The newspapers in Bogotá, all closely tied to the party in power, the Liberals, took little notice of Wyse’s presence in the capital. That the visit was one of the utmost importance to the future of Colombia, that Wyse was there in fact to settle the basic contract to build a Panama canal, a contract that could mean a world of difference to Colombia for centuries to come, or more immediately help solve the country’s dire financial troubles, was in no way suggested. Possibly someone somewhere along the line had decided that a better bargain might be driven with the young man by playing down his importance.
On March 15, or just three days after his arrival, Wyse presented a draft of a contract. Everything was going as smoothly as could be hoped for. Five days later, having made only minor modifications, Salgar and Wyse fixed their signatures to the document, and three days after that, on March 23, 1878, President Parra, who had exactly one week left in office, did the same. Confirmation by the Colombian Senate took longer, but by mid-May, the concession at last in his pocket, Wyse was on his way back to Panama, going this time by steamer down the Magdalena.
At Panama City he learned from Pedro Sosa of the little that Sosa and Réclus had accomplished, yet took no time to do anything more. Rather, he wound up his affairs in the least time possible, sold off the supplies left over from the expeditions, made Sosa a gift of the surveying instruments, and departed. He seems to have felt obliged only to see Nicaragua–to travel the route the Americans had settled on–and it was another journey in record time. He crossed from San Juan del Norte, going by steamer up the San Juan, then over the lake. The Americans had “much simplified” his task, he was to report. In fact, their Nicaragua Expedition had been their largest and most extensive. To plot their canal line they had had to chop a path nearly the length of the entire valley, or more than twice the distance across Panama, and much of the time the men had worked in swamps in water up to their shoulders. Their survey was an accomplishment Wyse especially could appreciate. He himself paused only long enough to pick up a few rock samples.
From Nicaragu a he went to Washington, but by way of San Francisco, another odd side of the story, since he could so easily have returned to Colón, taken a steamer to New York, and saved himself several thousand miles. The impression is that he wanted to appraise financial interest in San Francisco, the American city that stood to gain the most from the canal. But possibly he wanted only to take the transcontinental railroad, to ride like Phileas Fogg the “uninterrupted metal ribbon.” Whatever his reasons, he can be pictured flying along in a Union Pacific parlor car, observing “the varied landscape” as Fogg had, checking his watch at the Great Salt Lake, or taking some air during the stop at Green River Station.
At the Navy Department in Washington he was received by Commander Edward P. Lull and A. G. (Aniceto Garcia) Menocal, authors of both the Nicaragua and Panama surveys. Lull had had overall command; Menocal, a Cuban by birth, had been foremost of the civilian engineers assigned by Admiral Ammen “to place the results of the work beyond the reach of criticism.”
The conversation was cordial and for Wyse perfectly fruitless. The Americans showed great interest in his travels, and Wyse, who spoke excellent English, made much of their pioneering efforts in the jungle. But it was their maps and plans that Wyse had come for and he was politely told that these were not available, that the department “did not feel disposed” to grant his request. He asked if he might pay his respects to Admiral Ammen, but Admiral Ammen, he was told, was not available.
So it was with the Bogotá contract only–the famous Wyse Concession–that Wyse sailed from New York; no survey of his own, not even a map of Panama other than one made by the railroad twenty-five years before. For the moment, however, the concession was enough. That its cash value could be phenomenal went without saying.
The agreement was this:
The United States of Colombia granted the Societe Civile–the Türr Syndicate–the exclusive privilege, good for ninety-nine years, to construct a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. As a guarantee of their good faith, the grantees were obligated to deposit 750,000 francs in a London bank no later than 1882. It was required that surveys be made by an international commission of competent engineers, for which three years were allowed, and the grantees were permitted two additional years in which to organize a canal company, and then twelve years to build the canal.
Colombia in turn was to get 5 percent of the gross revenue from the canal for twenty-five years, 6 percent for the next twenty-five years, 7 percent for the next twenty-five years, and 8 percent for the final years of the concession. The minimum payment, however, was never to be less than $250,000, which was the same as Colombia’s share in the earnings of the Panama Railroad.
Colombia conceded to the company, without charge, 500,000 hectares (1,235,500 acres) of public lands, in addition to a belt of land 200 meters (219 yards) wide on each side of the canal. The terminal ports and the canal itself were declared neutral for all time. At the end of ninety-nine years the canal would revert to Colombia.
Further conditions were stipulated, but the crucial ones were these:
The concession could be transferred (i.e., sold) to other individuals or financial syndicates, but under no circumstances could it be sold to a foreign government. It was left to the grantees to negotiate “some amicable agreement” with the Panama Railroad concerning its rights and privileges.
Once reunited in Paris, Wyse and Réclus quickly put together a plan to present to de Lesseps. It was for a sea-level canal following the line of the Panama Railroad and again they resorted to a tunnel as the essential feature. De Lesseps voiced no objections to any of it. Nor did he register any serious dissatisfaction with Wyse’s so-called survey. The one dissenting voice at this stage was that of a young Hungarian engineer named Bela Gerster, who had served with Wyse on both expeditions and who pointedly refused to sign Wyse’s final report. Gerster prepared his own minority report, but when he took it to a number of French newspapers none were interested in printing it.
Some loose ends had to be attended to before de Lesseps could convene his canal congress. He had to have a guarantee that the Americans would attend–their presence was essential to the prestige of the affair–and he needed a commitment from the Panama Railroad Company that there would be no problem over the “amicable agreement” required by the Wyse Concession. Actually, he wanted to buy the railroad. So back Wyse sailed once more, early in 1879, arriving at New York, where he saw the president of the Panama Railroad Company, a clever Wall Street speculator named Trenor W. Park. Standing up to greet Wyse, Park looked no larger than a twelve-year-old boy, but he had come as far as he had in the business world by making the most of every advantageous position, and at the moment he was in an extremely advantageous position, as he and Wyse both appreciated. The details of the Bogotá contract had become public knowledge by now, and if an amicable understanding could not be reached with Trenor Park, the major stockholder in the railroad, then obviously the contract was worthless.
It was within Park’s power to decide whether Wyse or de Lesseps need go a step further with their plans.
Park was “not altogether reluctant” to sell the railroad. His price, he told Wyse, was $200 a share, or twice its market value at the moment. Park, it was understood, owned fifteen thousand shares.
In Washington next, Wyse not only succeeded in seeing Admiral Ammen, but was presented to the Secretary of State, William Evarts, and later to President Hayes, who expressed great interest in the forth-coming Paris congress. Evarts, however, seemed as suspicious as Palmerston had been about Suez. The ill-fated attempt by Napoleon III to make Maximilian emperor of Mexico had left Evarts, like many Americans, extremely uneasy about France and her aspirations in the Western Hemisphere and anything but trustful of anyone with the name Bonaparte, even so amiable a Bonaparte as Lieutenant Wyse. So it was a difficult interview.
At length Evarts agreed that the United States should participate in the congress but only Ammen and A. G. Menoca
l would be permitted to go as authorized delegates. They could join in the technical discussions–to “communicate such scientific, geographical, mathematical, or other information . . . as is desired or deemed important”–but they were to have no official powers or diplomatic function, no say concerning the canal policy of the United States.
Shortly afterward in Paris, sometime in the early spring of 1879, just before the opening of the congress, Charles de Lesseps met with his father in the office of Dr. Henri Bionne, one of the most respected figures in the Türr Syndicate.
At age thirty-eight, Charles was nearly bald, and with his dark brows and thick dark beard, he looked a good deal older than he was. Like his father, he was a man of great pride and natural courtesy. He was also a capable administrator and this, plus a good deal of common sense and a capacity for hard work, had won him wide admiration at Suez, where he had served as his father’s principal aide. He was intelligent, rather than brilliant, careful, considerate, but with none of his father’s glamour or his need for public acclaim. Charles was a chess player.
The demands on him at Suez had been heavy. His only child, “Little Ferdinand,” had died in infancy of cholera at Ismailia in 1865. Still, he idolized his father no less than ever and remained his good right arm in numerous ways. Charles, as would be said later, was above all a devoted son. More, he was a son who knew his devotion was returned in full.
Charles was strongly opposed to the Panama venture and had been from the day Lieutenant Wyse first came to La Chesnaye to present his plan. To Charles the whole scheme was a kind of madness.
The account we have of the scene in Bionne’s office is Charles’s own, provided years later in a private memoir.
“What do you wish to find at Panama?” he asked his father. “Money? you will not bother about money at Panama any more than you did at Suez. Glory? You’ve had enough glory. Why not leave that to someone else? All of us who have worked at your side are entitled to a rest. Certainly the Panama project is grandiose . . . but consider the risks those who direct it will run! you succeeded at Suez by a miracle. Should not one be satisfied with accomplishing one miracle in a lifetime?”
Then, not waiting for a reply, he added: “If you decide to proceed with this, if nothing will stop you . . . if you want me to assist you, then gladly I will take whatever comes. I shall not complain no matter what happens. All that I am I owe to you; what you have given me, you have the right to take away.”
Ferdinand de Lesseps replied that he had already made up his mind. What he did not say, what perhaps he was unable to admit to himself just yet, was the extent to which his trust in Charles had influenced that decision.
* The opera was not ready in time, so the performance was put off until 1871.
* In examining the relationship that developed between Wyse and de Lesseps, their kinship of purpose, the shared sense of adventure, the almost father-son spirit, the question inevitably arises: Might de Lesseps have been the unknown father? There is, however, nothing in the available record to suggest this was so. About all we can safely assume is that for a young man of such background, with his paternity in doubt and his aspirations so high, de Lesseps must have been an appealing figure and one to which he might very naturally wish to attach himself.
3
Consensus of One
Great blunders are often made, like large ropes,
of a multitude of fibers.
–VICTOR HUGO
I
The Congrès International d’fitudes du Canal Interoceanique, as it was formally titled, convened in Paris at two in the afternoon, Thursday, May 15, 1879. After centuries of dreams and talk, of hit-or-miss explorations and hollow promises, of little scientific knowledge, little or no cooperation among nations, leading authorities from every part of the world–engineers, naval officers, economists, explorers–were gathering under one roof “in the impartial serenity of science” to inaugurate La grande entreprise, greatest of the age. Or so it was being said.
The setting was the handsome new headquarters of the Societe de Geographie, in the Latin Quarter, at 184 Boulevard Saint Germain, where rows of neatly spaced young chestnut trees, each fenced in ornamental iron, were in full leaf and crowds of bystanders gathered in the sunshine to watch the delegates alight from their carriages. De Lesseps had picked mid-May because it was the perfect time to be in Paris. He personally had issued every invitation. He had had final say on agenda, rules, the make-up of committees, even the entertainment. He would have nothing left to chance.
In all, 136 delegates entered through the great oak doors that opened onto the street. In addition to France and her colonies (Algeria and Martinique), a total of twenty-two countries were to be represented: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, the still-independent nation of Hawaii, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Russia, El Salvador, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Among the Dutch delegates was the renowned Jacob Dirks, builder of the Amsterdam Canal. Sir John Stokes and Sir John Hawkshaw, equally distinguished engineers, had come over from London. The Germans had sent a general inspector of mines; the Russians, an admiral. (The Russians had actually been so little interested in the historic convocation that they had neglected to appoint a delegate, and none would have appeared had de Lesseps not cabled a last-minute reminder.) Colombia had sent a four-man delegation, one of whom was young Pedro Sosa; and the Mexican delegate, Francisco de Garay, was in such a rush not to miss de Lesseps’ opening remarks that he left his baggage in customs at Saint-Nazaire and arrived on the Boulevard Saint Germain unshaven and still in his traveling clothes. At a nearby shop he picked out the appropriate attire (top hat, morning coat, gray gloves), had a barber sent in, then made his entrance with time to spare–a story that greatly pleased Ferdinand de Lesseps.
The American delegation, largest of the foregoing groups, numbered eleven, including Ammen, Menocal, and Commander Selfridge, plus delegates from the American Geographical Society, the National Academy of Science, the United States Board of Trade, and the City of San Francisco. And among the French were such recognizable personages as Jules Flachat, the explorer; Levasseur, the economist and geographer; Daubree, president of the Academie des Sciences; Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, of the Societe des Ingenieurs; and the very elegant Admiral de La Ronciere-Le Noury. Finally there was de Lesseps himself, the star attraction, his young wife on his arm.
They gathered in the grande salle on the first floor of the Societe, a beautifully detailed, cream-colored auditorium with a lofty arched ceiling, a small stage, and a seating capacity for nearly four hundred people. De Lesseps, his officers, and Admiral de La Ronciere-Le Noury occupied the stage; the delegates filled the first five rows, while every remaining seat was taken by spectators, including, as no newspaper reporter failed to note, a surprising number of fashionable women in the feathered bonnets of the day. When de Lesseps stood up to bid all welcome, there was a storm of applause.
This first session, however, was purely ceremonial and amounted to little. De Lesseps offered a few pleasantries (“The presence of ladies at a scientific gathering is always a good omen. . .”), and Henri Bionne, who was to be secretary of the congress, read a rather tedious paper on the Society’s prior interest in the canal idea. Then de Lesseps introduced those who were to head the various committees, hastily described the work of the committees, and read off the full list of delegates, asking each to rise in turn and be recognized. (The most prolonged applause was for the Chinese delegate, Mr. Li-Shu-Chang, first secretary of the Chinese legation in London, since China, as the newspapers explained, was expected to provide the labor to dig the canal.)
Several of the Americans were highly annoyed by all this. De Lesseps’ remarks were obviously unprepared. The whole session had not lasted an hour and nobody but de Lesseps and Bionne had been heard from. Everything seemed too neatly and arbitrarily prearranged. Despite the emphasis on the numbers of nations represente
d, there was an obvious predominance of French delegates, most of whom seemed committed already, out of past loyalties or for reasons of personal ambition, to take whatever course the old man dictated. The more prominent French delegates, for example, included the former director general at Suez, Voisin Bey; Abel Couvreux, of the giant Couvreux, Hersent et Compagnie, a major Suez contractor; and Alexandre La valley, who had built the great steam dredges used at Suez.
Of the several committees, only one really mattered, the fourth, or so-called Technical Committee, which was charged with deciding where the canal should be built, what kind of canal it should be, and what it was all going to cost. It was the largest committee, the one de Lesseps himself would sit on, and of the 52 other delegates he had assigned to it, more than half were French. Indeed, of all the 136 delegates in attendance, a total of 73–well over a majority–were French and not a quarter were engineers.
Further, de Lesseps seemed bound to hurry things through in record speed. The congress, he had said in conclusion, should get on with its work “in the American fashion–that is to say, with speed, and in a practical fashion. . .” One week, he thought, should suffice.
Probably the least inhibited appraisal of the congress was that of the representative from the American Geographical Society, Dr. William E. Johnston, a New York physician who described de Lesseps as “kind-hearted and obliging, but . . . ambitious also,” and from the start was convinced that he and the other non-French delegates would count for little. Ammen and Menocal especially had no business even being there, he wrote. No plan other than that of the famous Frenchman and his compatriots stood the least chance of adoption.
Still, de Lesseps had welcomed the Americans with such warmth and courtesy that even Ammen could be seen to thaw. He had made Ammen the first of five vice-presidents of the congress; he had Ammen sit at his right hand; he insisted that Ammen and Menocal serve on the Technical Committee.
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