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Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. And then you met Mr. Cromwell, or Mr. Cromwell met you?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; he had his secretary meet me at the boat with a carriage, and he took me to his office where Mr. Cromwell was waiting for me.

Senator MORGAN. Who was his secretary?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not remember his name.

Senator MORGAN. When he met you, did he advise you at once to qualify as commissioner?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Was that after he had delivered to you your commission?

Mr. WALLACE. That was simultaneous.

Senator MORGAN. He brought the commission to you, signed by the President?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes; and they swore me in as Commissioner. I took the oath there.

Senator MORGAN. And it was administered in his office?

Mr. WALLACE. In his office; yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. What reason did he assign to you for desiring that the oath should be administered at once?

Mr. WALLACE. He simply said that the Secretary desired that I be sworn in as soon as I landed. He said he did not know what business might come up in which it might be necessary for me to take action, and that they thought it would be better that I be sworn it at once.

Senator MORGAN. In your former examination you stated this, as I remember, that he said to you that he wanted you to be sworn in before you saw Shonts.

Mr. WALLACE. No, no; you misunderstood me. He said that Mr. Shonts was in the city, and Mr. Shonts and I might want to get together and transact business, and that the Secretary wanted me sworn in as soon as I landed.

Senator MORGAN. Did he make a point on that-that as soon as you landed you should be sworn in?

Mr. WALLACE. Well, it was immediately, and he had the carriage there waiting to take me to his office, although it was at night, and he seemed to attach a great deal of importance to having it done right away. I never questioned it at all. I understood that he maintained close confidential relations to the Secretary, and I presumed that he was carrying out the Secretary's will and instructions.

Senator MORGAN. Up to that time Mr. Cromwell had close, cont.dential relations with you, too, did he not?

Mr. WALLACE. Well, we were always friendly.

Senator MORGAN. Yes; up to that time?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; we have always been friendly since. We have had no

Senator MORGAN. You have not fought each other?

Mr. WALLACE. We have not fought each other; no.

Senator TALIAFERRO. You knew Mr. Cromwell for some time before you took this position on the Isthmus?

Mr. WALLACE. I never met him until I met him when he appeared before the Commission to lay that bill of extras before it, in June, 1904.

Senator MORGAN. After you were appointed a Commissioner, you then came to Washington and participated in the reorganization of the Canal Commission?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Which of the old members had gone out?

Mr. WALLACE. All except Major Harrod. All of the old Commissioners were eliminated except Major Harrod, of New Orleans. He was retained on the new Commission, and he is there yet. Senator MORGAN. Was he reappointed, or just retained? Mr. WALLACE. I do not know. I suppose he was reappointed. Senator MORGAN. Had the former Commission resigned?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not know about that, although they were not there in office when I came back.

Senator MORGAN. Was it the understanding that they had resigned? Mr. WALLACE. I did not have any understanding about it, Senator. They were simply eliminated; I do not know how or why.

Senator MORGAN. Was any cause ever assigned during these interviews, in your hearing, for the unanimous resignation of the former Commission?

Mr. WALLACE. No; I never heard any particular cause.
Senator MORGAN. Do you know any reason for it now?

Mr. WALLACE. No, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Had there been any delinquency, within your knowledge for you had worked there several months with them and under them as chief engineer-had there been any delinquency on the part of either of them so far as you knew?

Mr. WALLACE. The only criticism that I ever made, directly or indirectly, on that Commission, was the general criticism that you could not expect to get efficient executive action out of any body of

seven men.

Senator MORGAN. It was too large?

Mr. WALLACE. It was too large.

Senator MORGAN. There were too many of them?

Mr. WALLACE. There were too many of them.

Senator MORGAN. Was it a case of too much talent or too much energy, or what was it?

Mr. WALLACE. There were too many differences of opinion, and the body was too cumbersome for an executive organization.

Senator MORGAN. But you went into a commission that contained the same number?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. Was that too cumbersome? What is your opinion about it?

Mr. WALLACE. The impression created in my mind from the things that I heard was that in that new Commission the four members of it who were engineers were only to exercise what you might call advisory functions. In other words, there was an Executive order issued in connection with the organization of the new Commission, which is a matter of record, which practically placed the power in the hands of an executive committee of three. That committee was composed of Mr. Shonts and Judge Magoon and myself.

Senator MORGAN. Who was the fourth man that you have just mentioned?

Mr. WALLACE. The other four were the four engineers-that is, Major Harrod, General Ernst, General Hains, and Admiral Endicott. This order provided that the executive committee should meet twice a week on the Isthmus; and it was my understanding of that Executive order that each member of this executive committee had charge of a department in which he was to be practically supreme, and that the chairman had no power over any of us except so far as he had a vote to cast. Now, I hate to repeat conversations, because whenever I do that it brings up a question of veracity.

Senator MORGAN. Oh, well, those questions are up every day here. Mr. Cromwell has made them on you, and I want to see if you can get out of them.

Mr. WALLACE. When the Secretary cabled me the constitution of this Commission, the impression that his cablegram made on my mind was that Mr. Shonts's duty was to be confined to that of purchasing agent in the United States, and such routine work as was necessary to be performed here.

Senator MORGAN. Whose cablegram was that?

Mr. WALLACE. That was the Secretary of War's.
Senator MORGAN. Yes.

Mr. WALLACE. When I came up I found that the Executive order provided for a certain distribution of authority and specified that Mr. Shonts should spend half his time on the Isthmus and half in this country. Just before I went back I was notified by Mr. Shonts that the President, in order to induce him to take this chairmanship of the Commission, had practically promised him absolute dominating authority over us all. Now, those were not his exact words; but he first mentioned it to me in an easy, smiling way, and I did not really know what weight to put on it; and it was not until after I went back to the Isthmus that he commenced to give me instructions which would indicate that he intended to "run the job." Now, Senator

Senator MORGAN. That is all in regard to the new Commission. I want to get back to the old one.

Senator KITTREDGE. You were about to add something, Mr. Wallace. Mr. WALLACE. What I was going to add was this: That these personal matters are very unpleasant for me, and I am through with the whole thing now. I am simply a private citizen, like everyone else, and I hope you will not press me on anything of a personal nature any further than you consistently can. I am perfectly willing to come here and answer any questions that you wish and to help you in any way toward getting knowledge on this subject, but I do hope that you will not press me on these personal matters.

Senator TALIAFERRO. You have spoken, Mr. Wallace, of a conversation between Mr. Shonts and yourself.

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator TALIAFERRO. In which he intimated to you that he had been given a free hand in the management of the work. Did you understand from him that that part of the executive order which required that he should spend half of his time on the Isthmus had been abated or revoked?

Mr. WALLACE. No, I did not understand that. I understood that he practically would be allowed to run things to suit himself. Senator TALIAFERRO. Including that?

Mr. WALLACE. That particular thing did not occur in connection with it.

Senator TALIAFERRO. He never spent his time there?

Mr. WALLACE. No, sir.

Senator MORGAN. I do not wish Mr. Wallace to bring up any matter at all that would have a tendency to involve him in any personal controversy with any person at all. But what transpired there was between public officials; and all of their dealings with each other of a material sort I think are necessary to be known by the committee, in order that we may know what recommendations to make to the Senate as to the future conduct of this canal.

Mr. WALLACE. I will answer your questions, of course, freely, Mr. Senator. The only thing is that I put myself on your mercy.

Senator MORGAN. Can you state any reason known to you, or any reason urged by superior authority or by any of the Commissioners, why the old Commission was removed, beyond the one that you have stated that it was too large?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not know of any. Of course, there was all sorts of gossip going around in those days, but the impression seemed to be that the work was not effectively carried out because there were so many men on the Commission.

Senator MORGAN. I notice from the proceedings of that Commission which are recorded here that at every meeting they were all present, except while Mr. Barclay Parsons was excused because of some engagement he had in London, which had been provided for before his appointment; and they worked all through the summer there, the yellow-fever months, and all that sort of thing, day after day. They seem, from the minutes which I hold in my hand, to have done a vast amount of work, at least in the organization of the government of the Panama Zone, and providing for the future successful operations of the engineering and the supply departments, the labor department, the pay department, and all of the other departments, particularly the medical department. These records show a vast amount of work, and, as far as I have gone into the matter, very clear and proper work.

Do you recollect that any order or vote or resolution in regard to any matter contained in these proceedings here was ever revoked by the President?

Mr. WALLACE. I never heard of any; no, sir; and I never heard any criticism on the ability or on the singleness of purpose of any member of that Commission, individually.

Senator MORGAN. Or their industry?

Mr. WALLACE. Or their industry.

Senator MORGAN. Or their staying at their posts and working under unpleasant conditions-unpleasant physical conditions, I mean? Mr. WALLACE. I never heard of any criticism of that kind; no, sir. Senator MORGAN. Every one of these orders and reports was submitted to the Secretary of War?

Mr. WALLACE. I do not know as to that. I presume they were, because they were official.

Senator MORGAN. That was required to be done?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. This book shows that they were.
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Mr. WALLACE. I have no knowledge of that. I was on the Isthmus and they were here, of course.

Senator MORGAN. The first Isthmian Canal Commission (the Walker commission of construction I will call it; there had been a previous Walker commission, but that was one of exploration, and then after we bought the property the commission of construction was appointed) entered upon its duties with nobody present of the commissioners except General Davis, who was the governor of the Canal Zone. He was the only man that was there at first, and then he was soon joined by Mr. Hecker, and others came in afterwards.

Prior to Davis taking hold there as governor and undertaking to establish a government and to get the United States in possession, to accomplish or to begin to accomplish its great task of digging this canal, the reports inform us that no laws prevailed there except the laws of Colombia; that the Panama Canal Company and the railroad company, which were separate organizations, had no right to pass any police regulation or any law or resolution of a governing character, but they were subordinate entirely to the laws of Colombia, and some of the laws of the State of Panama, which was then a State of the Republic of Colombia, and that that system had to be entirely abandoned and a new system substituted for it.

In the situation in which that work was at the time Davis took hold of it as governor, was it not a really herculean task to frame all of these statutes, to make all of these provisions for the inaugurating of any kind of work there, and for getting labor and for getting material, and for cleaning up the débris of the Panama Canal Company? Was it not a very heavy task?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, it was; and, personally, I have never thought that the Walker commission received anything like the recognition that it should for the service it rendered, particularly General Davis.

Senator MORGAN. Yes. Now, during the operations of that Commission were you aware of any general public complaint as to the work that they were conducting there of the manner of their conducting it or the diligence and skill and wisdom with which they projected and conducted the work there on the Isthmus in trying to inaugurate a system of government and a system of labor?

Mr. WALLACE. I never heard any criticism on it. The only criticism was something that was due to an impatient desire, of course, upon the part of everyone to see things move a little faster. Senator MORGAN. To "make the dirt fly?"

Mr. WALLACE. To" make the dirt fly." Of course my criticism was not directed so much at the Commission as it was at the method. I could not get any material, and I could not get anything furnished for me--I mean in the way that I thought I ought to have it; but that was not due to any want of effort upon the part of the individual members of the Commission.

Senator MORGAN. They did all that they could?

Mr. WALLACE. They seemingly did all that they could.

Senator MORGAN. And they stayed there and did their work?
Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; that is, they were down there for about-
Senator MORGAN. And they were all able men?

Mr. WALLACE. They were all able men.

Senator MORGAN. And devoted to duty?
Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

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