Roosevelt and the Renegade (Panama Disaster 2)
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sixteen years have passed since Ferdinand De Lesseps' catastrophic failure in Panama and the dramatic collapse of the French Panama Canal company. Now, President Theodore Roosevelt has picked up the task. “No single great material work,” Roosevelt tells Congress, “is of such consequence to the American people.”
The Americans have their work cut out. Enter chief engineer John Stevens. How does he spot a problem no-one else has noticed? And what does he do to solve it?
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:08.8 | You're listening to an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:14.0 | Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. |
| 0:16.8 | Think again. |
| 0:17.4 | More Americans listen to podcasts than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. |
| 0:21.6 | And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. |
| 0:25.6 | Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. President Theodore Roosevelt sits in the Oval Office, reading his mail. |
| 0:41.5 | It's early in 1907. |
| 0:43.7 | Roosevelt is a commanding figure. |
| 0:46.2 | A reformer at home, a visionary in foreign policy, |
| 0:50.0 | arguably the most popular and powerful president there'd ever been. |
| 0:54.8 | He's not expecting to be let down and insulted. |
| 0:59.1 | He opens a letter from Panama. |
| 1:02.4 | It's from the chief engineer on the Panama Canal Project. |
| 1:06.4 | John Stevens is the project's second chief engineer. |
| 1:10.2 | The first one had quit after barely a year. |
| 1:13.6 | That was embarrassing for Roosevelt. The Panama Canal was his pet project, central to his vision |
| 1:20.2 | of connecting U.S. naval power across the Atlantic and Pacific. The letter is long. |
| 1:27.2 | Six typewritten pages. |
| 1:30.3 | I never sought this position, John Stevens writes to Roosevelt. |
| 1:34.8 | I accepted it against my better judgment. |
| 1:38.9 | Oh, oh dear. It is true that Stevens never sought the position. When the first chief engineer quit, |
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