Accordingly I recommended to Congress, on February 19, 1906, that a lock canal should be built, and my recommendation was adopted.

Congress insisted upon having it built by a commission of several men.

I tried faithfully to get good work out of the commission, and found it quite impossible; for a many-headed commission is an extremely poor executive instrument.

At last I put Colonel Goethals in as head of the commission.

Then, when Congress still refused to make the commission single-headed, I solved the difficulty by an executive order of January 6, 1908, which practically accomplished the object by enlarging the powers of the chairman, making all the other members of the commission dependent upon him, and thereby placing the work under one-man control.