GEORGE W. GOETHALS 211 fierce, absorbing activity! Why complete the canal a year early t Why, if there is no profit in it for anybody and the Government is paying the bills, should there be such a strug- gle to save money! Why this effort to turn eight or ten million dollars of the estimated appropriations back into the treasury! When I first went to Panama I could not understand the marvelous spirit of struggle so evident on every hand. But after I had tramped on foot over much of the great work, after I htid sat for hours in Culebra Cut watching the indom- itable assault upon the sliding red hills, after I had talked with many of the men, both those in high positions and those in low positions, I began to understand it. The whole force, as the English writer suggests, has been keyed up to concert pitch. Not with the old incentives of private enterprise, but with a spirit quite new and wonderful. A jungle to be pen- etrated, a mountain range to be cut through, gigantic locks to be built — how these things have taken hold of the imagina- tion of the men at Panama I It is in his work of arousing, directing, and intensifying this
- irresistible and irrepressible spirit of enthusiasm*' that
Goethals has shown transcendent qualities of leadership. It is the greatest thing that has been done at Panama. And its doing has been no accident : it has been the result of the sound thinking, stem purpose, and democratic ideals of the leader. In June (1912) in an address to the graduating class at West Point, Colonel Goethals expressed his fundamental philosophy in the clearest terms; and I venture to say that there cannot be found anywhere a higher or finer expression of the task of the twentieth century leader. In this address he said : '*To successfully accomplish any task, it is necessary not only that you should give it the best that is in you, but that you should obtain for it the best there is in those who are under your guidance. To do this you must have confidence in the undertaking and confidence in your ability to accom- plish it, in order to inspire the same feeling in them. You must have not only accurate knowledge of their capabilities, but a just appreciation and a full recognition of their needs
