Speech #760066382

I think everyone who is familiar with the history of the construction of the Panama Canal will agree that the original construction of the Canal would have been absolutely impossible under any such amendment as the one before us. although. of course. we all recognize that health conditions in the Panama Canal Zone have vastly improved since the American occupation of the Panama Canal Zone. I think it is the unanimous opinion of the officials who are most familiar with the problem that to say that only native American labor may be employed in the Panama Canal Zone. or in the possible Nicaragua canal zone. or in any other tropical country. is simply to make impossible the construction of such a project. Some of the socalled alien laborers on the Panama Canal are the sons of the men who constructed the Panama Canal. Some of them are the men who themselves constructed the Panama Canal. They are not citizens. nor are their sons. because they are prohibited by law from becoming citizens.