Senator KITTREDGE. Would they, in your judgment, be justified in so regarding it in the light of the conditions at the Isthmus-the character of the work?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not think they would, under the conditions; because I do not think any restrictions at all should be placed on that work if we expect to get it done economically and in a reasonable time.

Senator HOPKINS. Mr. Wallace, the labor down there will not be American labor, such as we have here in the States, will it?

Mr. WALLACE. I should judge that about 10 per cent of it will be: possibly 20 per cent. If all your labor down there was alien and all of your officers were whites, it would be a different proposition. But a large part of the white men that are on the Isthmus there come under the restrictions of the eight-hour law.

Senator SIMMONS. Mr. Wallace, you say that 10 per cent would be American labor?

Mr. WALLACE. I corrected that.

Senator SIMMONS. Do you mean to include in your estimate the Americans who work indoors, or do you mean 10 per cent of those that are actually engaged in the work of construction-manual labor? Mr. WALLACE. Well, no. When it comes to manual labor, that is a different thing; but the eight-hour law is applicable, under our law here, to much more than a manual laborer, you understand; it governs mechanics.

Senator SIMMONS. What I want to know is, what percentage of those who are engaged in manual labor are Americans?

Mr. WALLACE. That depends on where you cut off the expression "manual labor."

Senator SIMMONS. I mean men who work out of doors and who are not employed in clerical positions in connection with administration. Mr. WALLACE. I suppose about 10 per cent of them will be AmeriThat will consist of foremen in various capacities, trainmen, enginemen, cranesmen on your steam shovels and on the handling machinery, mechanics in your shops, boiler makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc. I do not presume you will find any Americans actually at work with a pick and a shovel, you understand, but as to the intelligent labor, there will be a great many Americans scattered through it, and the intelligent labor necessary to handle the machinery will eventually be practically all Americans.

Senator SIMMONS. These Americans that you speak of now are generally the men who superintend and direct and control the work of these darkies, in whatever line they are engaged?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. Whether in the shops or elsewhere?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes; but those men that look after that labor can not be made subject to the eight-hour day and the labor that they superintend subject to a ten-hour day.

Senator SIMMONS. I understand that.

Mr. WALLACE. They have got to work together.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wallace, your idea would be, I judge from what you say, that the law, if it is changed, should apply to whites as well as the blacks, and to the blacks as well as the whites?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; I do not see how you can discriminate. That is my point.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I so understood you. Senator KITTREDGE. As I understand, you believe that Congress should give a free hand in regard to hours of labor and character of labor?

Mr. Wallace. Yes, sir; and its selection.

Senator KITTREDGE. And its selection.

Mr. WALLACE. I think that Mr. Stevens, or whoever you put in charge there, should be supported to the utmost, and that he should have just as few restrictions placed on him as possible in what he pays his labor, in the character of it, where he gets it, and the hours that he works it. The only way you can do your work down there successfully is to put it in the hands of a pure, absolute despot, and hold his hands up, and keep the wolves off of his back.

Senator SIMMONS. Mr. Stevens, can a man down there stand a greater amount of labor than he can in this country? That is what I mean to say is, if eight hours is a reasonable day's work in this country, would not eight hours be just as reasonable a day's work over there?

Mr. WALLACE. A man can not stand as much physical exertion there as he can here; and, whether he is white or black, American or negro, he can not give the same quality of labor there continuously that he can here.

Senator SIMMONS. Then if it is unjust to labor to require them to work over eight hours here, would it not be more so to require them to work over eight hours there?

Mr. WALLACE. If you make the comparison in that way, I presume it would. There is no equity in regard to an eight-hour day here that would not apply to an eight-hour day there, as far as that is concerned. But what I am saying, as a matter of principle is, that that work is more or less of an emergency nature. It is 2,000 miles away from the seat of government, and you should, if you expect results, give the man in charge of it as full and complete authority as is possible. In other words, you should give him the same authority that he would get if he was handling that work for a large firm of con

tractors.

Senator SIMMONS. Whether you look at it from the standpoint of dispatch in the work or from the standpoint of economy in construction, why does not the same principle apply there, whether the Government is doing the work or not, as in this country?

Mr. WALLACE. It does; it will apply; and the thing that makes Government work more expensive than other work, and the reason it takes longer to build Government buildings, is because you do not apply the same principles to your Government work that a private contractor or a private citizen does to his work.

Senator MORGAN. Mr. Wallace, if the eight-hour law was extended to all labor in the Isthmus, when you came to let your contracts (if you do contract for the building of the canal) would it not make a very great increase in the amounts bid for the work, because of the existence of the eight-hour law?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes. In the first place, it will make an increase in your bids. Contractors will consider it, as a rule, about 20 per cent more expensive to do the work; but that is not all. If they are subject to the eight-hour law, and are subject to a fine whenever they permit or require a man to work more than eight hours, they will put even a greater percentage on it than that, for this reason: If you are doing

work on the basis of the ten-hour day, and you want to hurry a certain track through, and want to pay the men overtime and work them eleven or twelve hours for two or three days (which the men are perfectly willing to do if they get the extra payment for it), you can get that piece of work out of the way. But under the eight-hour law you can not work a man two hours more unless you are able to show that there is an actual emergency existing that requires it in that particlar case; and every time you do it there is a chance for a controversy between the foreman and the men. The foreman will say, "This is not necessary:" and they will appeal it, and take it up, and claim that it is a violation of law.

Senator MORGAN. And go into court there and try a man on a criminal charge for violating the eight-hour law? Is that the idea?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not know; they would probably do that, or they might get some of you Senators to go and see the Secretary of War and get him to order the Isthmian Canal Commission to instruct the chief engineer to stop it. They might take that course.

Senator MORGAN. Or establish a court-martial, and try a man by court-martial down there?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not know what the legal process would be there. Senator MORGAN. That would be a good place for a shyster, would it not?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes; first-class. (Laughter.)

Senator SIMMONS. I understand you to say that in your judgment you do not believe an eight-hour law would be practicable there unless it applied to Americans as well as to alien labor?

Mr. WALLACE. Well, turn it the other way-unless it applies to alien labor as well as to Americans. In other words, I do not think you can make any discrimination.

Senator SIMMONS. Well, the proposition is to apply it to aliens. Mr. WALLACE. I understood it the other way, that the idea was to apply the eight-hour law to the Americans.

Senator SIMMONS. That is exactly what I mean-to apply the eighthour law to the Americans and not to the aliens.

Mr. WALLACE. I do not think that is practicable.

Senator SIMMONS. Your judgment is that that is not practicable? Mr. WALLACE. No.

Senator SIMMONS. And that is because these Americans work in with the aliens?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. As directors and superintendents?

Mr. WALLACE. The situation is so interlaced that you can not sepa rate them.

Senator SIMMONS. If the foreman stops at the end of eight hours, the labor necessary in the work has got to stop, too?

Mr. WALLACE. Why certainly.

Senator ANKENY. Mr. Wallace, what is your opinion about employing Chinese on that work? Do you think it is well to do so, from your experience!

Mr. WALLACE. I have never worked Chinese-that is, I mean, as laborers.

Senator ANKENY. That is all they can do.

Mr. WALLACE. I have never seen what they can do: but as a general fundamental principle, I think the man in charge there should be

permitted to get his labor in China, or Japan, or India, or Spain, or anywhere on earth that he can get it.

Senator ANKENY. But the reason we bring this up, Mr. Wallace, is that, as you are aware, those people are proscribed; they may not

Senator ANKENY. Your idea is that if you were managing the work you would want the privilege of hiring them?

Mr. WALLACE. I certainly should, and I recommended that to the last Commission.

Senator ANKENY. I know you did.

Mr. WALLACE. And I tried to get a thousand Chinese and a thousand Japanese, in order that we might try them and see what they would do which was the most efficient.

Senator ANKENY. Do you think the management of that canal should have that privilege?

Mr. WALLACE. I certainly do.

Senator ANKENY. In your evidence this morning you spoke of a

cubic foot.

Mr. WALLACE. A cubic yard.

Senator ANKENY. A cubic yard, I mean.

Now, I understood that was the mining, the moving, and the disposition of one cubic yard? Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator ANKENY. That was the expense you included in that?

Mr. WALLACE. That was everything necessary to take a cubic yard of dirt out of position in the cut and finally dispose of it where it would never have to be touched again.

Senator ANKENY. Yes. Now, I was not quite clear-you said at one time it cost 40 cents and a fraction. Mr. WALLACE. Forty-three cents. Senator ANKENY. Forty-three cents.

rains, as I understood you, it cost you 80

Then, owing to the May cents?

Mr. WALLACE. The May rains and the eight-hour day. Senator ANKENY. You said there was 13 inches of precipitation in May.

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator ANKENY. Did you mean it?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator ANKENY. Was that precipitation the reason that it cost twice as much?

Mr. WALLACE. No; not all. It was only one of the reasons.
Senator ANKENY. One of the reasons?

Mr. WALLACE. One of the reasons was the fact of that rain. Another reason was the fact that the eight-hour law went into operation. Another reason was because the force was unbalanced; we had men there to perform different parts of the work when there were not enough men to perform other parts of the work, so that we had men that we had hired by the month that we had to pay or employ in some capacity that was not what they were hired for.

Another reason was the fact that we were not furnished with the proper material or the number of laborers that we needed in the winter time to lay the tracks required to handle this work efficiently. Another reason was that the French cars and the French engines and the French rails were not suitable for the work, and we were having sometimes

as high as 15 to 25 engines off the track each day, and the shovels could not be supplied. It was this whole combination of circumstances. Senator ANKENY. Do I understand you to say that under proper management that should not cost more than 40 cents a cubic yard?

Mr. WALLACE. The estimate that I gave the board of advisory engineers was 60 cents a cubic yard, as what I consider the fair aver age cost of that work to the United States Government, provided it could be carried on by administrative methods the same as an efficient contractor would carry it on who had ample means, ample modern American appliances, and was unrestricted and permitted to do the work in any way he pleased.

Senator ANKENY. That would be 60 cents a cubic yard?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator ANKENY. That is in gold, of course?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. Mr. Wallace, I would like to ask you this question. I am not speaking now with reference to the present sanitary conditions there, because you do not know anything about those except what they were when you left there. But, speaking out of your knowledge and your observation and your experience gained while you were on the Isthmus, I want to ask you if, in your judgment, when modern sanitary methods are applied to the fullest possible extent upon the Isthmus conditions will be produced there which will make it safe for an American, with due care to his health, to live and work there indoors, and which will make it safe for those negroes down there who are accustomed to work under the tropical sun to work there without any serious injury to their health, and which will make it safe to life and the health of commerce upon the Isthmus after the canal is finished? Mr. WALLACE. I can not answer that question without quite a qualification.

Senator SIMMONS. Just answer it in the best way you can.

Mr. WALLACE. It can be made more safe than it has been. It is true, though, that there always will be a percentage of increased risk to health there in a tropical country that does not obtain in a colder country, even provided you observe all the laws of health and sanitation. That is, there is a certain element of liability to disease in a tropical country that is due to the continuous heat, or due to the climate, as against residence in a colder country where you have summer and winter. That you can never get over, you understand. But you can remove a large part of the extraordinary tendency toward disease which has heretofore existed there in the past.

Senator SIMMONS. Can those conditions be so minimized by the application of these modern methods of sanitation that these men can work there without any serious danger to life or health?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. And can they be so minimized that when the canal is finished commerce can pass through the Isthmus without any serious danger to the health of the people who are engaged in that commerce? Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

(The committee thereupon adjourned until to-morrow, Wednesday, February 7, 1906, at 2 o'clock p. m.)

[The following report, which was referred to by Mr. Wallace in the course of his testimony, is hereby made a part of the record, by direction of the committee.]