1:25wonders of the modern
1:26world a man-made Waterway 50 Mi long
1:31that forever altered the face of the
1:35Earth the Panama Canal exceeded any
1:39country's
1:41capacity if in 1904 you asked me to put
1:44money I would have said no it cannot be
1:47built nobody knew how this was going to
1:50be
1:51done the geographic location of Panama
1:55the ismos of Panama has always been
1:58coveted as a way of making the oceans
2:02meet with the building of the Panama
2:04Canal the realization of a dream became
2:09an expression of the power the strength
2:13the might of a growing
2:17Nation for nearly a hundred years the
2:20Panama Canal has stood for the Triumph
2:22of Technology over nature but when it
2:25was built at the dawn of the 20th
2:27century it was simply an audacious
2:30gamble a colossal engineering project
2:34the likes of which the world had never
2:38seen it's a story of inspiration it's a
2:42story of
2:43humanity what man can enjoy with the
2:47pick and shovel to dig the
2:50canal it used science and engineering
2:54and government to improve the country
2:58and really improve prove the
3:00world but it has a dark side as well it
3:04is also a symbol of arrogance Authority
3:09and
3:10power the canal really announced the
3:13United States as the leading country in
3:16the
3:17world it demonstrated an extraordinary
3:21will and
3:23determination they had succeeded in
3:26conquering nature as no one had ever
3:28done before
3:39in early July
3:411905 an American steamship made its way
3:44towards the ismos of Panama the narrow
3:47ribbon of land between North and South
3:49America and the two largest oceans in
3:52the
3:53world among the passengers on board was
3:56Jan van Hardeveld a 30-year-old engineer
3:59from Wyoming
4:01he' read in the newspaper about a new
4:03government project an ambitious plan to
4:06link the Atlantic and the Pacific with a
4:08canal and he was determined to be part
4:10of
4:11it a Dutchman by birth Yan was a newly
4:15minted citizen of the United States and
4:18a fierce champion of his adopted
4:21country in America he liked to say
4:24anything is possible the building of the
4:27Panama Canal would be no exception
4:37a heavy suitcase in my hand the sweat
4:40rolling down my
4:42face I stumbled along the wet slippery
4:45track which I had been told to follow
4:47until I found a place to turn
4:50off in the Deep Darkness I seemed to
4:53have walked miles and I never dreamed
4:56there could be such unearthly noises
5:01to me they sounded like the howling of
5:05demons well I decided that turning back
5:08looked almost as hard as going
5:10on so here I
5:12[Music]
5:14am Yan van hardal was just one of
5:17hundreds of Young Americans now living
5:20on the ismos of
5:21Panama they'd been arriving for months
5:24from San Diego
5:26Cincinnati Pittsburgh Charlotte
5:30former railroad engineers and file
5:32clerks and recent college
5:35graduates all of them eager to be part
5:38of what one Observer called America's
5:40Mighty March of
5:44progress at this particular moment
5:47there's a lot of positive thinking going
5:49on in the United States there are these
5:52sort of iconic structures uh the
5:55Transcontinental Railroad the Brooklyn
5:57Bridge all of them accom accomplishing
6:00Feats that naysayers had predicted could
6:03not be done so there is this fascination
6:07with human triumph over
6:11adversity Americans feel that we are at
6:14The Cutting
6:16Edge the idea of building a Panama Canal
6:20seiz the imagination of the American
6:22public this was the great unfulfilled
6:25engineering challenge of the world
6:30for nearly 400 years people had dreamed
6:33of building a canal that would slice
6:35through the Slender ismos of Panama and
6:38make the world's great oceans
6:40meet the French had been the first to
6:43[Music]
6:45try the year was 1880 and Ferdinand
6:48deeps the legendary builder of the Suz
6:51Canal was looking for a second
6:54act well Ferdinand delps was a great
6:57national hero who done this great
7:00magnificent thing of building the Suz
7:03Canal he was called L gron FR he was
7:07endlessly appearing in the magazines his
7:10beautiful wife and his lovely children
7:12he was seen as incredibly
7:15virile he was endlessly touring the
7:17country where he'd pull in huge crowds
7:20to come and see this the hero of
7:24sewers the thing about the Suz Canal was
7:27that it was a flat level pth Passage
7:30through a dry desert it couldn't have
7:32been more different from the Panama
7:37Canal if anything Panama was the most
7:40difficult place in the whole world to
7:42build a
7:44canal you've got really thick jungles
7:47full of snakes and of course mosquitoes
7:50that will give you malaria or yellow
7:52fever and then you have deep almost
7:55bottomless
7:56swamps you've got the thick every
7:59mountain range and perhaps worst of all
8:02you've got the shagas river which is one
8:05of the most volatile rivers in the
8:09world despite the warnings of experts
8:12who said it could not be done the leips
8:14directed his Engineers to carve a canal
8:16through the
8:18ismos they spent the next 8 and 1/2
8:20years locked in a losing battle against
8:23the
8:25Jungle everything that could have gone
8:27wrong went wrong for the French at
8:30Panama there were fires there was
8:32flooding there was an
8:34earthquake there was continuous epidemic
8:37of yellow fever there was a huge amount
8:40of
8:42corruption when the crash of delp's
8:44venture finally came in 1888 it was
8:48thunderous in less than a decade more
8:51than a billion Franks about $287 million
8:55had been all but
8:58squandered meanwhile accidents and
9:01disease had claimed a staggering 20,000
9:04lives most of them West Indians who'
9:07been imported to do the heavy
9:09labor delesseps the one-time hero of
9:13France was bankrupted and only narrowly
9:16escaped
9:17prison delps was broken I mean the last
9:21years of his life he sat looking out a
9:24window with a three-year-old newspaper
9:27by his side he had essentially been
9:30driven insane by the whole experience in
9:41Panama for 10 years the spectacular
9:44failure of the French cast a Paul over
9:47the
9:48ismos in the eyes of most of the World
9:51Panama was a miserable sinkhole a place
9:54synonymous with corruption disease and
9:57death
10:00the Americans took a different view no
10:04Nation on Earth had more to gain from a
10:06canal than the United
10:08States the close of the 19th century had
10:11been witness to its astonishing rise the
10:14sudden dramatic expansion of its
10:16industry its Gathering economic might
10:19its surprising aggression against Spain
10:22in the war of
10:251898 now on the threshold of the new
10:27century the brat young country barely a
10:30100 years in existence was poised to
10:33become one of the world's great
10:38powers to president Theodore Roosevelt
10:40who took office in 1901 the canal was
10:43the obvious path to America's
10:47future Roosevelt wanted American power
10:51to be projected outside of the North
10:53American continent really for the first
10:55time the key to this was for him the
10:59building of a Panama Canal which could
11:01link the two oceans and provide the
11:04conduit for sea power this was the
11:06crucial thing for
11:10him he saw the canal essentially as the
11:13way to protect American interests
11:15particularly American Commerce the
11:17United States was the number one
11:19industrial power in the world and when
11:22you begin to look the world in those
11:23terms then what you begin to think about
11:26was how do you get from New York to the
11:29markets of Asia this is the first time
11:32in American history we start to think
11:34globally to Roosevelt the notion of an
11:38isian Canal it's a key piece of the
11:41puzzle of world Empire and a kind of
11:45providentially
11:46ordained world domination that uh the
11:50United States is meant to enjoy whoever
11:53could connect and have the two Seas the
11:56Atlantic and the Pacific will be the
11:59global
12:00power if we are to hold our own in the
12:03struggle for Supremacy Roosevelt
12:05insisted we must build the
12:10canal but the rights to the land in
12:13Panama proved difficult to
12:16negotiate Panama was a small province of
12:20Colombia and once the United States
12:22decided to build the canal in Panama
12:26they tried to reach an agreement with
12:28Colombia
12:29Roosevelt insisted on huge amount of
12:32control over where the canal was to be
12:34built however the Colombian Constitution
12:37expressly forbids any sovereignty to be
12:40given away to any part of the country
12:43and effectively this is what the
12:44Americans were demanding so the
12:46Colombians rejected the treaty and they
12:48not only rejected it Colombian
12:50legislature rejected it
12:52unanimously Roosevelt thought we have
12:57one objective and we're not going to
12:59allow this small little insignificant
13:03country get in get in our way Roosevelt
13:05felt that the United States should
13:08leading the way in improving the world
13:11even if the bits of the world didn't
13:13necessarily want to be
13:16improved so he had an option either he
13:19could just simply invade Panama and take
13:21it which he considered doing he sent
13:23spies to go and check out the
13:25possibility of achieving that or there
13:27was another option and and that was for
13:29Panama to declare its independence under
13:32the protection of the United
13:34States as Roosevelt well knew Panamanian
13:38Elites had been plotting Revolution for
13:40years now with a nod from Washington
13:44they made their
13:48move on the morning of November 3rd
13:511903 the rebels seized the
13:54isness aided by the well-timed
13:56appearance of an American gunboat in the
13:58harbor of at
13:59cologne their Revolution was over by
14:03Sunday it so casualties a foreign born
14:06shopkeeper and a luckless
14:09donkey 3 days later the United States
14:12formally recognized the new Republic of
14:16Panama the best part was the way they
14:20did it instead of fight against the
14:22Colombia they just send bags of money to
14:27pay off all the Colombian trop to go
14:29back to
14:30Colombia so this was a bloodless
14:37Revolution Colombia they didn't Imagine
14:40The Audacity Of Tedy Roosevelt we will
14:45make Panama into a new independent
14:47country they will sign us off this track
14:49of land and then we will have a canal
14:51and they will have a nation and that was
14:53the birth of the nation of Panama
15:00it was arrogant but then again America
15:03was emerging into an international order
15:07where to be a self-respecting power you
15:11had to be
15:12arrogant the British were arrogant the
15:15Germans were arrogant God knows the
15:18French were arrogant so this self
15:21assertion by
15:22America was part of a certain kind of
15:28culture
15:30the treaty later signed with the
15:32panamanians gave the United States
15:34effective sovereignty over the so-called
15:37Canal Zone a 500 square mile swath that
15:41stretched clear across the ismos and cut
15:43the new nation into
15:48two the pananian leadership was of
15:50course extremely grateful to the
15:52Americans for their support in the
15:53revolution but the honeymoon period was
15:56incredibly
15:57short as soon as the Americans started
16:00actually laying out the boundaries of
16:01the Zone panamanians realized that they
16:04had been sold
16:05out what Roosevelt called one of the
16:08future highways of civilization was now
16:11America's to control all that was left
16:14to do was build
16:21it when the news of the Panama
16:24Revolution came through it was
16:25immediately apparent that it carried out
16:28with the kiv and with the support of the
16:30United
16:31States and this left the the public very
16:35confused and very divided but there was
16:38a feeling that the underhand and
16:41internationally illegal way in which the
16:43Americans had contrived the revolution
16:45had somehow sullied America's
16:49reputation there were headlines saying
16:51might makes right you know we are just
16:53now like the Europeans who are who who
16:56grab land whenever they want and there
16:58was a feeling that something that had
17:00made the United States different that
17:02had made it better than the other great
17:04Powers had been
17:06[Music]
17:15lost on May 4th
17:171904 the American effort in Panama
17:20officially got
17:22underway to oversee the project on the
17:24ground Roosevelt had selected a seasoned
17:27seemingly unflappable 51-year-old
17:29engineer from Chicago named John Finley
17:33Wallace but the real Authority rested
17:36with the isian canal commission a
17:39presidentially appointed panel charged
17:41with approving virtually every decision
17:43made in the Canal
17:45Zone with the national treasury footing
17:47the bill for the project the commission
17:49was determined that not a single penny
17:51be
17:52misspent every time you wanted to do
17:54something every time you wanted to hire
17:56a cart you'd have to fill out a form in
17:59triplicate and send it to Washington and
18:01this of course brought utter paralysis
18:04to any anything that Wallace was trying
18:06to
18:08do as yet the Americans had no real plan
18:13other than to pick up where the French
18:14left
18:15off and dig a massive ditch through the
18:18ismos some 50 mi in length and about 30
18:22ft below sea level slated to run from
18:25cologne the harbor on the Caribbean all
18:28All the Way South to Panama City on the
18:31Pacific the canal would have to cut
18:33through dense jungle across the flood
18:36prone chugas River Valley and then
18:39through the Steep Mountain Pass known as
18:46cbra Wallace had only 3500 men at its
18:50disposal 1,500 of them new recruits from
18:53the US the rest West Indians left over
18:56from the French effort
18:58with such a token force and tons of
19:01Machinery badly in need of repair he was
19:04uncertain how to proceed he wanted time
19:07at least a year he said to experiment
19:10with
19:10equipment and all of the time there was
19:13this huge clamor back from back at home
19:15to make the dirt fly Roosevelt wanted
19:18action so of course Wallace had to start
19:20digging the minute he got
19:23there in November 1904 under pressure
19:26from Washington Wallace ordered
19:29excavation to begin at KRA to meet the
19:32challenge of the mountains he'd imported
19:34two busiris steam shovels 95 ton
19:38behemoths that could dig up roughly 8
19:40tons of rock and Earth with a single
19:42scoop but there were not enough trains
19:45to haul the spoil away and what trains
19:47there were kept running off the
19:50tracks it was an impossible situation
19:53for him to deal with as chief engineer
19:56the key to the successful excavation the
19:58canal was about moving the spoil that
20:00was dug away from the site otherwise
20:04everything would stop if the shovel
20:06didn't have anything to load the Earth
20:08onto the shovel would stop make the dirt
20:11fly was a disastrous approach to the
20:14huge engineering challenge that Wallace
20:16was
20:19facing the problems only
20:21multiplied just weeks into the digging
20:23at coubra three men on the ismos
20:26contracted yellow fever
20:28in December there were six more yellow
20:32fever could cause internal bleeding
20:34bleeding from the gums and internal
20:37hemorr jene that would cause the black
20:40vomit or vomito negro which was
20:44terrifying the yellow fever the fever
20:48attacking and killing everybody it the
20:52fever got got everybody scared nobody
20:55wants to come to the ismos to
20:57work the fear don't go down to that
21:00project because you may not come back
21:03the horror that may be death is stalking
21:07us the same way it stocked the
21:10French within 3 months 500 of the
21:14Americans Fleet in January as the
21:17epidemic spread Wallace tried to project
21:20confidence and made a show of riding
21:23around the Canal Zone with his wife then
21:26it became known that the couple had Qui
21:28ly imported two metal
21:32coffins I am thoroughly sick of this
21:34country and everything to do with the
21:36canal when American wrote his
21:38mother tell the boys at home to stay
21:41there even if they get no more than a
21:43dollar a
21:45day by June 1905 nearly 3/4 of the
21:49American labor force had fled the
21:53ismos overwhelmed and suffering from
21:56nervous strain Wallace soon resigned his
22:00post the project looks
22:04doomed the project comes to a standstill
22:07and theer Roosevelt goes
22:10nuts it looked as though what was going
22:12to happen to the United States had been
22:15exactly what happened to France and this
22:18is traumatic for
22:19Americans how uh dangerously close to
22:24failure the whole us Enterprise is
22:28[Music]
22:30the Americans had been in Panama for
22:31more than a year and $78 million already
22:35had been spent but so far only about 15
22:39million cubic yards of spoil had been
22:42excavated which left hundreds of
22:44millions still to be
22:46removed at the rate things were going
22:48one worker guessed the canal would not
22:50be finished for 50 years
23:08[Music]
23:15I'm convinced that there isn't a place
23:17in the world that can beat this ithos
23:20for
23:21rain it rains so much that honest to
23:25goodness my hat is getting moldy on my
23:27head
23:30I haven't had on a dry pair of shoes in
23:34weeks Yan van Hardeveld arrived in
23:37Panama just as chief engineer Wallace
23:40was
23:41leaving and for the first few weeks it
23:43was hard not to wonder if he'd made a
23:46mistake he' put more than 2,000 miles
23:49between himself and his family left his
23:52wife Rose alone with the children and
23:55all for a project that was floundering
23:59dear Rose the food is awful and cooked
24:03in such a way that no civilized white
24:05man can stand it for more than a week or
24:08two I grew careless last week and before
24:11I realized it I was one sick
24:13ombre stomach out of order and my blood
24:16full of malaria
24:18bugs I'm taking no more chances than I
24:20can help of being sent home wrapped in a
24:22wooden Overcoat
24:28in the Canal Zone was at an all-time low
24:31when at the end of July 1905 Wallace's
24:35replacement as chief engineer finally
24:37turned
24:38up his name was John Stevens and his
24:41reputation preceded
24:44him some years before as a surveyor for
24:47the Great Northern Railroad he tricked
24:50hundreds of miles through the Rockies to
24:52plot out the line's passage over the
24:54Continental
24:55Divide word had it that he'd since built
24:57more mil of railroad than any other man
25:01alive now he'd been asked to rescue the
25:03largest government project in American
25:06history John Stevens was an absolutely
25:09brilliant railroad engineer very much a
25:11Frontiersman he' fought wolves and
25:14Indians he' survived in incredibly harsh
25:18environments and he arrived in Panama
25:20and he took a look around and he saw
25:22everywhere disillusionment and fear
25:29I believe Stevens later wrote that I
25:32faced about as discouraging a
25:33proposition as was ever presented to a
25:36construction
25:38engineer Stevens noticed straight away
25:41that part of the problem was what he
25:43called the idiotic howl to make dirt fly
25:47he had enough experience to realize that
25:49on a a project of this enormous
25:51unprecedented scale he would have to
25:54spend a very great amount of time just
25:57getting the whole thing ready
25:58so therefore even though he knew that
26:01Roosevelt and the press back in the
26:02United States would be horrified he
26:05ordered the digging to
26:10stop for Stevens the first order of
26:13business was to retool the Panama
26:15railroad which had been built in the
26:171850s and was by now so decrepit that he
26:21once described it as two streaks of rust
26:23and a
26:25rideway Stevens realized that this was
26:28was going to be a huge exercise in
26:31logistics the job of building the canal
26:34would be very much a job of just moving
26:37removing hauling out thousands of car
26:40loads of dirt he understood that the
26:44railroad was going to be the heart of
26:46the
26:48effort in the system Stevens ultimately
26:51devised the railroad would function as a
26:54giant conveyor bu and its position would
26:56shift continuously to a accommodate the
26:58work as it
27:00progressed to speed the relocation along
27:03he seized on an ingenious Innovation a
27:06swinging boom mounted on a flat car that
27:08could lift and move yards of existing
27:11track without first having to take it
27:14apart then he traded the rail cars for
27:17open-sided Flats fitted with a plow
27:20which could empty a 20 car train in
27:22about 10
27:23minutes by Steven's estimate the two
27:26rigs would do the labor of 900 men
27:28working by
27:34hand the cleverest little trick that he
27:37did was to plan the work so that the
27:40digging would start at either end of the
27:429M cbra cut and move towards the middle
27:45which was the highest point this meant
27:48that when the empty spoil trains came
27:50into the cut they would be climbing up
27:52to the shovels and when they were full
27:55they would have the benefit of the
27:56gradient to take away their enormous
27:59loads engineering at its simplest and
28:02most
28:08[Music]
28:10brilliant at first the Project's most
28:13formidable challenge seemed to be the
28:15mountain pass at
28:17kbra to dig the canal there the
28:20Americans would have to bore down as
28:21much as 300 ft through Rock gravel clay
28:26and Earth along a corridor some 9 miles
28:30in
28:31length as Stevens put it to a colleague
28:34at kabra we are facing a proposition
28:37greater than was ever undertaken in the
28:39history of the
28:42world but after a few months on the
28:44ismos at the height of the rainy season
28:47Stevens began to realize that the Chas
28:50was an obstacle every bit as
28:54daunting throughout the summer and fall
28:56of 1905 he watched as the swollen River
28:59surged over its banks again and again
29:03flooding the works all up and down the
29:06line gradually it began to Dawn on him
29:10if he and his men built a sea level
29:11Canal as the French had attempted to do
29:14and Washington was now expecting the
29:17chagras would Menace its operation for
29:19more than half of each
29:22year Stevens realized building a sea
29:25level Canal would almost certainly
29:28condemn the American Canal to failure
29:30just like the French Stevens was totally
29:32horrified by this he went to Washington
29:35he hated politicians he hated going um
29:38on on a boat he got horribly seasick but
29:40he went to Washington and he talked face
29:42to face with Roosevelt and convinced him
29:45convinced the president that a sea level
29:47Canal would be total
29:53Madness how can you get a boat to move
29:56from one side to the other side and to
29:59cross the
30:00mountain Stevens and the rest of
30:03American Engineers we need to find a new
30:05way to do
30:08it the answer was a lock Canal a highly
30:12engineered mechanized waterway that
30:15would solve the multiple problems of
30:17Panama all at
30:18once first to control the Chagas a
30:22massive Dam would be built at Katon
30:24creating an artificial Lake some 85 ft
30:27above sea Lev
30:29roughly in the middle of the Canal's
30:30planned
30:32route in order to get to this Lake the
30:35ship would be raised by a series of
30:37locks these locks are each going to be
30:40these huge concrete structures more than
30:42three football fields long they're going
30:44to hold tens of millions of gallons of
30:47water them to raise ships up over the
30:50American continent in
30:52effect what it was was to set up a steps
30:54a series of steps hydraulically Elevate
30:57the ship
30:58where the boats will go up a step come
31:00across it would sail across the
31:02artificial Lake go through craut which
31:06of course now didn't need to be cut out
31:08nearly so
31:10drastically and then would descend again
31:12in steps down into the Pacific and
31:19Away to build the lck canal in Panama
31:23the Americans would not only have to Dam
31:24the turbulent chugas and create the
31:27largest artificial lake in the world
31:30they also would have to design locks
31:32nearly three times longer than the
31:34longest ever
31:37constructed the plan was wildly
31:40ambitious but Roosevelt had backed it
31:42and Stevens was confident it could be
31:45done there is no element of mystery
31:47involved in it Stevens reported to
31:49Washington the problem is one of
31:52magnitude not miracles
31:55[Music]
32:00to Yan van Hardeveld the Canal Zone now
32:03seemed infused with a sense of purpose
32:06assigned to supervise a work gang in the
32:08calbra cut he spent his days building
32:10track for the spoil trains while all
32:13around him roads were being paved and
32:15street lights installed dves and
32:18warehouses built dormitories and dining
32:21Halls banged
32:22together the time had come he decided to
32:25send for his family
32:30dear Rose the slowness of work would be
32:33discouraging if I were not certain that
32:34our government can and will accomplish
32:37whatever it sets out to
32:39do that is why since you have made no
32:42objection I have made my decision to
32:45stay and I am happy to be able to tell
32:48you that the quartermaster has at last
32:50assigned me to married
32:52quarters the house is an old one at
32:55lasas catus the village where I'm now
32:57working
32:58it was the first house built here by the
33:00French and is marked house number
33:04one it was late winter 1906 when Rose
33:08packed up her belongings said her
33:10goodbyes to
33:11Wyoming and set off with her children
33:13for
33:15Panama she hadn't laid eyes on her
33:17husband in more than half a
33:20year she spent most of the voyage laid
33:23Low by
33:24seasickness but as their destination
33:26neared she felt a sudden Rush of
33:30enthusiasm this will be our chance she
33:32told her children to be among those who
33:34make
33:37history your papa is helping to build
33:39the big Canal the waterway that has been
33:42in the minds of men for
33:44centuries it will unite the two oceans
33:47the Atlantic and the Pacific and alter
33:50the course of the ships that sail upon
33:54them this canal when it is finished will
33:58change the face of the
34:11Earth of all the challenges confronting
34:14John Stevens none was so urgent as the
34:17need for
34:19workers by his estimate the canal
34:22project would generate some 20,000 jobs
34:24in 1906 alone of those
34:285,000 were positions for skilled workers
34:31blacksmiths Carpenters drill operators
34:35plumbers and they were reserved for
34:37white US
34:40citizens but the vast majority of the
34:43jobs in the Canal Zone were
34:45unskilled thousands of men were needed
34:47to cut brush dig ditches load and unload
34:51equipment and
34:52supplies the French had relied on the
34:54west Indians for manual labor
34:57Stevens had other
34:59plans Stevens when he'd done all his
35:02Railway building in the United States
35:03had mainly used Chinese labor he
35:05considered that to be the
35:08best when he got to Panama he saw that
35:10the workforce was mainly West Indian and
35:13he didn't like or trust the West Indians
35:15at all John Stevens wasn't happy about
35:18relying on West Indians because he you
35:21know sharing in the racial beliefs of
35:24the day he saw them as too lazy
35:28not
35:31intelligent Stevens kept up a continuous
35:34campaign to recruit elswhere he
35:37experimented with workers from Spain and
35:39Greece and Italy but in the end he had
35:42to take men wherever he could find
35:45them and nowhere did he find more than
35:48in the nearby islands of the West
35:52Indies I landed here on the 21st of of
35:58January
36:011907 on the appearance of the place I
36:06felt like I would go right back home
36:08because everything looked so strange and
36:12you know different to being brought up
36:15home or so I felt like I'd go back home
36:19but it wasn't so easy to do
36:22that recruitment proved especially
36:25successful on the tiny island of
36:26Barbados where jobs were scarce pay was
36:30low and young men were an easy target
36:32for American
36:34advertising they created what was called
36:37the Panama man which is to get someone
36:41that went to Panama and bring him back
36:43and he will be the advertiser when he
36:45came back to Barbados from Panama he
36:48came back with a white trousers white
36:50jacket gold teeth Panama Hat a big smile
36:54and money's in their pocket and all the
36:56other guys that's in the play ation take
36:58a look and say boy I better go down to
37:00Panama and get mine
37:03too where I had some friends and they
37:06all was getting ready to go and they
37:08wanted me to go and I joined them and I
37:11left from St Lucy went to bridg down to
37:15the transportation office and I signed
37:18up there for a trip to the
37:20canal I had no recognition of what was
37:23going to happen I couldn't
37:26conceive I had hadn't yet seen the canal
37:29I hadn't yet seen no part of the
37:33operation until after I reached
37:38employment then I began to realize what
37:41a stupendous aair this would
37:46be Panama was perceived as the way of
37:51getting
37:53riches but what they did not know was
37:56the price that they had to pay to do
38:01that the journey from Barbados took an
38:04average of 8 to 10
38:06days then came the shock of the Canal
38:10Zone West Indians found as they got to
38:14the Canal Zone that things were very
38:17different from what they had known in
38:20Barbados the United States created a
38:23very
38:24regimented world
38:27they had
38:28tracks and they had bunk beds on all
38:31four walls all four walls had bunk bed
38:34three layers of bunk bed very harsh
38:38facilities that was part and parcel of
38:40that type of society that was
38:43[Music]
38:46created as the barbadians soon learned
38:49everything in the Canal Zone came down
38:51to how you were paid skilled workers
38:54invariably white received their wages
38:57and gold gold unskilled workers who were
39:00largely black in
39:02silver so-called gold roll employees
39:05enjoyed privileges such as paid sick
39:07leave and laundry service and holidays
39:10off for silver roll employees there was
39:13nothing of the
39:15kind from this um emerged a system of
39:18segregation on The Works whereby
39:21everything was um marked either silver
39:24or gold whether it was a toilet whether
39:25it was a post office whether it was a
39:27shop or drinking
39:29fountain I remember my my stepfather
39:32talking about it it was a kind of a
39:35polished shop
39:36segregation it didn't say black and
39:39white but you understood that if you
39:42weren't a gold roller and you were a
39:44silver roller that you were on the black
39:48side it worked exactly like it worked in
39:51the United States in the states they
39:53call the system for black colored in
39:56Panama they call it silver
39:59with his segregation that was a whole
40:02dehumanizing
40:03strategy and that gave the moral
40:06justification for viewing them as Beast
40:08of
40:12Labor in the West Indies Stevens had
40:15found exactly what he needed a seemingly
40:18inexhaustible supply of men willing to
40:21endure harsh treatment and heavy
40:24physical labor in exchange for as little
40:27as 10 cents an
40:29hour they knew that they had to send
40:32money home that was the reality 10 cents
40:35an hour was much more than they would
40:37make in in the
40:40Caribbean by the close of 1906 Stevens
40:44had a labor force of some 24,000 men at
40:47his
40:48disposal and though he'd never wanted
40:50them more than 70% were West Indians
41:06Rose van hardal had made her family
41:08whole again by coming to
41:10Panama but she was one of very few
41:13American women in the Canal Zone and
41:15she'd never been so lonely in her
41:18life Yan put in more hours on the job
41:21than he ever had in Wyoming leaving Rose
41:24to cope with the miseries of jungle
41:25living all on her own
41:28in the local stores she remembered not
41:30one edible thing looked
41:32familiar and she wound up feeding her
41:35children a steady diet of fruit beans
41:38and Soggy
41:39crackers the house smelled of bat
41:41droppings and it was overrun with
41:43lizards and
41:46insects slowly but surely my natural
41:49fortitude was giving way Rose later
41:52wrote and I was becoming a nervous
41:54fearful woman
41:57then her youngest whom the family called
42:00sister came down with a
42:03fever her round face was pale and the
42:07cold sweat stood out in beads all over
42:09her body it was malaria and denter and a
42:14dreary time we had of
42:16it she became a limp feverish little
42:19bundle crying night and
42:22day all the time I was becoming lower
42:25and lower in spirits
42:28and less able to
42:31cope by the time sister finally
42:33recovered Rose had been driven to the
42:36verge of
42:37collapse I believe it was the
42:39consciousness of what would happen to
42:41the children she wrote that kept me from
42:43going to
42:46Pieces the story was the same all over
42:49the Canal Zone malaria dissenter
42:54pneumonia but nothing was worse than
42:56yellow
42:57fever each year epidemic swept across
43:00the ismos killing men by the hundreds
43:04inciting Panic utterly paralyzing the
43:09[Music]
43:11work when the Americans arrived in
43:13Panama it was obviously clear that there
43:15had to be a medical officer and one of
43:17the leading yellow fever Specialists was
43:19an Army doctor called colel William
43:22gorgas gorgas had made his name as a
43:24frontier doctor in the United States and
43:27on one of his postings he caught yellow
43:29fever and he recovered and thereafter he
43:33was immune and he decided to make it his
43:36life's work to battle this terrible
43:40[Music]
43:42disease for centuries yellow fever had
43:45been thought to be caused by filth and
43:48efforts to combat the disease had
43:50revolved entirely around
43:52sanitation but during a posting in
43:55Havana gorgas had developed a new
43:59protocol working from an obscure theory
44:01in a Cuban medical journal that blamed
44:04yellow fever transmission on Infected
44:06mosquitoes he' carried out an extensive
44:09eradication campaign in
44:10Havana over the course of one year
44:13yellow fever cases there had fallen by
44:15more than
44:1795% kill the mosquitoes gorgus argued
44:21and yellow fever would disappear
44:27gorgus arrived in Panama absolutely 100%
44:30convinced that the mosquito theory of
44:32yellow fever transmission was correct
44:35gorgos put a proposal together to
44:38implement a plan similar to that which
44:40he had done in Havana his project was a
44:44lot bigger though because in Havana he
44:46just had to clean up one city but in
44:49Panama he had to clean up two urban
44:52areas separated by 500 square miles of
44:56swamp and
44:57jungle gorgus put together a $1 million
45:01proposal and submitted it to the panck
45:04canel commission and they approved
45:09$50,000
45:11$50,000 they just didn't get what he was
45:13trying to do the gentleman of the
45:16commission simply didn't believe the
45:18mosquito Theory they called it the
45:21various boulder dash there was a feeling
45:23that we needed a sensible doctor not
45:25this sort of crazy gorgas with his wife
45:27mosquito theories and actually one of
45:29the leaders of the canal commission
45:31tried to get him fired and replaced with
45:33a friend of his who was actually an
45:35osteopath with no experience of tropical
45:37medicine at all on the eve of gorgus
45:40dismissal President Roosevelt received a
45:43visitor at his home at Oyster Bay his
45:45personal physician Dr Alexander
45:48Lambert you are facing one of the
45:50greatest decisions of your career
45:52Lambert told him if you fall back on the
45:55old methods you will fail
45:57just as the French failed if you back
45:59gorgus you will get your
46:02Canal Lambert appeals to Roosevelt's ego
46:08and he says this canal is your project
46:11and it's your choice and
46:14Roosevelt buys it he says get behind
46:18gorgus and give him the authority and
46:20the resources he needs and so mosquito
46:23eradication can begin in earnest
46:28with the blessing and backing of chief
46:30engineer
46:31Stevens gorgus launched the most
46:33expensive public health campaign in
46:37history William gorgus is an army
46:39officer so the cleanup effort was
46:43conducted with military discipline and
46:47precision he spends $90,000 on screening
46:51he goes about screening off patients so
46:54that mosquitoes cannot bite them and and
46:57transmit their case of yellow fever and
47:00he goes about fumigating the houses
47:04throughout the Canal Zone to kill adult
47:07mosquitoes and then the U more extensive
47:10effort is to find mosquito larae and all
47:14of the water sources in town and kill
47:17the
47:18larae gorgus had discovered that if you
47:20pour oil on top of the water you smother
47:23the mosquito Lara he call them wrigglers
47:27so he had to go through every single
47:30house every Shack in Panama City in
47:33Colon all along the line of the canal
47:35and find every single water tank every
47:38little puddle and get them covered with
47:41oil Gus's team is swarming all over the
47:45Panama Canal Zone they had to screen
47:49gutters they had to put Lids on um water
47:52ssts gorgus even got a law passed to
47:56make it a $5 fine to have a wiggler in
47:59your
48:01home he is at war against the
48:04mosquitoes and he's going to kill them
48:07to the
48:10last by August
48:131906 the monthly tally of new yellow
48:15fever cases had fallen by nearly half to
48:1927 a month later the count was down to
48:22just
48:23seven then on November 11th gorgus
48:27called his staff into an autopsy room
48:29and told them to take a good look at the
48:31corpse on the
48:32table it was he rightly predicted the
48:36last yellow fever victim they would ever
48:42see the idea that gorgus was able to
48:45conquer this problem is still kind of
48:47unbelievable to me he ended up tracking
48:50down individual mosquitoes which is
48:53unbelievable in this this jungle where
48:56it essentially never stops raining and
48:59it worked and it saved thousands of
49:04lives really was a huge part of what
49:07made the digging of the canal possible
49:13[Music]
49:27by the fall of
49:291906 Steven's carefully designed
49:31excavation system was running at Peak
49:35efficiency it had taken him the better
49:37part of an exhausting year to
49:40prepare he'd overseen the construction
49:42of thousands of buildings hired
49:44thousands of men spent thousands upon
49:47thousands on new equipment and
49:50supplies finally the real work of
49:53building the canal was
49:54underway over the months in years to
49:57come millions of cubic yards of rock and
50:00Earth would have to be loosened and dug
50:02and loaded and hauled away enough spoil
50:06it was said to build a great wall like
50:08China's clear across the United
50:14States from Washington Theodore
50:17Roosevelt was watching despite the
50:19progress in Panama his pet project
50:22lately had come under Fire with critics
50:25howling about alleged grab and
50:27Corruption and American boys supposedly
50:30ruined by prostitution and
50:32drink what the president needed now was
50:35a new story for the nation's front pages
50:38he's got a very big PR problem but if
50:41anyone knew how to deal with a PR
50:43problem it was Theo Roosevelt and
50:45Roosevelt decides that he will go down
50:47to Panama and see what's going on
50:50firsthand and it's the first time an
50:53American president while in office
50:55leaves the United States
50:57[Music]
51:01I want to see how they're going to dig
51:02that ditch how they're going to build
51:05that lock how they're going to get
51:07through that cut Roosevelt told the
51:09Press it's a business trip I want to be
51:12able to tell people as much as I can
51:14about the
51:16canal tr's trip to Panama tells you a
51:19lot about his Mastery of New Media he
51:23knows that if he goes to Panama it will
51:25be a media
51:27event newspaper reporters are doing
51:30stories on exactly what his stat room
51:34looks like on the ship where he's going
51:37to stop along the way you know even
51:40before he gets to Panama it has captured
51:42the attention of the
51:44[Music]
51:48country the presidential vessel dropped
51:50anchor at Lemon Bay on November 14th
51:541906 an entire day Ahad
51:57schedule everything had been scrubbed
51:59and whitewashed and made ready for for
52:02his visit there were choirs lined up
52:04there were balls and parties but even
52:06before the welcoming party started up
52:08their their songs he was already on on
52:10the isas he'd snuck away from his boat
52:13and was poking around in the hospitals
52:16and in the Barrack rooms Roosevelt was
52:19determined that nothing would be hidden
52:20from
52:22him he deliberately went when in Panama
52:25was at its wetest
52:27and it rained and rained and rained as
52:29it only can in
52:31[Music]
52:33Panama the rains are coming down and
52:35he's you know saying that's fully great
52:38to have so much rain because he wants to
52:41see Panama at its worst everywhere he
52:44went he would make impromptu speeches
52:46urging the workforce to be men and to
52:50fight for the for this fantastic
52:52achievement that would cover the United
52:54States with Glory he made the men that
52:58were building there Earth feel like they
53:01were special
53:03people give them pride of what they were
53:07doing for the United
53:09States he had this amazing energy the
53:13people who were designated sh him around
53:15were totally exhausted after the first
53:17few
53:18hours for Roosevelt the biggest draw in
53:21the Canal Zone was the calabra cut where
53:24each month Stevens and his crew set a
53:27new excavation record he got his look
53:29early on the second
53:31day with a flock of newspaper
53:34photographers hard on his heels he
53:37marched up to one of the mammoth buyus
53:39steam
53:40shovels asked the operator to slide over
53:43and hoisted himself into the driver's
53:47seat one of the most famous photographs
53:50ever taken of the United States
53:53President it's a great photo that that
53:55really announced the the key themes of
53:58the United States in the Canal Zone
54:01Peerless leadership uh American industry
54:05efficiency technology science was going
54:08to master the canal project it was going
54:12to do what France never could have
54:16done in all the president spent 12 days
54:19on the
54:20ismos 12 days that Rose van hardal and
54:24many other Americans would remember as
54:26the turning point for the
54:29canal we saw him once on the end of a
54:32train Yan got small flags for the
54:35children and told us about when the
54:37train would pass so we were standing on
54:40the front
54:41steps Mr Roosevelt flashed us one of his
54:45well-known toothy smiles and waved his
54:48hat at the children as though he wanted
54:50to come up the hill and say
54:52hello I caught some of Yan's confidence
54:55in the man
54:57maybe this ditch will get dug after all
55:00I
55:02[Music]
55:09thought late on the night of January
55:1130th
55:131907 18 months into his tenure and at
55:16the close of yet another 14-hour day
55:19John Stevens sat down at his desk in his
55:22office near calabra and composed a
55:24letter to Theodore Roosevelt
55:27Mr President he wrote you've been kind
55:29enough on several occasions to instruct
55:31me to address you directly and
55:34personally and I will in this case the
55:37honor which is continually being held as
55:39an incentive for being connected with
55:41this work appeals to me but
55:44slightly to me the canal is only a big
55:49ditch it was an extraordinary thing to
55:51send to a president he said he didn't
55:54like Panama he never wanted the job in
55:55the first Place he' had enough and he
56:00wanted to go and do something far more
56:01lucrative elsewhere rosard looked at
56:04this letter and was absolutely Furious
56:05he'd been in Panama talking to the
56:07workforces that they were all martial
56:09soldiers they must stick to their tasks
56:12and now the leader that he had backed
56:14was resigning but I think Stevens was
56:18utterly exhausted and the incredible
56:21scale of the problems that he inherited
56:24from Wallace really it's amazing that he
56:26lasted as long as he
56:29did Wallace had worn out and quit
56:31Stevens had worn out and quit Roosevelt
56:34basically said I want a military man who
56:36can't quit until I tell him he can quit
56:39who has absolutely no choice that's
56:41that's how it's got to be from now on
56:43and that's what he got in in
56:46gothal George Washington gothal was 48
56:50an expert in Hydraulics and one of the
56:52finest engineers in the Army Corps he
56:55was also also as Roosevelt now made
56:58plain the chief engineer who would see
57:00the canal through to
57:02completion As gothal Told a friend it's
57:05a case of just plain straight
57:09Duty he arrived on the ismos in late
57:12March
57:141907 a month later the steam shovel men
57:17the backbone of the entire excavation
57:19effort went out on strike demanding a
57:22wage increase of more than 40%
57:26they're already the best paid people on
57:28the ismos and giros basically pulled the
57:31plug on it he decided he was going to
57:33gradually recruit strike
57:37Breakers hiring new Crews would take
57:40time meanwhile the digging ground to a
57:43halt two weeks passed then four still
57:48gothal refused to negotiate instead he
57:51sent the strikers packing none of them
57:54would be permitted to return to Panama
57:58he could Deport anyone from the ismos
58:00who it was in any way causing any kind
58:03of trouble whatsoever anyone who
58:06complained asked for more money would
58:08simply be got rid
58:10of by the time the buyus shovels finally
58:13went back to work in July manned by new
58:16operators gothal had made his
58:19point as he later put it the outcome
58:22showed conclusively that defection by
58:24any one class of men could not tie up
58:27the whole
58:29work George gerles became known as the
58:32Zar of Panama he not only ran the
58:35engineering effort he also ran the Canal
58:37Zone government the post office
58:39everything reported directly to him he
58:42had total power on the ismos his Express
58:45mission was that everything was
58:48subservient to getting the canal made
59:02by the time gothal took over the
59:04Americans had been in Panama for 3 years
59:07and the bulk of the work still lay
59:09ahead on both the Atlantic and Pacific
59:12sides of the ismos the lock basins had
59:15yet to be
59:16dug and the locks themselves
59:19constructed at katun the site where the
59:21chugus would be damned to form the lake
59:24a foundation of solid rock had be laid
59:26before building could even
59:28begin meanwhile to keep the River from
59:31continually flooding The Works of gabra
59:34a massive Dyke had to be put up at
59:37Gamboa and then there was the cut itself
59:41excavation had so far managed to widen
59:43it by over 100 ft but the immense task
59:46of digging down had barely
59:53begun with gothal in charge the Cabra
59:56cut would become aroundthe clock
59:58operation with as many as 6,000 Men at
1:00:01Work at any given
1:00:03time if we ared there now I think the
1:00:06first thing would strike us would be the
1:00:10noise they would be maybe 300 drills
1:00:14going there would be 60 or 70 shovels
1:00:17each with three or four
1:00:20trains there were constant
1:00:22explosions and all of this noise would
1:00:25reverberate off the walls as well as the
1:00:27noise was immensely hot up to as much as
1:00:31120° very soon it became known as hell's
1:00:34Gorge and more than anything it was
1:00:37incredibly
1:00:40dangerous the cbra cut was the most
1:00:42challenging part to dig because you had
1:00:44to get down through so much Earth that
1:00:46became so much mud when it rained as it
1:00:49did almost non-stop for 9 months out of
1:00:51the
1:00:52year and there were just constant
1:00:54landslides
1:00:58they' hear this tooting of the
1:01:01whistles blaring out and they know that
1:01:04something went wrong a
1:01:08slide so they had to use pick and
1:01:11shovels to dig them
1:01:13out they knew that the next SL could
1:01:16come down on them too and bu them
1:01:18too the mountain didn't want to
1:01:21be crushed the way they did it and the
1:01:25mountain
1:01:26F
1:01:28back the slides came without warning
1:01:31again and again wiping out months of
1:01:34work in an instant twisting track and
1:01:37Machinery beyond
1:01:39recognition literally burying men
1:01:43alive nearly all the victims were West
1:01:47Indians there were no safety guidelines
1:01:50there was no labor guideline every day
1:01:53men die that was a regular situation
1:01:57so now they have to bring in more men
1:01:59and more men and more
1:02:03men assigned to the most punishing and
1:02:06hazardous work in the cut the West
1:02:08Indians were the ones on the ground
1:02:11hauling Lumber and ties shoveling
1:02:14Earth laying the dynamite that was used
1:02:17to blast through the
1:02:21[Music]
1:02:23mountains they have to drill these you
1:02:26know in the
1:02:29Rock and after it get down to a certain
1:02:32depth the F it with dite then when they
1:02:36are ready they give you warning so that
1:02:39you go and take
1:02:42shelter three four five places start to
1:02:47blast big rocks going up in the
1:02:51a what happen sometimes somebody
1:02:57make a
1:02:58mistake and touch the the
1:03:02wire and that guy is gone up
1:03:09too it happened a Sunday morning when
1:03:12the pck car was there pain
1:03:15man pck car and always in the in in the
1:03:18explosion the couple hundred men in that
1:03:21a couple hundred
1:03:23men that you see bits of men here and
1:03:26the head yonder and all those picking it
1:03:29up for
1:03:34days boy that wasn't that wasn't an easy
1:03:37day yet Sunday
1:03:41[Music]
1:03:43morning my grandfather told me the guys
1:03:46that go up front with the dynamite that
1:03:49they will
1:03:51leave with their
1:03:53buddies uh their belong
1:03:56longings because they never know if
1:03:58they're coming back up was a was a daily
1:04:01situation that today this morning you
1:04:03have breakfast and somebody on that
1:04:05table having breakfast may not be there
1:04:07for that evening so it's that type of
1:04:11situation now that I am old and
1:04:14sometimes I sit down there and these
1:04:15things recollection you know and what I
1:04:18went through under the Panama Canal and
1:04:21I'm still alive I raised my hands to God
1:04:24I said thank God thank
1:04:26because I could have I could have been
1:04:29dead several
1:04:32times as the weeks went by the death
1:04:35toll
1:04:36Rose eventually gothal had the railroad
1:04:39tracks extended all the way out to Mount
1:04:41Hope Cemetery so that the bodies could
1:04:43be buried more
1:04:46[Music]
1:04:48easily meanwhile with each passing month
1:04:52the cut at calbra grew deeper
1:05:06with the darkness came noises so weird
1:05:09and uncanny as to make the flesh creep
1:05:12with the strangeness of it
1:05:14all the very worst was the Wailing for
1:05:18the dead that came from the labor camp
1:05:20below
1:05:21us when one of their number died the
1:05:24friends and Kindred of the ceased would
1:05:26drink rum and whale and sing Old English
1:05:30gospel
1:05:32hymns no matter how fast asleep I might
1:05:35be when the first sound of that Eerie
1:05:38screeching slapped the air I was wide
1:05:41awake and out of
1:05:43bed it was like the dance of the
1:05:46[Music]
1:05:49witches looking back later Rose van
1:05:52Hardeveld would Marvel that she and Yan
1:05:54had ever gotten used to Liv living in
1:05:57Panama more than once she recalled their
1:06:00commitment to the project had wavered
1:06:03and after Yan's closest friend was
1:06:05killed they actually had considered
1:06:07going
1:06:08home why should we stay any longer Rose
1:06:11remembered thinking the canal could get
1:06:13built eventually without
1:06:17us the Americans had a very serious
1:06:20problem in that the white Workforce were
1:06:22largely arriving and pretty much leaving
1:06:24straight away didn't like working in
1:06:26Panama and right up until 1907 there was
1:06:31something like 100% turnover in White
1:06:33staff this was a potentially deal
1:06:36breaking problem and the answer to it
1:06:38was to provide every single Home Comfort
1:06:41that they
1:06:43could for Rose and Yan the inducement to
1:06:46stay came in the summer of 1908 in the
1:06:49form of a newly built Cottage on a
1:06:51pretty Treeline Street the house was
1:06:54clean and comfortable Rose remembered
1:06:57just about the type of home a man in the
1:06:59states would try to provide for his
1:07:01family as time passed there were other
1:07:04improvements as well ice boxes and
1:07:07electricity and YMCA clubhouses built by
1:07:11the government and outfitted with card
1:07:13rooms pool tables and
1:07:16libraries there were dances on Saturday
1:07:18nights and baseball games on Sunday more
1:07:21than three dozen churches and scores of
1:07:24clubs and fraternal organiz
1:07:26organizations the Brotherhood of
1:07:27railroad trainmen and the Odd Fellows
1:07:30Sojourner
1:07:32Lodge and the Knights of
1:07:35pus as Rose remembered it all the perks
1:07:38had their desired
1:07:40effect American men stayed in Panama
1:07:43longer their wives and children came to
1:07:45join them and friendships in the Canal
1:07:48Zone
1:07:49deepened we drew together in a sort of
1:07:51compact click Rose recall and nothing
1:07:54else seemed quite so important as this
1:07:57immense project moving gradually and
1:07:59steadily to
1:08:01completion this was our
1:08:08life the canal project increasingly
1:08:12became looked upon by Americans as as
1:08:15kind of a
1:08:17utopian
1:08:19representation of the United States
1:08:22there are these glowing Journal istic
1:08:26accounts of it the workers are happy
1:08:29everyone is wellfed
1:08:32contented the reality was that it was a
1:08:36very autocratic State no freedom of
1:08:40speech no rights to a union more power
1:08:45being asserted at every
1:08:48step the United States government was
1:08:51creating an efficient Factory
1:08:54Workforce for for this incredible Earth
1:08:58shifting project on the ismos of
1:09:01Panama there was no democracy at
1:09:04all but at the same time things got done
1:09:08mountains were
1:09:09moved but it
1:09:17worked by 1911 the Americans were
1:09:20finally making real progress on the
1:09:22canal and headlines all over the world
1:09:27suddenly now tourists from everywhere
1:09:29were flocking to Panama to see the
1:09:31engineering Marvel of the
1:09:33age what the Americans were doing with
1:09:36the canal said one ODed visitor was the
1:09:39greatest Liberty ever taken with
1:09:42nature no aspect of the construction
1:09:44compelled such Fascination as the
1:09:47gargantuan
1:09:48locks the so-called Mighty portals to
1:09:51the Panama
1:09:54Gateway the these locks are these huge
1:09:56concrete structures with these
1:09:58incredibly elaborate culverts they are
1:10:01this enormous engineering challenge the
1:10:04biggest engineering project there's been
1:10:06in the history of the earth until
1:10:08then in all some 5 million bags and
1:10:12barrels of concrete went into the
1:10:14building of the locks dams and
1:10:17spillways mixed on site and deposited
1:10:20into enormous 6 ton buckets the concrete
1:10:23was then hoisted by crane delivered by
1:10:27cableway and poured from
1:10:32above the amount poured at gatun alone
1:10:35some 2 million cubic yards could have
1:10:38built a wall 12 ft high and long enough
1:10:41to encircle the island of Manhattan more
1:10:43than four
1:10:47times this was Far bigger locks than had
1:10:50ever been constructed before and really
1:10:52it was about it was about just doing
1:10:54everything much
1:10:56bigger there were a couple of very
1:10:58clever ideas one of which was to have
1:11:00the the lock Gates Hollow and watertight
1:11:04so therefore buoyant which meant that
1:11:06far less of the weight had to be carried
1:11:08by the locks hinges although they were
1:11:1080 some feet high they were so precisely
1:11:14balanced they could be operated by a
1:11:16single 40 horsepower
1:11:18motor the whole operation was powered by
1:11:21electricity and this was in the very
1:11:24early days for this was before many
1:11:26factories were electrified and this
1:11:28electricity was generated nearby by
1:11:31water from the spillway by Hydro
1:11:33electric and this powered all of the
1:11:35systems that made the locks work the
1:11:38locks were the mechanical Marvel of the
1:11:44canal these locks are more than just
1:11:47tons of concrete said one
1:11:49Observer they are the answer of courage
1:11:52and Faith to doubt and unbelief
1:11:56in them are the blood and senu of a
1:11:58great and hopeful
1:12:01Nation the Fulfillment of ancient
1:12:04ideals and the promise of larger growth
1:12:07to
1:12:11[Music]
1:12:17come in the spring of
1:12:201913 9 years almost to the day after the
1:12:23Americans started work on the pan Canal
1:12:26they began at last to finish
1:12:31it in May steam shovels number 222 and
1:12:35230 dumped their last loads and met in
1:12:38the center of calbra
1:12:40cut in June the last Spillway at katun
1:12:43dam was sealed allowing the Waters of
1:12:46katun Lake to rise to their full
1:12:49height in August the dyes at either end
1:12:52of the line were blown and the oceans
1:12:54rushed in to the gates of the
1:12:57locks in September the first trial
1:13:00lockage was made from the Atlantic
1:13:02Harbor at cologne all the way up to the
1:13:06lake by Summer's end there was only one
1:13:09remaining dry Span in the channel the 9M
1:13:12stretch of KRA cut and that was to be
1:13:16flooded on Monday October
1:13:2210th early that afternoon a a crowd
1:13:25began to gather at Gamboa on the edge of
1:13:28Gaton
1:13:29Lake workers and their families visiting
1:13:32dignitaries from the United States
1:13:35tourists from as far away as Europe and
1:13:37East
1:13:38Asia at 2 p.m. in a stunt divised by a
1:13:41newspaper man president wood Wilson was
1:13:44scheduled to push a button at his desk
1:13:46in the White House releasing by
1:13:48Telegraph a current that would blow up
1:13:50the Gamboa Dyke and send the Waters of
1:13:53gatun Lake rushing into the
1:13:57cut we could easily see the Dyke with
1:14:00men still working around
1:14:03it not many yards to one side was the
1:14:06gash of the cut not very deep
1:14:10here the small waves lapped eagerly at
1:14:13the edge as though the lake was also
1:14:16waiting to let go of its overload of
1:14:19water tension
1:14:22mounted as Yan van hardal put it to Rose
1:14:26the event would either be a historic
1:14:28success or a historic
1:14:30failure no one
1:14:33knows at Gamboa the Clock Struck
1:14:38two there was a reverent
1:14:41silence no one spoke at
1:14:43all there was a low Rumble a dull
1:14:47muffled boom
1:14:52[Music]
1:14:56a triple column shot high in the center
1:15:00turned and gracefully fell to both sides
1:15:04like a
1:15:05fountain from the multitude came a
1:15:08spontaneous long loud roar of such joy
1:15:12and relief that I felt sure I would
1:15:14remember the sound all my
1:15:17life as the water poured out of the lake
1:15:20into the cut hats came off we saw joh
1:15:25and the engineer in charge of the cut
1:15:27shake hands they were both
1:15:31crying we were crying
1:15:39[Music]
1:15:45too the Canal's official opening was
1:15:48scheduled for August 15th
1:15:521914 12 days before a ship called the
1:15:55Crist ball made a final practice run and
1:15:59became the first seagoing vessel ever to
1:16:01successfully cross from the Atlantic
1:16:03Ocean to the Pacific through the Panama
1:16:08Canal it's pretty amazing going through
1:16:11the locks you nose forward into this
1:16:15space then 26 million gallons of water
1:16:19pour by gravity through underground
1:16:21culverts into that lock and raise you up
1:16:2330 ft or so it's an amazing beautiful
1:16:27dramatic
1:16:29experience and when you're on the ship
1:16:31and you feel it rising up and you move
1:16:33you feel it rising up and you're
1:16:35witnessing what's happening your ship
1:16:38climbing a
1:16:40mountain I mean that is
1:16:46mindboggling it had taken 10 years of
1:16:48ceaseless grinding
1:16:50toil an outlay of more than $350 million
1:16:55the largest single federal expenditure
1:16:57in history to that
1:16:59time and the loss of more than 5,000
1:17:03lives but the successful completion of
1:17:06the Panama Canal had defined the United
1:17:09States to the world and announced the
1:17:11arrival of a new power for the new
1:17:15century it was a symbol to Americans
1:17:18This is what American power
1:17:20technological
1:17:22knowhow determination man managerial
1:17:25organization all of those things that
1:17:27Americans prided themselves on and still
1:17:30do to a certain extent this is what can
1:17:33do for the whole
1:17:35world after 500 years of people
1:17:39dreaming now it was Dawn Atlantic and
1:17:43Pacific Oceans were Forever
1:17:46United the United States were now firmly
1:17:51established as the most powerful Nation
1:17:55on
1:17:59Earth it all occurred at such a pivotal
1:18:02moment in our
1:18:04history the failure of the French effort
1:18:06was very much the the sort of the dying
1:18:09gasp of the Victorian age that had been
1:18:11dominated by Europe with the opening of
1:18:15the American
1:18:17Canal the power in the world had shifted
1:18:20irrevocably and the American Century
1:18:22effectively could begin
1:18:27though the Panama Canal was arguably his
1:18:29greatest
1:18:30Legacy Theodore Roosevelt never saw it
1:18:32once it was
1:18:34finished an expedition to South America
1:18:37kept him from attending the Canal's
1:18:38official opening and he never again
1:18:41visited the
1:18:43ismos of the tens of thousands of West
1:18:46Indians who'd come to Panama to build
1:18:48the canal most simply returned home
1:18:52again quite often with not much more
1:18:55money in their pockets than they'd had
1:18:57when they
1:18:59left the building of it was a harsh
1:19:03nightmares for the
1:19:05diggers but it's one of the wonders of
1:19:08the world and it's with pride that my
1:19:11grandfather and his contemporary look
1:19:13across at that knowing that it's one of
1:19:16the biggest Enterprise that the world
1:19:18has ever
1:19:20seen and that they have participated in
1:19:23that they did
1:19:31it for Yan and Rose van Hardeveld the
1:19:35years in Panama had been an epic
1:19:38adventure of all the Americans who had
1:19:40been employed on the ismos Yan was one
1:19:43of the very few who'd been there since
1:19:45the
1:19:46beginning and as Rose remembered the
1:19:49award he'd earned for long service the
1:19:52Rosevelt medal was always in his pocket
1:19:57sometimes in the evening she would find
1:19:59him staring off into the distance
1:20:01turning the tiny scrap of metal over and
1:20:04over in his
1:20:06[Music]
1:20:11hand I couldn't help thinking of those
1:20:13who worked beside me who lost their
1:20:16lives I thought of the many times when I
1:20:19nearly gave into doubts that the canal
1:20:21could ever be completed that it was ever
1:20:23meant to be
1:20:28but most of all I was remembering how my
1:20:31answer to my own doubts every time was
1:20:34my faith in my
1:20:38country I've always believed that
1:20:40America could accomplish anything she
1:20:42set out to do
1:20:49[Music]
1:22:06[Music]
1:22:54[Music]
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