General HAINS. You do not refer to Nicaragua, but Senator MORGAN. No; I am just talking about Panama; the time you first went there, if you please? General HAINS. We were a little over two years-two years and a half on the first Commission and then I have been a little less than a year on the present Commission. Senator MORGAN. This is the commission of construction, and that was the commission of exploration? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. You were two years and a half on the first Commission and spent about how much time-about thirty days on Panama during that time? General HAINS. Well, perhaps something like that. Senator MORGAN. I think that is it--thirty-one or thirty two days. General HAINS. I do not remember the time. Senator MORGAN. From that time until to-day you have been officially connected with that work? General HAINS. No, sir. Senator MORGAN. You have not? General HAINS. Oh, no, sir. Senator MORGAN. Where did the break occur? General HAINS. From January, 1902, or a little later than that, until a year ago. I was not on the first constructing commission. Senator MORGAN. You were not on the first construction commission. You were on the second? General HAINS. I am on the present one, but I was not on the first one. Senator MORGAN. You took your appointment at what date? Senator MORGAN. The first of April, 1905? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. You were familiar with the condition of that canal and of the Canal Zone and the cities of Panama and Colon, and the Bay of Limon and the Bay of Panama. At the time you were making this survey or exploration you knew that whole situation? General HAINS. I became familiar with it during that time; yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. It was a part of your business to study it? General HAINS. To become familiar with it, yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. You knew it at the time that the canal company turned it over to the United States? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. General, I shall be glad if you will give to this committee a description of the situation of that enterprise at the time you examined it, in regard to the work that was being done, the hands that were being employed, the government of the canal line, the state of the improvement or dilapidation, as the case may be, in regard to the work that had been done previously by the French company, and the amount of work, depth of the cut through, for instance, Culebra, the amount of digging that had been done there, the length of the canal that had been dug, how much of it had filled up and through whose neglect it filled up, and all that. Just give an account in narrative form of the situation. I will state to you my purpose. I want to ask you further, after you give your narrative, so as to show what was to be done there in PC-VOL 3-06-12 order to inaugurate and conduct the work we are trying now to carry on. I want to show what task lay before that first commission of construction, and give the country a fair idea of the task that those gentlemen had to perform. Senator KITTREDGE. Senator, before he answers that question, may I ask one or two questions? Senator MORGAN. Yes. Senator KITTREDGE. You were appointed to the present Commission April 1, 1905? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator KITTREDGE. When did you first go to the Isthmus after that date? General HAINS. In July. Senator KITTREDGE. How long did you remain there that time? General HAINS. About two weeks; a little less, I suppose. About two weeks. Senator KITTREDGE. When did you return to the Isthmus after you returned to this country? General HAINS. I have not been down to the Isthmus since then. Senator KITTREDGE. Was General Ernst with you on the first trip? General HAINS. No, sir. Senator KITTREDGE. Was he at the Isthmus at any time since his appointment? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator KITTREDGE. When? General HAINS. Since this last appointment he has been down there two or three times-twice. Senator KITTREDGE. When was that? General HAINS. He went down in August, 1905; the latter part of July or the first part of August, 1905. Then he was down there again Senator KITTREDGE. How long did he remain that time? General HAINS. I do not know exactly, but I think it was something like two or three weeks. Senator KITTREDGE. When did he next go down? General HAINS. In September. Senator KITTREDGE. With the Consulting Bard? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator KITTREDGE. And returned with them? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator KITTREDGE. Has he been there since? General HAINS. I think not. Senator KITTREDGE. That is all that I wish to ask at this time. "Senator MORGAN. General, I shall be glad if you will give to this committee a description of the situation of that enterprise at the time you examined it in regard to the work that was being done, the hands that were being employed, the government of the canal line, the state of the improvement or dilapidation, as the case may be, in regard to the work that had been done previously by the French company, and the amount of work, depth of the cut through, for instance, Culebra, the amount of digging that had been done there, the length of the canal that had been dug, how much of it had filled up, and through whose neglect it filled up, and all that. Just give an account in narrative form of the situation." General HAINS. You are referring there to the first visit we made in 1899? Senator MORGAN. Yes. General HAINS. When we arrived there we found that the French had in their employ from about 700 to 1,000 men. They had a number of excavators at work on the Culebra Cut, and were excavating about 75,000 cubic yards, I think, per month. They had employed dredges on the two ends of the canal, and had done an amount of dredging. They had excavated some of the rock at Bohio, where they proposed to put locks. A certain amount of work had also been done above Bohio and up to San Pablo in rock. Some rock excavation had been done on the Pacific side. They had also excavated a considerable amount of what we call diversion channels-that is, diversions for the Chagres River and its tributaries. Altogether they had excavated something like 77,000,000 cubic yards of material. A great deal of plant had been accumulated on the Isthmus, a large amount of machinery, and a large number of buildings had been erected. Hospitals had been erected over here at Panama on Ancon Hill. They had also accumulated there a number of dredges and boats. They had I do not know how many dredges, but quite a number; perhaps nearly twenty. They had a large amount of what you might call railroad plant; that is, they had great quantities of railroad track, they had a great number of locomotives, and a large number of cars; and these things were scattered along the line of the canal from one end to the other. They had erected repair shops and that sort of thing. Senator MORGAN. By "scattered" do you mean scattered in use or scattered in abandonment? General HAINS. Some scattered in use, and some piled up outdoors, and some in buildings. They had constructed something like 2,300 buildings of all kinds for the storage of this material and for the protection of their employees, but a great deal of this was in a very dilapidated condition. It had not been taken care of for part of the time, but some of it was in fair condition. There was one big storehouse that I remember-I think it was at Gorgona-that was just filled with all kinds of hardware. It was like a great, big hardware store. There was every kind of crosscut saw, every kind of bolt you could imagine, nuts, and so forth, and those things were all in good condition. In some places, however, the weeds had grown up around this material, and it was difficult to find where it was. There were locomotives there that we could hardly find, and cars. But notwithstanding all that the French Company, the new company, had picked out a certain amount of this plant and were utilizing it on the Culebra Cut. They had regarded that Culebra Cut as, you may say, the controlling feature of the work, and they went to work to find out what was in it. That was what they were working on at the time we were there, and it was the only thing that they were working on. Senator MORGAN. Finding out what was in that hill? General HAINS. Yes, sir; trying to find out what was in that hill. At the same time that they were doing all this they were making sur veys, as I understand. Now, I can not speak positively about the date when these surveys were all made, but they were making surveys, and they made a great many surveys. Of course, they had to extend their surveys after they had agreed or about agreed to make a lock canal instead of a sea-level canal. As to the government down there, I do not know anything about it. The government at that time was the Colombian Government, under the control of the Government of Colombia, and this corporation was a private corporation working in that country. They had had a great deal of trouble from sickness; and it is stated that they were very deficient in the means of accommodating the sick people, and lost a great many hands for that reason. So that when we undertook to make a valuation of this property and the condition of affairs down there, we came to the conclusion that about all that was worth anything to the United States was the amount of excavation that had been done and the surveys that had been made, and, of course, the Panama Railroad. The surveys, as a rule, were very good, very accurate, and very complete, and many of them. They did not make so many borings; but their topographical surveys were very complete. Does that answer your question, Senator? Senator MORGAN. I think it does, substantially. You have not said. anything about the filling up of the prism of the canal that they had dredged out or dug out. General HAINS. Oh, well, of course the Chagres River had not been taken care of, and the water came down the Chagres River as usual, and wherever it got a chance to reach a part of the canal where work had been done, of course it brought down sediment and largely filled it up; and there was a great deal of it that had been filled up to a certain extent. Senator MORGAN. Were those fillings distributed pretty well between Colon and Bohio? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. All the way down? General HAINS. There were more of them, down the farther you go. Senator MORGAN. So that the part of the canal which had been opened was utterly impracticable for any commercial use, was it not? General HAINS. Oh, yes; it was utterly impracticable. Senator MORGAN. It was a filled-up ditch, as we call it? Senator MORGAN. Obstructed? General HAINS. It was very much obstructed; but it was obstructed more at points, Senator. There were deep places on a great deal of the constructed portion of the canal. Senator MORGAN. Yes; of course. Opposite the mouths of streams that came into the Chagres River, of course, there would be banks of silt and obstructions of different kinds? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. How was it on the other side, between Pedro Miguel and La Boca? General HAINS. Pretty much the same thing. Senator MORGAN. It was filled up? General HAINS. To a certain extent; yes. Senator MORGAN. While they were working on the Culebra Heights and were doing some work there, you say, with shovels General HAINS. They had what they called "excavators." Senator MORGAN. Excavators? General HAINS. Yes, sir; they were not steam shovels such as we have now, used on railroad work or on excavating work, but they worked somewhat on a different principle. Senator MORGAN. They worked by steam, though? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. And they had the assistance of men with picks and shovels, etc.? General HAINS. They did not have many of those. Senator MORGAN. Some of that railroad track that they had built in there, and some of the engines and cars, etc., I suppose, from the accounts you have given me this morning, were covered up by slips or slides? General HAINS. Not in the Culebra cut; no, sir. What I meant was along the line. They had shipped great quantities of this stuff down there, and they had to put it somewhere, and they had laid off tracks almost anywhere. Senator MORGAN. At the time you arrived at the Isthmus there were propositions pending for the sale of the canal property to the United States-the transfer of the canal property? General HAINS. At the time we went down there? Senator MORGAN. Yes; made through Admiral Walker? General HAINS. No, sir; not at the time we went down there, Senator. We went down there at the time we were first organized-that is, within a few months after we were organized, and there was no proposition of sale made until a couple of years after that. Senator MORGAN. You were invited down there by the French canal people to make the surveys? General HAINS. We were invited, but we would have gone whether we were invited or not. Senator MORGAN. But you had no right to go without their mvitation; it was a foreign country. General HAINS. Well, we might not have had any right, but I think the right would have been extended to us. Senator MORGAN. It was not necessary to stand on manners, however, because they wanted you to go? General HAINS. They wanted us to go; yes. Senator MORGAN. Yes. General HAINS. They wanted us to see just the situation there. Senator MORGAN. Then you made a visit to Paris, did you not? Senator MORGAN. Before you went there at all? General HAINS. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. There you entered into examinations into titles. and plans and all that-the engineering and everything connected with this work they had been doing there? General HAINS. We did not go much into the question of titles. devoted our attention chiefly to the consideration of plans. Senator MORGAN. Plans? General HAINS. Plans; yes, sir. We Senator MORGAN. But you had it in mind that it might be possible that you could make a trade with the Panama Canal Company, or perhaps get a secession of Panama, or something like that; and at all events, there was an opportunity to get into possession? |