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CHAPTER 11
PANAMA BLACKMAIL TREATY
IN 1903 a shameless and sordid attempt was made by the then dictator of Colombia and his subordinate fellow-politicians at Bogota to force the United States by scandalously improper tactics to pay a vastly larger sum for the privilege of building the Panama Canal than had been agreed upon in a solemn treaty. As President of the United States I resisted this attempt, and prevented the United States from being blackmailed. Had I not successfully resisted the attempt, the Panama Canal would not now be built, and would probably never have been built. The attempt was blackmail then; and to yield to it now is to yield to blackmail.

Yet the present Administration now proposes to pay Colombia twenty-five million dollars, and to make what is practically an apology for our conduct in acquiring the right to build the canal. Apparently this is done on the theory of soothing the would-be blackmailers and making them forget the mortification caused them by the failure of their initial attempt to hold up the United States.

In brief, the facts in the case were as follows: A private French company had attempted to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and had failed after making only a beginning of the work. Various propositions for a trans-Isthmian canal to be undertaken by the United States Government had been made. One of these was to cross the Isthmus at Darien. Another was a proposition to go through Nicaragua. Different companies had been organized in the United States to back these different propositions. One of these companies had ex-Senator Warner Miller at its head. The then Senator Platt of New York was much interested in another company. Congress only considered seriously, however, the Panama and Nicaragua routes, and was in much doubt between them. A commission of experts appointed by the President for that purpose had reported that if we could buy the rights of the French canal company for $40,000,000 we ought to take the Panama route, but that otherwise we should take the Nicaragua route. It was at that time well and widely known that the sum of $10,000,000 (aside from a small yearly payment to be made on different grounds) was all that we would pay or would be asked to pay Colombia, and Colombia herself had advertised this fact.
The recommendation, therefore, was in effect that we should go by Panama if we could acquire our rights by paying $40,000,000 to the French and $10,000,000 to the Colombians.

The French had real rights. They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and although much of this had been wasted, yet we received at least $40,000,000 worth of property and of accomplished work for the $40,000,000 we agreed to pay them. Colombia had no rights that were not of the most shadowy and unsubstantial kind; and even these shadowy rights existed only because of the action of the United States. She had done nothing whatever except to misgovern the Isthmus for fifty years. During these fifty years her possession of the Isthmus as against foreign powers had been maintained solely by the guarantee and the potential strength of the United States. The only effective policing of the Isthmus during those fifty years had been done by the United States on the frequent occasions when it was forced to land marines and sailors for that purpose. Ten million dollars represented the very outside limit which generosity could fix as a payment to Colombia for rights which she was impotent to maintain save by our assistance and protection, and for an opportunity which she was utterly unable herself to develop. Nobody of any consequence in the United States, within or without Congress, would at that time for one moment have considered agreeing to pay $25,000,000 or any sum remotely approaching it.

If Colombia had at that time announced any such demand, unquestionably the Congress of the United States would have directed the Executive to take the Nicaragua route. The exact language of Congress in its Act providing for the construction of the canal, approved June 28, 1902, was that if "the President be unable to obtain for the United States a satisfactory title to the property of the New Panama Canal Company and the control of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms, then the President" should endeavor to provide for a canal by the Nicaragua route.

This language denned with exactness and precision what was to be done, and what as a matter of fact I actually did. I was directed to take the Nicaragua route, but only if within a reasonable time I could not obtain control of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia upon reasonable terms; the direction being explicit that if I could not thus get the control within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms I must go to Nicaragua. Colombia showed by its actions that it was thoroughly acquainted with this fact, and eagerly demanded and entered into a treaty with the United States, the Hay-Herran treaty, under which $10,000,000 was the price stipulated to be paid in exchange for our acquiring the right to the zone on which to build the canal.

Let it be remembered that this $10,000,000 was the price stipulated by Colombia herself as payment to those in possession of the Isthmus, and it was the price we actually did pay to those who actually were in possession of the Isthmus. The only difference was that, thanks to the most just and proper revolution which freed Panama from the intolerable oppression and wrongdoing of Colombia, we were able to give this $10,000,-ooo to the men who themselves dwelt on the Isthmus, instead of to alien taskmasters and oppressors of theirs.

The proposal now is that after having paid $10,000,000 to the rightful owners of the Isthmus we shall in addition pay $25,000,000 to their former taskmasters and oppressors; a sum two and a half times what these tricky oppressors originally asked, a sum which is to be paid to them merely because they failed in carrying to successful completion what must truthfully be characterized as a bit of international villainy as wicked as it was preposterous. In point of good sense and sound morality, the proposal is exactly on a par with paying a discomfited burglar a heavy sum for the damage done his feelings by detecting him and expelling him from the house.

Our people should also remember that what we were paying for was the right to expend our own money and our own labor to do a piece of work which if left undone would render the Isthmus of Panama utterly valueless. If we had gone to Nicaragua, or had undertaken to build a canal anywhere else across the Isthmus, then the right which Colombia was so eager to sell for $10,000,000 would not have been worth ten cents. The whole value was created by our prospective action; and this action was to be taken wholly at our own expense and without making Colombia or any one else pay a dollar, and this although no power would benefit more by the canal than Colombia, as it would give her waterway communication by a short and almost direct route between her Caribbean and Pacific ports.

The people of the United States should remember that the United States paid $50,000,000 to Panama and the French company for every real right of every sort or description which existed on the Isthmus. There would have been no value even to these rights unless for the action that the United States then intended to take, and has since actually taken. The property of the French company would not have been worth any more than any other scrap heap save for our subsequent action, and the right to cross the Isthmus of Panama would have been valueless to Colombia or to any other nation or body of men if we had failed to build a canal across it and had built one somewhere else. The whole value then and now of any right upon that Isthmus depended upon the fact that we then intended to spend and now have spent in building the canal some $375,-000,000.

The proposal of Mr. Wilson's Administration is that, having given to the Isthmus of Panama its whole present value by the expenditure of $375,000,000, we shall now pay $25,000,000 additional to the power that did its best to prevent the Isthmus from having any value by treacherously depriving us of the right to build the canal at all, or to spend a dollar on the Isthmus. If Colombia's action had been successful, the Isthmus would now be worthless; and yet the present Administration actually proposes to pay her $25,000,000 so as to atone to her for our not having permitted her to follow a course of conduct which would have prevented the Isthmus from being worth twenty-five cents.

Most people, when we began the building of the canal, believed that we would fail. There were plenty of such skeptics in this country, and a much larger number abroad. If the American engineers had not been successful, if the American people had not backed them with money, and if the Government had not started the work on a basis of absolutely non-partisan efficiency, there would exist nothing for which to pay any sum at the present moment. This proposed treaty is a proposal to pay blackmail to that Government which sought in vain to forbid us to use our national efficiency in the interest of the world at large.

I cannot too strongly emphasize the fact that Panama represented to Colombia an asset of no value whatsoever save such as might accrue from the action which we were ready to undertake at great expense. She enjoyed this asset at all only because of our guaranteeing her against having it taken away from her by any foreign power. We had never guaranteed her against a movement for independence on the Isthmus, or against action on our own part if she misbehaved herself. Presidents and secretaries of state had repeatedly given the true interpretation of the obligations to New Granada (the South American republic which then included the present Republic of Colombia) by the treaty of 1846. In 1856 Secretary Cass officially stated the position of the Government as follows:
Sovereignty has its duties as well as its rights, and none of these local governments (on the Isthmus) would be permitted in a spirit of Eastern isolation to close the gates of intercourse on the great highways of the world, and justify the act by the pretension that these avenues of trade and travel belong to them and that they choose to shut them, or what is almost equivalent, to encumber them with such unjust relations as would prevent their general use.
Seven years later Secretary Seward in different communications explicitly stated that the United States had not undertaken any duty in connection with "any question of internal revolution in the state of Panama" but merely "to protect the transit trade across the Isthmus against invasion of either domestic or foreign disturbers;" and that the United States had not "become bound to take sides in the domestic broils of New Granada" but merely to protect New Granada "as against other and foreign governments." In the final portion of my message to Congress of December 7, 1903, and in my special message to Congress of January 4, 1904, I enumerated a partial list of revolutions, insurrections, disturbances and other outbreaks that had occurred on the Isthmus of Panama during the fifty-three years preceding the negotiation of our treaty with the Republic of Panama itself. These revolutions, unsuccessful rebellions and other outbreaks numbered just fifty-three during these fifty-three years.
In detail they are as follows:

May 22, 1850.—Outbreak; two Americans killed. War vessel demanded to quell outbreak.

October, 1850.—Revolutionary plot to bring about independence of the Isthmus.

July 22, 1851.—Revolution in four southern provinces.

November 14, 1851.—Outbreak at Chagres. Man-of-war requested for Chagres.

June 27, 1853.—Insurrection at Bogota and consequent disturbance on Isthmus. War vessel demanded.

May 23, 1854.—Political disturbances. War vessel requested.

June 28, 1854.—Attempted revolution.

October 24, 1854.—Independence of Isthmus demanded by provincial legislature.

April, 1856.—Riot and massacre of Americans.

May 4,  1856.—Riot.

May 18, 1856.—Riot.

June 3, 1856.—Riot.

October 2, 1856.—Conflict between two native parties. United States forces landed.

December 18, 1858.—Attempted secession of Panama.

April, 1859.—Riots.

September,  1860.—Outbreaks.
October 4, 1860.—Landing of United States forces in consequence.

May 23, 1861.—Intervention of the United States forces required by intendente.

October 2, 1861.—Insurrection and civil war.

April 4, 1862.—Measures to prevent rebels crossing Isthmus.

June 13, 1862.—Mosquera's troops refused admittance to Panama.

March, 1865.—Revolution, and United States troops landed.

August, 1865.—Riots; unsuccessful attempt to invade Panama.

March, 1866.—Unsuccessful revolution.

April, 1867.—Attempt to overthrow Government.

August, 1867.—Attempt at revolution.

July 5, 1868.—Revolution; provisional government inaugurated.

August 29, 1868.—Revolution; provisional government overthrown.

April, 1871.—Revolution; followed apparently by counter revolution.

April, 1873.—Revolution and civil war which lasted to October, 1875.

August, 1876.—Civil war which lasted until April, 1877.

July, 1878.—Rebellion.

December, 1878.—Revolt.
April, 1879.—Revolution.

June, 1879.—Revolution.

March, 1883.—Riot.

May, 1883.—Riot.

June, 1884.—Revolutionary attempt.

December, 1884.—Revolutionary attempt.

January, 1885.—Revolutionary disturbances.

March, 1885.—Revolution.

April, 1887.—Disturbance on Panama Railroad.

November, 1887.—Disturbance on line of canal.

January, 1889.—Riot.

January, 1895.—Revolution which lasted until April.

March, 1895.—Incendiary attempt.

October, 1899.—Revolution.

February, 1900, to July, 1900.—Revolution.

January,  1901.—Revolution.

July, 1901.—Revolutionary disturbances.

September, 1901.—City of Colon taken by rebels.

March, 1902.—Revolutionary disturbances.

July, 1902.—Revolution.

Colombia had shown herself utterly incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus. Only the active interference of the United States had enabled her to preserve so much as a semblance of sovereignty. In 1856, in 1860, and in 1873, in 1885, in 1901, and in 1902, sailors and marines from United States warships were forced to land in order to protect life and property and to see that the transit across the Isthmus was kept open. In 1861, in 1862, in 1885, and in 1900, the Colombia Government asked for the landing of troops by the United States Government to protect its interests and to maintain order on the Isthmus. Immediately after the revolution by which Panama obtained its independence in 1903, the Colombian Government made another request to land troops to preserve Colombian sovereignty.

This request was made through General Reyes, afterward President of the republic. President Marroquin in making the request offered if we would grant it, to "approve by decree" the ratification of the Hay-Herran canal treaty as signed, acting thus "by virtue of vested constitutional authority," or if the Government of the United States preferred, to call an extra session of Congress "with new and friendly members" to approve the treaty.

This dispatch has an especial interest. In the first place, it requested the United States to restore order and secure Colombia supremacy on the very Isthmus from which the Colombian Government had just decided to bar us by preventing the construction of the canal. In the second place, by the offer made it showed that the constitutional objections which had been urged against ratifying the treaty were obviously not made in good faith, and that the Government which made the treaty really had absolute control over its ratification, but chose to exercise that control adversely to us. As a matter of fact, whatever duty we had in the peninsula was to the Panamanians and not to the Colombians at all. As John Hay put it, "the covenant ran with the land." Our original treaty was with the United States of New Granada. This body suffered various changes, various portions splitting off and sometimes rejoining, and finally the Republic of Colombia succeeded to most of it. We, however, recognized whatever power was in lawful possession of the Isthmus,, as the successor of the one with which we had made the treaty.

In the constitutions of 1858 and 1861, Panama explicitly reserved the right to secede from the confederation and to nullify any act inconsistent with its own "autonomy." Colombia later published a new constitution by Executive Decree, reducing Panama to the condition of a crown colony; but Panama never accepted this action as proper, and when in 1903 it set up an independent government by unanimous action of her citizens, they were merely reasserting the constitutional and legal rights which they had never relinquished.
As Secretary Root wrote the Colombian Minister in 1906, our action in recognizing the independence of Panama was merely "a recognition of the just rights of the people of Panama." On technical grounds Panama's case was clear, Colombia had no case whatever, and the United States was bound to act as she did act. Morally, of course, there is no question whatever that Panama's action was imperatively demanded and that the United States would have been guilty of culpable misconduct toward an oppressed people if she had failed to support Panama.

I wish to emphasize the nature of the Colombian Government at the time when Panama declared her independence. It was a pure dictatorship. This was no concern of ours; for I hold it is not our affair to say to another nation what kind of government it shall have save in so far as the rights of our own citizens or of our own Government are concerned. The then President, Mr. Marroquin, had been elected as vice-president. Soon after his inauguration by a coup d'etat he unseated the President and put him in prison. He then announced that under the Constitution, in the absence of the President, the vice-president wielded all the executive powers. Accordingly he exercised them.

In a few months the absence of the President became permanent, for he opportunely died in prison, and Mr. Marroquin continued to act as President. He declined to call Congress together for a period in the neighborhood of five years, and announced that under the Constitution in the absence of Congress he possessed all the legislative functions. Accordingly he exercised these also. He was careful to explain that his course was entirely "constitutional" and that it was in accordance with the mandate of the Constitution that he who had been elected vice-president exercised all the functions both of President and of Congress. As a matter of fact, while he did not permit any elections to take place for a number of years, yet his power was so absolute that he elected whomever he wished as soon as the election did take place; as already related, he notified me, when it became to his interest to do so, that he would elect a Congress with a guarantee that it would perform what he desired in case I would be satisfied therewith.

Having this absolute power not only to initiate but to ratify and carry out any treaty, he, through Mr. Herran, negotiated with Mr. Hay a treaty with the United States Government which conceded us the right to take the Panama Canal zone and build the canal for the sum of $10,000,000. (I disregard the minor details of the treaty.) He was exceedingly anxious to negotiate this treaty because it was a matter vital to Panama, and therefore of concern to the absentee owners of Panama; for if the treaty were not negotiated it was certain that the United States would go to Nicaragua. Having this treaty, and having received from the French company the assurance that they would sell us that property for $40,000,000, we selected the Panama route. As soon as we had done this Mr. Marroquin and his associates concluded that we were hopelessly committed, and that it was safe for him to repudiate his promise and try to extort more money. Under its original contract the time during which the French company had to complete the canal lapsed the following year. Colombia had granted an extension of some years; but Mr. Marroquin and his associates now announced that this extension of time, which they had themselves given, was unconstitutional.

Again I wish to call attention to the solemn farce, the contemptible farce, of these men appealing to the Constitution as a make-believe fetish, when the entire governmental power of the nation was vested at the moment in an irresponsible dictator who had never been elected to the office of President at all, who refused to summon Congress, and who yet exercised all its powers in the absence of Congress. It was dishonest on their part thus to talk of the Constitution, and it is an act of unspeakable silliness for any of our people to take that talk seriously.

Accordingly Marroquin summoned a Congress, the only one that had been held under his Administration. It was an absolutely obsequious body. It did not attempt to pass a law, or do anything but repudiate the proposed treaty. Its committee, in the report which the Congress adopted, announced the real object of their action when it said that the following year the rights of the French company would lapse and Colombia would take possession of the French company's belongings, and then would be in a "more advantageous" position to negotiate with the United States. In other words, they expected to combine piracy with blackmail, and to take possession of the French company's belongings and get from us the $40,000,000 we were to pay the French. Of course France would never have allowed this, and if I had acted with the pliant submission to Colombia's demand which the present Administration is at this moment showing, we would have had on the Isthmus France instead of Colombia, and the difficulty and danger of the whole problem would have been infinitely increased.

The Congress as well as the Dictator had ample warning of all the dangers they by their action were inviting. Representatives from Panama warned the Colombian Administration that Panama would revolt if the treaty was rejected; and our Department of State in the gravest manner called their attention to the serious situation their conduct would create.

Our Minister, Mr. Beaupre, an admirable public servant, who—unlike his successor who negotiated the preposterous treaty now before the Senate—conceived himself under obligation faithfully to represent the interests of the American people, encountered great difficulties while endeavoring to perform his duties at this time. The State Department's messages to him were intercepted, and in several cases not delivered, as shown in his cable to Hay of August 6, 1903; and he was directed by the Department of State to protest against such interference with his official communications. Mr. Beaupre showed conclusively in his correspondence that the delay in dealing with the Panama Canal treaty by Colombia was for the purpose of wringing money from either the French company or the United States, or both.

For example, in his message of June 10, 1903, he stated that the local agent of the Panama Canal Company had informed him that he had received an official note from the Colombian Government stating that the treaty would be rejected unless the French company paid Colombia $10,000,000. This shows that the Colombian Government then expected only twenty millions all told—ten legitimately from us and ten as an extorted bribe from the unfortunate French company. President Wilson now proposes to give five millions extra, apparently to soothe the feelings of those who failed to extort a smaller sum by scandalously improper methods.

In his message of July 21, Minister Beaupre reported that the Colombian Government had sounded both Germany and England to see if they could not be persuaded to construct, or aid in the construction of, the canal in place of the United States. The Government of Colombia, therefore, not only sought to blackmail us and to blackmail the French company, but endeavored to put one of the great Old World powers on the Isthmus in possession of the canal. And because the then Administration refused to submit to such infamy on the part of Colombia, the present Administration actually proposes to pay the wrongdoer $25,000,000 of blackmail.

There are in every great country a few men whose mental or moral make-up is such that they always try to smirch their own people, and sometimes go to the length of moral treason in the effort to discredit their own national government. A campaign of mendacity was started against this treaty from the outset by certain public men and certain newspapers. One of the favorite assertions of these men and newspapers was that the United States Government had in some way or other instigated, and through its agents been privy to, the revolutionary movement on the Isthmus. The statement is a deliberate falsehood, and every man who makes it knows that it is a falsehood. Mr. H. A. Gudger, late Chief Judge of the Department of Panama, was consul in Panama at the time, and had been consul for six years previously. It was impossible for any such encouragement or aid by the United States Government of the revolutionary movement to have occurred without his knowledge, and he has explicitly stated that he did not know of any such encouragement.

Mr. Hay, on behalf of the State Department, made an exactly similar statement to me at the same time. I repeated the statement in my message to Congress. The simple truth, as everybody with any knowledge knew at the time, was that the Isthmus was seething with revolution, and that a revolution was certain to occur if the treaty were rejected. Minister Beaupre notified us that the Panama delegates in the Congress during the debates about the treaty, had informed the Congress explicitly that such would be the case. The newspapers of the United States repeatedly published news from Panama stating that such revolutions were impending. Quotations from the daily papers could be multiplied to prove this. It is only necessary to refer to the Washington Post of August 31 and of September i, the New York Herald of September 10, the New York Times of September 13, the New York Herald of October 26, the Washington Post of October 29, the New York Herald of October 30 and of November 2; all of the year 1903.

In my special message to Congress of January 4, 1904, I described the report made to me at the request of Lieu tenant-General Young by Captain Humphrey and Lieutenant Murphy of the Army, who in the course of a visit which on their own initiative (and without my knowledge) they had made to Panama, had discovered that various revolutionary movements were being inaugurated, and that a revolution would certainly occur, possibly immediately after the closing of the Colombian Congress at the end of October, but probably not before early November. This definitely localized the probability of the revolution taking place somewhere during the last ten days of October, or the first week in November. This was known on the Isthmus. It was known to the American newspapers. It was also known at Bogota, where measures were taken to meet the situation. If it had not been known to the President and to the Secretary of State, they would have shown themselves culpably unfit for their positions.

After my interview with the army officers named, on October 16 I directed the Navy Department to issue instructions to send ships to the Isthmus so as to protect American interests and the lives of American citizens if a revolutionary outbreak should occur. Most fortunately the United States steamer Nashville, under Commander Hubbard, in consequence of these orders, reached the Isthmus just in time to prevent a bloody massacre of American men, women and children. Troops from Bogota had already been landed in Colon on November 3, when the revolution broke out on the same day. On November 4, as Commander Hubbard officially reported, his marines were landed, in view of the fact that the American Consul had been notified by the officer commanding the Colombia troops that he intended to open fire on the town of Colon at 2 p. m. and kill every United States citizen in the place. Accordingly various men, women and children took refuge first in the shed of the Panama Railway Company, and then on a German steamer and a Panama Railway steamer which were at the dock. Commander Hubbard showed himself loyal to the best traditions of the American Navy. He brought the Nashville close up to the water-front, landed some of his men to garrison the shed of the Panama Railway Company, and although the Colombians outnumbered him ten to one, succeeded in protecting the lives of the American citizens who were menaced. Thanks to the firmness of himself and his men, he so impressed the Colombian commander that next day the latter reembarked and withdrew with his troops to Colombia.

So far from there having been too much foresight about the revolution on the part of the American Government, this plain official account by a naval officer of what occurred on November 4 showed that the American Government had, if anything, delayed too long its orders for the movement of American warships to Panama, and that it was only the coolness and gallantry of forty-two marines and sailors in the face of ten times their number of armed foes that prevented the carrying out of the atrocious threat of the Colombian commander. In accordance with our settled principles of conduct we refused to allow the transportation of troops across the Isthmus by either the Colombians or the Panamanians, so as to prevent bloodshed and interference with traffic.

No one connected with this Government had any part in preparing, inciting or encouraging the revolution on the Isthmus of Panama. Save from the reports of our military and naval officers given in full in the message of the President to the Senate, and from the official reports in the Department of State, no one connected with the Government had any previous knowledge of the revolution except such as was accessible to any person of ordinary intelligence who read the newspapers and kept up a current acquaintance with public affairs.

Secretary of State John Hay stated officially at the time:
The action of the President in the Panama matter is not only in the strictest accordance with the best precedents of our public policy, but it was the only course he could have taken in compliance with our treaty rights and obligations.
I saw at the time very many men, Americans, natives of Panama, and Europeans, all of whom told me that they believed a revolution was impending, and most of whom asked me to take sides one way or the other. The most noted of these men whom I now recollect seeing was Mr. Bunau-Varilla. He, however, did not ask me to take sides one way or the other. To no one of these men did I give any private assurance of any kind one way or the other, referring them simply to my published declarations and acts.

For some reason certain newspapers have repeatedly stated that Mr. Nelson Cromwell was responsible for the revolution. I do not remember whether Mr. Nelson Cromwell was or was not among my callers during the months immediately preceding the revolution. But if he was I certainly did not discuss with him anything connected with the revolution. I do not remember his ever speaking to me about the revolution until after it occurred, and my understanding was, and is, that he had nothing whatever to do with the revolutionary movement which actually took place.

There were, as I have said, various revolutionary movements on foot in the Isthmus, and it was my understanding that there was considerable jealousy among the instigators of these movements as to which one would come off first and would be effective. On information received after the event, I believed then, and believe now, that the revolutionary movement which actually succeeded was the one with which Mr. Bunau-Varilla was connected. He was sent by the Government of Panama as Minister to this country as soon as Panama became an independent state, and he then made no secret of the fact that he had been one of those who had organized the successful revolution; precisely as was the case with the President and other officials of the new republic. Neither did Mr. Bunau-Varilla make any secret of the fact that in acting as he did he was influenced both by his indignation as a resident of Panama at the Colombian treatment of Panama, and also by his indignation as a Frenchman at the Colombian proposal to blackmail the company, and if it would not submit to blackmail, then to confiscate its possessions.

In view of this double attitude of the Colombian Government, an attitude of tyranny toward Panama and of robbery toward the French company, Mr. Bunau-Varilla conceived it to be his duty to do all he could to aid the natives of Panama in throwing off the yoke of Colombia. I believe his attitude was entirely proper, alike from the standpoint of his duty as a resident of Panama, from the standpoint of his duty as a Frenchman to the investors and property holders of the French company, and from the standpoint of his duty as a citizen of the world. But until after the event I had no knowledge of his activities save the knowledge possessed by all intelligent men who had studied the affairs of the Isthmus. I gave him no aid or encouragement. My attitude was open to the knowledge of all; it was set forth with minute accuracy in my message to Congress.

No one connected with the American Government instigated the revolution. I thought that a revolution might very probably occur, but so far from fomenting it I was at the time, as has repeatedly been made public since, preparing my message on the basis that it would be necessary for us openly to take possession of the Isthmus in view of the scandalous conduct of Colombia. However, the fact that the revolution occurred and that the independent republic of Panama was actually seated on the Isthmus, rendered it unnecessary for me to send in this original draft of my message.

Even had I desired to foment a revolution— which I did not—it would have been wholly unnecessary for me to do so. The Isthmus was seething with revolution. Any interference from me would have had to take the shape of preventing a revolution, not of creating one. All the people residing on the Isthmus ardently desired the revolution. The citizens of Panama desired it. Every municipal council, every governmental body the citizens themselves could elect or control, demanded and supported it. When the revolution had occurred, and was successful, and Panama was an independent republic, I certainly did prevent Colombia from carrying on a bloody war on the Isthmus in the effort to overthrow the revolutionists. I certainly did refuse to do what Colombia requested, that is, to use the Army and Navy of the United States against our friends in the interests of the foes who had just been trying to blackmail us. We were solemnly pledged to keep transit across the Isthmus open. Again and again we had landed forces in time of revolutionary disturbance to secure this object. If Colombia had attempted the reconquest of the Isthmus, there would have been a far more bloody contest than ever before on the Isthmus, and the only way by which that contest could have been carried on would have been by using the railroad line and interrupting transit across the Isthmus.

It is therefore perfectly true that I prevented any attempt by Colombia to land troops on the Isthmus and plunge the Isthmus into a long drawn-out and bloody war. What I did then was as plainly my duty as it would be the duty of the President to act in a similar manner now. Panama was an independent republic de facto then just as she is now. Colombia had not a particle more right to land troops and conquer her then than she has now. If I was wrong in preventing Colombia from making an effort by a long drawn-out and bloody war to reconquer the Isthmus in 1903, then it would be a wrong to prevent her from making a similar effort at reconquest now.

If Mr. Wilson is sincere in his criticism of me for preventing such a war of reconquest in 1903, it is his duty to permit Colombia unhampered to make the reconquest at this moment; and to advocate one course of action is not one whit more immoral than to advocate the other. This Administration pretends to be for "peace." My course has brought twelve years of absolute peace to the Isthmus, for the first time in its history, and any other course would have plunged it into bloodshed. The Administration stands for a make-believe peace of cowardice. I stand for what I then secured: the real and lasting peace 6"f honor and justice.

Among the provisions in the present proposed treaty with Colombia is the following phrase:
The Republic of Colombia shall be at liberty at all times to transport through the interoceanic canal its troops, materials of war, and ships of war, even in case of war between Colombia and another country, without paying any charges to the United States.
To grant such a right to both Colombia and Panama was permissible so long as we also insisted on exercising it ourselves, on the grounds set forth by the then Secretary of State, Mr. Root, in his note to the British Government of January 16, 1909. In this note Secretary Root took the ground that the United States had the right to except from "coming within any schedule of tolls which might thereafter be established" the ships of the powers entering into the agreement necessary in order to give title to the land through which the canal was to be built, and to authorize its construction and the necessary jurisdiction or control over it when built. These nations were Panama, Colombia and the United States. Since then the present Administration has surrendered the right so far as the United States is concerned; and yet it proposes to give to the most envenomed opponent of the building of the canal rights to its use which are denied to the power giving the rights. In other words, the Administration says that our people, who built the canal, can give to others rights which they dare not themselves exercise. Such a position is a wicked absurdity. Moreover, the proposed treaty may be construed under certain conditions to give Colombia the right to use the canal in a war against Panama, and we could only prevent such an outrage by breaking faith. We have already guaranteed the independence of Panama against Colombia by a solemn treaty. The Administration now proposes to guarantee to Colombia the right to use the canal against Panama. The two conflicting guarantees could not both be observed. Doubtless in the event of such conflict the United States would refuse to allow Colombia the rights which the proposed treaty would grant her; and in that case another and far greater grievance would be committed against Colombia; and then some future Administration, if it possessed the present Administration's nervous amiability toward all nations hostile to America, might agree to pay a hundred millions, with a suitable apology, as atonement for the conduct of its predecessor.

It may seem as if I am discussing the future possible actions of American Administrations ironically. I am really discussing them quite seriously. If the proposed treaty is ratified, it will render it quite impossible to consider any treaty as beyond the realm of probability. It had never entered my head that President Wilson could do what he proposes to do in connection with the proposed treaty with Colombia. If we pay $25,000,000 to Colombia now, then there is no reason why we should not at some future time pay her another $100,000,000; or pay Mexico ten times that sum for having taken Texas and California, Arizona and New Mexico; or pay a hundred times that sum to Great Britain because our ancestors deprived her of the thirteen colonies.

The Administration has succeeded in getting Congress to take the position that the United States has no special rights in its own canal. It now proposes by treaty to get Congress to give to the one nation which conspicuously wronged us in connection with that canal special rights which it would deny to ourselves and to all other countries. President Wilson denies that we have the right to exempt our own vessels engaged in peaceful coast commerce from tolls, and yet he now proposes to exempt from tolls the war vessels and transports of Colombia. Three years ago I should have deemed it impossible that two such propositions could have been entertained by the same Administration. Furthermore, the President, through the Secretary of State, has recently stated that "if cordial relations are to be restored to Colombia, they must be restored on a basis that is satisfactory to Colombia." On the contrary, I take the position that the basis should be one of justice and right, and therefore one satisfactory to the honor and dignity of the United States Government and of the American people. The Administration's attitude is precisely as if when a householder has a disagreement with a burglar the effort should be to restore "peace" upon a basis satisfactory to the burglar instead of to the householder. Any burglar will welcome the "peace" which comes if the householder tenders him a large sum of money to atone for the heartlessness of a former occupant of the house in preventing him from getting away with the loose silver.

Mr. Bryan has also stated that Colombia suffered a loss financially, which we ought to make up, when she lost Panama. This represents the doctrine that when one country holds another in subjection and by misgovernment drives it to revolt, the moral and equitable rights are on the side of the tyrant country and not on the country that has declared its independence. If Mr. Bryan is right in his theory, France owes Great Britain an enormous sum of money for its misconduct in assisting the revolted colonies to become the United States of America. Yet the misgovernment of the colonies by Great Britain against which the colonies revolted did not even remotely approach the misgovernment against which Panama revolted; and it would not be more absurd for President Wilson to take the position that France owes Great Britain an enormous sum of money for her conduct in the Revolutionary War than to take the position which is now taken in reference to the payment of this $25,000,000 of sheer blackmail to Colombia.

We have at different times paid sums of money to various nations for the acquisition of territory from them. We have paid money to Russia and to France. We have paid money to Spain. But we have never paid to any nation, not to the most powerful European nation, nor to any American nation, a sum of money equal to the sum which it is now proposed to pay to Colombia in tendering her an apology for having refused to permit her to reconquer a little people whom she had shamelessly oppressed, and for having acquired the right which she sought to deny us, the right to spend hundreds of millions of our own money in constructing a canal in our own interest, in her interest, and in the interest of all the civilized powers of the world.

As Mr. Bonaparte, late Attorney-General, has said:
By the treaty we promise to pay Colombia, as a compensation for an alleged injury, a much larger sum of money than we paid France for Louisiana, or Mexico for California, or Spain for the Philippines, or Panama for the Canal Zone, or than Great Britain paid us in settlement of the Alabama claims; if we acknowledge that we have so wronged her as as to make it proper for us to buy her forgiveness, it is consistent and appropriate to add to this acknowledgment of wrong an apology, or, in other words, an expression of sorrow; if we have nothing to apologize for, because we have done her no wrong, then it is utterly unworthy of a great nation and a forfeiture of our right to self-respect for us to pay her a red cent.
The proposed treaty is a crime against the United States. It is an attack upon the honor of the United States which if justified would convict the United States of infamy. It is a menace to the future well-being of our people. Either there is or there is not warrant for paying this enormous sum and for making the apology. If there is no warrant for it—and of course not the slightest vestige of warrant exists—then the payment is simply the payment of belated blackmail. If there is warrant for it, then we have no business to be on the Isthmus at all. The payment can only be justified upon the ground that this nation has played the part of a thief, or of a receiver of stolen goods. In such a case it would be a crime to remain on the Isthmus, and it is much worse than an absurdity for the President, who wishes to pay the $25,000,000, to take part in opening the canal; for if the President and the Secretary of State are justified in paying the $25,000,000, it is proof positive that in opening the canal they are in their own opinion engaged in the dedication of stolen goods.
To recapitulate:

I. The land could not have been acquired and the canal could not have been built save by taking precisely and exactly the action which was taken. Unless the nation is prepared heartily to indorse and stand by this action, it has no right to take any pride in anything that has been done on the Isthmus and it has no right to remain on the Isthmus. If there is a moral justification for paying Colombia $25,000,000, then there is no moral justification for our staying on the Isthmus at all and we should promptly get off. If President Wilson is right in his position, then he has no business to take part in any ceremony connected with opening the canal; on his theory he would be engaged in the dedication of stolen goods.

2. In the words of John Hay, "the covenant ran with the land." Our agreement was with the power which owned the Isthmus of Panama, whether this was New Granada or Colombia or Panama itself. This agreement guaranteed the state that was in control of the Isthmus against interference by foreign powers, but it imposed no responsibility upon us as regards internecine troubles. This was explicitly set forth in statements by Secretaries Cass and Seward, one a Democrat and one a Republican.

As a matter of fact, every action we took was not only open and straightforward, but was rendered absolutely necessary by the misconduct of Colombia. Every action we took was in accordance with the highest principles of national, international, and private morality. The honor of the United States, and the interest not only of the United States but of the world, demanded the building of the canal. The canal could not have been built, it would not now have been begun, had our Government not acted precisely as it did act in 1903. No action ever taken by the Government, in dealing with any foreign power since the days of the Revolution, was more vitally necessary to the well-being of our people, and no action we ever took was taken with a higher regard for the standards of honor, of courage, and of efficiency which should distinguish the attitude of the United States in all its dealings with the rest of the world.