Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/177

FERDINAND DE LESSEPS 339 merce, but as one of the many powerful agents now at work binding the nations closer together. It is indissolubly connected with the name of De Lesseps, and had he been contented with the fortune and the reputation gained by his work in forwarding the canal, few names would have shone brighter in the list of those who have helped on man's material well-being. But in an evil hour he was per- suaded to lend his support to the Panama Canal scheme, and along with the ruined fortunes and ruined reputations sunk in that abyss, the name and fortune of De Lesseps and his family have suffered irretrievable blight The Panama Canal was not first proposed in our day ; the scheme is as old as the discovery of the isthmus. " The early navigators," says J. C. Rodrigues, " could not help noticing how near to each other were the two oceans, and how comparatively easy would be (they thought) the cutting of a canal through that narrow strip of land between them. The celebrated Portuguese navigator An- tonio Galvao, as early as 1550, wrote an essay on the subject wherein he sug- gested four different lines, one of which was through the Lake of Nicaragua, and another by the Isthmus of Panama." England, in 1779, was the first to make an attempt to control the river and lake communications, but her forces sent under Nelson to begin the work were driven away by the terrible fever that has thus far been the best defence of the isthmus from attack. Various schemes were enter- tained by other nations, but, although the United States kept a jealous eye upon its own interests in the enterprise, it was not until the discovery of gold in Cali- fornia that it saw a vital reason for insisting upon its paramount claims, and the outbreak of the Civil War, with its threats of European intervention, made an easier communication with the rising States of the Pacific Coast seem an absolute necessity But we moved slowly and with vacillating steps. We were divided in opmion as to the best route to take, as to the sort of canal that was desirable, as to the advisability of building any canal. When the war was over, the rapid increase of railroad communication with the Pacific Coast made public opinion still more indifferent to the enterprise. Meanwhile the French had started with great energy a scheme for a canal at Panama, and De Lesseps had been induced to lend his name to the scheme, and to take an active part in carrying it out. For this purpose he visited the United States and used his best diplomatic arts to induce our Government to unite with him in his plans. But he could do nothing on this side the water and returned to France to fight the battle alone. There the interest in the scheme, artificially excited by specula- tors and still further aided by the effort's of De Lesseps and his friends, increased to such an extent as to swamp all considerations of prudence. The name of De Lesseps, consecrated by the brilliant success of Suez, proved to be a powerful charm. Thousands and tens of thousands of people in the cities and in the coun- try put the hard-earned savings of years into the venture ; senators, deputies, men of high social rank in public life, shamelessly sold their votes and their voices to secure the moral aid and the money of the state to aid their gambling enterprise, and the newspaper press of Paris, at all times venal, betrayed for bribes the trust that was reposed in it.