214 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS
- Colonel, we're going to do itl'*
^'Good! there's a hundred thousand yards right here to take out. Go to it. ' ' One of the great things that Goethals has done is to develop a complete and minute system of cost keeping. In this way he is able to compare the aggregate work of the Uiree great divisions and he can judge the efficiency of foremen and even, in some cases, of individual men and crews. And he works all the men constantly against the cost records, of which there is complete publicity. And now, in a wonderful way,Goethals is working the force against nature herself. The rainy season is coming on and the water is filUng Gatun Lake, creeping into the cut and slowly filling the locks.
- Mr. Cowles, the water is coming in. Are you going to
have that dam donef "
- 'WeVe got to, Colonel.
- When are you due for this cement work, Mr. Walker T"
- April 15th."
^^You must surely get it then. The rainy season is coming on." Within a space of less than half a mile in and near Gulebra Cut an army of over eight thousand men were engaged while I was there. And every night as much soil slid into tiie cut as they could carry off by day. But nowhere was there a sign of discouragement — only a grim joy of the fight. I walked through the cut one morning with Colonel Goethals after there had been an unusually extensive slide. The foreman had been on the job since midnight. "Well, how is everything this morning, Mr. Hagent" asked the Colonel.
- * BHne, Colonel, fine. It buried that steam shovel over there
and tipped over two batteries of drills and covered all the tracks through the cut but one, but everything's fine. We're diggin '. ' ' The Colonel has an infectious spirit of confidence. He never loses faith or courage. One of the foremen said to me, "I never yet saw the Colonel discouraged. I believe if Gold
