National Geographic: Adventures - Panama Canal: The Mountain and the Mosquito Page #4

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Stevens' new high-lake lock plan.

Fifteen months after taking charge

of Panama,

Stevens is finally ready to build

the President his dream.

Roosevelt must convince Americans

that John Stevens and William Gorgas

can conquer nature and geography.

Convince skeptics that

a canal can be built.

To prove his faith,

the President decides to stage one of

the 20th century's first media events.

He and the First Lady will visit

the Big Ditch themselves.

It is a decision that

captivates the nation.

No American president has ever visited

foreign soil while in office.

To grasp first-hand the difficulties

of the project,

Roosevelt insists on being in Panama

during the rainy season.

On the second day of his visit,

three inches of rain fall in two hours.

One inch falling in 15 minutes.

It is the worst downpour in Panama

in fifteen years.

With photographers never far away,

the young President strolls

through construction camps,

dines in a mess hall with the men

and shares meals with John Stevens.

He visits the Culebra Cut,

and delivers stirring prep talks

in the jungle,

telling workers that they are soldiers

fighting a glorious war

for America's destiny.

The laborers are impressed

and honored.

Their applause rivals the thunder

in the tropical skies.

"You, here, who do your work well

in bringing to completion

this great enterprise,

will stand exactly as the soldiers

of a few, and only a few,

of the most famous armies of all the

nations stand in history."

With his signature showmanship,

the President,

in his famous white suit

and Panama hat,

leaps aboard one of the mighty 95-

ton Bucyrus shovels.

The men cheer this icon of American

know-how, a reminder that,

for Americans, there is no obstacle

too formidable.

But another war is being won,

far from the spotlight.

On the second day of his tour,

Roosevelt quietly slips

away from the cameras

and the secret service

to pay Dr. Gorgas an unannounced

visit.

The two men walk through an

almost deserted ward.

It is a quiet moment of proud victory.

Stunning evidence that

the Alabama doctor

has brought health and sanitation

to deadly Panama.

The Great Scare is over.

Roosevelt reciprocates with

the public praise Gorgas

has hungered for since

he first arrived in Panama.

When Roosevelt praises

the miracle in Panama

and cites Stevens and Gorgas by name,

they become celebrities

across America.

"They are doing something

which will redound immeasurable

to the credit of America,

which will benefit all the world,

and which will last for ages to come.

Under Mr. Stevens and Dr. Gorgas

this work

has started with every omen of

good fortune."

While the President boasts

and bellows,

the mountains of Panama

remain unconquered.

Stevens has devised an ambitious plan,

but it remains no more than a blueprint.

To make the plan a reality,

Stevens will begin with the

damming of the Chagres River,

creating the largest man-made lake

in the world.

Dozens of villages must be evacuated,

their residents relocated

to higher ground.

A new city, called Gatun,

must be built from scratch.

Surveying parties outline the contours

of a body of water

that will cover 164 square miles.

The entire region must be

clear-cut by hand.

This job alone will take almost

five years to complete.

And with this new plan will come

massive concrete and electrical work-

unlike anything the world

has ever seen.

Things that John Stevens has little

experience working with.

Such a massive construction project

will also invite bureaucratic red-tape,

and increased

political interference from Washington.

The very things that John Stevens

has fought against all his life.

Meanwhile dynamite crews risk their

lives and begin blasting into Culebra

to loosen the mountain

from its ancient domain.

Stevens continues his daily routine

of surveying the work

in Culebra for himself.

will be moved by train,

along hundreds of miles of new track.

Enough dirt to fill enough hopper cars

to circle the globe four times.

The work force healthy and excavation

well under way,

Gorgas and Stevens have finally

set in motion a plan

to bring down the mountain.

It is a plan that

will prove Stevens right -

and finally get the Canal built.

But there is one more surprise.

One of these men will walk away.

Less than three months

after President Roosevelt's

confidence-boosting visit,

John Stevens quits the project

and leaves Panama.

It is a mysterious gesture.

He offers no reason to his workers,

to Dr. Gorgas, or his own family.

Not even the President.

Theodore Roosevelt is deeply angered.

Publicly, he conceals his anger,

telling friends that Stevens

is unable to withstand the

punishing Panamanian climate -

that he has become ill and sleepless.

But privately the president

feels betrayed.

Others believe that

the solitary mountain man

could not endure the massive

bureaucracy of the canal commission

or the contract system

that was forced upon him.

It is a secret he takes to his grave.

"The reasons for the resignation

were purely personal.

I have never declared these reasons

and probably never will,

as they are private."

Nearly a century later,

no one knows why the greatest

civil engineer of his era

abandoned the most important project

of his lifetime.

Suddenly and without warning.

Perhaps he sensed that the

hardest work was already behind him.

That history had anointed him

to plan the canal,

then move on while others built it.

In eighteen months,

John Stevens succeeded

where others had labored in vain

for generations.

He provided decent housing and food

for his loyal workers.

And pushed through

a jungle railroad network

to move huge quantities of earth.

Perhaps most important of all,

he cast the weight of his prestige

behind Dr. Gorgas.

Understanding that fear,

not mountains,

blocked the path between the seas.

In 1914, seven years after

Stevens's departure,

Dr. Gorgas silently paddles

a small wooden canoe

through the freshly-cut canal.

He is the first to travel voyage

through the Canal.

The official opening of the canal

won't happen for three more months.

All around him is evidence

of John Stevens' vision.

A magnificent bridge of water

that lifts ships out of the ocean

and sails them smoothly

across the Isthmus of Panama.

After 30 years and the loss of

thousands of lives,

the dream of Columbus,

has been achieved.

The union of the oceans.

And the shrinking of the world.

It has taken seven years

to complete the Canal.

The President asks the Army

to finish the job.

And though it would be

wider and deeper,

it would resemble almost perfectly

the lock system

that John Stevens had convinced

Teddy Roosevelt

to build across the Isthmus.

And it is a spectacular vision.

The locks at both ends are

the largest in the world.

Over 80 feet high,

they are five blocks long

and stand as tall as

a six story building.

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