208 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS must be dealt with not as mere tools of industry but as citi- zens and co-workers in a common undertaking. Therefore justice, not force, in dealing with them, is essential Goethals announced that he would be at his office at Culebra every Sunday morning at seven o^clock, and that anyone on the Isthmus, white or black, who thought he had been unjustly used, might come and see him personally. They came, and have been coming ever since. One Sunday morning while I was on the Isthmus I counted thirty-eight men and women waiting in the Colonel's office, and from seven o'clock in the morning until one in the afternoon he was patiently sifting out the personal problems and difficulties involved in that great task. Many people said at first that such a procedure, so different from that usually pursued on great works, would speedily ruin the discipline of the force, that underlings would con- stantly be seeking to appeal from the orders of their su- periors. But it has not worked that way. Instead of destroy- ing discipline it has infinitely sharpened it by founding it soundly upon the general sense of reason and justice. It has spurred every foreman, every superintendent, to redouble his efforts to cooperate with his men rather than to drive them. It has given Goethals himself an extraordinary, almost an un- canny, knowledge of every detail of the work. Is there a weak spot or a weak man anywhere! The Colonel is one of the first to know of it. No man down there is personally ac- quainted with as many men as he. They have a song on the Isthmus with this chorus : See Colonel Goethals, tell Colonel Goethals, It 's the only right and proper thing to do. Just write a letter, or, even better. Arrange a little Sunday interview. Every man down there feels that the Colonel is behind him, and that if anything goes wrong, he has only to **tell the Colonel." Discharged employees, women with domestic problems, con- valescents complaining of treatment in the hospitals, families
