American Minute with Bill Federer
Panama Canal - cost over 100 American lives for each of the 50 miles across the Isthmus
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Canal construction
has spanned history:
- Mesopotamia and India had the oldest canals for irrigation, c. 3,000 BC;
- China's Grand Canal, begun in the 5th century BC, is almost 1,800 miles, linking the Yellow River and the Yangtze River;
- Greeks engineered canals, c 400 BC;
- Romans built an elaborate system of canals, pipes, tunnels, aqueducts & bridges, 312 BC-226 AD;
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- Charlemagne oversaw in 793 AD the first artificial canal in Western Europe at Fossa Carolina, from the Rhine River basin to the Danube River basin;
- Britain's Glastonbury Canal was built in the 10th century;
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- Italy's Naviglio Canal, from the Ticino River to Milan, took over a century to complete, 1157-1258;
- England's Exeter Canal was constructed in the 1560s;
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- Netherlands, Flanders & Belgium constructed a dense system of canals, mostly in the 1600s;
- France's Canal de Briare, connecting the Loire and Seine Valleys, was completed in 1642;
- Germany built canals in the 18th century, on the rivers Spree, Elbe, Havel, Ems, Elster, Dahme, Oder, and Weser;
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- Russia's canals were pioneered by Peter the Great, who built the Vyshny Volochyok Waterway, 1703-1722, connecting Saint Petersburg with the Baltic Sea, and later expanded in the 19th century to the White Sea;
- United States completed the 363 mile long Erie Canal in 1827, connecting Albany to Buffalo.
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The history of the
Panama Canal
began when
Columbus
first landed in
Panama
on October 6, 1502, during
his fourth and final voyage.
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In 1534, the
King of Spain, Charles V,
who ruled the
first global empire,
ordered a
survey
of the
Isthmus of Panama
to assess the feasibility of a
canal.
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Such a
canal
would save explorers and merchants from having to sail the
long, dangerous route around South America
, passing through the
Strait of Magellan,
first traversed by
Ferdinand Magellan
in 1520.
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A
canal across Panama
was again suggested in 1658 by England's
Sir Thomas Browne.
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In 1698, the
Kingdom of Scotland
attempted the
Darien scheme,
a trade colony in Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Unfortunately for them, it was financially
suppressed
by the
British East India Company
and
obstructed
by a
Spanish blockade.
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Thomas Jefferson
suggested a
canal
there in 1788.
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Alessandro Malaspina,
a Spanish naval officer sailed around the world and explored the Pacific, 1788 to 1793, proposed an outline for construction plans for a
canal.
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In 1827,
Simón Bolívar,
President of La Gran Colombia (Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Colombia),
studied the feasibility of
a railway across the Isthmus,
as did U.S.
President Andrew Jackson
in 1836.
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In 1838, a
French company
attempted to build
a railroad and canal route,
but it failed for lack of funding and technology.
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In 1846, the U.S. signed a treaty with
New Granada (Colombia)
for
rights
to build a
rail or canal route.
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After the Mexican-American War, 1848, and the California Gold Rush, 1849,
Captain Ulysses S. Grant
and the 4th Infantry were ordered to relocate to San Francisco, traveling by way of
Panama
in 1852.
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While crossing the Isthmus, a cholera epidemic killed so many soldiers that
Grant
organized a field hospital and cared for the ill himself, writing:
"The horrors of the road in the rainy season are beyond description."
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The Panama Railroad Company,
formed by New York businessmen, began building the
first transcontinental railroad
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
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Construction workers were
English, Irish, Germans, Africans, Caribbean, Indian,
and
Chinese.
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Completed in 1855, the nearly 50 mile railroad across muddy insect-infested, disease-ridden swamps, cost over 5,000 lives.
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Mark Twain
wrote a Special Correspondence of the
Chicago Republican,
New York, August 17, 1868:
"
The
Panama railroad
was an American project ...
... We took the
train at Panama,
clattered for two or three hours through a tangled wilderness of tropical vegetation, and discharged ourselves in Aspinwall
(Colón)
. It is only forty-five miles ...
That little road has
carried about 100,000 passengers for the California steamers
during the past twelve months ...
It was a hard road to build. The
tropical fevers slaughtered
the
laborers
by wholesale.
It is a popular saying, that
every railroad tie
from Panama to Aspinwall
rests upon a corpse
... It is claimed that
this small railroad enterprise cost the lives of 10,000 men.
It is possible."
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The idea for the
Panama Canal
gained momentum when the
French
finished the 120 mile long
Suez Canal
. in
1869.
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The construction of the 120 mile long canal was
led by builder
Ferdinand de Lesseps.
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It roughly followed the path of
an ancient canal
built by
King Darius of Persia
in the 5th century BC.
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The
Suez Canal
enabled ships from the
Far East and the Indian Ocean
to reach the
Mediterranean Sea
without having to sail around the
continent of Africa.
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French sculptor
Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi
spent two years designing an earlier version of the
Statue of Liberty
to stand as a
lighthouse
to
guide ships
to the
entrance of the Suez Canal,
but
Ismail Pasha,
the Khedive (Viceroy) of Egypt and Sudan, could not afford it.
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In 1880,
France's Ferdinand de Lesseps
began building a
sea-level canal
across the
Isthmus of Panama.
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France's
efforts were hindered by torrential
seasonal rains
which caused
massive
landslides.
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France
eventually abandoned the project due to the
tropical
diseases of malaria
and
yellow fever,
which killed
25,000.
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In 1899, a U.S. Army physician,
Dr. Walter Reed,
went to Cuba after the Spanish-American War do research.
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He scientifically confirmed the previous discovery of
Dr. Carlos Finlay,
that
malaria
and
yellow fever
were carried by
mosquitoes.
This knowledge led to efforts of public sanitation and the development of
insecticides
which
saved thousands of lives
and made construction of
a canal in Panama
possible.
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Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
founded in 1909, was named for him.
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On November 3, 1903, the United States aided
Panama
in gaining independence from
Colombia.
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Also that year, on December 17, 1903,
Wilbur and Orville Wright
made the
first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft
four miles south of
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina,
introducing
the era of air travel.
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On FEBRUARY 23, 1904, the
United States
purchased the
Canal Zone
from
Panama
for ten million dollars on FEBRUARY 23, 1904, plus annual payments of $250,000.
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The
Panama Canal
was planned by
President William McKinley,
with the actual construction beginning under
President Theodore Roosevelt.
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Instead of a straight sea-level canal,
Roosevelt
favored
a set of three locks
rising from
sea-level to Gatun Lake,
then on the other side of the lake, to have
three locks going back down to sea level.
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On December 17, 1906,
President Theodore Roosevelt
addressed Congress:
"The
Isthmus
had been a by-word for
deadly unhealthfulness.
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... Now, after two years of our occupation the conditions as regards
sickness and the death rate
compare ... with reasonably healthy localities in the United States.
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... Especial care has been devoted to minimizing the risk due to the presence of those
species of mosquitoes
which have been found to
propagate malarial and yellow fevers."
Advances in pesticides helped save millions of lives, with 5
of the 11 Nobel Prizes awarded between 1939 and 1952 going to scientists who made advances in controlling the spread of diseases.
Though used to eradicate
mosquito born diseases
in
wealthier nations,
the most effective pesticides were
banned
before they could do the same in
Africa.
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Similar the
Space program
giving birth to
new technologies,
construction of the
Panama Canal
birthed many
inventions
, such as:
- railroad innovations;
- steam shovels;
- steam-powered cranes;
- hydraulic rock crushers;
- cement mixers;
- dredges;
- drilling machinery;
- pneumatic power drills; and
- massive electric motors.
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These inventions were largely developed and built in the United States. They were used to create
Panama's
Gatun Lake
--
the largest dam and man-made lake in the world at that time.
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On December 6, 1912,
President William Taft
addressed Congress:
"Our defense of the Panama Canal,
together with our enormous world trade and
our missionary outposts
on the frontiers of civilization, require us to recognize our position as one of the
foremost in the family of nations,
and to clothe ourselves with sufficient naval power to give force to our reasonable demands, and to give weight to our influence in those
directions of progress that a powerful Christian nation should advocate."
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On October 23, 1913,
President Woodrow Wilson
stated in his Thanksgiving Proclamation:
"We have seen the practical completion of a great work at the
Isthmus of Panama
which not only exemplifies the nation's abundant capacity of its public servants but also promises the beginning of a new age of co-operation and peace.
'Righteousness exalteth a nation'
and
'peace on earth, good will towards men'
furnish the only foundation upon which can be built the lasting achievements of the human spirit."
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The
Panama Canal
was opened August 15, 1914, the same year
World War I
began.
Within 10 years, more than 5,000 ships a year were passing through the
Panama Canal.
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The
largest American engineering project
to that date, it had cost the United States $375,000,000 (over $10 billion today).
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The
Panama Canal
also cost 5,600 American lives, over 100 for every one of the 50 miles across the Isthmus.
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On March 31, 1976,
California Governor Ronald Reagan
stated:
"Well, the
Canal Zone
is not a colonial possession. It is not a long-term lease.
It is sovereign United States Territory
every bit the same as
Alaska
and all the states that were carved from the
Louisiana Purchase ...
We bought it, we paid for it, we built it, and we intend to keep it."
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After contentious public debate,
Democrat President Jimmy Carter
gave away the
Panama Canal
in 1977.
Concern arose as to what international influences would fill the vacuum once the United States transferred control.
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Such concern was voiced by
Admiral Thomas Moorer,
commander of the U.S. Pacific and Atlantic fleets and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974, who stated in The New American, March 29, 1999:
"Chinese
are poised to effectively
take control of the
Panama Canal
... The
Panama Canal
is very close to home and is one of our most vital commercial and military assets ...
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... In 1996, while
China
was illegally pouring millions of dollars into Clinton's reelection effort, it was also
funneling huge amounts of cash to Panamanian politicians
to ensure that one of its front companies,
Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong,
could move in when we vacate ..."
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Admiral Moorer
continued:
"In 1997,
Panama secretly turned over the American-built port facility at Balboa,
which controls shipping on the Pacific side, and at Cristobal, which controls shipping on the Atlantic side,
to Hutchison ...
We are scheduled to turn over Rodman Naval Station, Howard Air Force Base, and other important military facilities to Panama, which has given
Hutchison
an option on these bases ..."
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Admiral Moorer
concluded:
"President Clinton may say that they are our friends and allies, but the
Chinese military and Communist Party literature
refer to the
United States as 'the main enemy.'
And despite what ...
Henry Kissinger,
and the media may tell you about
'reform'
in
China,
it is still run by
a brutal, totalitarian, Communist regime
that will do us harm if and when it thinks it can get the better of us."
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China's Huchinson Port Holding
is the
world's largest seaport operator.
In addition to controlling U.S. built anchor ports on either end of the
Panama Canal
(Balboa and Cristobal),
it controls
strategic ports all around the globe.
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Panama
has been a popular haven for
American expats
who prefer to not live in the United States, as it has warm climate, beautiful scenery, the
cost-of-living
is financially favorable. For safety, though, it is not uncommon to see bars on windows, fences, walls and armed security.
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Since the mid-1970s,
Panama
, along with other
Central and South American countries,
has experienced
Muslim immigration,
with
El Centro Cultural Islámico de Colón
being dedicated on January 15, 1982.
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The publication
CRITICA
reported (9/16/15)
"ISIS Amenaza a Panama" (ISIS Threat to Panama.)
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In 2016, the
Panama Canal
opened a
new set of locks,
doubling the waterway's capacity to accommodate larger ships.
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An American-built canal,
President Theodore Roosevelt
wrote in his
Autobiography:
"By far
the most important action
I took in foreign affairs during the time I was
President
was related to the
Panama Canal."
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
[email protected]
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