upon him, and thereby placing the work under one-man control.  Dr. Gorgas had already performed an inestimable service by caring for the sanitary conditions so thoroughly as to make the Isthmus as safe as a health resort.  Colonel Goethals proved to be the man of all others to do the job.  It would be impossible to overstate what he has done.  It is the greatest task of any kind that any man in the world has accomplished during the years that Colonel Goethals has been at work.  It is the greatest task of its own kind that has ever been performed in the world at all.  Colonel Goethals has succeeded in instilling into the men under him a spirit which elsewhere has been found only in a few victorious armies.  It is proper and appropriate that, like the soldiers of such armies, they should receive medals which are allotted each man who has served for a sufficient length of time.  A finer body of men has never been gathered by any nation than the men who have done the work of building the Panama Canal; the conditions under which they have lived and have done their work have been better than in any similar work ever undertaken in the tropics; they have all felt an eager pride in their work; and they have made not only America but the whole world their debtors by what they have accomplished.

APPENDIX

COLOMBIA:  THE PROPOSED MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

The rough draft of the message I had proposed to send Congress ran as follows: 

“The Colombian Government, through its representative here, and directly in communication with our representative at Colombia, has refused to come to any agreement with us, and has delayed action so as to make it evident that it intends to make extortionate and improper terms with us.  The Isthmian Canal bill was, of course, passed upon the assumption that whatever route was used, the benefit to the particular section of the Isthmus through which it passed would be so great that the country controlling this part would be eager to facilitate the building of the canal.  It is out of the question to submit to extortion on the part of a beneficiary of the scheme.  All the labor, all the expense, all the risk are to be assumed by us and all the skill shown by us.  Those controlling the ground through which the canal is to be put are wholly incapable of building it.

“Yet the interest of international commerce generally and the interest of this country generally demands that the canal should be begun with no needless delay.  The refusal of Colombia properly to respond to our sincere and earnest efforts to come to an agreement, or to pay heed to the many concessions we have made, renders it in my judgment necessary that the United States should take immediate action on one of two lines:  either we should drop the Panama canal project and immediately begin work on the Nicaraguan canal, or else we should purchase all the rights of the French