Senator MORGAN. I do not know of any other general topic on which I wish to ask the General any particular questions. There may be some explanations that he wants to give of his deposition as to matters that may have escaped our attention and his at the time. If so, General, you will please proceed to state them. General DAVIS. I have made a few notes of matters that have occurred to me in the reading of the testimony of others as bearing upon administration, not as affecting the type of the canal at all, but administration. Some of them have been covered in the examination already had, and others have not, and I do not know that there is any very great importance in any of these that I have made a note of. I will refer to a few. One subject that was discussed in this committee, and in regard to which several questions were asked of Governor Magoon, was the matter of allotments of pay by employees to their families in the United States. Senator MORGAN. Yes. General DAVIS. I have had some personal experience in regard to that matter in the Philippines. Until two or three years ago (I have forgotten the date now) it was customary to allow soldiers-I do not think officers were included-to allot a certain percentage of their pay to their families in the United States. That was continued during my time in the Philippines, although I think it has since been discontinued. It involves considerable clerical and administrative work and some difficulties which do not appear on the surface. A man who is employed by the United States at a stated salary may be expected to have a credit at the end of every month to the amount of his pay, and that is the presumption when an arrangement is made for an allotment. But a man in the Philippines, 7,000 or 9,000 miles away, deserts or dies or is fined by a court-martial in respect to his pay, so that he has no pay coming to him; then the allotment immediately falls. But as the distance is so great, it is necessary to inform the accounting officers in Washington by cable every time a man's pay status changes in the way of reduction of pay-do you catch the idea?-and that cabling bill in the Philippines in respect to soldiers' allotments was a very large one. It cost the Government a great deal of money to keep the Paymaster in Washington informed in regard to the many, many, many cases of men whose pay status was entirely changed. The orders of the War Department were such that it was made obligatory upon the commanding general and those who were under his orders to inform the War Department in every case; and if there was any omission, and the information was not sent that the man had died or deserted or been fined by a court, the commanding general or the officer at fault had to pay that money. That has been done time and again. So that if you establish a system of allotments for the employees at Panama, you must also have a system of checks or reports that will reach Washington before the time comes for the Washington disbursing officer to send out the check to the man's family. And that comes to the question of the cable, which I think is an important matter. At present there is cable communication with the Isthmus by way of Mexico and Central America, frequently called the "Galveston Line." The name of it is the Central and South American Cable Company. There also used to be communication with Panama on the Caribbean side by the line of a British company, called the West India and Panama Direct Line; but that went down some months ago, and it has not been brought up since. Senator MORGAN. What made it go down? General DAVIS. Oh, I do not know. They are going down all the time, and it did not pay. The whole matter was that it did not pay, because the Central and South American cable had made a very low rate (that is, 25 cents a word) for Government messages-not for private messages, but for Government messages. They made a rate of 25 cents a word, so we have been using that cable since; and there was not enough business so that the British line cared to go to the trouble of raising that cable and splicing it. It went down somewhere south of Jamaica; I have forgotten where. A proposition has recently been made, and is now pending in Congress, to build a Government line for military and naval purposes, connecting Key West or some point on the coast with Colon. I think that is a very worthy suggestion, a very excellent idea; and it will permit free and constant communication. It is a military instrument of great importance, and in time of war would be of the utmost importance. It will also enable the employees of the United States on the Isthmus to communicate with their families speedily without paying this enormous charge. That is, I think the Government ought to permit its own employees to use such a cable at a nominal rate; and now it is a very expensive one. That is all I care to say on that subject. Senator MORGAN. Was not this cable between Jamaica and the coast down there broken at the time of this recent earthquake? General DAVIS. Oh, no, no; it was a year ago-a year ago. Senator TALIAFERRO. General, I will state that a favorable report. has been authorized on a bill to construct a cable from Key West by way of Guantanamo and Porto Rico, and presumably on to the Isthmus. General DAVIS. It is a very excellent idea. Senator TALIAFERRO. While you are on that point of allotments, is there any reason why an employee should not be paid in a Treasury draft on the Isthmus? General DAVIS. I do not know of any reason in the world. General DAVIS. Oh, I think so. I think that if a man has saved up some money down there, even though he was paid in currency, and wants to remit that money home, he ought to be able to go to the paymaster and get a check without paying any premium for it. Senator TALIAFERRO. I agree with you. General DAVIS. It seems to me it is one of the simplest kinds of accommodation that the Government ought to give its employees. Senator MORGAN. There is another matter suggested to my mind by your statement there, and that is the apparent necessity of having transactions in regard to the payment of laborers and employees of every kind finally closed at the Isthmus without their being referred here. General DAVIS. That is the way it is done now. They do not use any allotment system now. Senator MORGAN. They do not? General DAVIS. Oh, no; but some gentleman was urging that there ought to be a system of allotments. I am only speaking about allotments to show that there are some difficulties attending their operation. Senator MORGAN. But the payments now can be made to all classes of employees, and their accounts all settled up at the time that the payment is due without a previous audit? General DAVIS. Oh, yes; certainly. They are now settled promptly. There is no trouble about that. Senator TALIAFERRO, General Morgan, the point we were trying to get around was the charge made by the banks on the Isthmus as exchange where an employee wanted to remit part of his money home. Senator MORGAN. I understand that. Senator TALIAFERRO. That charge is excessive. Senator MORGAN. I think that is a very burdensome exaction upon the employee. General DAVIS. I have been in the Army all my life, and I have been in a good many parts of the world, and there never has been a time when I or anyone under me, or any private soldier who had pay coming to him, could not go to the paymaster and get a check on New York or somewhere to send his money home. There never was a time when that could not be done. We could always do it, and I think the employees on the Isthmus ought to have the same privilege. Senator TALIAFERRO. The greater the conveniences you afford them the better satisfied they will be? General DAVIS. Why, certainly; and it does not cost anything to do that. It makes necessary the writing of a few checks; that is all it does. The feeding of laborers has been referred to here as something that ought to be done by contract. I do not agree with that. I do not believe you will ever get a system of feeding laborers on the Isthmus in any messing plan that will be satisfactory. They are the most cantankerous people in the world. There is no such thing as satisfying the notions of those people about their food. If they are charged an upset price for it, they are never satisfied with it. The only way, it seem sto me, is to pay them their wages and let them feed themselves. I am talking now about the common labor-the negro labor. Senator MORGAN. Then you would have to have supplies of provisions there? General DAVIS. Oh, I would have stores, where they could go and buy their provisions; yes. Senator MORGAN. Then the Panamans would dispute your right to do that, would they not? General DAVIS. They would not if Senator MORGAN. They have done it heretofore. General DAVIS. But they have kept the commissaries going. Senator MORGAN. General, was this reservoir at Colon built during your administration there? General DAVIS. You refer to a recent press report saying something about a failure of water supply? Senator MORGAN. Yes. General DAVIS. I am not quite sure that I have all the facts; but my impression is this: The Panama Railroad has had a water supply for Colon for the last fifty years. It is obtained from the natural drainage of some hills that go by the name of the Monkey Hills. It is about 2 or 2 miles from the city of Colon. A lake was made there, impounding enough water to furnish the railroad with its requirements, the vessels in the harbor, and the native inhabitants. The increase of population and the consumption of water in Colon since the taking over of the work by the United States has brought about a condition of affairs that indicates inadequacy of water. The engineers are building a new supply (they commenced it before I left), impounding water in a stream 2 or 3 miles farther out. I think about 200 or 300 million gallons are proposed to be impounded, a pump erected, a standpipe also, and a distribution system laid down for Cristobal and for Colon. I do not think that work has yet been completed; but a provisional supply was procured, as I learned when I was there in September of last year; a temporary dam was built on this same stream, and a provisional supply obtained, which supplemented the Panama Railroad supply from Monkey Hill. I read in the newspapers that this supply has failed; and somebody has sent a sensational dispatch up here to the effect that there is a water famine there, and great trouble and tribulation. Last year, when I was governor, at the dry season (which is now; this is the dry season there), we had the very same condition of things; and they have had it every year. They have had it there every year for years and years; and the way the situation is met is to economize as well as they can with the water, and then for the Panama Railroad to run water tanks out to Tavernilla and bring in three, four, five, or six carloads of water every day, for which they have cars specially built. Senator MORGAN. How far out is that? General DAVIS. Oh, about 20 miles or 25 miles, where they water their engines. Senator MORGAN. It is above Bohio? General DAVIS. Oh, yes; it is above Bohio, and they bring in the water. They did last year, and I suppose they are doing it now; and that to which you allude, I think, is nothing but sensation. I do not think that it amounts to anything of any serious importance. Senator MORGAN. And if there has been a failure of the reservoir there, it is this temporary structure? General DAVIS. This temporary structure that has gone dry, probably, or nearly so. Senator MORGAN. Has that reservoir stood during the fifty years that the French had the supply for their railroad? General DAVIS. Oh, yes. That Monkey Hill reservoir has been in use there all the time, and they have been making use of these tank cars to bring water in from Tavernilla whenever they happened to run short. They run the cars out and fill them up, and then run them alongside of the ship and put a hose into the ship and fill the ship's tank-ships that are going on foreign voyages, Senator MORGAN. Is it good water? General DAVIS. Oh, yes; it is very good water, and it is like the water we are using now in Panama. It comes from the head of the Rio Grande. Senator MORGAN. As a rule, the water in Panama is good when you get it coming out of the hills? General DAVIS. Oh, yes; it is all right. It contains a little bit of sediment and some little vegetable matter, but nothing that has ever done any harm. Typhoids and dysenteries there are almost unknown. There have been one or two cases of typhoid fever in the Panaman hospitals in a year; that is all. There are very few cases. The matter of the Zone delimitation, which is covered by the report which the committee has ordered to be printed, will require for the elucidation of that idea the printing of these three maps to which I have alluded, if you care to have it done. I think I ought to describe to you what that Zone delimitation means, so far as Colon is concerned, because it is shown by this map. This [indicating] is Limon Bay; this is Manzanillo Island; this is the line that the Frenchmen proposed for their canal. Senator MORGAN. For the sea-level canal? General DAVIS. Yes; or any canal. That is the French plan of canal. The American plans that is to say, the plans of the Board of Consulting Engineers, the majority and the minority-come in here, like that [indicating]. The CHAIRMAN. It is marked up there, General? General DAVIS. Yes; it is shown here also. It joins in here at Mindi. Senator MORGAN. Have you any doubt that under any plan of canal we may adopt, it ought to enter the Bay of Limon, instead of going by Colon? General DAVIS. Oh, I think this idea here is an absurdity. The French idea of entering this canal is an absurdity. You can get an idea of the curve by following that bend, the way a ship has got to proceed. That curve there has a radius of I have forgotten what it is about 1,600 feet; that is, that ship has to make two turns, one here and one there, before she can straighten out and go into the canal. It is utterly out of the question. I think everyone agrees on that. In regard to this matter of Zone delimitation, it is specified, as you will find in that agreement, of which you have a copy, that the line of delimitation between the Republic of Panama and the United States for the Canal Zone shall follow this general plan: The Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty specifies that the city of Colon shall remain in the jurisdiction of Panama and its harbor shall remain in the jurisdiction of Panama. Those conditions are stated. Now, therefore, I negotiated with the Government to find the mode by which we could come to an understanding. The city of Colon consists of this sort of a strip of houses here. That is all that really is built up into a city. This is a mangrove swamp covered with water at high tide and nearly bare at low tide, the tide being only about 2 feet. It was provided in the agreement that I made with the Government that the line of demarcation should begin at this point-Cristobal Point-that from that point a line should be projected across Limon Bay to its west shore in a due westerly direction-this point being fixed and determined; a monument stands there to Cristobal Colombo. That, then, is a due west |