HOME AND EDUCATION
Follette, Belle Case La
Home and Education Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE A Visit To the Canal Zone (Continued from last week.) MRS. EVANS and myself, on our arrival at the Canal Zone, had expected to find Mr....
...It is nine miles from the present capital...
...The perpetrator of these crimes was afterward knighted,—Sir Henry Morgan...
...We could readily understand how this tall, slender, intelligent, gracious First Lady of the Isthmus had won the good will of the people...
...The first object of interest the driver pointed out was the pavilion where they have their bull fights every Sunday...
...The lake and the cut constitute 32 miles of the distance covered by the canal...
...The ants have proven very destructive of soft wood...
...It seems better suited in appearance as well as utility, to the tropics...
...Unfortunately this brilliant military scheme failed...
...She instructs ignorant but fond mothers in the best methods of feeding, clothing, and caring for their children...
...As rivers and streams had determined the savage trail, Balboa's discovery, the Spanish road, and the route of the iron rail, so they pointed the way that was to divide in order to more closely unite the Western Hemisphere...
...In New York City each nurse has from two to seven schools, with a total attendance of about 4,000 children...
...pork, 19 cents...
...The school nurse is first and last a social worker...
...As I viewed all the wonders of the cold storage system I could not but think how interesting it would be, if the government would establish an agricultural experiment station on the Canal Zone, and demonstrate what could be done in the way of supplying fresh food for its inhabitants...
...He kept his word...
...He evidently dreads the felicitations that he must inevitably expect when the tourist comes to greet him, and is relieved when that stage of the conversation is over...
...ANY philosophizing as to the demonstration of the practical operation of the co-operative and community plan of living at the Canal, must be done by the outsider...
...MONDAY morning we were aboard the sight-seeing train which has a car built on the plan of the usual sight-seeing automobiles...
...It is not improbable that the ratio will be increased until it reaches an average of one nurse for each 1,000 of the school enrollment...
...In Philadelphia five schools and about 5,000 children are usually allotted to one nurse, while in Boston the proportion of nurses is almost twice as great...
...Until 1908 New...
...For this reason concrete is being used in the construction of most new buildings...
...We find all the way from 1,000 to 10,000 children under the care of one nurse...
...Colonel Goethals frankly stated that as a military man, he viewed the Canal from the military standpoint, and called to mind the trip of the Oregon around Cape Horn in the Spanish War...
...At night, when the lights are on, the locks are, if possible, an even more moving sight than by day...
...It was possible by building a dam a mile and a half long between hills (which seem to be made for the purpose) to back up and impound these waters, so that they now constitute a great inland lake (Gatun...
...The living conditions at the Canal were taken care of in the usual way of providing for the ordinary army post...
...If there were one nurse for every 2,000 pupils, about 10,000 nurses would be required in the entire United States...
...Like the city of Colon on the Atlantic side, Panama is within the boundaries of the Canal Zone, but excluded from it, except as the United States reserves the.right to enforce sanitary ordinances and to maintain public order, in case the Panamanian government' is unable" to do so...
...In the building of the Canal as in the construction of the Panama railroad sixty years earlier, the natives of the West Indies constituted the bulk of the unskilled labor...
...All of our contact with people up to the time of arriving at the Zone, had suggested the unifying influence of the Canal...
...To get done, to have the overwhelming job completed is the thought now uppermost in this great man's mind...
...When I asked Colonel Goethals if any attempt had been made to secure our own colored men for the work, he said yes, but that objection had been made in the South to their transportation and while he considered our Negroes superior workmen, he thought on the whole it had been best that no large numbers had been employed because of the complications that might have arisen...
...MONDAY, after viewing the locks that raise and lower ships to the Pacific level (Pedro Miguel and Miraflores) together with the Culebra Cut, we went to the city of Panama, located on the Pacific at the Bay of Panama...
...We saw the great dredges at work and there was sound of blasting in many places along the Canal...
...With thirty-seven ships and two thousand men he went up the Chagres River as far as he could go, and proceeded to march overland the rest of the way...
...The Indispensable School Nurse "MEDICAL inspection of schools has rendered the school nurse inevitable," declares Dr...
...It is expected vessels will consume from ten to twelve hours in passing through, three hours time being consumed at the locks...
...The locks are twin, allowing vessels to pass in opposite directions at the same time, and are devised to economize water in so doing...
...The effect of the jungle was cleared away in the work of sanitation...
...Jamaica oranges per dozen, 16 cents...
...We went in a launch through Culebra Cut, up Gatun Lake, following the channel of the Chagres River as far as the point where the old town of Las Cruces once stood, where for centuries, the boats had unloaded and the pack animals had started over the Divide, where generation after generation of natives had lived, knowing no other world...
...We passed a native village, dwellings with straw roofs, earth floors, bamboo walls, children running about in their smooth bronze skins for clothes...
...It is hard for us from the north to realize that they never suffer from cold in this climate, and that the only need for fire is for cooking purposes...
...As we gazed about us in amazement that this far away world should appear so familiar, the Canal Zone seemed to merge naturally into its place in the civilized world...
...There you have it...
...I imagine that like most tasks, whether little or big, the making of a gown or the digging of a canal, it is the finishing touches that most tax the patience...
...By virtue of her room-to-room visitation and her opportunities for observation, the school nurse also becomes the ideal sanitary inspector...
...The French records of observations as to the flow of this river over a period of fifteen years, was a priceless contribution to our great undertaking...
...Colonel Goethals laughed lightly at Mrs...
...Gradually the roots of these are giving way and they are carried ashore...
...There are a thousand soldiers here now...
...And where bananas and cocoanuts are the staple food, a fire is almost as superfluous as a cook book...
...less hardened men than Morgan's might have perished...
...Culebra Cut averages three hundred feet in depth...
...The Canal Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide, five miles each side of the center" of the Canal, extending from the Atlantic to the Pa-cific, over which the United States exercises, for all practical purposes, the right of eminent domain...
...all conducted with military precision, cleanliness, and order...
...There are almost every hour majestic ships going out and coming in...
...Goethals...
...It is interesting that here we have the United States government caring for its disabled civil employees just as it does for its disabled soldiers,— only on a better plan than that usual in soldiers' home3...
...Vessels entering from the Atlantic can go seven miles at sea level, at full speed...
...Ships have passed and can pass through...
...The great emergency dams, built of steel, standing ever ready to be swung around and lowered in case of accident, are the only features that will strike the eye as unbeautiful when the work is completed...
...Evans' suggestion that the construction of the Canal was a demonstration of great social value...
...THE RUINS of Panama are great thick stone walls and towers of churches and fortifications that have stood since the destruction of the place, by Morgan, the pirate, in 1671, Great trees have grown up inside these Walls since then...
...is "nothing to what it has been...
...But this calls for a large number of people...
...I know it is not intended that the Zone shall be occupied for any other purpose than the operation of the Canal...
...butter, 34 cents...
...The one great deep cut (Culebra) that had to be made is a spur (nine miles long) of the lake and is at the same level as the lake...
...The pirates succeeded in turning the mad creatures back upon the Spaniards and the victors were soon in possession of the town...
...the only difference was the bigness of the scale...
...One gets quite a different point of view of the work done by the French, and its value, when one studies the history of the Canal...
...It would appear that the forty million dollars the United States paid the French company, instead of being given, as is popularly believed for "old junk" was for genuine values...
...It is the magnitude of the undertaking, rather than anything new and original, that staggers the mind and defies comprehension...
...But when we arrived at the Isthmus, we found all thought still centered on the construction of the Canal itself...
...But they tell us it...
...The locks, towers, power houses, and electric light columns are constructed of cream colored concrete, and the effect is generally pleasing...
...ON Monday afternoon we drove to Old Pan-ama...
...Elizabeth expressed horror when I suggested that we had arrived too late and were going too soon to take in this attraction...
...They were mostly dressed in blue cotton shirts and khaki trousers...
...porterhouse, 20 cents...
...TUESDAY Mrs...
...The warm waters of the Pacific wash its shores peacefully, and there is nothing to suggest the bloody deeds enacted...
...Here are some of the prices that prevailed the last week in April in this remote part of the globe where almost everything must be imported from long distances: Leg of lamb, 17 cents a pound...
...Henry Goldmark, one of the distinguished engineers of the canal, who is a brother of our friend Mrs...
...She told us that as fast as titles to farm land were secured by the United States, the government was cultivating it, and raising native products...
...They also cultivate pineapples...
...Whitlock, the wife of Captain Whitlock who is in charge of the Commissary...
...I believe its mission is progress, peace, amity,—not war...
...Buckets on the shovels brought up six or seven tons to the bucketful* The excavated material, if loaded on one train of flatcars, would make a train one hundred and ten thousand miles long, reaching more than four times around the earth...
...Louis D. Brandeis...
...York city relied upon postal cards sent to parents of defective children, and was able to secure action in only 6 per cent of the cases where treatment was recommended...
...THURSDAY morning we took the sight-seeing train for the Gatun Locks...
...I observed with interest that some one was starting a chicken farm...
...He had blockaded the road and burned all the food along the way...
...As I watched the trainloads of men at work, and passing to and fro, they gave the general impression of well formed, rather lithe young fellows with good countenances...
...Her hospital standards of sanitation tend to 'follow her into the schools...
...I have not the power of visualizing, and the information I had gathered regarding the Canal from moving picture exhibits, reading and conversation, had left the impression of great numbers of places, slides, cuts, locks, lakes, and hills, and I had prepared myself to make a great effort—since I had come so far—to comprehend this very difficult and complicated affair...
...Immediately upon placing the follow-up service in the hands of school nurses the percentage increased to 84...
...And yet, at no point, are mountains cut through...
...The railroads shops, dry docks, administration buildings are being constructed there...
...I could not but speculate on the future development of the Tropics now that scientific sanitation has made them habitable...
...In time these ghostlike signs of land will disappear...
...The Chagres River was recognized by the French and the United States as the key and the problem of the Isthmian Canal...
...ice cream per quart, 25 cents...
...If the Canal had been built the famous battleship could have reached her destination in fifteen days...
...One fine arch, well preserved, which is fifty feet at the base and thirty feet high, is pointed out among the ruins of Old Panama as a clinching definite negative answer to the question often asked, if the Isthmus is subject to earthquakes that might endanger the locks of the Canal...
...Not a bad bill of fare...
...You will remember that the Oregon, in its dramatic voyage from San Francisco around South America to join the Atlantic Fleet, required, at record speed, over two full months' time...
...the wonder is not that these workmen fall so far short of our standards, but that they are able to make such a large contribution to this world achievement...
...The destruction and disposal of this earth was as great a problem as its excavation...
...Of course engineers differed as to the details of just where and how the Canal should go...
...The simple life of the West Indies can offer little incentive for hard work or experience in the use of tools...
...It is surprising how many boats sail in and out of the Colon habor every day...
...Jackson had invited us to have luncheon with her at Culebra, to meet Mrs...
...The surface of this lake is 85 feet above sea level...
...They had letters from home for us, and although we had been gone only a little over a week, we could hardly have been more appreciative if we had been away a year...
...She not only secures action in the case at hand, but she becomes a permanent advisory influence in the homes where she visits...
...Jackson, the wife of the Justice of the Supreme Court of the Canal Zone...
...but Nature dictated the general lines of its construction...
...The Chagres has been known to rise 40 feet in 24 hours, and to discharge one hundred times as much water in the wet season as it does in the dry season, amounting in volume during one flood to two-thirds the volume of water that passes over the Horseshoe Falls of Niagara...
...After luncheon Mrs...
...We had tea with Mrs...
...Baxter, the official guide of the Canal, is different from the ordinary guide...
...We saw trainloads of workmen going to and fro at different hours of the day...
...It is a most interesting exhibit...
...The water is now in the Canal, although not at its full height...
...Over a great area of water, dead trees still standing tell the tale of what has once been land...
...And there will soon be a general exodus of officials and workmen from the different centers which have formed along the Canal during its construction, to this city of Balboa...
...rib roast of beef, 18 cents...
...He does not yell at the sight-seeing party, nor introduce stale jokes into his narrative, nor exaggerate...
...They may lack initiative, but they are by no means awkward in action...
...Next we saw some of the residences of rich Panamanians located on extensive stretches of land...
...Including the locks, the Canal is fifty miles long...
...I was told, however, that the natives do raise corn, which they pound into a coarse flour,' and cane which they make into syrup...
...It must have been a tragic experience for them to see their ancient town become the bottom of a lake...
...For meat they eat the fat lizards, which they hanker for as our colored people do for the possum...
...ON Wednesday we visited at Cristobal, the Commissary,—what has been the market supply for the seventy thousand people employed at the Isthmus,—the cold storage, the bakery, the laundry, the ice plant...
...She is received in their homes as no other official visitor could possibly be...
...The reason is easy to find...
...Without an effective follow-up service conducted by visiting nurses, medical inspection is ineffective...
...There is a general disposition to comment on the shortcomings of the West Indian laborers, their disinclination for protracted work, their lack of understanding of the use of tools, but the fact remains that they furnished the enormous amount of sinew necessary to the achievement...
...The number of school nurses needed varies somewhat according to social conditions and according to the range of duties expected of them...
...He was formerly of the University of Wisconsin, now in charge of the water supply for the Canal Zone...
...There is a fine asphalt road all the way, built as I understand it, by the government of Panama...
...tomatoes, 10 cents a pound...
...Ernest Bryant Hoag in a bulletin on "Organized Health Work" issued by the United States Bureau of Education...
...After this prince of Buccaneers had blown up the fortifications, captured and burned and plundered Porto Bello, he sent word to the Governor of Panama that he might look for like entertainment soon...
...The casual observer is surprised to find so little that is strange in the animal life and vegetation of the Isthmus.' Except for the palms and bananas, the side hills, as viewed from our swift moving launch, looked much like wooded hills elsewhere...
...Fortunately at the hotel we met Mrs...
...Breakwaters and fortifications are in course of construction...
...A nurse's room completely equipped is coming to be regarded as one of the essentials in every school building of eight or more rooms...
...THE TEACHING of home economics is now required by law in the elementary schools of Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Washington...
...The city of Balboa is being laid out next to the city of Panama with this object in view...
...We were disappointed to learn that he had left on a boat that sailed just as we landed...
...Bowles' card was brought to us...
...But they succeeded in reaching the town where the Governor had arranged to have two thousand wild bulls driven against the invaders...
...It is intended to pay these maimed employees for their work...
...The Army at all times and in all places lives on the community plan...
...This town which Mrs...
...The canal runs through the range of hills that are the basin of the Chagres River and its tributaries...
...Most of the wooden buildings, although very substantial in appearance, are capable of being taken down and moved and that is being done, where the materials are worth moving...
...For the operation of great locks there must be a constant and practically unlimited supply of water...
...Department stores and factories also find it good business to employ nurses to look after the health of their employees and to teach them personal hygiene...
...Evans says, seen from the bay, is the most picturesque of any city she has ever seen, except Venice, is the capital of the Republic of Panama...
...Gold-mark, who had remained to make final prepara-tions for permanent departure, and her friend, Mrs...
...Osier does not overstate the case when he says, that the visiting nurse is 'a ministering angel everywhere.' "That the visiting nurse is a good economic investment is evidenced by the fact that some of the large insurance companies find it to their advantage to employ a number of them to visit, the homes of policy-holders and give instruction, in matters pertaining to hygiene...
...work to be done before it is completed...
...Much of it was utilized in harbor improvements and the building of fortifications...
...As we were changing cars we were delighted to run across a copy of La Follette's at a railway station news stand...
...From the lake they are again lowered by three locks to the sea level, and they proceed at full speed for eight miles to the Pacific...
...ONE is rather surprised to learn that most of the devices used, although enlarged, improved and adapted, were already well understood before the Canal was constructed...
...The nurse effects what no other agency could accomplish...
...He is a man with large commanding figure, square head, square brow, square jaw, blonde hair, gray blue eyes that light up pleasantly when he laughs...
...There is still...
...With their rich soil, sunshine and rain, they may outstrip the Temperate Zone in supplying the world with food...
...Evans and I called upon Colonel Goethals to pay our respects...
...He is apparently intensely interested in his theme, and possessing fine powers of exposition, he describes in natural voice and manner with careful accuracy, the great enterprise...
...Colonel Goethals told us that a farm was being' set aside for those crippled in the building of the Canal...
...You find no sympathetic response from the management itself...
...This impression was renewed and emphasized when I discovered that the United Fruit Company ship on "which we sailed could carry two hundred box car loads of bananas...
...Well, there are pirates and pirates, and do we not, even in our times, honor those who thrive because they have the power...
...When we were at Costa Rica we met travelers from Chili, Peru, Argentine, England, Scotland, who discussed the influence of the canal on the world's development...
...The plan of our government seems to be to concentrate all the administration forces on the Pacific side of the Canal...
...The slides and dams and spillways and diversion channels all offer opportunity for wonderment such as we have not experienced since the days when we believed in giants and seven league boots...
...He outlined a program for seeing the Canal and has been a helpful adviser and inf ormant throughout...
...I have always had visions of the Canal bringing together in close relationship our Atlantic and Pacific coasts, whose mutual needs are now so inadequately and expensively met by railroad transportation...
...She notes temperatures, ventilation, seating, cleanliness of room, toilets, blackboards, and the clothes of children...
...Eight hundred thousand pounds of dynamite were used monthly...
...We had no more than registered at the Washington Hotel when Mr...
...The Spanish governor appears to have been not quite the easy prey Morgan took him for...
...Then they are raised through a flight of three locks 85 feet to the level of the lake, all of which, except the nine miles through the cut, they can traverse at full speed...
...Imagine my surprise to find that like all really great things in art or industry, the Canal is very simple...
...But Mr...
...They left it in ruins...
Vol. 6 • June 1914 • No. 23
