Panama Canal Quotes

“Going forward, Panama should expand on the canal business in new ways. That means not only widening the physical canal, but investing more broadly in global logistics and supply chains. So Panamanian leadership should ask, how can we extract more value from the canal by adding more value to it. Or how can we create or plug into new platforms which facilitate global trade.

As a citizen of Panama, I'd like to see this happen.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“In this modern era, Panama should be considering new ways to invest in and profit from global commerce, logistics and supply chains. It's not just about widening the canal, but widening the ways in which the nation can add value to and extract value from the movement of products and services globally.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“But such is the nature of man that as soon as you begin to force him to do a thing, from that moment he begins to seek ways by which he can avoid doing the thing you are trying to force upon him. A man with malaria parasites in his blood is a danger to his companions. To kill all the parasites, he was then required to continue doses of quinine a week or ten days after his fever. When the convalescing men were given their daily dose of quinine they would manage to throw their tablets out of the dispensary window. The old turkey-gobbler pet of the hospital gobbled up all the tablets he could find. He became so dissipated he finally developed a species of blindness caused by too much quinine. I cannot vouch for this, but I was often twitted with this story as an illustration of how the men were treating prophylactic quinine.”
― William Crawford Gorgas, Sanitation in Panama

“The distinctive crimes of this generation are crimes of subtlety and finesse.
—ALEXANDER S. BACON 1908”
― J.M. Carlisle

“Sadly it seems the North Americans do not understand that. To them, we know nothing and have nothing--nothing worth knowing or having, as far as they are concerned. I have heard them say that the work they are planning will bring things like progress and civilization and modernity to this place--I am sure you have heard those words as well--as if the tools we have already created, the buildings we have already constructed, the land we have already cultivated, the society we have already organized is not, somehow progress or civilization or modernity, but outside of those things. As if we are nothing more than primitive people with a few primitive huts that can be so easily moved.”
― Cristina Henríquez, The Great Divide

“I am sorry for you tonight, Mr. President. You are facing one of the greatest decisions of your career. Upon what you decide depends on whether or not you are going to get your canal. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Dr. Gorgas and his ideas, and you let him make his campaign against mosquitoes, then you get your canal. I can only give you my advice; you must decide for yourself. There is only one way of controlling yellow fever and malaria, and that is the eradication of the mosquitoes. But it is your canal; you must do the choosing and you must choose tonight whether you are going to build that canal.”
― Thomas W. Martin, Doctor William Crawford Gorgas Of Alabama And The Panama Canal

“only 10 million of the required 250 million cubic meters of earth had yet been removed. The undertaking is a vast one, far exceeding that of the Suez canal, and every one there believed it would not be finished for many years”
― Helen Josephine Sanborn, A Winter in Central America and Mexico.

“The Panama Canal Zone was the only Latin American territory not acquired as a result of the war with Spain; however it was governed as if it had been. As president, Theodore Roosevelt understood the importance of a canal connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It would allow the United States to move its fleet from one coast to the other in a relatively short time, which had been a major problem during the war with Spain. To facilitate this he received authorization from Congress to purchase the assets of the failed French attempt to build a canal. The primary obstacle was in acquiring the necessary land to build a canal across the Isthmus of the Americas, which prior to 1903 was part of Colombia. When the United States showed an interest in building the canal, the Colombian government immediately demanded a larger percentage of the tolls than had been previously agreed upon with the French. Negotiations dragged on through 1902 and into 1903. Early in 1903, the United States signed a treaty with the Colombian government, giving the United States a strip of land 6 miles wide, from the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean. On August 12, 1903, the irate Colombian Senate unanimously voted down the agreement and refused to give the United States the land. Panamanian insurgents with the backing of the United States perpetrated a revolt against the Colombian government, causing Colombia to lose the coveted parcel of land north of its present border. The fledgling nation of Panama was protected from Colombia by a dense jungle and the might of the United States.
On November 3, 1903, after 57 years of policing Bogotá's interests, the United States, looking out for its own best interests, sided with Panama against Colombia. A treaty was quickly drafted between the two new allies, giving Panama $10,000,000 of investment money, plus $250,000 per year in perpetuity. It also allowed the United States to purchase the remaining French assets that had been left behind. On November 18th, with the signing of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, the Panama Canal Zone was formed.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, The Exciting Story of Cuba

“Although Balboa is in the American-controlled zone, it’s a suburb of Panama City, which ranks along with New York as one of the world’s most dangerous places. Be that as it may, the girls bully their parents into letting them go out for the evening if Jerry and I take responsibility—a commitment I have doubts about.”
― Michael Chapman Pincher, Long Lost Love: Diary of a Rambling Romeo: Outclassing the Men: Fearless females take the lead on this Epic Voyage

“West 13th Street! No Panamanian would have given this street that name. It was so... bland. Scrubbed spotlessly clean. Disconnected entirely from the history of what this area for so long had been, which, yes, yes, was poor and smelled to high heaven, but that is what it was. That was the truth.”
― Cristina Henríquez, The Great Divide