Politics of the Panama Canal

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Politics of the Panama Canal

During the Spanish-American War the warship Oregon was summoned from the West Coast. The trip took two months to travel 14,000 miles around Cape Horn to the Atlantic. (The American Journey 741) How was the United States supposed to defend it shores if it took ships that long to get between them? The United State had to build a canal through Central America; national security depended on it.

The Politics of the Panama Canal are confusing. This confusion includes the building, the economics and the operation of this facility. The canal, began in 1881 and finished in 1914(Dolan 55), has caused one country to fail, another to triumph, and another to gain its independence.

There was a need for a canal through the isthmus of Central America. The big question was who would step up and build it. France had just lost the Franco-Prussian War against Germany. The country felt that it had lost some prestige in eyes of other nations. There seemed only one certain way to restore its glory, undertake and complete the most challenging engineering feat in history. Build a canal through Central America and link the world’s two greatest oceans. (Dolan 53)

The French chose Panama to build its canal because it was far narrower than Nicaragua, it’s closet competitor. They obtained permission from Columbia to lay the waterway. (Dolan 53) A private company was founded in 1879 to raise the needed capital to undertake the construction. Appointed president of the company was Ferdind de Lesseps, who had guided the construction of the Suez Canal. (Panama)

The French abandoned the project in 1889, due to a lack of funding. (Dolan 59) Now it was time for the American’s to get involved. But there was one prob...

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...ics, and the operation of the Panama Canal in the years to come. They will help the canal expand in the lives of more Panamanians and maybe someday even building of another canal over the Isthmus of Panama.

Bibliography:

Works Cited

Crane, Phillip F: Surrender in Panama, the Case Against the Treaties. New York:

Dale Books, 1978

Conaway, Janell. America’s. Jan 1999, 16. NewsBank, Online 1999

Dolan, Edward F.: Panama and the United States, Their Canal, and Their Stormy Years.

New York: Moffy Press Inc., 1990

McCullough, David: The Path Between the Seas. New York: Simon a Schuster, 1977

McNeese, Tim. The Panama Canal. San Diego: Lucent Books. Inc, 1997

“Panama”. The Volume Library. South Western Company, 1994

The Second Decade: Panama at the Canal Treaties. U.S. Department of Dispatch, 1990

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