The Day's Dumpster Fire
In this podcast, Kara and Ed regale history's greatest mess ups. They do not celebrate humanity's successes but its most fantastic failures! This show is not dedicated to those who have accomplished incredible things, but to those who have accomplished incredible things and how they royally screwed things up in the process.
You might ask why they are doing this podcast: it's because you've botched up the best laid plans and you know what? THAT'S OKAY!
Let this show help you navigate the mishaps that you have come across where there is no clear answer available.
So sit back, relax, and listen about people who messed up way more than what you could of possibly imagine.
The Day's Dumpster Fire
The Panama Canal Fire - Episode 51
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Have you ever been lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to take on a project from a coworker or fellow student who single handedly ran the entire thing into the ground? Did this person do such a terrible job that it cost them their job? Moreover, when you started to clean up the project from this person you quickly asked yourself, "what in the actual @#^! happened here?”
If this has ever happened to you, then you would have a pretty good understanding of what the American engineers experienced when they took over the Panama Canal project from France in 1904 after they had run the whole operation asunder.
Admittedly, the French really did give it their best effort, but they were not prepared for the difficult working conditions in Panama in the 1890s and they were lacking much of the technology that America had at its disposal in 15 years.
In this episode of The Day's Dumpster Fire, Ed and Kara take a stab at the Panama Canal and the 400 hundred year relationship Europe had with the region which was rocky to say the least. The concept was simple: the isthmus of Panama is only 50 miles wide. On the east side is the Atlantic Ocean, on the west side is the Pacific Ocean. If we can get goods and eventually ships through this little swath of land, then we can save THOUSANDS of miles and avoid sailing around South America.
However, this little strip of land proved to be vexing and it all came to a head when France vowed to complete the project, especially after completing the Suez Canal just prior, and after 22,000 lives and millions of dollars lost to... well who knows, France eventually had to throw in the towel and let America try and finish it off.
Take a listen and relish the fact that you never had to finish a project of this magnitude from a coworker! More importantly, learn from the mistakes the French made and learn how good old fashioned American ingenuity stepped up and completed one of the greatest engineering feats in human history.
For more details, check out The Day's Dumpster Fire website as well as take a look at Kara's stellar artwork. You'll also get to see the full catalog of over 50 dumpster fires this little podcast has investigated over the years.
If life has you down, or you've just recently really botched up something you planned to be 100% fool proof, then take a listen and relish in the fact that you're the subject matter of one of these episodes. And if you ARE a good candidate to be the subject matter of this podcast then shoot us an email at thedaysdumpsterfire@gmail.com Kara and Ed would love to hear from you.
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Hey everybody, this is Ed.
SPEAKER_02:And this is Kara.
SPEAKER_05:And this is your day's dumpster fire.
SPEAKER_02:Where we don't celebrate humanity's successes, but its most fantastic failures. There's no delay there.
SPEAKER_05:No, that one fired right up. I don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_02:That's weird.
SPEAKER_05:There we go. For some odd reason it didn't stop it, like just restarted. But whatever. I'll it's fine. I think I've come to the conclusion that our little intro music has it has a it's like the the third host. It just does it just does whatever it wants to do.
SPEAKER_02:It does. That's true. It has a life of its own. I apologize in advanced if you hear the bird in the background. He's upset because he's used to our weekend routine of uh me being in the living room with him and my husband and all four dogs at 8 p.m. But it's fine.
SPEAKER_05:He's still going off at 8 o'clock.
SPEAKER_02:He's going be oh wow. Every great once in a while.
SPEAKER_05:Wow, that's kind of late. Usually birds like from like 5 to 7, they go crazy, and then after that they kind of calm down.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's just because I'm not in there. Because he doesn't do that if I'm in the room.
SPEAKER_05:Got it.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:So well, and I gotta apologize in advance too, because I decided to catch a uh a head cold on Friday. Yep. So so yeah. That's fine. Yeah, I I'm I'm probably gonna sound like uh I've been chain smoking for like 45 years, but honestly, to me you sound the same, but I can't say that for everybody else. Really? Wow.
SPEAKER_02:For me, yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_05:I know I feel like I I'm all like raspy and rattly and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02:So no, I can't tell much.
SPEAKER_05:Maybe I maybe this will be my more my distinguished voice.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, there you go. Perfect. Yeah, gentlemanly.
SPEAKER_05:So yeah. When you uh you hear me hacking and coughing in the background violently, that that's why. So but yeah, no, we got a I think we got a a uh pretty good episode here. It's something I've been dabbling in for quite some time, and this is one of these things that has always kind of hit home to me because my grandfather had a lot to do with this uh this whole incident when he was in World War II. And long story short, we're diving into, for the lack of better words, we're diving into the Panama Canal, and it is considered one of the largest engineering feats of all of humanity. Like it's up there with like the pyramids and the great wall and and all that kind of stuff. But the process of making this thing, it's like um, well, let me ask you this question: have you ever had to pick up a problem from somebody else that they've absolutely failed miserably on?
SPEAKER_02:Um and then you have to like piece it all together and fix it every weekend between the years 2020 and 2021.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, yes. Working in trucking, that's probably uh when you worked all the weekends, that yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That was my job, and I was good at it.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Well, and that was kind of like the impetus for the show was uh like you and I would work together on Fridays to get everything mapped out beautifully for the weekend, and then you would log on on Saturday, and everything like all these loads got uncovered, all these drivers are stuck, and you know, these drivers are refusing everything, even though we are like you know, horribly overbooked. Like, cool. Yeah, great.
SPEAKER_02:It's fine, every day was different.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah, yeah. And then like Monday I would come in, and then you and I would have to like try to set the week up, and or better yet, when you pick up an account from somebody else who just railroaded the whole thing into the ground, and then it's your job to put it back together again.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I was thinking about.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I there's quite a few account managers that I had to pick up the pieces from and put back together, and that's it's that's realistically kind of like how the the whole Panama Canal got built because it took France trying to build it, and it was a horrific mess. And then America bought it for an exorbit amount of money, and then they spent an exorbitant amount of money fixing it up, and then they spent an exorbit amount of money to like finish building it. So the uh the Panama Canal is uh it's it's a pretty interesting little uh uh I don't know, um piece of machinery.
SPEAKER_02:Machine engineering, maybe?
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah, it it's really really tough to describe because it's like 50 miles long, and like you enter it from the Atlantic side via the north side, and then it spits you out on the Pacific side, on like the southeast side, and there is like the world's largest man-made lake in the middle of it, and yeah, it's it's it's pretty crazy. So let's kind of go over some some background here for you. Uh, the Panama Canals is an insanely intricate and complex structure, both man-made and nature-made. Uh, and the idea is to make it a lot easier to get to the Atlantic Ocean, get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in like less than a day. Like a ship can get through there in, I think it's like eight to ten hours or something like that. Uh, even with the incredible power of today's uh like ocean-going freight liners, going around South America is not only still pretty dangerous, but it eats up a lot of fuel and time. And the canal, the Panama Canal, fixes all that by literally cutting out all of South America. So when the canal first opened in 1914, it was the only uh it was only transporting about 800 ships a year, so that's about like two, maybe three a day. In 2022, it exceeded over 14,000 ships a year. Dang. Which is like, if I did my math correctly, a lot of ships per day.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. I I I have to concur on that assumption.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, I guess I could just fire up the old calculator and and and math it out, yeah. Yeah, we can we got this. Yeah, we can math it out divided by 365, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:We'll just go by your wow.
SPEAKER_05:38 ships a day.
SPEAKER_03:Dang.
SPEAKER_05:That's that's incredible because like if you factor in like eight hours to get through the whole thing, because you got to go through the first lock, which it's a series of steps that raises you up like 85 feet, it gets you into that lake, and then you basically sail across that lake, and then you get to the other set of locks, which then lowers you 85 feet and spits you out in the Pacific Ocean. So, like that lake has probably got like all sorts of ships just floating around in there waiting, waiting to get out. Probably.
SPEAKER_02:I just picture a big line of ships.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah, I kind of want to like Google map it one of these days and see if there's like a like satellite view it and see like I because I remember doing this during COVID where all those ships got stuck out outside LA.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, I remember.
SPEAKER_05:And I there was a time where I could look up in um the uh Google satellite view, you could still see like a whole bunch of ships just sitting up there because the satellites got it, and it was sitting like that for like a year. Uh not the ships, but the pictures. So I bet you anything, if you go putzing around on there on Google Maps, you could probably see a lot of little dots just chilling out in that man-made lake.
SPEAKER_02:I'm doing it right now. Yeah, just because I'm curious.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's a big lake. It's uh at the time when it was made, it was the biggest lake, man-made lake in the world.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, you see little ships going back and forth. Really?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Just bobbing around out there.
SPEAKER_02:Um they I think they have a direction, it looks like at least. I don't I can't obviously I can't tell if they're moving or not. But you can see uh little ships.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, they're just in all in a row.
SPEAKER_02:Ooh, monkey sightseeing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Tourist attraction.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, that's a good time. Monkeys are a big thing there when my grandfather was there during World War II, because he he was assigned to uh protect it as well as train pilots. Okay. Um one of the trainings he had to do, which he absolutely hated, was he you basically took your gun and you went out in the jungle and you had target practice on monkeys.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's obscene.
SPEAKER_05:And yeah, like you just run around out there just trying to shoot as many monkeys as possible.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that just like destroyed my entire fun of the monkey sightseeing.
SPEAKER_05:Well, not to mention too, the monkeys, they like steal your food, they'll steal your bags, they'll I never said they were nice.
SPEAKER_02:They're cute though.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, no, they could they could be cute, but thankfully my grandfather was an absolute horrible shot. And uh like he had to qualify with the pistol, and all he had was a revolver, and he missed every single target. Like the safest place to be when my grandfather was shooting a gun was right in front of that barrel. He was like a stormtrooper.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he was literally a Star Wars stormtrooper. Now, P38. Well, yeah, and but but then again, though, like you put him in a P38 and he was perfectly accurate, but you really can't shoot monkeys from a P38. But um, anyways, yeah, monkeys are cute. Um, so if you want to uh if you if you wanna have one of your ships pass through the canal, and I thought this was interesting just because you know, working in trucking, I've always been fascinated with like the rates, like how much does it cost to get something from point A to point B. And you know, to get a load from say like LA to like Virginia, it can be like$10,000. If you want one of your ships to pass through the canal, the toll charges uh just for that one day is sixty thousand dollars to over three hundred thousand dollars, depending on the size of the ship, its cargo, and probably a bunch of other factors.
SPEAKER_02:Sweet.
SPEAKER_05:So I don't know what your boat is carrying. Better be worth it, but it had better be worth yeah, it better be worth the three hundred thousand dollars. Uh but then again, though, I can't imagine how much it would cost to go around South America. I feel like this the transit alone, the payroll, the fuel, like now.
SPEAKER_02:I want to know what the comparison is. Okay, you want to look that up while I uh I was just gonna look it up later, but okay. Yeah, oh okay.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, yeah, we can put it in the show notes. So the International Committee of Engineers, so in other words, a bunch of single dudes with pocket protectors and really thick prescription glasses perfect, have deemed the Panama Canal one of the greatest engineering feats of all time.
SPEAKER_02:How about the Hoover Dam? Which one's better?
SPEAKER_05:I'm I'm gonna say the Panama Canal.
SPEAKER_02:Really?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, just because what once I kind of go into like the scope of what needed to be done.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, I'll wait. I'll wait for the deets. I was just curious.
SPEAKER_05:It's uh yeah, it it is one of the most complicated things ever built. Now, if it was just the one set of locks, like if it was just the one that got you up and over and that was it, I would say Hoover Dam. But seeing how there was multiple locks, not to mention all the work that had to go into making that man-made lake and all the engineering that had to go into like making the pumps and and all that stuff, as well as staging like a military coup just to get the land to do it with, like, yeah, we didn't have those issues when building that dam. Now, the dam that thing was impressive just because it's just a giant wall of concrete.
SPEAKER_02:It really is. It is that's an that's also an episode we can talk about on its own.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, especially if you're one of the guys that fell into the concrete, that's a bad way to go. I agree.
SPEAKER_02:I also see the year 1513 here, and it makes me really excited, so I'm gonna let you keep going.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah, because this kind of ties into Willem Barents.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So remember back in episode 47, uh, Willem Barents versus the uh polar bears episode?
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Well, at the same time that Barents was floating around, uh, we have we have some other people, especially the Spanish. The Spanish were more focused on going out west and hitting South America and America and whatnot, whereas Barents was trying to find a shortcut through the North Pole. And this is where we get Vasco, Vasco Nunez del Balboa.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:That is my beautiful Spanish right there.
SPEAKER_02:That is Vasco Nunez de Balboa.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Which what does Balboa even mean?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think it's a location. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05:So I know there's uh Elvar Nunez Cabeza de Baca, which is the head of the bowl.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's different about that guy.
SPEAKER_05:Now that dude had a story. Yeah, Cabeza de Baca, that that guy getting stuck in America for like 15 years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's uh it's an area in Spain.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Meaning that's probably because he was wealthy, family wealthy, that's probably where their land was was in Balboa.
SPEAKER_02:It basically basically translates to um like his name, Vasco Nunez of Balboa. So he's from Balboa.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's kind of like the Earl of Rochester. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So And um fun fact, Balboa Park, where all of the uh museums in San Diego probably named after him or somebody close to him. My best guess.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, there's actually a lot of locations in California that are really tied to like the Spanish and Spanish. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You got the missions and all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. You don't see too many people from like Ireland. You don't see too many Irish explorers hitting up that area.
SPEAKER_02:You don't see too many Irish explorers, period, until later.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And those explorers are called immigrants, and they were landing in New York.
SPEAKER_02:Facts.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That'll be good.
SPEAKER_05:We're gonna win so many awards for the sound like the audio quality of this episode.
SPEAKER_02:I trust you're gonna edit that.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I may just boost it.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, good.
SPEAKER_05:We'll make it like ASMR, just cracking and coughing. Um, so, anyways, yeah. So where Barents went north, Baboa went west and explored the areas of like present-day Panama, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and of course, like any good, respectable conquistador, they went out in search of gold, glory, and most importantly, to spread the love of God and Jesus mainly at gunpoint. Like those conquistadors, they're like, Hey, have you do you have Jesus in your life? And the Native Americans are like, What's a Jesus? And then you have a rifle pointed at your head, suddenly you find Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:The 1500s of it all.
SPEAKER_05:So yeah, it's uh the the the conquistadors is a very fascinating um time period in history because if if you ever want to meet a group of people that met another group of people that were so opposite of each other, the conquistadors meeting like the Central American tribes is iconic for that. And it's not like up in what's up?
SPEAKER_02:No, go ahead.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I was gonna say is unlike the where you know, like the pilgrims landing up in Massachusetts and whatnot, like they actually their first interactions with the Native Americans were actually very positive.
SPEAKER_02:I I touched on it when we were talking about Roanoke. Yes, there is that whole thing where um the English knew that the Spanish were very violent and um aggressive with the native population. So they purposely went in there with that understanding of okay, we're going to be positive, we're going to may have good relations with the natives, and we're gonna try to do what we can to have good relationships with them so they can help us.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Whereas the conquistadors, well, I mean, conquistadors are conquerors. That's that's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_02:That's literally the name, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so they lived up to the name. They did. Um in September of 1513, Balboa led an expedition of 190 conquistadors and various locals to find the west side of the isthmus of Panama. And it's so weird because they knew there was a Pacific Ocean, they just didn't know where it was. Makes sense. And it's just it's just so weird to understand that there was a time in human history where people didn't know where the ocean was.
SPEAKER_02:Like in terms of Europeans didn't know where the ocean was.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yes, that that's true. That is true. Whereas I'm sure the locals there were like, because it's only a 50-mile-wide thing, so it's like a two-minute walk.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're like, just go that way.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:If they didn't try to, you know, aggressively murder them.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Um, unless they found Jesus, then they were fine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_05:Well, then they were just turned into slaves. But, anyways, um we don't need to cloud the issue here. So uh so yeah, uh Balboa and these 190 conquistadors and these locals who were probably carrying everything, they were sent out to find the west side of the Isthmus of Panama. And in October of the same year, he climbed a mountain and essentially saw the Pacific Ocean from on top of this mountain. And basically he's like, Okay, so if I look out west is the Pacific Ocean, and if I look out east is the Atlantic Ocean, and he could see both oceans, and he's like, Okay, we may be on to something here, because there was also people that were currently trying to go around South America, and he knew that this was a very treacherous uh way to get around South America, so he kind of had this idea in his head, and he's like, it shouldn't be that hard to build a path through the jungle. Like, he's like, it's only 50 miles, like we have roads all over Europe. This shouldn't be this difficult. Um, and he was actually kind of thought about like, couldn't we just dig a canal and just go from you know the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa. Like how hard could it be?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's a good thought.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, no, I g I give him a an A for uh imagination. Um just yeah an F on everything else.
SPEAKER_02:So just remember 1500s.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah yeah the 1500s of it all um he reported his findings to the Spanish king uh Ferdinand II and he was promoted as governor of Panama where Balboa had to serve under another governor named Padres or Pedro Arias Davila. That's pretty good Davila Davila yep my my French is way better than my Spanish uh that's okay my Spanish is better than my French yeah well yeah it helps when your husband is Mexican like it's true this Davila guy he was old cranky and really didn't like Balboa because Balboa was kind of like younger cocky you know all that other fun stuff so these two kind of went back and forth for a while they they had like a professional working relationship but behind the scenes they hated each other in 1517 Balboa commissioned a number of specialty craft or specially crafted ships that could be broken down to pieces and then carried so these were sailing ships like IKEA sailing ships that you sorry keep going yeah so so you took apart these giant sailing ships and then you would carry them the 50 odd miles through the jungles, rivers, lakes, mountains and diseases and pop up on the other side and then you would reassemble the ships and then just keep going.
SPEAKER_02:A for effort Vikings did it better that's all I'm gonna say. Really they they they had collapsible ships uh they weren't really collapsible but they were light enough to carry they purposely made their ships small and light enough to carry um so they were um they were small to go through rivers sturdy enough to go through oceans and light enough to carry through land.
SPEAKER_05:Oh okay Vikings are awesome yeah they they don't get enough credit I agree they they they're they they get viewed as these savage killing warriors and and they were but they were also like they were also like impressive people yeah yeah it it it vikings are one of those things where either you look on them from far or you're a part of them but if you're in their way you've got a problem. You gotta pay that Dane guild man pay the dangel don't don't fight yeah yeah just give them whatever they want and then hope hope to god they don't come back because if they do they're gonna want more so so yeah well I mean when you when you break down these ships and walk them across these jungles and mountains and stuff like it what what could possibly go wrong right I yeah just one of those giant ships.
SPEAKER_02:It's fine.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah yeah no it's it's fine. As long as you have enough people or enough slaves you can do anything I suppose that's kind of how they make the conquistador mindset worked this is yeah that's that's fair I guess. Yeah you can do anything with enough bodies thrown at it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah good point.
SPEAKER_05:So it was at this time that Paboa kind of suggested of digging a canal through the isthmus but there was no way the technology of the time was going to allow that because one thing to bear in mind about this whole isthmus is like there's a freaking mountain range that goes through the middle of it. Like it's not like yeah it's not like the grassy plains of like North Dakota or South Dakota where it's just like perfectly flat. No it is there is a rocky mountain range that goes through the middle of it and uh yeah you without the help of explosives yeah it's not gonna work. So and there it sat like it sat there for hundreds of years and there was no way a canal was going to get built on it. But that doesn't mean though that smart people like let it go. So what they did is uh for hundreds of years they set up this this uh rig where or not I would say rig but like this system where a ship could arrive at the at the that panama isthmus they could have their cargo unloaded and then that cargo could be hiked the 50 miles to the Pacific Ocean where then they could reload another ship and then have that ship continue on. So basically they were transloading. Yeah it works yeah so like if if you were a sailing ship and you don't want to go all the way around South America what you would do is like you would budget enough money to like pay these these packers or these wreckers to like unload your ship and then bring it across and then pay that other ship to go the rest of the way conversely when you have goods coming out of China they could go up to that isthmus of Panama on the Pacific side unload their ship and then hike that across and then they could load your ship up and then you could take it back to Europe.
SPEAKER_02:Got it.
SPEAKER_05:So yeah like you would go there knowing that okay I'm gonna unload all my stuff and then I'm gonna take somebody else's stuff and take that back to Europe. It's actually pretty pretty capitalistic it is pretty impressive and that's how it worked for hundreds of years. This was way better than sailing down through the Straits of Magellan which to put it in perspective the transit from New York to San Francisco is about 13000 miles to go all the way around South America. However, so that like 13000 miles that's like half the distance of Earth if I remember correctly or half the diameter of Earth or something like that. That's a long ways and that's months. If you go through the Panama Canal or the Panama Isthmus the transit is about 5,200 miles which saves about 7800 miles. So it's definitely worth going around there. Makes sense especially if you're Teddy Roosevelt years later and you need to get a navy from one ocean to the next right uh but we'll get there. Um eventually systems were built in the 1800s where steam power could be used to move things along quicker and cheaper uh but it wasn't until the 1880s that everything changed. So basically instead of having people hike the isthmus they would have trains that would bounce back and forth which was probably way more efficacious than having uh people in donkeys move everything over. Because yes you could only imagine how much stuff got stolen in the process.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah that's true.
SPEAKER_05:Like yeah I could only imagine like they would probably lost 20% of their goods as they moved it across enter Ferdinand de Lesseps who privately own the Compagnie Universelle du canal interoceanique in other words they basically built canals all over the world yep universal company of international canals essentially yeah yeah international ocean canals yeah yeah yeah inter yeah interoceanique is that that's a hard one to pronounce that's a fun one any French word or three syllables it's like the super hard to get those syllables in but yeah uh this this LaSubsky he felt his company would be the one that could design and construct an ocean level canal. Now I'll explain that here in a bit ocean level canal is next level difficulty and you're probably wondering like what the heck's ocean level what what does that have to do with any other any other thing? Aren't all canals supposed to be ocean level well I'll explain that here in in a little bit but he figured that okay I have a company big enough I have the engineers I have the technology I have the manpower I can make this work and he was already kind of famous because he was the guy in the company that constructed the Suez Canal which okay that's kind of a big deal like the Suez Canal is not some you know rinky dink little project. So he was able to get a lot of investors and donations due to his success and for the most part his engineering prowess wasn't that bad. When we look at the French uh perspective of this like it's not that bad like it's not like the engineering was ridiculous. Uh it was just the execution of it all which is a really a theme of this show it's like the plans are okay just the execution doesn't yeah pan out. Yeah and um so yeah one such investor you probably know him his name is Gustav Eiffel I know that guy uh this oh yeah yeah he's the guy who built the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty so Eiffel was rolling in money especially in government funds and this would bite him in the butt down the road like this kind of cost him everything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah which is unfortunate because this is the guy who's like capitalizing on world's fairs he's making lots of money traveling the world um he's pretty much very famous in terms of um you know late teen late 1800 yeah well and he's he was a um aristocracy well he he was a brilliant structural engineer yeah like that was his trade he he knew how to scaffold things he knew how to frame things he understood the math that goes into making a scaffold which you're like it's just a bunch of pipes and triangles like what what's the big deal but I don't know if it was like for the show or for class but the I I I remember explaining that the late 1800s is a period where bigger is better for everything. Yes bigger is better at the height of the Industrial Revolution like the higher you can build it the best it can be type of thing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah it especially you look at like Chicago burning down and then it got rebuilt using steel like that that and that was kind of his thing uh he loved steel like yeah you could do anything with steel and um well I mean look at the Eiffel Tower look at look at the uh statue of liberty like if you were to take off all the copper paneling from the Statue of Liberty it looks really weird it does it looks it looks terrifying like yeah it's a skeleton yeah like all the scaffolding and all that kind of stuff so um but yeah it's a shame because like this ended he like he ended up in jail for a while and yeah his career tanked it but yeah we'll get into that a little bit later so in 1881 ground broke on the construction of the French Panama Canal and what will turn out to be one of the most disastrous engineering dumpster fires ever. So you you gotta crack a few eggs before you make an omelet and um America got the omelet and the French got all the eggshells pretty much uh yeah this this it it literally goes bad like the day that they broke ground. Um so like here this is where the dumpster fire kind of sits normally we get to the dumpster fire at the end but here the dumpster fire comes in right at the middle here. So the plan was to construct what would be known as a sea level canal where you use a bunch of machines and you cut a gouge out of the land where you connect both oceans. So the idea is that you start at one beach where it's beaches are sea level right and you basically cut a a canal that is you know like a hundred yards wide or whatever and you cut this straight through the 50 miles keeping this thing at all at all times it has to be at sea level or below and you just basically cut a gigantic channel through this 50 miles so then boats can just go show up and then just go straight through and that's it. Like there's no need for locks there is no need for any sort of technology it's just cut a big giant hole in the ground cool and um they quickly discover that that that it doesn't work like that at least not in the Pacific Ocean. Yeah especially when you're trying to cut your way through a mountain range it's yeah it's just mountain ranges man there's something about millions year old dense rock that this that shovels don't get along with you know it's true oh yeah so tuberculosis uh yeah yeah let's talk about Ed Gray Allen Poe's wife here um so basically that that was the original plan and there's actually there's not a whole lot wrong with it because that's kind of like uh that's kind of what he figured worked because that's kind of what works with the Suez Canal. Yeah I mean I get that you you're using past experience to try it again yeah whatever whatever worked there should work here but here here's the issue and I and I don't I don't know how well you know your geography but Panama is not the same as Egypt. Right I mean I got that but I'm also in 2025 and not in 1880 yeah so so in fact I don't think either locations could be any more different from they're very very opposite yes so Egypt is a very dry level sandy landmass the ground isn't that hard uh Panama on the other hand experiences regular deluges of rain to the point where the high amounts of rain is the thing that makes the canals work in a strange way later on like engineers were like wait we can use this rain to our advantage because of this the Panama's uh ground is very muddy it's wet it's rocky there is a continental divide that runs through that isthmus so that thing is not that thing is not messing around whereas like you could stand in the Suez Canal area and it's like straight like flat sand either way yes we got that going against them and because of this ground is incredibly unstable and the weather conditions are extremely tough on machines like the steam driven mechanical diggers steam shovels steam powered cranes and steam powered hydraulic rock crushers you'll notice that steam is a is a big thing here um including cement mixers and dredges etc when you have that much moisture in the air and then you mix it with all the steam like machines running off of coal it it it's like it's like trying to fire a matchlock gun in the midterm middle of a monsoon storm or just yes or just trying to light a match in the rain. Yeah or light a campfire in the rain yeah like so they ran into problems left and right with these steam powered machines just just tanking out left and right and eventually when the Americans bought bought out the project they spent millions and millions of dollars throwing away the French equipment because it was in such bad a shape and it just was so ineffective. Basically and and I don't blame the French for this I don't blame Lessette's company like that's in the 1880s that's all the technology that they had yeah they didn't they didn't really have an they didn't have an internal combustion engine yet. Nope and all things considered these steam powered machines very powerful steam back then was yeah today we look at it as horrifically inefficient but it is also incredibly powerful stuff and we were at the 1880s and 1890s we're looking at kind of like the pinnacle of steam power technology like well I mean hence the term steampunk imagine if we still had steam power technology to this day. Yeah I mean it is that powerful so I don't blame them for that the issue was is that they just did not set it up right they did not reinforce the machines they did not have a stable coal delivery system they just figured hey we'll get the machines in there and they'll do the work and we'll be done in no time and that'll be it. Yeah like no it doesn't it doesn't quite work like that. So Egypt is also very hot but it's also that famous dry heat that us Arizonians hear all the time. I use that too though yeah and you you and I didn't really fully appreciate that until we went to that week in Austin. Oh I lived in Chicago for a little bit I've been appreciating that for a long time yeah yeah but I don't does it I I've been in northern Illinois during the summer and I don't recall it ever really getting over a hundred it would get in the 90s. It would get in the 90s with like I was gonna say 80% humidity though so it's like yeah yeah you're just sticky all the time gross yeah I remember going to a wedding in navoo not yeah yeah it was in Nauvoo and it was only like 80 degrees outside so it wasn't that bad but I just remember my shirt just sticking to me like why why is this a thing so I guess there is such a thing as a dry heat. I guess I'm just so used to being like dude when it's 115 degrees outside nothing is dry like you are producing your own humidity when it's that hot outside but I guess the benefit of having that dry heat though is that mosquitoes don't like it. It's true. Diseases don't like it.
SPEAKER_02:Also true can confirm.
SPEAKER_05:Where so yeah like so yeah we're used to the dry heat whereas Panama is very hot but it's also all that wet heat and the humidity could be in the high 90s with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Grossa yeah and there's no escaping it oh no because the French they never built any structures they never like people were just living in tents. Yep so it would rain all night and even at night it would be like 90 degrees but you're soaked to the bone so now you're freezing even in 90 degree weather if you're soaking wet that's cold. Anything below 98 degrees your body's gonna view that as cold and so like yeah these guys were sleeping in tents they were getting rained out all the time and when you're when you're in 100 plus degree heat with 90 degree or 90% uh humidity there's nothing you can do to cool yourself down. Like your sweat is ineffective at that point. So Lessep's men were literally just dropping like flies because there was no real attempt to make long-term living arrangements. When you factor in the tens of thousands of men who um are not climatized to this part of the world, you're asking for a very meager turnout. So they had people just quit. Like they had people just try to walk away from this. You had a lot of Europeans there that were, I mean, let's face it, if you're from Paris and next thing you know, you're in Panama, like that's uh it's a difference that yeah, the the climate is very, very different. So, in other words, when you got out, yeah, when word got out about the living conditions and the photographic journalists started to pop up. So now we are getting into the early days of like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and all this, like you had reporters that are coming out of everywhere and just photographing this whole thing. Um when we you factor in all the photographs and all that kind of stuff, it became uh very problematic in terms of that like everybody was getting word that this was an absolute disaster of a location and nobody wanted to be a part of that. So, yeah, basically, when when word got out that hey, this place sucks, nobody else wanted to sign up for it, uh no matter how much they marketed it. And then there was the mosquitoes. So at the time, at the start of the project, little knowledge was present on how mosquitoes can transmit diseases like yellow fever and malaria. In the nine years that the French spent there trying to make this canal, already 22,000 men had died.
SPEAKER_02:Woo! That's a lot of dudes for this canal.
SPEAKER_05:And don't forget, there was reporters there. In fact, there's a lot of stuff that you can find out there from reporters coming back and saying, like, hey, all of Europe, especially England, France is bitten off more they can chew.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I bet the English love that.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah. Any chance the British got to like throw the French under the bus, even though they were kind of at this time in history, they were on speaking terms. Yeah, they weren't warring all the time like they were 70 years before. So yeah, word got out, and then Lessep's investors were evaporating. They were just dropping out left and right because they just saw that their money was literally going into a big hole in the ground.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, again, I can't really blame them, truly.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I don't I yeah, if I was any sound businessman at that time, you'd be like, okay, I'm out. So, yeah, and this is where like Gustave Eiffel got into hot water. Because of the money and the manpower, as well as failing equipment and the lack of any sort of decent living conditions, hardly any progress was there to report. The French government concluded that massive amounts of money were being mishandled, and therefore Eiffel was put on trial and found uh guilty and sentenced to two years in prison for that mishandling of the money.
SPEAKER_01:Dang.
SPEAKER_05:And and it wasn't just him, there was a lot of people. There were they found like corruption, they found embezzlement, like yeah, because it was such a mess over there, they couldn't figure out where the money was actually going, especially the government money, and uh they had no idea if it was going to fund the coal or was it going to payroll? Was it going in the back of some rich guy's pocket? Like that was a big problem with large construction projects in the 1800s and early 1900s, is that there was hardly any accountability. You wrote a check for$10 million to build something, and you had no idea what it was being used for.
SPEAKER_02:See what bad accounting does. We need accountants in the world.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah. Yes. And um, and I would say even back then, accountants were probably more important than lawyers. Because accountants are the things that prevent lawyers from getting involved. So yeah, it was uh Eiffel kind of got busted, found guilty. I don't know, I can't remember if he was legitimately doing illegitimate things, if that makes sense. Yeah, sure. Um works. Yeah. So I don't know if he really was doing anything bad. I think he do was just a fall guy, and I think the public wanted somebody local, they wanted somebody famous to who had close connections with the government to just take a blame for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But eventually, I don't I he didn't really serve those two years in prison. Um, if I remember correctly, he was later acquitted, and like he was only there for a very short period of time, and then then like further investigation was like, oh no, wait, yeah, he wasn't involved with this, but it was too little too late. He had lost his reputation, and uh he was his career as as a structural engineer was over. He he never really found work after that. In fact, he lived in the Eiffel Tower for quite some time. He had an apartment up there, which I don't know. I don't can you actually go there? I know you could go to the Eiffel Tower and take the elevator up, but I don't know, can you actually see his apartment that was up there?
SPEAKER_02:I don't think it's there anymore, but I can check.
SPEAKER_05:Really? Oh man. Yeah. I think that'd be kind of cool. Like, because it like it was all like windows all the way around. If you think about it, when you're that high up, privacy, yeah, I mean, nobody can see you. So by 1889, LaSette's company was pretty much dead. It like in that eight, nine year time period, uh the company lost everything. So not only was this a dumpster fire, this was a dumpster fire that tried to be put out by throwing money into it.
SPEAKER_02:Those are the best ones.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. Yep. This was this was this wasn't a slow burn. This was a eight, nine-year period of a dumpster fire burning inferno of money kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_02:So um before we go on to part three, apparently the um apartment is still there and it's a museum now, so you can see it.
SPEAKER_05:Really? That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Could you imagine that toilet flushing?
SPEAKER_02:Right. It was abandoned after world or two. Interesting. I'll send you this link. It's cool. Anyway.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry.
SPEAKER_05:I'm just visioning because like the higher up you are, the more effective a toilet flush is.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So I can imagine flushing a toilet up there and having it go down like 300 feet.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:It's a very effective way to get rid of logging that toilet.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You'd really have to try.
SPEAKER_05:Or that, or he just had it like piped out the side of the apartment, and so it just rained down.
SPEAKER_02:Ew.
SPEAKER_05:That would be that would be the European of it all.
SPEAKER_02:That's a good point.
SPEAKER_05:So, all in all, the French spent approximately$287 million on this project. That was back then money. Today, it would be$9.9 billion. So they were burning basically a billion dollars a year.
SPEAKER_02:That's almost as much as uh I don't remember the exact numbers, but it reminds me of how much money was spent on Vietnam before American troops were on the ground.
SPEAKER_05:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Just kept piling and piling up.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's just well, and it's tricky because at what point do you have to say, like, okay, we there's no way we're going to recoup our costs on this? Versus like, okay, it's gonna suck now, but it'll pay off. Just trust me. So yeah, I'm not I'm not sure how you draw that line. Maybe when your company runs out of business and some of your investors are being thrown in jail, that's probably a good time to like definitely a red flag, yeah. Yeah. So part three here, passing a$50 million baton and overthrowing a government. So when the French pulled out of their contribution to the canal, they had only achieved a quarter of what they were hoping to achieve by like the first few years. That's how bad it was. There was simply just too much going wrong at the same time, with little to no oversight as to what to do. The French said, screw it, let's cut our losses, and they bugged out. America, now, our good old our favorite boy here, Teddy Roosevelt, he wanted to take a crack at it. And reason being is that during the Battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was he, you know, he was in charge of his little like battalion of rough riders, and he wanted to what he did, he charged up San Juan Hill and he took this famous point and made him super famous. But he really wanted, because he was a secretary to the Navy or Admiralty at that time, he wanted the American Navy to kind of like help cover their advances up this hill, but they couldn't because the Navy was stuck on the other side of the world, like they were stuck in California, and there was no way they could get those ships around in time in South America. So, like, even though he won that battle, he still wanted that that still sat in the back of his mind. Like, I really don't like this idea of us having to wait weeks to months to get one ship from California to like New York. It it just doesn't sit well. He wanted to take a crack at it. And Roosevelt's strategy to be more of a world influencer, so he loved geopolitical theory. Uh, he wanted America to like start playing a more role in you know world economics and world foreign policy and stuff like that. So uh he's the kind he's the guy that kind of put America on the map. He he got us out of the isolationalist uh attitudes of the 1800s because in the 1800s America was predominantly trading with like like you know, like Britain and Japan and you know, not not too much else. But now Roosevelt was like, no, no, no, no, we're big enough, we've got the money, we've got the resources, we can now be a major global player, and the only way that's really gonna work if we're gonna build a gigantic navy, is to control that, like make this canal work because whoever controls the oceans controls the world. At the time, it was Britain. Roosevelt had a lot going on, like a lot of strategy in terms of what he wanted to do. And when you look at it, it kind of makes sense. If you really want your country to be a major player, you've got to have a functioning navy. In order to have a functioning navy, you've got to be able to get that navy from one part of the world to the other part of the world in a timely manner. Whereas like Britain didn't need it.
SPEAKER_02:They're an island.
SPEAKER_05:Britain was fine. Yeah, Britain had they had multiple fleets all over the world. So like Britain was fine. And it's kind of like American policy today is like America doesn't have to worry about getting a boat from California to New York. Like, there's the Pacific Fleet, there's the Atlantic Fleet, there's the Indian Ocean Fleet, like there's the South Pacific Fleet, like there's all these fleets of seacraft out there that America can call on, and they don't have to like transfer one ship to the other side of the world at all. But back then you needed that canal. So in 1802, Congress passed the Spooner Act, which authorized the purchase of the French assets still remaining on site. This would only work, however, if a worthwhile treaty could be signed with Colombia, because Panama at that time was a part of Colombia, and Colombia wasn't liking America all that much. Um, since Colombia wasn't too keen on the treaty, America said, okay, that's fine. We'll see if Panama wants to be their own country. So America basically started a huge propaganda program. Like, it's so funny how we still do this today. Uh, so America started a huge propaganda program that fostered Panama to break away from Colombia. So they kind of had like their own little revolutionary war and become their own country. From there, America would uh America could basically cut out a piece of that Panama uh canal zone for themselves. So a French engineer, Philippe Jean Bonald Verea, uh worked with America, uh American lawyer William Nelson Cromwell, and worked out in November of 1903 a treaty. So keep in mind that the French equipment still had been sitting there for like six years. So the Hay Bernal Verea treaty was approved by the Panamanians, the French, and the Americans. So basically, America worked it out. So Panama would stand up to Colombia, become their own country, and then because of that, America could come in and be like, hey, Panama, since you're your own country now, can we have this swath of land? You know, just hook us up a little bit. Um, so this treaty had to be worked out, and uh Panama thought they got like they they felt like they really took tops in this. They thought, man, like, oh yeah, we are totally sticking it to the Americans. So America will pay$10 million for a 10-mile wide wide 10-mile-wide strip of land that would be considered the Panama Canal Zone. America would also pay out a$250,000 annuity to Panama each year. America will give$40 million to the French investors who lost their shirts previously to Lisseppe's attempts. So this was like America basically like, okay, France, we'll just buy all your crap. Like, here's$40 million, like, go away. And what's so funny is that America didn't, I don't think America had to borrow any money for this. I think America actually had the money to do this.
SPEAKER_00:Uh at this time, I probably maybe.
SPEAKER_05:Like, we didn't really start accruing a huge debt until like World War II.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So I mean, it's just so weird to think that America had that kind of excess cash line around to be able to do something like this. So whereas like today, like we just have to borrow trillions of dollars every year, it seems like. So oh, and then the other thing too is America would agree to keep supporting Panama's independence, but America would pretty much have 100% control of the canal, which it did. It it stayed under American control all the way up till uh Jimmy Carter. So part four America to the rescue, I guess, maybe. Uh look, I'm not one to blow the America bugle all that much. Like, I'm I mean, I don't know, I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but I'm not a blowhard. I'm not some guy that's gonna, you know, wrap myself up in the Confederate flag and wear a cowboy hat and see me at some weird rally somewhere. I'm not that kind of a guy, but at this time, America was a vastly, vastly different country than it is today. It is, I I mean, I think even America in the 1960s was a vastly different country than what it is today. In this case, though, when it came to the Panama Canal, it was kind of called for. Like, this is where America saw the dumpster fire, and this was at a time in American history where they could be like, uh, America could be very observant and be like, hmm, what's not working here? And they looked at everything that the French had going on, and they're like, oh, oh, well, this is easy. Nothing is working. Got it. Okay. On May 4th, this is before Star Wars, so that this wasn't a national holiday like it is today with May the 4th. May 4th, 1904, the Isthmus Canal Commission, uh, or the Isthmian Canal Commission. I love how everything was a commission back then. So um Isthmian Canal Commission was put together to look into what happened with the French attempt to uh and like the French attempt to build this canal and prevent the same thing from happening again. The commission only reported to the Secretary of War William Howard Taft.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that guy.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He's fun.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, he's he's another one of those interesting characters. Really big bathtub. Huge. Yeah, if I remember correctly, when he became president, they uh had to build a special bathtub for him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, then he died in it.
SPEAKER_05:Did he really?
SPEAKER_02:That's a story. I don't know, it's true.
SPEAKER_05:That would be kind of epic.
SPEAKER_02:Uh let me double check that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, say what you want about Taft, though. I mean, he he was uh from what I understand when talking to a lot of historians, people historians tend to regard him as a way better Supreme Court Chief Justice than a president. Like the guy, the guy had a a knack for constitutional law.
SPEAKER_02:Um okay, it's a myth.
SPEAKER_05:If I remember correctly. It's a myth. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:It's a good myth, though. It's a fun one.
SPEAKER_05:Well, what what is it is? I'm thinking of that dude from Dune, the villain in the first movie, where he just sits in that tub and then he just kind of like floats around. And what was his name?
SPEAKER_02:I don't remember. But I know who you're talking about. Uh I know who you're talking about. I know who you're talking about. I just don't remember what his name was.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, was it Atreides? No, that was a good guy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Huh.
SPEAKER_02:I read the book in everything, I promise. Harkinen.
SPEAKER_05:Harkinen, yeah. Yeah. There you go. I like the actor that played him in the movie. He's such a good good actor. Of course, I can't remember his name. Skarsgarden.
SPEAKER_02:Bill?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, he's good.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So, anyways, um, oh, where was I? So William Taft. Yep. Good old Taft.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. Did not die in the bathtub. Did not die. Mizbuste. There we go. Moving on. So may the 6th be with you. Roosevelt appointed chief engineer John Finley Wallace to head up the project. However, Wallace butted headed but butted headed butted heads with the ICC because he thought they were too bureaucratic, and they never really let Wallace do what he wanted to do. So here's a guy that was like, okay, I'm here to build the canal, and this commission is like, we are going to do everything in our power to stop you. Not because you're doing anything wrong, it's just that we are commissions, and commissions are supposed to stop you. So Will use all the bureaucratic crap known to mankind to slow the process down. So Wallace also had to take stock of how bad in shape the equipment was, like beh left behind by the French, as well as there was hardly any main any men left living in the horrid condition. So even after all this time, there was still people living there under these squalid conditions because they probably had nowhere else to go. And basically, after a year on the job, this Wallace guy just resigned. He's like, it's it's so horrible here. Like the disease is so bad, and the machinery is rusted out. Like this is this is a disaster. Like, there's no way America is gonna do any different than the French. I I would I I I don't blame him. If yeah, if you don't have what it takes to do something like that, go find something else to do because and there is no harm, no foul, man. Like, I don't blame you one bit for looking at that and be like, I'm out. This is this is a wreck. In June of 1905, John Frank Stevens, who was a self-educated engineer and the builder of the Great Northern Railroad, took over. Stevens, like Wallace, thought very little of the ICC and would often just go straight to Washington for whatever he needed. So, like, instead of like going to the commission for supplies or funding or whatever, he would just send a telegram to Washington.
SPEAKER_02:Sounds like something I would do. Just like, like, yeah. This is stupid.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, just let these old farts in this office, just smoking cigars and drinking whiskey, like just whatever. Like, I'm done. So the first thing Stevens did, and and Stevens really had a plan here, he did not look at finishing the canal. That wasn't his first priority. Kind of like Wallace. Wallace was there to be like, oh my god, how are we gonna get this going again? Stevens was like, Okay, let's stop working on the canal because this isn't working. People are dying, and we're making literally no progress. So, what he did was build or rebuild housing. He built hotels, water systems, warehouses, repair shops, eating arrangements. Essentially, in his mind, if America was going to be here for a while working on this project, he needed to make the area livable. He needed he needed to make this like a community, he needed this to run like a city, he needed an economy to like make it worthwhile for people to want to live there and then make it worthwhile for people to set up shop there to make money.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it seems to be something that people do often. They did the same thing when they built the Hoover Dam. They did the same thing when they did the Manhattan Project, so it's a logical thing to do. So good on him.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. Whenever, whenever if you're gonna be there for a while, you might as well make it. Setup shop.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. He set recruitment stations in the uh, or he set up recruitment stations in the Caribbean and asked thousands of workers if they would like to move to Panama permanently and provide decent wages and housing and schools. Um the the decent wages was kind of funny because like if you weren't white, if you were black and from the Caribbean, you were considered a silver worker and you made 90 cents a day. If you were a white American worker, you were considered a gold worker and you made 38 cents an hour.
SPEAKER_02:So I have so many words that I will not say.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah. But I mean, even still, though, that 90 cents a day, though, was for a lot of folks, that was worth it. Still, that is more than what they were making where they were currently at. So um, so yeah, you set up these recruitment locations and with the promise that, hey, you guys move here, we'll pay you, you'll have housing, there'll be schools, there'll be restaurants, there'll be like you could bring your families along. Like it's a a a pretty good idea, I think. He rebuilt all the transportation infrastructure so that all the damage broken down crap from the French left behind could be disposed of and start hauling out all the dirt that was dug up, dug up at by the French, but there was no way to get rid of it. That was the thing. It's like the French would be, they would dig a hole, and all that dirt would go into the hole next to them that some other guy dug up to put that excess dirt in another hole that somebody else dug up.
SPEAKER_02:No wonder we weren't getting very far.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was just like, what is going on here? And you know, those guys literally were making money every day doing all this work and getting nowhere. And the and the idea was that okay, we've the French perspective was like, okay, you dig up this much dirt, the bulldozer next to you will take that dirt, move it to the next guy. That guy will then take it and move it to the next one, and eventually it'll make its way out of the canal zone. Kind of like the whole fire bucket thing where you fill up one bucket of water and then you just hand it to the next guy and the next guy and the next guy and the next guy. That was their strategy. Shockingly, it didn't work.
SPEAKER_02:Not the most efficient uh strategy, but no, you know.
SPEAKER_05:No, no, it was uh it was pretty backwards. Um, so he placed an order for new machinery. So that was the first one of the first things he did is he got rid of all the old broken down crap there. He got rid of everything because it was all rusted out and there was no way to get it working again. Uh he didn't even want this metal for for scrap because it was just like wrought iron. Like, I don't want this, it's just all rusted out. So he placed an order for new machinery from America for um it intended it to be broken down and um reassembled on site. So he actually had mechanics there, he had all these specialists there that machinists and and the works. So another guy who was brought in was William Crawford. Was it's not gorgeous, it's it's is it Horgeous? I think it's Horgeous, uh, who was an American Army physician and the 22nd Surgeon General for the Army as the chief sanitation officer. So this guy is pretty high up there in terms of like military medical prowess. The guy basically declared war on mosquitoes, and this was work based on Carlos Finlay, Walter Reed, that name should sound a little familiar, famous hospital, and Sir Ronald Ross. And these guys concluded that the mosquitoes were the ones transmitting malaria and yellow fever. There is an absolutely amazing uh podcast episode. Um, it's called Cautionary Tales, that he they they dive into this whole thing in Panama, and they like he the host does a great job explaining like what really is going on with like Walter Reed and how these people were testing stuff on themselves, like they were doing everything in their power to kill off these mosquitoes because it was kind of agreed that yeah, the mosquitoes are what's making everybody sick. All standing pools of water uh was required to be dealt with, so they didn't want any puddles anywhere. And uh either they like fill it in or they pour oil over it. So they just pour like engine oil over it, and that prevents the mosquito larvae from forming, which it works, not the best thing ecologically, but is it great for the environment?
SPEAKER_02:No. Does it get rid of the mosquitoes? Yeah, I guess.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Uh mosquito larvae fumigation programs were put in place. So again, you could move from I don't know, Tallahassee down to Panama, and you could get a lucrative career doing nothing but fumigating mosquito larvae locations. So like you would be fumigating living arrangements and jungles and the ground and just anywhere, like you just fumigated everything. All buildings had to have screen coverings over the windows and doors. So on top of like building neighborhoods and building apartments and and all these other uh living conditions, they all had to have screen doors on them. But more importantly, the buildings were designed for maximum airflow. They did not want stagnant air. The more airflow, the drier things are going to be, and the more enjoyable it will be to live there as opposed to living in some muddy tent. Uh, the other thing that this guy focused on was uh the uh sanitation systems. So water treatment. So they actually set up water treatment plants. Um, they set up proper medical facilities, like actual legit hospitals. They had real doctors there. Um, it just wasn't some dude sitting behind a desk and be like, here is two aspirin, and let me know if your arm falls off. Like it, no, they actually had real surgeons there. Because there was a lot of injuries, like there people were getting injured quite a bit. In a project like that, it's yep, it's it's just gonna happen. Yeah. So after two years of extensive work, cases of malaria and yellow fever were non-existent. They basically eliminated those two diseases from Panama in just two years. By the end of the American involvement, only 5,600 workers died. So, yeah, I mean, 5,600 workers is a lot, but America was also there for 10 years compared to the eight years that France was there at 22,000 deaths. Yeah, yeah. The numbers, yeah. Can you see why, like, yeah, I'm not super like patriotic, but I can understand, like, okay, America, I think, had the right idea in in this setting. Did they have the right idea on all the other stuff they did in history? That's up for debate. But I think they came in, I think America came in and like, okay, we we know what to do here. And it was pretty simple. Look at everything that the French did and don't do that. And look at everything that the French didn't do and let's do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just learn from the other guys' mistakes, essentially.
SPEAKER_05:Pretty much, yeah. Shockingly, in human history, that's a hard thing to do, it seems like. Seems like humanity has a real tough time. I mean, look at uh look at invading Russia. I mean the Swiss had a good idea, no. Napoleon had a better idea, no. Hitler thought he had it all figured up, mm-mm. Like, yeah. But anyways, back to Stevens for a second. Now that the living conditions and working conditions are improving, uh the people aren't and and the people aren't dying left and right, the conversation had to turn back to how the canal was actually going to be designed and built. So, step one, let's stop people from dying, and then we'll take a look at the canal. So LeSette's original plan was to make a sea level uh canal design, but it changed to a high-level canal with blocks halfway through. So basically, a high-level design would be instead of making it a sea level channel through the isthmus of Panama, you would do a hike, uh uh a high-level canal system where basically you would go into one lock, it would then raise you up, then you would move into the next lock, it would raise you up, then you go into the next lock, where then it would then lower you down, and then the next lock would lower you down, and then now you're in this giant man-made lake that's like 85 feet above sea level. So instead of just trying to like burrow a really, really like in some places it would be like a mile deep hole. Now you're kind of like building a waterway that goes over the mountain range. The issue was that the French switched to the uh high-level method, but only on one side. Ah, they forgot to tell the people on the other side that that's what they're switching to. That'll do it. Yep. So for for like years, the French were at this certain part, like this midway point, and they were just stuck with this mountain in the way, and they were blasting and digging and chipping away, and it this all this unnecessary work, and it was very dangerous. They lost a lot of equipment. It it yeah, it was uh yeah, it was it was a bad deal. It's like an absolute war, but nobody told them like, oh no, no, no, we're switching plans, we're doing the high-level one, so you don't have to dig all this anymore. Even until the day they left, they they had no idea that they had switched plans. Yeah, so basically, the idea was to change it up so that we're not doing sea level, we're gonna do this high-level thing, and more importantly, we're gonna use the rain because it rains so much in Panama, they can use the that water that fills up that natural lake, and I can't remember what it was not natural, that man-made lake. Because they built a dam to actually create the lake, and what was it? It was uh what was that lake called? Uh I think it was Gatun. Gatun Lake. Yeah, it starts with a Gep U and with Oxentl Ghosh. So um, we'll have pictures on the website so that you can see what it is. But that they built a dam that would fill that whole lake in and make it bigger, and that way you had something to raise ships up into, and then they can instead of like going through this little channel, they would have this big giant lake that they could sail through and make life so much easier. Um, because there's so much rain in Panama, the those man-made lakes would stay full of water year-round, which means that man-made lake could essentially keep water going into those locks because to dump that water out, it had to dump into the ocean. You had to rely on gravity. That was actually the how this whole thing worked was gravity. So you didn't need these super expensive pumps and and whatnot, you just used pipes in gravity. So, needless to say, Roosevelt was like, hey, Stevens, what do we gotta do? You're good to go. Because Roosevelt was getting a lot of pushback from his cabinet, they wanted to do the C-level thing, and uh like eventually, like I think Stevens like kind of like got out of there and he made his way back up to Washington to kind of like argue his point, and then eventually Roosevelt ignored his entire cabinet and said, Stevens, you do what you gotta do. So Stevens then goes back down, and in 1907, Steven resigns uh as chief engineer. My guess it was due to exhaustion. Uh, this guy was working like 16 hours a day. And after spending all these hours each day with the stupid ICC, he was out there, he was constantly bouncing back and forth the 50 miles from the Atlantic side to the Pacific side, back and forth. Thankfully, there was a train system that could get him around quicker. But like, like this guy, he was just run ragged. And he did such an incredible job just getting things up and running again to the point where even to this day, like even my grandfather, uh, when he was protecting that area during World War II, like he still he saw the the homes and the neighborhoods and basically the city that the Americans built there in the early 1900s to make it so that the canal would be functional.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I mean it was only a 30-year difference at that point. Uh yeah, but even my grandfather was like, Yeah, you could go into that town and have a good time and bars and restaurants, and it wasn't a hundred years old like it is now, it was only 30 years old.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So it's kind of an interesting legacy, all things considered. So um, so okay. Stevens is out. Roosevelt brings in Army Major George Washington, George Washington Gotholz. Um I feel like there was a lot of military men out there named George Washington something.
SPEAKER_02:Um, depending on when he was born, there was a a big influx of um like children of revolutionaries who are named after founding fathers. So it could be that.
SPEAKER_05:I think he was in his 60s.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, that would track because that's what mid-1800s, maybe.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So grandchild probably of a revolutionary era person.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah. But uh, but in if he also came from mil uh a military family, they that that I feel like there was probably a lot of George Washington Gotels or whatever, like there was probably a lot of people that came from families from the Revolutionary War that would have their kids named after somebody from the Revolutionary War. I mean, my grandfather knew people who fought in the Civil War, and those people who fought in the Civil War knew people who fought in the Revolutionary War.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that that's just yeah, how it goes. But I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:To me, that's mind-blowing just to think about that.
SPEAKER_02:Like it's contingency, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So it's yeah, it's just like dang. Like, and then like I I've come across students who are like, wait, you knew somebody who was in World War II? Yeah, yeah, quite a few people actually.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've met a few myself. They were out there when we were young.
SPEAKER_05:It's like when we had uh uh Charlotte come in. Like, these kids are gonna grow up and they're gonna tell their kids, like, hey, I knew somebody who was in the Holocaust.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, or like I talked to somebody.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so it's just crazy to think about that. Yeah, but anyways, uh I'm I'm blowing my own mind here. So Army Major uh George Washington Gotles of the Army Corps of Engineers, and he would he would eventually become general. Gdels was a very strong West Point trained leader with an emphasis on civil engineering and canals. So yeah, this guy's an expert. From 1907 to completion in 1914, Gdels split the construction into three separate teams. There was a Pacific, Central, and Atlantic team. Each team would only focus on their sections because all three sections behaved different in terms of terrain. So the people in the middle did a lot of blasting, they did a lot of digging. And dirt removal and all that kind of stuff. Whereas the people on the coasts, they focus more on building the locks. They built the dam. They built a lot of the concrete structure and whatnot. So instead of like having them all kind of like work on the same thing, no, no, no. If you're the leader of the central team, all you're doing is blasting and removing rock. If you are a team lead on the Atlantic side, all you're doing is building locks and um the infrastructure and the gates and all that kind of stuff. So same thing with the Pacific side. So is that pretty clever? Um, on October 10th, 1913, President Woodwill Wilson sent a signal from the White House via telegraph. So this little he literally like pushed a button in the White House. It was a telegraph line that was connected to the Gamoa dike, which was preventing water to enter the last section of the canal. And it it blew it up, like it blew up this dike, which then took care of the dam, which then allowed water to flow in, and it filled everything up. Like it it filled up that man-made lake, and it basically made the canal functional. That's a long wire when you think about it.
SPEAKER_02:Almost as big as the transatlantic one. Not really.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would have to do the mileage on it, but that's a really long wire. Granted, uh, by 1913, the telegraph technology was vastly more uh superior than you know the 1870s and 1880s, but still, that's that's still a really long wire. Um on August 3rd, 1914, the SS Tremont was the first ship to pass through the canal ocean to ocean, thus completing one of the greatest engineering accomplishments in history. Takeaways. Did it they did it, did it. And and I only scratched the surface of what actually went down. Like there's there is so much stuff, you know, there's all these books, there's eyewitness accounts, there's just yeah, there's so much that went in into this. And to me, it's just fascinating to look at like how did the French fail? Because on paper, they they weren't illogical, right? It's not like they were trying to chisel their way across the Grand Canyon. On paper, they actually had a pretty sound plan, but boy, in typical dumpster fire fashion, like it it just went sideways minutes after, and it's almost like they had a failure of imagination.
SPEAKER_02:I wouldn't say that. I would say more they just weren't prepared for the resources they needed to get the job done. They they weren't uh pre prepared for the different environment because they weren't familiar with it. I wouldn't say it's a lack of imagination, I'd just say it's a lack of resources.
SPEAKER_05:Well, the reason why I say it's a failure of imagination is that they walked in there thinking that it would be the same as the Suez Canal.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they were ill-prepared.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Which they they could not imagine that this was going to be any different.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I guess how could you though?
SPEAKER_05:And that's that's where it is. That's that's what a failure of imagination is, is like you just don't you just walked into this setting not understanding or not even realizing what problems could even face you. Like they they didn't consider disease at all. They didn't consider the rain or anything of that nature. They just thought, oh, well, hey, the rain will actually make it easier because the ground will be soft.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And honestly, like it's sound logic if you're coming at it from their perspective.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I get it. Yeah, that's the thing, is it's like it's not one of these things where I could say, I don't think the French were necessarily neglectful.
SPEAKER_02:Um no, they just weren't prepared.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, in yeah, and I guess if they had maybe I think if they had spent some time there, like if they sent over, say, like uh a couple hundred people just to hang out there for like six months to a year, scouted out, I think they would have come back with like, okay, we've we've got to approach this very differently.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_05:But they didn't. In fact, the people that were in charge of it stayed in Paris. They I don't think they visited there hardly at all. And how many times have we seen that where like the leader has nothing to do with anything on site?
SPEAKER_02:Like, usually does it go well.
SPEAKER_05:No, no. Um well, I mean, look at Roanoke. I mean, yeah, sure, they they were there, but when you're on the opposite side of the world and it takes you five years to get back, a lot can happen in that five-year time frame.
SPEAKER_02:Like a war, like yeah, like a war, famine, drought, you know, just your entire colony disappearing, like your Spanish Armada coming for the country who's supposed to be helping you.
SPEAKER_05:Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, I do know that the canal stayed in American control, and this is one of the reasons why I bring it up because um the Panama Canal is coming back into the political discussion of like America should should take it back. Because I still I think America still uses it like 60 or 70 percent of the traffic is American ships. Uh, but I do know that Jimmy Carter, he signed it over in his term back to Panama. And I don't know, I I don't know what the right answer is to that. Um, I figured because Carter was kind of a chill guy. He's like, okay, we've sat on this long enough, and I think his reasoning was that we now have ships that are like nuclear powered, and we can get cargo ships around the world without necessarily needing the canal. And I feel like he he was a very passive guy, and I feel like he handed it back to Panama as like a gesture of goodwill. Um, but I'm not sure. You're you're more familiar with that time period than than I am.
SPEAKER_02:Um yeah, there's a lot to it under the underneath the surface, like a lot. And it's a subject that I want to be thoughtful about because there are sensitive um things that go along with it. So I don't want to say too much because I want to make sure that my information's correct. So I'm just gonna leave it there. I'm gonna say, go ahead and do your own legitimate research to make your own opinion on it. Because I certainly have my opinions, but I don't want it to influence anybody else's opinion on it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, I'm reading here from history.state.gov. The Carter administration formulated a strategy to conclude debate over the canal and to gain Senate uh Senate ratification. Carter officials uh worked on selling the treaty to the public, holding hundreds of forums where policymakers explained the administration's rationale for completing a treaty. Uh Torrijos, Torrijos uh hosted the U.S. Senators in Panama, where he stressed that he was neither an enemy of the United States nor a communist. Oh, I forgot about that. I forgot that like there was that whole communist thing like in like Colombia and Central America and all that.
SPEAKER_02:There's a lot to it. Yeah, there's a lot to it.
SPEAKER_05:I forgot all about that part. And then actor John Wayne, that guy, uh both a conservative and a friend of Torreos, also endorsed the negotiations. The negotiators decided that the best chance for ratification was to submit two treaties to the U.S. Senate. The first called the treaty uh the treaty concerning the permanent neutrality and operation of the Panama Canal, or the neutral treaty, uh stated that the United States could use its military to defend the Panama Canal against any threat to its neutrality, thus allowing perpetual U.S. usage of the canal. Oh, I see. Okay, and then the second, uh called the Panama Canal Treaty. Well, these are these are such original creative names for these treaties.
SPEAKER_02:Uh so yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_05:Uh stated the Panama Canal Zone would cease uh to exist on October 1st, 1979, and the canal itself would be turned over to the Panamanians on December 31st, 1999. Uh, these two treaties were signed on September 7, 1977. Took more than six months before the Senate voted. So the Trios-Carter Treaties allowed the United States to defend itself from the charges of imperialism made by the Soviet-line states. While the treaties represented a great moment of cooperation between the United States and Panama, uh relations between the two countries grew contentious after the death of Trios in 1981. In December of 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to remove the Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega from power in 1999. However, relations had grown more peaceful, and the canal was turned over to the Panamanians who have administered it ever since. So it seems like it was a gesture to be like, hey, America, America's like we're not trying to come across as imperialistic as we used to. Uh, but we also still need access to this p canal. And so it's just like America's not gonna acknowledge the communism anymore, but we're also not going to be a part of this whole imperialism image. Here's the canal back. As long as we can defend it, America can continue to use it. No, that's interesting. That's uh yeah, you're right. It's a very uh complicated thing because I kind of like it's the canoe worms. It is, but it's not like it's I don't know, I just don't think it should be as contentious as what some modern day politicians want to make it out to be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Like, I've got to imagine that there's a way that everybody can use it for economic benefit and not have to be like, do we really need to take it back by force? Like, come on, guys, we we can do better than that. So, yeah, that is the dumpster fire of the Panama Canal. It was mostly a dumpster fire on the French side, not so much on the American side. Uh, but it is interesting to see like how how it kind of completely fell apart on the French side for a whole multitude of reasons. And I don't think it was neglect, I don't think it was cockiness, I think they actually had a valid engineering strategy. It's just like five minutes after implementing this plan, it just blew up. That's what I think it is. It's just you know, it's a typical dumpster fire that we've covered so many times in the past where they try to plan out every little detail, and then when it actually goes into practice, it's just poof. Billions of dollars lost.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's all I got. Uh, did you have anything you wanted to add? I know you're not gonna tell me what you're working on.
SPEAKER_02:Nope, it's a secret. Um I've been working really hard on it, but it's a secret. I'm really excited about it. You'll see. Next episode's gonna be great. But other than my secret surprise. Oh other than that.
SPEAKER_05:Secret surprise.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that doesn't with the context I have, it's not great. Other than that, I don't have much. Uh just the the usual housekeeping items that I can cross off real quick. Uh, the website is updated and you can visit us at thedaysdumpsterfire.com. You can also email us at thedaysdumpsterfire at gmail.com. Um, we're also on Instagram at thedaystumpsterfire. And if you have any topics you'd like us to go over, you can go ahead and email us at thedaysdumpsterfire.gmail.com, like I just said. Uh, there's also the text message link, which you can find in the description of each episode. And I think that's it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I I would definitely try to make a goal uh this week to find three people to introduce this uh this podcast to. It's one of these things where if you're studying for a test and you need some more details or a good overview of some of the crazy stuff that has gone down in human history, uh, you really can't go wrong with dumpster fires. Uh, you know, a lot of people, uh, especially if you're a really avid listener, and I know we've got quite a few of them, uh, there's people in your life that probably don't even know how to even access a podcast. I I can't tell you how many people I've come across where I've told them that, oh yeah, I'm a podcaster, and they're like, oh my gosh, that's so amazing. You're a podcaster. I'm like, uh yeah. And you're like, cool. Well, what's a podcast? So when when you come across those people, uh, the best thing to do is to ask for their phones and either go to like iTunes or Spotify. Uh, you can also subscribe to us from the daysumpterfire.com. Like you can not only see your episodes on there, there's links to where you can find our show. We're pretty much everywhere. And uh also, too, uh be sure to check out the website because Kara has a lot of her artwork on there. I want to do something special with that artwork. I don't know exactly what yet, but I I think um I think there's ways that people can actually uh buy copies of it because it is you know all hand drawn and it's pretty incredible stuff. So uh we want to you know get her artwork spread out there. I know I'm totally speaking for Kara right now. If you want her, if you want to commission her to do a custom job, she's all about that, right?
SPEAKER_02:No, don't do that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, no, no, don't do that. Um, but if you have ideas for uh images like yeah, episodes, ideas for pictures and whatnot, yeah, reach out to us. And um, and then we also have the um, you can leave us fan mail. Um, we have the link on it in our show notes. And so um, I say uh let's keep it a hot mess, and we will catch you in the next one.
SPEAKER_02:Bye.