"
"It's the first important thing I ever did."
"Our little nine-mile trip will cost Uncle Sam more than a brace
of tickets from New York to 'Frisco and back again, including
Pullmans and travelling expenses."
Mile after mile the sight-seers rolled on, past scenes of never-
varying activity--past more shovels, more groups of drills, more
dirt trains, more regiments of men--Runnels explaining. Kirk
marvelling until he was forced to exclaim:
"I had no idea it was so big. It doesn't seem as if they'd ever
finish it."
"Oh, we'll finish it if we're let alone. Every year, you know, we
receive a batch of senators and congressmen who come down to
'inspect' and 'report.' Sometimes they spend as much as a week on
the job, and frequently learn to distinguish which is the Gatun
dam and which the Culebra cut, but not always. Some of them don't
know yet. Nevertheless, they return to Washington and tell us how
to proceed. Having discovered that the Panama climate is good and
the wages high, they send down all their relatives. It's too bad
Colonel Gorgas did away with the yellow fever.
"You see there is too much politics in it; we never know how long
our jobs will last. If some senator whose vote is needed on an
administration matter wanted my position for his wife's brother,
he could get it.
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