History: Theodore Roosevelt And The Panama Canal

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President Theodore Roosevelt was able to reach an agreement to buy rights to the French canal property and equipment for a sum not to exceed $40 million. In the article called, Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, the Panama Canal was not completed because the French’s builders died gradually from 1881 to 1888 due to the spread of diseases by making a pathway through the jungle from coast to coast as they discovered dangerous environment that could slow the construction down. More than 20,000 workers died from, “insects, snakes, swamps, hellish heat, smallpox, malaria, and yellow fever” (PBS).As the French tried to complete the Panama Canal, not only they lost employees’ population but they also don’t have enough budget to continue their…show more content…
So he negotiated with Columbia and was able to buy the French canal property. Thanks to the United State support, they upgrade new engineering and eliminate the yellow fever from spreading such as cleaning the swamp, spraying pesticides by tons, swept drainage ditches, and many other ways they can clean the jungle (PBS). In 1905, the yellow fever had been officially eradicated on the Isthmus, and the project continues to work smoothly. When John Stevens, Chief Engineered of the project and railroads, later resigned and Colonel George Washington Goethals, an Army engineer with experience building lock-type canals, take his placed to finish building the canal. In 1913 and 1914, the locks work flawless and the Panama Canal is finally completed as Roark said in the American Promise, “the canal would take eleven years and $375 million to complete” (Roark, 633). But how did Roosevelt was able to take control of the canal if the Colombian turns down his…show more content…
Since America use the canal the most along with other countries, the Panama Canal began charging them in 1924. According to the article, 7 Fascinating Facts about the Panama Canal, Elizabeth Nix confirmed that, “Every vessel that transits the canal must pay a toll based on its size and cargo volume. Tolls for the largest ships can run about $450,000. The smallest toll ever paid was 36 cents… Today, some $1.8 billion in tolls are collected annually” (Nix). The purpose that the Panama Canal began charging them in 1924 was to first learning how to operate the locks and using tolls to let ships and vessels use the canal as Nix mention in her article, “Ship captains aren’t allowed to transit the canal on their own; instead, a specially trained canal pilot takes navigational control of each vessel to guide it through the waterway” (Nixon). Therefore, they trained special canal pilots for ten years between 1914 and 1924 to operate the vessels guided through the waterway and across the canal. Overall, the countries were being charged for using the canals, but not at the beginning when the U.S. officially opened the Panama Canal. They need to make sure how to control the canal so that other pilot can be trained to activated the
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