How did the United States succeed in building the Panama canal?

When I was in primary school I read that it was the famous French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps who successfully built the Suez Canal, but when he had a go at Panama, the isthmus was too expensive and difficult to dig, malaria killed most of the workers and corrupt contractors stole lots of the money.

The Americans (or rather, the U.S. Army) succeeded years later because:-

(i) the link between mosquitoes and malaria had been discovered, so the mosquitoes were killed with fire and by draining the swamps where they bred, and

(ii) It was a military project with inexhaustible supplies of public money. The U.S. Navy wanted to be able to join its Atlantic and Pacific fleets without going around Cape Horn).

Poor old De Lesseps' attempt was only a private capital venture and he had greedy shareholders to please.

Once again the United States has proved that compared to state controlled projects, Capitalist enterprise is puny, short-sighted, weak and next to useless. See also the Hoover Dam.

Interestingly the Panama hat actually comes from Ecuador.