Goethals Sure Of Canal.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 10, 1913:
Landslides Do Not Alarm Him — First Ship Through Next Year.
    Col. George W. Goethals, Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal, who arrived last night on the United Fruit steamship Pastores on his way to Washington to attend a meeting of the Directorate of the Panama Railroad, appeared optimistic in regard to the opening of the canal, in spite of the landslides in the Culebra Cut. There was nothing new in them, he said.
    "The most troublesome slide," he explained, "is at Cucaracha. This has caused a great deal of hard work to get down to where we now have it. Then there is another at Culebra, and one across from Culebra, both of which are troublesome, but there is nothing to warrant reports that we are hovering on the brink of failure."
    Speaking of the prospects of the canal being opened before the date set, Jan. 1. 1915, Col. Goethals said:
    "I am going to send a ship through that canal just as soon as I can get water in it, even if it's a flat bottom boat. By Jan. 1, 1915, there will be water in the canal, and ships will go through it. I have never had a doubt of that since I first announced it, and there is no doubt of it now.
    "I have promised that the Fram, the ship used in the discovery of the south pole by Amundsen, shall go through in July, 1914, but it will not be the first boat to go through. Which it will be, I do not know yet. It will probably be smaller than the Fram, but by Jan. 1, 1915, anything that floats will be able to go through."