Look at the elaborate system of the Incas, even with their docile
and uninitiative subjects. In the matter of Omnipresence; it would
be pretty hard to find a hole on the Canal Zone where you could
pull off a stunt of any length or importance without the I.C.C.
having a weather-eye on you. When it comes to the no less
indispensable ingredient of benevolence one glimpse of those mild
blue eyes would probably reassure you in that point, even without
the pleasure of watching the despot sit in judgment on his
subjects in his castle office on Sunday mornings like old Saint
Louis under his oak--though with a tin of cigarettes beside him
that old Louis had to worry along without.
This all-powerful government insists on and enforces many of the
things which Americans as a whole stand for,--Sunday closing,
suppression of resorts, forbidding of gambling. But the Zone is no
test whether these laws could be genuinely enforced in a whole
nation. For down there Panama and Colon serve as a sort of safety-
valve, where a man can run down in an hour or so on mileage or
monthly pass and blow off steam; get rid of the bad internal
vapors that might cause explosion in a ventless society. This we
should not lose sight of when we boast that there are few crimes
and no real resorts on the Zone. "The Colonel" himself will tell
you there is no gambling.
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