R.M. Koster: Self (professor, Florida State Univ., Panama)

Quotes 

• R.M. Koster : The Spaniards thought that if they did dig a canal, God would punish them for it. And this argument got a lot of ridicule during the last century and the first part of this one, but it doesn't seem to me much different from the fears we're beginning to have nowadays about the dangers of messing with nature.

  Narrator : The Spaniards left no canal in Panama, but the Royal Road survived-wide enough for two mules to cross between the port cities. Then in 1848, there is borne a new, compelling reason to cross Panama as quickly as possible. On the California frontier, a prospector discovers something glittering in the stream bed at a place called Sutter's Mill. The Gold Rush is on. Americans leaving from the East Coast can cross the United States on horse or by foot. It is an arduous trek through hostile territory. A journey to be avoided at all cost. Many gold rushers choose to go by sea-a 13,000 mile journey around South America's infamous Cape Horn, but fortune hunters willing to risk the unknown go by way of Panama and shave 8000 miles off the trip. They anchor off the Atlantic coast and row up the Chagres River as far as Gamboa. They finish crossing to the Pacific side on foot, following the old Spanish trail into the jungle. But navigating the dense rain forest proves close to impossible. Most of them barely survive.

  Gold miner : [in a letter home]  I have no time to give reasons, but in saying it, I utter the united sentiment of every passenger whom I have heard speak. It is this, and I say it in fear of God and the love of Man. "To one and all-for no consideration come this route".

  Narrator : They speak of broiling heat and blinding rain, and of unknown fevers that cause men to drop in their tracks. These are the first of many omens. Panama will not be tamed easily.

• R.M. Koster : The highest elevation at Suez was 50 feet above sea level. Here, it was 330 feet, and that translated into millions and millions of cubic yards of dirt to be removed. At Suez, you had mostly sand. Here, you have rock and, what was worse, mud. The mud was terrible here; The more you dug out, the more slid in.

• R.M. Koster : The last thing people want to give up is their illusions. They'll give up their money before they'll give up their illusions. Nobody wanted to say..."We lost this one". De Lesseps didn't want to admit it, the government didn't want to admit it, the French shareholders didn't want to admit it. Nobody wanted to come to the conclusion that "Hey, this won't work".

• Narrator : Bunau-Varilla flaunts his influence by appointing himself Panama's Ambassador to the United States. He immediately begins negotiating with the Secretary of State for the agreement allowing the U.S. to build the Panama Canal.

  R.M. Koster : He was so interested in getting the money, getting the 40 million dollars that the U.S. had agreed to pay for a bunch of rotting equipment, for works that mostly were never used, that he thought up everything the United States could possibly want in a treaty and then put in some order. As, for example, a clause that gave the United States perpetual sovereignty - until the Sun goes out, till the stars stop shining - over 500 square miles of Panama's territory.

  Narrator : Meanwhile, Dr. Manuel Amador, now President of Panama, arrives in Washington thinking he is going to make a deal for the canal. He is dismayed to find out that the treaty is already done. When the treaty is signed, the French Canal Company receives forty million dollars - most of which disappears into the pockets of Bunau-Varilla. The country of Panama gets ten million dollars. The Colombians get nothing. Many Americans are appalled, but Roosevelt dismisses his critics and pronounces it the duty of the United States to support nationalist uprisings. Roosevelt wins his isthmus, and Bunau-Varilla takes credit for avenging the honor of France.

  Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla : I had fulfilled my mission. The mission I had taken on myself. I had safeguarded the work of French genius. I had served France.