<P> Of the three presidents whose terms spanned the construction period, Theodore Roosevelt is most associated with the canal and Woodrow Wilson presided over its opening . However, William Howard Taft may have given the canal its greatest impetus for the longest time . Taft visited Panama five times as Roosevelt's secretary of war and twice as president . He hired John Stevens and later recommended Goethals as Stevens' replacement . Taft became president in 1909, when the canal was half finished, and was in office for most of the remainder of the work . However, Goethals later wrote: "The real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt". </P> <P> The following words by Roosevelt are displayed in the rotunda of the canal's administration building in Balboa: </P> <P> It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better . The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat . </P> <P> David du Bose Gaillard died of a brain tumor in Baltimore on December 5, 1913, at age 54 . Promoted to colonel only a month earlier, Gaillard never saw the opening of the canal whose creation he directed . The Culebra Cut (as it was originally known) was renamed the Gaillard Cut on April 27, 1915, in his honor . A plaque commemorating Gaillard's work stood over the cut for many years; in 1998 it was moved to the administration building, near a memorial to Goethals . </P>

Who owned the panama canal before the united states