File:Panama and the canal in picture and prose (1913) (14596777710).jpg

Identifier: panamacanalinpic01abbo (find matches)
Title: Panama and the canal in picture and prose ..
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Abbot, Willis John, 1863-1934. (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York (etc.) Pub. in English and Spanish by Syndicate publishing company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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home. The things enumerated are lookedupon by those who receive them as gratuities, andrightly so. They are, in fact, extra inducementsoffered by Uncle Sam to persuade men to comeand work on his Canal and to keep them happyand contented while doing so. Now the chief material argument for the socialisticstate, the co-operative commonwealth, is that itwill secure for every citizen comfort and content-ment, so far as contentment is possible to restlesshuman minds; that it will abolish at a strokemonopoly and privilege, purge society of parasites,add to the efficiency of labor and proportionatelyincrease its rewards. All of which is measurablyaccomplished on the Canal Zone and the less cautioussocialists—the well-grounded ones see the difference—are excusable for hailing the government there asan evidence of the practicability of socialism.) But it isnt—at least not quite. The incarnationof the difiference between this and socialism is Col.George W. Goethals. Nobody on the Zone had
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Photo by H. Pillier Courtesy National Geographic Magazine THE CATASETUM SCURRA A curiously shaped orchid rediscovered by Mrs. H. H. Rousseau part in electing Goethals; nobody can say him nay,or abate or hinder in any degree his complete personalcontrol of all that is done here. This is not theco-operative commonwealth we long have sought.Rather is it like the commonwealth of old withOliver Cromwell as Lord Protector—and at thatGoethals has no parliament to purge. This is a benevolent despotism, the sort of govern-ment that philosophers agree would be ideal if thebenevolence of the despot could only be assmedinvariably and eternally. The Czar of Russia coulddo what is being done down there were he vestedwith Goethals intolerance of bureaucracies, red-tape, parasites, grafters, disobedience and dela)^.But Goethals is equally intolerant of opposition,argument, even advice from below. His is themilitary method of personal command and personal 330 PANAMA AND THE CANAL

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