Panama Canal

In 1885, due to the tremendous problems encountered in trying to excavate a sea-level canal, the plan was changed to include a single, temporary lock and other adjustments in order to speed up the availability of the canal for traffic. Still, it was of no use : in 1889, Lesseps' company was liquidated in order to pay back investors and banks from which the company had borrowed. The appraisal of the company's belongings - including equipment, maps, and the value of the land already excavated - was very high, and in 1894, a new company, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama, was created in France to attempt to finish the canal. All involved thought of this as an impossible feat by the French, and ideas ran strong to sell the canal zone - possibly to the United States. France resented the loss of millions of francs (the estimated cost of the company's pursuit of the canal, including publicity and possibly a little bribery, is almost 1.5 billion francs), and subsequent trials of the heads of Lesseps' company, including Lesseps himself, began in 1893. Lesseps was condemned by the court, but never fined nor jailed. Charles de Lesseps, Ferdinand's son, and others were eventually charged with bribery, only one being sent to prison. Charles was forced to pay the fine of another defendant, but could not raise the money so fled to London until his government accepted a partial payment, nearly 5 years later. France had determined that she could not possibly complete the canal. With a lease on land in Colombia until 1903, the search was on for a buyer. Eventually, France found a friend in the United States of America.

At the time, a canal in the Latin American isthmus was not a new idea to America, either. In 1887, the government sent a regiment under Lieutenant Menocal to survey Nicaragua for a canal site. In 1889, Congress chartered the Maritime Canal Co, headed by the millionaire J.P. Morgan to build a canal in either Nicaragua or Panama. After discussions, the Nicaragua route was chosen, and construction began. In 1893, a stock panic in America caused Maritime to loose all funding, and excavation stopped - the first and last of America's blunders on the canal. In 1897, congress appointed a fact-finding Canal Commission, which promptly recommended the Nicaraguan route. In 1899, the second Canal Commission did the same. President McKinley probably would have signed a bill introduced by Senator J.T. Morgan securing funds for a Nicaraguan canal, had an assassin's bullet not taken his life on September 6, 1901. The subsequent inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt was to become a time of strained relations with Colombia, and new friendship in a brand new nation - the Republic of Panama.

Theodore Roosevelt was the Big Stick president. Might was good, though not necessarily right. Roosevelt was especially proud of America's navy, and its naval power. The incident during the Spanish War involving the battleship Oregon's two-month trip around South America (by which time the war was nearly over), which had sponsored Morgan's bill for a canal, had also affected Teddy, and the rest of America, in a big way. In previous reports, the recommendation of Nicaragua was based on cost, and then because France's Compagnie Nouvelle had refused to sell their belongings for less than $100 million. Seeing that the company would loose to Nicaragua, the two main foreign advisors in the company - William Nelson Cromwell and Philippe Bunau-Varilla - managed to talk the company to lower its price to a mere $40 million, which would put the Panama project at a cost about equal to Nicaragua. Now, the biggest battle over the canal was to begin.

Most of America was still under the impression of the first two Canal Commissions, which advocated Nicaragua, no matter how outdated the findings were. It became the personal battle of William Cromwell and Philippe Bunau-Varilla to get the Panama site chosen. Cromwell was the hired American Counsel of the New Panama Canal Company (Compagnie Nouvelle). Both he and Philippe owned stock in the French holding company, and knew they would loose everything unless the Panama site won over Nicaragua. Both used their personal fortunes, for they were relatively wealthy, to buy publicity in newspapers and magazines, phamphlets, and lectures (mostly Philippe) promoting Panama. Their efforts finally