Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [251]
The Canal Zone was a beehive of activity and teeming with thousands of Americans. In the five years since the United States had resumed work on the canal, a large trench had begun to take shape. Despite the region’s heavy rainy season, landslides, and malaria, workers were excavating 3 million cubic yards of dirt a month, creating a ditch large enough to lay down two Empire State Buildings on their sides, end to end. But it would be still five more years before the first ship would pass through the canal.
Harding caught up with Pulitzer’s attorney, who was quite surprised to find him in Panama. Harding determined that, as he had feared, Cromwell’s men and Panamanian conspirators were obstructing the legal investigation, preventing the investigation from getting to the bottom of the story. In fact, the attorney had already been convinced that there had been no corruption. “The World has been misled,” he told Harding. “We haven’t a leg to stand on.”
Harding decided that if Panama would not yield the secrets, then they could be found in the capital of the country which once ruled Panama. Before leaving for the Colombian capital of Bogotá, he hired Edwin Warren Guyol, a native of New Orleans who spoke Spanish and had worked as a reporter in Cuba. Nicknamed “M’sié Manqueau” for having lost his arm in an accident, Guyol had a rough-and-tumble reputation. But he proved loyal to the end. When men tied to Cromwell attempted to bribe him, he told Harding. They, Guyol said, wanted him to spy on Harding and impede the research. In particular, he was to work closely with Marquis Alexander de St. Croix, a French wine salesman who was leaving for Bogotá ahead of them. The pair decided to play along as if Guyol had agreed to double-cross Harding.
When Harding and Guyol reached Bogotá in August, they made their arrival conspicuous. They published an open letter in the main newspaper asking for help from Colombians, who were still smarting after the forced separation of Panama from their own territory. Officials at the U.S. legation warily watched Guyol and Harding. As it turned out, they had reason to.
Harding concluded that it was time to resort to extreme means to find the documents they were looking for. “In short,” he said, “it was a case, as far as we were concerned, of fighting the devil with his own tools.” They selected St. Croix, the wine merchant whom they believed to be a spy for Cromwell, as their first target. Continuing to pretend that he himself had been bribed, Guyol tried to get St. Croix to let him know what Cromwell was covering up. After this effort failed to produce any results, Guyol obtained Harding’s permission to spike St. Croix’s brandy with chloral hydrate (a hypnotic and sedative) in order to search his luggage. To ward off any effect on himself when he drank brandy with St. Croix, Guyol drank a cup of olive oil beforehand. The luggage contained nothing incriminating.
Next they turned to the U.S. legation. Harding was convinced that it held documents dating from when the United States engineered Panama’s revolution, and that these would be the proof he sought. A U.S. official, who regularly indulged a passion for drink and gambling, particularly high-stakes stud poker, gave them their first opportunity. Using the World’s money to pay his gambling debts at a club in Bogotá, Guyol befriended this official. One night,