when the engineering forces on the Isthmus are left without a real head and your department is not perfected in organization; when the advisory board of engineers is to assemble under call of the President within two months, and when I am departing for the Philippines on public duty. All this you knew as well as I know it, but it has not had the least influence upon your action— you have thought of yourself and yourself alone. I consider that by every principle of honor and duty you were bound to treat the subject differently. You have permitted the President and all of us to proceed in full confidence that you would perform the functions of chief engineer, and now. in an hour, you drop your great duties and throw them back upon us as if it were a matter of no consequence, and all this for personal advantage solely.

Mr. Wallace, I do not agree with your idea of your rights nor with your idea as to your duties. I do not agree that the President's original order giving him the right to discharge an unfaithful Commissioner gave you the right to abandon your duties at a critical moment; but independent of that original order you accepted the duties of chief engineer on the Isthmus under the recent order of April 1, which was made in cooperation with you and to suit your views. More than this, your duty in the premises is not measured by your mere legal contractual rights. It should be measured by the high obligation of a public officer with a sacred allegiance to the Government it should be his honor and his pleasure to serve. You were, therefore, in honor bound by all that has preceded to continue to perform your duties upon the Isthmus until such time a year at least-as would have afforded us reasonable opportunity to select a competent successor and prepare him for the great duties of that office.

You make not the least complaint against your associates, superior or inferior. I know of no possible ground for any. You are influenced solely by your personal advantage.

Great fame attached to your office, but also equal responsibility, and now you desert them in an hour. Even from a standpoint of policy, you are making a profound mistake. If you could withdraw from your new arrangements, which I do not suggest, I could have no confidence, since I know now your conception of duty, that you would not in the future repeat the same act at a moment even more critical, when the consequences might be even more embarrassing and injurious to the Government.

"Under these circumstances, Mr. Wallace, and with great personal pain and disappointment, I am bound to say that I consider the public interest requires that you tender your resignation at this moment, and turn over the records of your office to the chairman of the Commission."

In reply, Mr. Wallace stated that he was deeply disturbed at the view of the subject taken by the Secretary; that he had considered that he had a right to retire when he chose, but that, as he had said, he was desirous of talking it all over and making some arrangement whereby the Government could use his services in some capacity.

The Secretary answered in substance: "Mr. Wallace, further talk is useless. It would be to dicker. I can not dicker on such a grave subject. I have assumed that you had given this subject the greatest consideration, and you have approached it deliberately and stated to me your action in set and definite terms. You have unmistakably announced that you propose to accept a position so attractive that you could not possibly afford to decline it, and that you would not henceforth perform any duties for the Government as inconsistent with serving your new masters, who require your constant presence in New York, and, therefore, that you could not and would not go back to Panama as chief engineer."

Mr. Wallace again stated that he deeply regretted that the Secretary's point of view was different from his own, and said that he would send his resignations as soon as he got back to his hotel, and would address them to the President, through the Secretary. He added, "Mr. Secretary, while there is a difference between us as to the point of view we take concerning my duty, I consider that there can be no question that I have performed my full duty up to this hour."

To this the Secretary replied in effect: "Mr. Wallace, I do not consider that any man can divide such a duty up to any one point where it suits him to stop, and then claim that he has fulfilled his duty by merely performing it up to the point of his own selection. In my view a duty is an entirety, and is not fulfilled unless it is wholly fulfilled."

Agreeably to the said request of the Secretary, Mr. Wallace submitted his resignation, as follows: NEW YORK, June 26, 1905.

The PRESIDENT,

White House, Washington, D. C.

(Through the Secretary of War.)

SIR: I have the honor to hereby tender my resignation as member of the Isthmian Canal Commission, to take effect at such time as may suit your pleasure and convenience.

Very respectfully,

JOHN F. WALLACE, Member Isthmian Canal Commission.

Similar resignations as chief engineer and as vice-president, general manager, and director of the Panama Railroad were submitted. After consideration of the foregoing, and personal conference with the Secretary of War, the President issued the following order:

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., June 28, 1905.

SIR: Your resignation as member and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission tendered in accordance with the request of Secretary Taft, which request under the circumstances has my entire approval, is hereby accepted to take effect immediately.

Very truly, yours,

Mr. JOHN F. WALLACE,

Isthmian Canal Commission, Washington, D. C.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

The successor of Mr. Wallace as chief engineer will be announced within a few days.

STATEMENT OF CONVERSATION BETWEEN SECRETARY OF WAR, MR. CROMWELL, AND MR. WALLACE JUNE 25, 1905, AT HOTEL MANHATTAN.

Referring to the conversation between the Secretary of War, Mr. Cromwell, the general counsel for the Panama Railway Company, and Mr. John F. Wallace, then chief engineer of the Panama Canal, had on Sunday morning, June 25, at the Manhattan Hotel, there was omitted from the account given to the press a detailed statement of what Mr. Wallace said on the more general subjects of the canal work, because Mr. Wallace expressly made the matter hereinafter stated entirely irrelevant to the question of his personal relations to the Commission. He said, first, that he did not think that Colonel Gorgas was equal to the executive task of subduing the insanitary conditions that existed on the Isthmus and of making that a healthful place, and that he was not the man for the place. He said the trouble with Colonel Gorgas and those who acted with him or sympathized with him was that they thought they had solved a question when they had reached a scientific theory in respect to its existence and remedy; that when they had reached the theory that mosquitoes carried a disease they must do something to subdue the mosquitoes, but the practical work of subduing the mosquitoes they were not equal to.

He said that Major La Garde was a very competent surgeon and had made the hospital a comfortable and useful place, but that under the present régime of Colonel Gorgas they had no treatment for yellow fever whatever; that they put the patients under a mosquito bar and left them to die. He said there was a Doctor Randall connected with the railway company that had treated five or six cases that had occurred over at Colon and had not lost a case; that he had a special method, first opening the bowels with castor oil and saw to it that the various organs were kept open and in action. He said that he himself had had yellow fever and that his wife treated him; that he was also visited by Colonel Gorgas, who advised against taking drugs, and his wife, when his back was turned, administered a dose of castor oil, and that he attributed his escape to his wife's treatment and not to Colonel Gorgas. He said that this was not his own personal point, but that he was making these remarks in a confidential way and at personal request of Judge Magoon, who had requested him to convey it, and both realized that such a report as this could not safely be put in writing. The Secretary reminded him that Colonel Gorgas had a great reputation in Habana, and seemed to justify the confidence in him at Panama, and Mr. Wallace replied, "Oh, he was the fourth man in control at Habana and did not occupy any such important position as he now occupies at Panama."

He then proceeded to make a general report on the status of the work, the organization of his departments, subdivisions of departments, and in question to question described the heads of each, but he also said when he got to the chief part of it-the construction work-that there he had no assistance, that the subordinate departments were organized, but that the construction department was under his own immediate control, and that he had not yet been able to secure assistants. On each of his trips to the United States he had had this question in mind, and made efforts to find them, and had conferred with Mr. Noble respecting Mr. Harrison, but had not been able to reach terms with Mr. Harrison. Two or three others he had considered, but they were not quite up to the mark; that he proposed to go as high as $15,000 per year salary; that according to his idea of assistants there should be two assistants, each one in turn competent to become acting chief engineer upon occasion, and that by assigning two such men of nearly equal ability there would be an incentive upon the part of each to finally occupy the place of chief engineer in case of death cr retirement of that officer or during his absence; that in his experience he found that in the case of one assistant engineer he was always seeking for the place of his superior, and that it led to mistrust and sometimes disloyalty; but by having two men. neither one of whom would know who would succeed in case of vacancy, it promoted ambition and loyalty.

He said that he had engineers in charge of four or five departments, but that he had no engineers in charge of divisions, except Dauchey; that he expected to put engineers immediately under the assistant chiefs in charge of five departments, one at La Boca, one at Cristobal, one at Gamboa, and another at Culebra, and possibly another at some other place, but that none of these had yet been selected, and that there were no divisions operating under him thus divided.

He said that he had been engaged in making measurements and securing data for the purpose of determining in a year at large, including both dry and wet seasons and all other deterrent conditions, what it would cost on the average to excavate and deliver to its proper place a yard of the various kinds of material which they expected to find in the excavation; that this had been his work since he had been on the Isthmus, and that he had nearly completed it for one year; that these figures no one else understood but him; that Dauchey had shown a lack of intellignce as to what the work was being done for on the Isthmus now, although a very good workman, and that he had had to explain to him the last time he was on the Isthmus that this material could be gathered by anyone on the Isthmus who looked at the records there, although there were many things which he himself had found it would be difficult to apply as he would apply. He said that, so far as the work was concerned, there was no reason for his going back to the Isthmus for three or four months, and that the work which was being done could go on until Congress would determine what particular plan would be followed. He said that Mr. Dauchey was able to carry on the physical work until the final plans were determined; that it was simply hard drudgery on finished lines already planned, but that it was important scon to have Congress determine what plan should be adopted, and whether a dam should be put up at Gamboa, because by putting up a dam at Gamboa we could secure power sufficient to run the railroad and to light the works from one side of the Isthmus to the other, and in the construction we could reduce the cost by the use of the water power at Gamboa upward of eight or nine millions of dollars.

He made allusion to the difficulties that he had had in ordering through the purchasing agent at Washington, giving four or five different orders relating to the same piece of work for different things to be used in the work, some of which would come before the others, and often those which came first should be used last, which would delay the whole work. He said the work suffered from the lack of proportionate knowledge which the purchasing agent here did not have, which he might have imparted to him had he direct control over him on the Isthmus. And when Mr. Cromwell said, "Then the same man who gives the specifications on the Isthmus would have to execute it in the United States, but how could he be in both places? Mr. Wallace replied: "Oh, he would come and go to and fro, as he saw fit, and he would organize the force in Washington so that it would carry it out." The Secretary then said: "I do not see why you could not change and give your directions from the Isthmus by cable as from day to day you found necessity for making slight variations in plans." Mr. Wallace had said that he had been compelled to slightly change his orders from day to day and that this had led, probably, to the belief at Washington that he was vacillating, but in truth it was only because he had found

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some reason for changing the order of work on the spot and that this could not be understood by anybody in Washington and could only be understood by the man who was changing his own work, and Mr. Cromwell then again said: You really mean that one man should be conducting the whole affair and combine the offices?" Mr. Wallace replied: "That would accomplish it, but that I did not mean to be led into making that statement to-day, and I did not intend to bring that up." He said that he was ready to make his annual report to round out his year and to submit his information to the consulting board of engineers for the determination of a plan.

He referred to his vacation, saying that he was entitled to six weeks, and that he decided to take it at this time; that on his previous trips to the United States during the year that he had been very much occupied. The Secretary asked him whether there had been any stipulation in his contract for a vacation such as he said. He said, not a written contract, but that Admiral Walker had acceded to his request for such a vacation. The Secretary said that he did not know it. He said it would have been more businesslike to have put such terms in the contract, that it might be binding on the Government.

At the conclusion of the interview Mr. Wallace attempted to shake hands with the Secretary, but the Secretary avoided it on the first attempt. Nevertheless,

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as Mr. Wallace was going out he said that he would like to shake hands with the Secretary to show that there was no personal ill will. The Secretary then shook his hand, good-by," and then said: “Mr. Wallace, I have no personal feeling against you at all. I sincerely wish that you may have every success in the new field that you are about to enter. I do not wish my position in this matter vindicated by any disastrous result to you, and I wish you well, but I am exceedingly sorry that you can not see what a dreadful, dreadful mistake you are making. It pains me more than I can tell." Then Mr. Wallace went to Mr. Cromwell and shook hands with that gentleman, who also said to Mr. Wallace, "I, too, am very sorry of this result." The Secretary adds the following:

"These notes were made by joint dictation of Mr. Cromwell and myself in the hearing of both, June 30, 1904, 2 p. m. They are, as nearly as I can recollect, a full statement of what was said at the interview concerning the second part of the interview, and, added to that account already given to the press, make a full and fair statement of the entire interview. It is possible that there were some other objects alluded to, but they were unimportant, and I am unable at the moment to recall anything more."

EXHIBIT 23.

DEPARTMENT OF CONSTRUCTION AND ENGINEERING.

John F. Wallace-Member of Isthmian Canal Commission; member of executive committee; chief engineer.

Vacancy-First assistant chief engineer, in charge of technical studies and construction in the field.

Vacancy-Principal assistant engineer, in charge of records and office.
John Seager-Private secretary.

H. F. Tenny-Assistant private secretary.

COLON CONSTRUCTION DIVISION.

(Comprising the territory on the line of the canal from Colon to Bohio.)

F. B. Maltby-Division engineer, temporarily, pending selection of a permanent man.

Vacancy-Assistant division engineer.

E. P. Thompson-Chief clerk.

CHAGRES DIVISION OF CONSTRUCTION.

(Including the line of the canal from Bohio to Bas Obispo.)

W. E. Dauchy-Division engineer, temporarily, pending selection of a permanent man.

Vacancy-Assistant division engineer.

William E. Swift-Resident engineer.

GAMBOA DIVISION OF CONSTRUCTION.

(Including the Gamboa dam site and the Chagres River.)

W. E. Dauchy-Division engineer, temporarily, pending selection of a permanent man.

Vacancy-Assistant division engineer.

C. L. Carpenter-Assistant engineer.

CULEBRA CONSTRUCTION DIVISION.

(Including the territory from Bas Obispo to Miraflores.)

W. E. Dauchy-Division engineer temporarily, pending selection of a permanent man.

Vacancy-Assistant division engineer.

H. F. Dose-Resident engineer in charge of construction.

W. B. Ruggles-Resident engineer in charge of survey.

A. B. Nichols Resident engineer in charge of technical work; canal prism.
Vacancy-Superintendent of transportation.
Vacancy-Superintendent of excavation.

Vacancy-Superintendent of mining.
Vacancy-Superintendent of dumps.

E. Zook-Assistant engineer, superintendent of tracks.

Sydnie J. Kennedy-Chief clerk.

LA BOCA DIVISION OF CONSTRUCTION.

(Including the territory along the line of the canal from Miraflores to the sea.)

F. B. Maltby-Division engineer temporarily, pending selection of a permanent man.

Vacancy-Assistant division engineer.

A. C. Harper-Resident engineer.

Bureau of personnel, transportation, and quarters.

E. L. King-General quartermaster, chief of bureau, Panama.
R. E. Wood-Assistant general quartermaster, Empire.
James M. McGuire Assistant general quartermaster, Panama.
Vacancy-Assistant general quartermaster, Colon.
C. L. Parker-Chief clerk.

Bureau of supplies.

F. C. Tobey-Chief of bureau.
Victor S. Jackson-Assistant.
H. Leonard-Chief clerk.

Bureau of waterworks, sewers, and roads.

C. E. Davis-Chief of bureau.

Henry W. Durham-Resident engineer, Panama.
Ernest W. Clark-Resident engineer, Colon.

Earle C. MacFarland-Chief clerk.

Bureau of machinery and equipment.

George D. Brooke-Chief of bureau.

Carl A. Strom-Superintendent of motive power and machinery.
Earl J. Banta-Master mechanic, Panama.

E. T. Paterson-Office assistant.

E. C. Cummings-Master mechanic, Bas Matachin.

Upton Lorentz-Master mechanic, Empire.

E. C. Harrington-Master mechanic, Cristobal.