Colombia's wrongdoing, therefore, recoiled on her own head.

There was no new lesson taught; it ought already to have been known to every one that wickedness, weakness, and folly combined rarely fail to meet punishment, and that the intent to do wrong, when joined to inability to carry the evil purpose to a successful conclusion, inevitably reacts on the wrongdoer.
For the full history of the acquisition and building of the canal see "The Panama Gateway," by Joseph Bucklin Bishop (Scribner's Sons).

Mr.
Bishop has been for eight years secretary of the commission and is one of the most efficient of the many efficient men to whose work on the Isthmus America owes so much..