Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 233, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1910 — IN THE SCRAP HEAP [ARTICLE]

IN THE SCRAP HEAP

Remnant of French ’ Panama Canal Goes to Melting Pots. Machinery Brought Over by Backers of Ferdinand de Lesseps Being- Sent to Furnaces to Be Made Over. .Harrisburg, Pa.—The ghost of old Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer, would stand aghast were it to (visit the yards of the Harrisburg Iron and Steel company and see what is being done with the costly machinery and equipment which he shipped from (France to, the Isthmus of Panama in the 70s, to aid in the construction of the big ditch that was to be dug solely •>y French labor, conducted by French •kill and paid for by French cash from the strong box of the banker and the humble woolen sock of the French peasant. As all the world knows, after De Lesaeps had made such a great success in Ixiildlng the Suez canal, he was urged to greater efforts to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; -and he set about the task with fer-

vor and a desire to enrich his countrymen as well as to add luster to his own name and reputation. It was too expensive a transaction, however, and after the French government withdrew its patronage and the French people declined longer to contribute, there came scandals without number that shocked the world, and De Lesseps withdrew to France to die of a broken hearts In the abandonment the French company left on the ground all of its machinery, some of which had never been in use, consisting of locomotives, steel cars, huge steel scoops and dredges, valuable tools of iron and steel, bridges that had been made in France and were ready to put together, huge cranes, levers and costly casting material. This costly outfit lay in the path of the American engineers when they came to dig the new ditch which Uncle Sam has in course of construction. Some of it was covered with mud a foot deep; some of it gathered rust an inch deep in the forests of the tropicslocomotives that cost thousands in France lay upturned, the resting places of the swamp > birds, and monkeys swung from one bridge piece to the other as had done their ancestors

when De Lesseps and his merry men began to dig the ditch that failed. There was only to do with this old stuff, and that was to gather ship it north and sell it for junk, to be remelted in the Yankee smelting pot, to make useful things. Tons upon tons of it were sent to New York and sold, and among those who got a share was the Harrisburg Iron- and Steel company. Thus far Harrisburg has handled 1,500 tons of this scrap. As none of itcan be used for its original purpose, as fast as it is received here it is cleaned of the rust of years and the mud of Panama and sent to furdaces, for there is always a demand for it, of its quality.