Panama Canal Doctrine

1049 Words3 Pages

The Shift in American Policy The United States foreign policy is basically the way we work with other foreign nations and it sets the examples on how to interact with those foreign nations. The main causes for the shift in foreign policy from isolationism to imperialism, in my opinion, were the Panama Canal, and the Monroe Doctrine. First off, the Panama Canal. In order to interact with other nations and trade, we had to sail all the way around South America to get to Asia. The trips usually took up to six months and it was really inconvenient. The French had already invested over one million dollars to make this canal. They could never do it because they never figured out a way to get around all the hills and mountains. Even though they had just finished builing the suez canal, it was not the same. The land they …show more content…

He started spraying his insecticide all over the place and even on the dead bodies that were there and to prevent any further spread he put the people that had already contracted the yellow fever in mesh like tents so the mosquitos would keep out and partly also to quarantine them. Then since the land was muddy it was hard to try and cut through it and make a canal. Around three thousand men backed out of building the canal for fear of contracting yellow fever. Another drawback was the fear of not even finishing it. They were thinking like what if they end up like the French and kill a lot of people and not even end up finishing it. This could not happen because they had already invested a lot of money into this. They hired John F Wallace, John Stevens and, George Goethals to monitor the project and make sure that they were on track every step of the way. Wallace was the first to step in by fixing all the mistakes that had happened to the French. Stevens started working on the machinery, he told the men to start working with the French machinery while they waited for their own to be delivered. Goethals

Open Document