Donegan and the Panama Canal

By Thomas E. Morrissey

Donegan and the Panama Canal is a fictionalized, first person story of why and how the United States built a canal in Panama in 1903. This story is a sequel to Mr. Morrisseys previous novel of the Spanish-American War, Donegan and the Splendid Little War. No one had previously written an historical novel of either of these events.
The title character of Donegan and the Panama Canal is Patrick Donegan (1875-1958), the son of Irish immigrants to Philadelphia. Donegan belatedly wrote this memoir in 1953, but his grandson Thomas Morrissey did not publish it for another fifty years.
Patrick Donegan had previously served on a Spanish merchant ship for two years before its captain stranded him in Santiago de Cuba in 1895. He became a war profiteer during the Cuban revolt against Spain, and wrote propaganda articles for the Cubans before William Randolph Hearst hired him to write for the New York Journal.
Donegan and the Splendid Little War relates how Donegan wrote biased pro-Cuban stories for Hearst. He telegrammed a misleading account of the explosion of the American battleship Maine, which ultimately caused the United States to declare war on Spain. He accompanied Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in their famous charge up San Juan Hill. He published an exclusive, eyewitness account of President McKinleys assassination, but Hearst fired him when Joseph Pulitzer discovered that Donegan had written a short poem that may have inspired McKinleys assassin. Donegan left the field of journalism and secretly became a lobbyist for the Panama Canal.
Donegan and the Panama Canal tells the story how Hearst ordered Donegan, a year before he fired him in 1901, to sail around South America and disembark at the west coast of Nicaragua. Hearst, a Nicaraguan Canal partisan, did not know that Donegan had already promised Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer who had served in Ferdinand de Lesseps earlier ill-fated attempt to build a canal in Panama, that he would support a Panama Canal.
Captain Michael Healy piloted the ship that carried Donegan during their long journey through the Strait of Magellan to Central America. Donegan traveled through Nicaragua, and interviewed her president and the American minister. He wrote many negative articles about Nicaragua, and warned the American public that many active and dangerous volcanoes flourished in Nicaragua that could easily destroy any canal built there.
Hearst appointed Donegan to cover the Washington political scene when he returned to New York. Donegan accompanied Philippe Bunau-Varilla when this French lobbyist promoted the Panama Canal in many speeches throughout the United States. Bunau-Varilla convinced Senator Mark Hanna, President William McKinleys eminence grise, that the Panama site was preferable to Nicaragua. McKinley remained non-committal about where to build the canal, but Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama, the chief Nicaragua advocate, viciously attacked Philippe and Donegans Panama site.
After Hearst fired him after President McKinleys assassination, Donegan sailed to France where he met William Nelson Cromwell, the legal representative of the Panama Railroad and the New Panama Canal Company. Donegan agreed to work with Cromwell on the canal question although he personally despised him.
Donegan conferred with Bunau-Varilla in France, but they quickly returned to America when they heard that Congress would soon vote on whether the canal should be built in Panama or Nicaragua. All seemed lost when the House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported Nicaragua. Bunau-Varilla influenced the French Canal Company to lower the price for its canal concession, and Donegan influenced President Roosevelt, who previously favored Nicaragua, to support the Panama site.
Congress had to make the final decision about the canal site. Senator Morgans Committee on Interoceanic Canals supported the Nicaragua Canal. Morgan and other senators argued that no can

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462832637

Thomas E. Morrissey

Thomas Morrissey, a Georgetown University graduate, taught American and European history for over thirty years in Philadelphia. Mr. Morrissey, the married father of two children, performed extensive scholarly research for Donegan and the Panama Canal, a fictional account of how the United States obtained the Panama Canal in 1903. Mr. Morrissey is also the author of Donegan and the Splendid Little War, an historical novel of the 1898 Spanish-American War.

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Donegan and the

Panama Canal

Thomas E. Morrissey

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Morrissey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

66959

Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my parents, Francis J. Morrissey, Jr. and

Catherine M. Morrissey, the most honorable man and kindest woman

whom I have ever known.

PREFACE

Teddy Roosevelt was the most remarkable person whom I ever met. He was a brilliant intellectual, the author of more than twenty histories and biographies. He was an heroic soldier, the famous commander of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. He was a successful politician, both as New York Governor and United States President. He was a great reformer, the scourge of the Trusts and machine politicians. He was a popular aristocrat, loved more by the common people than by his own social class. He was a famous sportsman, a renowned big-game hunter in Africa and America. He was an accomplished naturalist and great conservationist, the creator of national parks and wildlife game preserves. He was an influential warmonger, the leading advocate of the Spanish-American War. He was a successful peacemaker, the first American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was also verbose, stubborn, intemperate, and impatient.

Few people held neutral opinions about Theodore and his distant cousin Franklin. People either loved or hated them. I admired Teddy even though I recognized his negative qualities. We became friendly acquaintances, the only relationship that a first-generation Irish Catholic journalist could expect to have with an aristocratic Dutch Calvinist politician.

I first met Roosevelt during the prelude to the Spanish-American War. I marched with him in Cuba where I exaggerated his exploits in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. I wrote many admiring articles about his 1900 vice-presidential campaign. After Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley in 1901, many people, but not the newly inaugurated President Roosevelt, blamed me for his death. Hearst reluctantly fired me because his enemies demanded a scapegoat.

Theodore Roosevelt’s greatest achievement was the creation of the Panama Canal. American history textbooks relate how the Panamanians successfully revolted against Colombian rule and immediately signed a treaty that allowed the United States to build the canal. Some accounts mention that Roosevelt encouraged this Panamanian rebellion, but they do not detail how this happened. I have written this book to inform the American public how three shadowy figures—William Nelson Cromwell, Philippe Bunau-Varilla and I—helped Roosevelt acquire the Panama Canal.

In my earlier book, Donegan and the Splendid Little War, I explained why I waited so many years to write my memoirs. My children feared that my stories would embarrass them, so I assured them that I would not have my autobiographies published until my last child died. I hope that this explains why my second volume of memoirs appears approximately one hundred years after the events described in this book.

I expect that college professors will dislike my account of the Panama Canal affair. That does not bother me. I have followed Rousseau’s dictum in his Confessions: I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory.

Patrick Donegan

Philadelphia, Pa.

October 31, 1952

I again have the unpleasant task of publishing my grandfather’s memoirs. I certainly do not approve of everything that my grandfather wrote, but I have not changed one word. That was an ironclad clause in his will.

The public enjoyed my grandfather’s first autobiography, Donegan and the Splendid Little War, but the professional historians complained, Who was Patrick Donegan, and why do we know nothing about him? My eminence grise grandfather deliberately kept a very low profile. He destroyed most of his correspondence before he died.

I wrote a few years ago that my grandfather was an excellent father and husband, and also a wonderful, doting grandfather. He was a popular but sometimes unreliable journalist during the first half of the twentieth century. My grandfather often added or omitted words when he quoted official documents and private letters in his account of the Panama Canal affair, but those minor alterations never changed the meaning of those documents. I have again added explanatory footnotes and a bibliography for interested readers who want to compare my grandfather’s tales with the standard histories.

Please remember that my grandfather wrote his memoirs over fifty years ago. Some of the prejudices of that time may show. Readers should understand that my grandfather had become more crotchety, and that his mind had begun to fail him.

Thomas E. Morrissey

Swarthmore, PA

October 2009

CHAPTER I

William Randolph Hearst ruined my six-month idyllic existence in Europe when he ordered me home from Paris. I had written many informative articles for his New York Journal, but Hearst no longer cared about European affairs. I have a more important assignment for you. I want you to visit Central America, and write stories that will persuade our Washington politicians to build a canal in Nicaragua.

I had no desire to skip my first Parisian spring just to visit Nicaragua. Why don’t you send James Creelman there? I wrote Hearst. You need me here in Europe. The Dreyfus case may soon topple France’s government. I’m also preparing articles about The Hague disarmament conference.

Nobody here cares about Dreyfus anymore, and you know that this disarmament business is a foolish waste of time, Hearst replied. I need an experienced Spanish-speaking reporter who has spent much time at sea. You are the only one who meets both requirements. Hearst knew that I had served two years on a Spanish merchant ship before he hired me to report on the 1895 Cuban revolt against Spain.

I reluctantly met Hearst at the Journal’s office in April 1899. William Randolph Hearst, 36, was the only child of George and Phoebe Hearst. George Hearst had made millions mining silver out west before the Democratic California legislature elected him as U.S. Senator. William inherited his parents’ politics and wealth. Phoebe helped her son purchase the moribund San Francisco Examiner and the New York Journal, newspapers that he rescued through sensationalist and crusading stories that the public loved. I had first met Hearst three years earlier when he hired me to report on the Cuban revolt against Spain. I telegrammed him about the destruction of the Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898. Hearst used my eyewitness reports to rouse the American people and Congress into declaring war against Spain.

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William Randolph Hearst

Library of Congress

Mr. Hearst, I understand that a Central American canal will certainly benefit the United States and the world, but why must I sail around South America to Nicaragua’s Pacific coast? Why can’t I simply land at her Atlantic shore? That would be a must faster trip. I thought my argument made perfect sense.

Hearst was adamant. It’s quite simple, Pat. I want you to emphasize the hazards of the South American voyage. You must convince a skeptical public and the transcontinental railroad interests that the United States should build a Central American canal.

I resigned myself to Hearst’s demands. What route will I sail around South America?

I want you to describe the dangers of all three passages: the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and Cape Horn.

I almost screamed at Hearst. How can I write about all three places? If we sail around Cape Horn, then we cannot travel through the Strait of Magellan or the Beagle Channel.

Hearst looked at me as if I were an idiot. Pat, I’m sure that you’ve published articles about people you’ve never met and places you’ve never seen. Hearst was correct. He knew that I had exaggerated stories about the Cuban revolution, and that I had fabricated an account of a tour of the Alamo before I arrived at San Antonio. Write whatever you think is necessary about your South American trip. This is a once in a lifetime journey that any journalist would love to take. I certainly didn’t feel this way. Spanish sailors had frightened me with tales of Cape Horn when I served on the Balboa.

You may stop at Jacksonville, Florida, and the Falkland Islands before you round South America. Send your stories from there and from Chile. Make sure that you emphasize how long and dangerous the voyage is. Disembark at Nicaragua, and travel through that country. Inform the public why the United States should build a canal there. Is that too difficult a task?

Of course it wasn’t. I understood Hearst’s logic. The Navy and American businessmen strongly supported a Central American canal. A few months before the Spanish-American War began, President William McKinley ordered the battleship Oregon to leave Washington State and rush to the Caribbean Sea as fast as possible. Colonel Roosevelt had told me that the Oregon averaged 11 knots per hour as it sailed 14,000 miles in 66 days through the Straits of Magellan to Key West, Florida. Sailing through Central America would have saved 8,000 miles and six weeks. I also knew that the American railroad interests adamantly opposed a passage either in Nicaragua or Panama.

Roosevelt certainly understands the political and military advantages of a Central American canal, Hearst added. Now let me give you three important economic reasons for this route: Hawaii, the Philippines, and China. I knew that Hearst wanted to lecture on this topic, so I feigned interest when he explained the history of America’s desire for a canal.

The United States annexed California in 1848 after the Mexican-American War, Hearst began. The discovery of gold that year led to a great exodus of 49ers to the California Promised Land. There were no railroads west of the Mississippi, so these pioneers traveled by wagon train through deserts and across mountains while fighting dangerous Indian tribes.

I’m familiar with that history, I deadpanned.

Hearst ignored my insinuation that he need not continue this story. Other 49ers took the sea route. Some sailed around South America to California, a trip that was especially dangerous in winter. Others disembarked at the Atlantic coast of Central America, crossed that narrow landmass to the Pacific, and waited for a ship to carry them to San Francisco. Tell me, Pat, did these Central American travelers prefer to travel through Nicaragua or Panama?

I don’t know, I lied. Might as well let Hearst think that he was educating me.

If the 49ers sailed to Nicaragua, they could save one day apiece on each leg of the sea voyage. Nicaragua was much closer than Panama to New York and San Francisco, which also made it cheaper for Americans to travel to Nicaragua because less coal was needed to transport passengers. Another Nicaraguan advantage was that her land crossing was healthier than Panama’s where malaria and yellow fever ran rampant. The Panama route only became faster after 1855 when an American company built a railroad that connected the two oceans. I traveled through Panama a few times with my parents when I was a child. Do you follow this?

Of course I did. Hearst did not realize that I had studied the possibility of a Panama Canal for a year. A dozen years later, Hearst continued, both Central American routes became obsolete when American companies constructed the transcontinental railroad across the United States. Americans now preferred to ride a fast, safe train across the United States instead of traveling across Central America. Only commercial vessels carrying large cargo now sail the unsafe sea voyage around South America. Everyone today, except for the greedy American railroad interests, recognizes that the United States needs a Central American canal for commercial and naval vessels. I certainly would prefer to travel through any canal that America builds than sail around South America, but I strongly prefer the Nicaragua route. Panama is still a death trap. Ferdinand de Lesseps learned this a decade ago.

I told Hearst that I had ridden the Panama railroad from Colón to Panama City a few years earlier, but that I had never visited Nicaragua or any Central American country. I don’t even know the location of those small republics, I complained.

Neither do I, said Hearst, but so what? Any decent map will give you this information. I’ve never visited Nicaragua, but that doesn’t stop me from writing articles about why we should build a canal there.

"I don’t like this idea of traveling around South America. Even you call it unsafe. The Spanish crew on the Balboa warned me that the Cape Horn route is the most dangerous place in the world to sail this time of year."

It’s not so dangerous now. It’s April. It will be summer when you arrive there. The most dangerous time to sail around Cape Horn is in winter.

Hearst had either forgotten or never learned elementary geography. The Southern hemisphere’s summer, I angrily scolded him, is the reverse of ours here in the North. January and February are South America’s summer. I can’t believe that you ordered me home from a Paris springtime to sail around South America during her winter season.

Hearst was apologetic. I’m sorry, Pat, I forgot. Yes, the Southern hemisphere’s seasons are the opposite of ours. Hearst tried to reassure me that I would survive this voyage. I’ve arranged passage for you on a sturdy ship that leaves New York in five days. I want you to emphasize that the South American sea route is too slow and dangerous. That shouldn’t be too hard. This was typical Hearst logic. He had just told me that the trip was safe, but at the same time he wanted me to emphasize its dangers. I also want you to highlight why America should build a canal in Nicaragua and not in Panama. Do you understand what I want you to do?

I certainly understood why Hearst wanted me to undertake this assignment. He wanted to increase the circulation figures of his New York Journal, and humiliate his archenemy publisher, Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World. Although I certainly didn’t want to drown on this voyage, I decided that I would sail around South America. I liked being a journalist, and I feared that Hearst might fire me if I refused this assignment. I’m sure, Mr. Hearst, that I’ll have no problem proving that a Central American canal is necessary. My articles will emphasize that. I’ll also write about the possibility of a canal in Nicaragua. I certainly did not tell Hearst that I owned stock in the New Panama Canal Company, the successor to Lesseps’ failed enterprise. I also did not mention that I had promised Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer whom I had met in Paris the previous year, that I would lobby for an American-built Panama Canal.

Hearst thanked me. "Enjoy your trip, Pat. The Journal will print your articles under your name as usual." This was the main reason why I liked writing for Hearst. Few American newspapers gave reporters a byline during those years.

I quickly gathered my belongings. I needed light clothes for the tropics and heavy clothes for Cape Horn. I would have no responsibilities onboard ship, so I brought books about seafaring and the isthmian region to occupy me during my months at sea. I prayed that my new captain was not a martinet like Captain Escobedo, who almost made me walk the plank when I served on the Balboa. I wrote a farewell letter to my Philadelphia family. My Irish immigrant parents were illiterate, but my three siblings could read it to them.

CHAPTER II

Hearst had implied that I would sail to Nicaragua on a comfortable passenger liner, but I discovered, when I boarded the Thetis in New York, that it was a U.S. Revenue Cutter (what later became the U.S. Coast Guard) on its maiden voyage to Alaska.

Captain Michael Healy welcomed me aboard ship as enthusiastically as professional baseball greeted Jackie Robinson in 1947. Healy was a tall (6'2), powerfully built sailor with brown eyes, gray hair and mustache. Forty years of hard sea duty had weathered his bronze face. Mr. Donegan, you are the only civilian aboard the Thetis, a journalist no less, Healy sneered. I rejected Hearst’s request when he asked permission to carry you to Nicaragua. Your yellow press employer must have influence in Washington because my superiors ordered me to take you there. Don’t expect any special privileges on this vessel. You must obey all naval rules, and you must pay for your room and board."

Oh my God, I thought, Captain Healy’s going to be worse than Captain Escobedo. I didn’t dare say that. Yes, Captain, Mr. Hearst has already taken care of the financial arrangements. I have sea experience. I served on a Spanish merchant ship in the Caribbean for two years before I became a journalist. I’ll obey all naval regulations.

At least you’re not a complete landlubber, Mr. Donegan. Remember that you are sailing on an American government vessel. I will treat you the same as I treat my crew. I will not let passengers endanger my ship and men. I lost five valuable crewmen eight years ago in Alaska because I carried civilians. Now go below deck and find your hammock.

Hearst had implied that he had arranged private accommodations for me. He certainly had not done so, nor had Healy assigned me officer quarters. He treated me like a common sailor, just as Captain Escobedo did on the Balboa five years earlier.

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Captain Michael Healy

United States Coast Guard Museum

I descended the steps of the Thetis to claim my hammock. I mistakenly turned the wrong way below deck and entered the captain’s quarters. I recognized my name on a paper on the top of Healy’s desk. I looked around, saw nobody, so I decided to read what the paper said. You will determine which route is the safest for you to sail around South America. You may supply or refurbish your ship at the Falkland Islands or at Coronel, Chile, or at any other port that you deem necessary. Deposit the journalist Patrick Donegan at a Pacific coast port of Nicaragua, either Corinto or the Gulf of Fonseca. Continue your journey to San Francisco where you will receive further orders. After I finished reading the captain’s orders, I walked out the door into an officer. What in the hell are you doing here? he barked.

What have I done now? I thought. I immediately apologized. "I’m Patrick Donegan, a civilian whom the Thetis is carrying to Nicaragua. Captain Healy just ordered me to find my hammock. I must have turned the wrong way after I came down the stairs. I didn’t realize that this was the captain’s quarters until I entered his room. Sorry about that. I won’t do it again. Where can I find my hammock?"

It’s down the corridor there and to the right. Mr. Donegan, if you were a member of the crew, you would be in big trouble. I will not inform the captain where I found you, but don’t you ever enter his room without his permission. I promised that I would never even think of doing such a thing.

The Thetis left New York in mid-April 1899 with its complement of twelve officers, fifty men, and one unhappy journalist. A Scottish firm in 1881 had built the Thetis, a three-mast, 188-foot long, wooden-hulled whaler. The United States Navy purchased it three years later, and had just transferred it to the Revenue Service in 1899. The Thetis averaged eight knots under sail, and was slightly faster with its auxiliary steam engine. After Captain Healy arrived in San Francisco, he would sail to Alaska to help other revenue ships maintain law and order in this former Russian territory. The Revenue Service’s other goals were to rescue American whalers when Arctic ice immobolized their ships, to enforce the ban against the hunting of pregnant seals, and to eliminate the illegal liquor trade with Alaskan natives.

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Revenue Cutter Thetis

United States Coast Guard Museum

Only a recluse or misanthrope can remain aloof among sixty shipmates for four months on a ship the length of two basketball courts. I became friendly with most crewmembers, and especially close to two of the Thetis’s officers, Jacob Hilbush and George MacDonald.

Jacob Hilbush was the officer who had caught me leaving Captain Healy’s cabin. He became my closest companion on the voyage. Like me, he was born in Philadelphia where he received a classical education at Central High School, Philadelphia’s elite public school for boys, a decade before I finished St. Joe’s Prep. His parents were immigrants. His mariner father was German and his homemaking mother was Irish. He inherited the best characteristics of each nationality: the analytical rationalism of the German and the flowery, eloquent speech of the Irish. Hilbush also spoke fluent German. After we became friendly, he laughed at my inadequate high school German skills. I can teach you German before we reach Nicaragua, Pat. You’ve got nothing else to do aboard ship for months. I’ll speak only German to you, and you must answer only in German. That was fine with me. I already spoke fluent Spanish and adequate French, so I thought that I might as well improve my high school German.

I’ve always wanted to be captain of a ship, Hilbush told me. "I accompanied my father during school vacations when he piloted a ferry boat on the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey. My favorite novels as a child were sea adventures: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Robinson Crusoe, and Treasure Island. I didn’t like Moby Dick. I read The Odyssey, the stories of Jason and the Argonauts, and Greek mythology and literature in high school." Jacob’s father recognized his son’s love for the sea, and encouraged him to pursue his dream. Hilbush graduated from what later became the Coast Guard Academy, located at that time in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Do you know who Thetis was in Greek mythology, Pat? Of course I didn’t. Thetis was a sea nymph who married Peleus, a minor Greek king. Their son became a famous hero who helped destroy Troy. When I still hesitated, Hilbush hinted, This Greek hero died when Paris shot an arrow through his only vulnerable spot, his ankle.

Achilles, of course.

Hilbush laughed at the romantic legend that a sailor has a girlfriend in every port. That story is nonsense for Revenue Service men who sail the Arctic Sea, but it may be true for those who travel to Latin America, Asia and Australia. We often cruise the North Pacific for a month before we reach land, and when we do come ashore, it’s usually for a short time at a village of 300 Eskimos. Not much of an opportunity to begin a romance there, he laughed. I knew from my own experience that life aboard a ship could be very difficult. Desertions were often rampant for sailors whose brutal captains and inadequate food and water made life atrocious. I finally understood why Britain needed to impress American sailors before the War of 1812 when I later read that 27,000 British seamen deserted from merchant ships in 1906.

My other good friend on the Thetis was George MacDonald. He had lived on a farm in upstate New York, the youngest in a family of six children. I attended college for only one year because I could not afford to stay there after my Scottish father died. My older brothers became farmers like my father. I wanted to be a naturalist like Charles Darwin, but I became a sailor when I left school. Did you know that Darwin sailed around the world for five years and wrote a famous book about his voyage? I’ve spent fifteen years at sea so far, but have yet to write anything.

MacDonald proudly told me that he had read everything that Shakespeare ever wrote. "I attended some of his plays when an English theatrical company visited New York. I especially liked Hamlet and King Lear. What’s your favorite Shakespeare play, Pat?"

I reluctantly admitted that I had never read anything by Shakespeare, much less seen one of his plays, but that I was familiar with his stories of Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet.

How can you admire Voltaire so much, yet be so ignorant of the English language’s greatest poet? I could not defend my ignorance. Lieutenant MacDonald lent me his Complete Works of William Shakespeare after I promised to correct my literary deficiencies.

Captain Healy approached me after we had sailed south for a week. I’ve noticed that you’ve been helping the crew, Mr. Donegan. You don’t have to do that.

I know that, Captain, but I need to do something physical because this is going to be a long voyage. I had completed minor tasks on deck, but nothing so reckless as climbing the masts to furl or unfurl the mainsail. I felt that the crew might resent a lazy, do-nothing passenger when their captain kept them busy during their daily schedule of four hours on, four hours off. I also hoped that Captain Healy would appreciate my activity. I can’t bury myself in books sixteen hours a day. I enjoy reading, but I’d go nuts doing that all the time. I thought I’d help the crew when they’re busy. I hope you don’t mind.

No, I understand how you feel, Mr. Donegan. I’m not much of a reader, unlike Lieutenants Hilbush and MacDonald who probably read more than they should. Maybe that’s why I’m captain and they’re lieutenants. I’m a practical man. I rarely read books when I attended Holy Cross, a Jesuit college in Worcester, Massachusetts. I didn’t stay there long. My brothers are big readers. One of them even became president of Georgetown College, a Jesuit institution in Washington.

Aha, I thought, this is how I will connect with the captain. Captain Healy, I schmoozed, what a coincidence! It seems that we have something in common. I graduated from a Jesuit school, St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia. I purchased property in the Georgetown area where I hope to live in the future. I’ve often walked on Georgetown’s campus, I laughed, remembering a memorable experience when my high school nemesis Father Sean Murphy challenged Ambrose Bierce and me. Is that Healy building at Georgetown named after your brother?

Yes, it is, Captain Healy answered proudly. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Donegan, why don’t we eat dinner tonight in my cabin. I’ll tell you an interesting story about my family, and you can describe how you reported for Hearst in Cuba and France.

I had attained my goal, a relationship with Captain Healy. I would be honored to be your guest, Captain.

The crew had already told me that Healy was 60-years old in 1899. I was only 24. Healy lived with his wife Mary Jane and son Frederick in Sausalito near San Francisco during the winter months. He regularly sailed to the Arctic region when the weather warmed. He was a no-nonsense captain. He did not tolerate any backtalk or questioning from his subordinates. Like many Irishman, Healy enjoyed his liquor a bit too much. The crew whispered his nickname Hell-Roaring Mike, although no one dared call him that to his face. The Revenue Service had court-martialed Healy twice at the urging of an unholy coalition of discontented officers and San Francisco’s self-righteous Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The court declared Healy innocent at his first court-martial but guilty at his second trial in 1895. The Service relieved him of duty for four years. Only now could Captain Healy return to the sea, but not to his beloved cutter Bear that he had captained from 1886 to 1895.

I entered Captain Healy’s quarters that evening, but this time he had filed his papers securely in a safe. Welcome to my cabin, Mr. Donegan, boomed Captain Healy. As you can see, I don’t have the space here that you enjoyed when you crossed the Atlantic. I had told Healy how I had traveled first-class to Paris on the Campania to report on the 1898 Spanish-American peace negotiations. I wanted to tell the captain that he would have more room in his cabin if he rid himself of his parrot and his mangy, ever-present dog. I realized that Healy must have felt the need for some sort of companionship because a captain’s life at sea is necessarily lonely. Do sit down, he ordered, and let’s enjoy our meal.

If Captain Healy was an alcoholic, I did not recognize it then or at any other time during this voyage. We did share a bottle of wine with our meat and potatoes dinner. He may have talked more openly than he usually did, but he did not show any signs of drunkenness.

Let me tell you about my remarkable family, Mr. Donegan. My Irish-born father Michael Morris Healy fought with the British against the Americans in the War of 1812. He left Nova Scotia after the war to visit a cousin in Georgia. My father married my Georgia-born mother there and fathered ten children, nine of whom reached adulthood. Do you want to hear about my siblings?

I felt that I must pretend to be enthusiastic when he began the story of his family. I especially want to hear about your brother who became president of Georgetown. Healy realized that I was serious, so he continued with his family history, which I truly found interesting.

My father sent my older brothers, James, Hugh, Patrick, and Sherwood, to be educated in New York where his sisters lived. He felt that his sons would benefit more from schools in the north than from those in Georgia. My brothers studied at a Quaker school in Long Island, and then attended Holy Cross. James was the first graduate of that Jesuit school in 1849. He is currently Bishop of Portland, Maine. Sherwood also became a priest. He received a doctorate in Canon Law from the North American College in Rome in 1860. He became director of St. Joseph’s Seminary at Troy, New York, and was rector of Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross until his death from kidney failure. He was only 39. Sherwood probably would have become a bishop like James if he had lived longer.

I was impressed. It’s incredible that your parents produced two important priests. But didn’t you tell me that you had a brother who became a Jesuit and president of Georgetown?

That’s Patrick, Mr. Donegan. He also graduated from Holy Cross, and taught there for a short time when I attended the school. Patrick received his Ph.D. degree in 1865 from Louvain University, a Belgian university founded in the fifteenth century. He spoke fluent Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and his native English. He was the first Jesuit with an earned doctorate to teach at Georgetown where he served as president between 1873 and 1882.

What about your brother Hugh?

Hugh became a businessman in the dry goods business in New York City, but, unfortunately, he died in 1852 when he was only twenty.

And you? I laughed. Why didn’t you become a priest like your three brothers?

Captain Healy also laughed. There was little likelihood of that happening. I am not a good Christian, Mr. Donegan. I’m more like my father than my brothers. I attended Holy Cross for a short time, but I didn’t like it. My brothers and the Jesuits were certainly unhappy with my academic achievements. I’m not an intellectual like my brothers, Healy admitted, sheepishly. "I’m the proverbial black sheep of the Healy family. I ran away from school twice. I finally joined James in Paris, but I also escaped from his school there. I had read my father’s adventure stories when I was young. I still have some of those books in my cabin. I wanted to have an adventurous life, to do things rather than just read about them, so I shipped out as a cabin boy on a freighter to Calcutta in 1855. I’ve been at sea ever since. I joined the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service ten years later, and served in Boston until Washington transferred me to San Francisco. I sailed as First Lieutenant on the Richard Rush on a four-month trip from Boston to San Francisco around the Horn in 1874. I made captain nine years later. I’ve spent most of my career in the Alaskan Arctic. I enjoy sea life so much that I hope to be buried there when my time comes."

I must admit, Captain, I honestly replied, that your parents produced an incredible group of children. Three priests and one sea captain in one family! I never heard of such a thing. My mother would be envious.

That’s not all, Mr. Donegan. Captain Healy smiled at the surprise that his next words would produce. My three sisters became nuns in Montreal: Eliza—Sister Mary Magdalene of the Congregation of Notre Dame—became Mother Superior of many schools; and Josephine, who would die at 34, joined a nursing order of nuns, the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph.

That’s two nuns, not three.

"Yes. Martha also became a Notre Dame nun, but she left the order after ten years. She married a Boston Irish immigrant and