urn pride to France by completing this project. He successfully completed the Suez Canal in Egypt. He planned to repeat his success in Panama using a sea level canal. He sold stock and investors put up about 240 million dollars. Three times the amount of what the Suez Canal cost. The completion of the Canal was set at twelve years. 20,000 workers were working on the canal by 1883.
             The French had a string of failures. They failed because the technology and medical technologies didn't exist at this point of time. De Lesseps was more a man of personality then an engineer, for he had no technical training. The French piled dirt up next to the spots they were digging. This cause landslides and they had to dig the same spots over. About 200 people were dieing a month from yellow fever. (Kiger) The French had no idea what was causing this. Next to the hospital they had plants in basins filled with water to stop umbrella ants from eating them. Unbeknownst to the French this was the perfect breeding ground. These basins helped mosquitoes breed in great numbers that carried yellow fever.
             The money was squandered and embezzled from the project. The French then decide that maybe switching to a lock canal might be better in order to try to comfort investors. De Lesseps realizes that he is out of his league and asks Eiffel for help. It is too late for the French to succeed in completing the canal. De Lesseps's Canal Company goes out of business and simply run out of funds to continue work. The French pull out of Panama after 10 years, but not until 287 million dollars was spent and 20,000 people died. Many people are sent to prison over the financial fiasco. The word Panama became synonymous with the word scandal in France.
             "Leon F. Czolgosz, aged twenty-eight, a Detroit resident of Polish heritage and an unemployed mill worker of anarchist sentiments, had fired a concealed .32 Iver Johnson revolver point ...