Volcano; Earthquake

The 1902 eruption of Mt. Momotombo, Nicaragua's proudest eminence (6,200 ft.), put a big fat question mark upon the idea of an interoceanic canal across that Central American republic, turned the tide of U. S. sentiment in favor of the Panamanian route. Last week's earthquake at Managua (see page 23) punctuated the same proposition, now revived, with another question mark no less big and fat.

Twenty-nine years ago the U. S. Congress was on the verge of approving a Nicaraguan canal. Frenchmen who wanted the U. S. to take the Panama site off their hands were in despair. Their promise of a $250,000 contribution to the G. O. P. campaign chest failed to produce results. Then suddenly Momotombo blew off. Wily Philippe Bunau-Varilla, French agent, sent a Nicaraguan postage stamp to each & every member of Congress. Up in the Senate rose Ohio's eloquent Marcus Alonzo Hanna who had not forgotten the $250,000 campaign promise. Between thumb & finger, high over his head, he brandished his stamp. Upon it was pictured smoking Momotombo. Senator Hanna sonorously asked his colleagues if they would be so foolish as to build a canal in the shadow of this volcano. Startled, frightened, they bolted the Nicaraguan plan. Theodore Roosevelt's 50-mile "big ditch" went through Panama. The G. O. P. got its $250,000.

But even with the Panama Canal completed at a cost of $388,000,000, a national defense argument persisted that the U. S. required two canals to link its Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In 1916 the U. S. purchased for $3,000,000 a 99-year option to build a canal across Nicaragua, from Greytown through Lake Nicaragua to Brito, a distance of 177 mi. In 1929 after traffic through the Panama canal had increased at a rate to indicate serious congestion by 1955, President Hoover appointed a special board to; study the feasibility and cost of the Nicaraguan route. A corps of some 400 Army engineers made the survey. Last month the board agreed informally that such a canal was entirely practical, that geological conditions were more favorable than in Panama, that the cost would be about $700,000,000.

Though it raised lay doubts elsewhere, last week's earthquake did not shake the Hoover board out of its conviction that a Nicaraguan canal would be safe--just as safe as Panama. Anticipating much the same argument against the project that Senator Hanna had used, Sydney Bacon Williamson, the board's chief civilian engineer, cited these facts: 1) last week's earthquake was 60 mi. from the proposed canal route; 2) Panama in the last 35 years has had 16 earthquakes to Nicaragua's 14; 3) an extraordinarily severe earthquake is required to damage the massive masonry of a big canal. Declared Engineer Williamson:

"The earthquake will have no serious bearing on the Nicaraguan canal problem. . . . The earthquake menace is virtually the same for both routes. . . ."

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