Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/231

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212 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS and rights as fellow men. In other words^ be considerate, just and fair with them in all dealings, treating them as fellow members of the great Brotherhood of Humanity. A discon- tented force is seldom loyal, and if its discontent is based upon a sense of unjust treatment, it is never efficient. Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice. When these two are combined, then and tiien only, is developed that irresistible and irrepressible spirit of enthusiasm, that personal interest and pride in the task, which inspires every member of the force, be it military or civil, to give when need arises the last ounce of his strength and the last drop of his blood to the winning of a victory in the honor of which he will share. ' * This ideal of ** irresistible and irrepressible enthusiasm" has actually been realized at Panama. I don't know of any word that will so adequately describe it as patriotism — a new sort of patriotism, a greater sort — for here men are not fighting one another but are firmly knit together for the com- mon struggle against nature. I found everywhere that men were intensely proud of the length of their service on the canal, proud of the government medals which each man re- ceives after a certain tenure of service, and eager to remain until the work is finished. IVe wondered if this spirit both of the leadership and of the followers does not foreshadow the nature of the warfare of the future 1 How has he done it! When Goethals first went to Panama the work was organized on what may be called the horizontal system — that is, the canal was considered as a whole, and one commissioner had charge of all the lock work, another of the excavation, and so on; but after a short trial of this method Goethals reorganized the entire work on what may be called a perpendicular basis. He divided the canal into three divisions — Atlantic, Central, and Pacific — and placed each of them under a superintendent. Two of these superintend- ents, Colonels Sibert and Gaillard, were army engineers and members of the Canal Commission, and the third, Mr. Wil- liamson, was a civil engineer. Eivalry was instantly awakened between these divisions.