But not one of them
ever went so far as to demonstrate; and though I was born a long
way north of Missouri I once passed through a corner of the state.
As to the other side of the ledger,--equal pay for all, nowhere is
man further from socialism than on the Canal Zone. Caste lines are
as sharply drawn as in India, which should not be unexpected in an
enterprise largely in charge of graduates of our chief training-
school for caste. The Brahmins are the "gold" employees, white
American citizens with all the advantages and privileges thereto
appertaining. But--and herein we out-Hindu the Hindus--the Brahmin
caste itself is divided and subdivided into infinitesimal
gradations. Every rank and shade of man has a different salary,
and exactly in accordance with that salary is he housed,
furnished, and treated down to the least item,--number of electric
lights, candle-power, style of bed, size of bookcase. His Brahmin
highness, "the Colonel," has a palace, relatively, and all that
goes with it. The high priests, the members of the Isthmian Canal
Commission, have less regal palaces. Heads of the big departments
have merely palatial residences. Bosses live in well-furnished
dwellings, conductors are assigned a furnished house--or quarter
of a house. Policemen, artisans, and the common garden variety of
bachelors have a good place to sleep.
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