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CHAPTER XVI
Panama,—A New Sister Republic

ON    TO    PANAMA! From the Herald   (New York)

'HE   Congress   of   Colombia,   sitting   at Bogota,   refused   to   ratify   the   treaty that   its   diplomatists   had   signed.     It was in every way to the advantage of Colombia to have the United  States  dig the canal that the French company had abandoned.  The

treaty proposed that we should give Colombia ten -million dollars for the privilege of conferring upon her a benefit of incalculable value. To have had us revert to the Nicaragua route would have been disadvantageous to Colombia for many centuries.
Furthermore, otir return to the Nicaragua plan would have been ruinous to the people of the Isthmus of Panama, who were under no obligations whatsoever to the mercenary politicians at Bogota. Again, our choosing Nicaragua as the alternative would have made it impossible for the French company to have obtained its expected forty million dollars. Under these circumstances, the Isthmus of Panama declared itself an independent

92

A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career

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THE   MAN   BEHIND   THE   EGG—Prom the Times  (New York)
republic, all in the twinkling of an eye, with the substantial encouragement of the representatives of the French canal company, and with no unfriendliness or discouragement on the part of our government at Washington.
The few Colombian troops on the isthmus  made no  resistance.    American  warships

THOSE   LITTLE  FELLOWS   WANT  TO   LOOK   OUT
WHEN   I   TOSS   THE   BALL

(Mr. Francis B. Loomis, who is here pictured as throwing the Medicine Ball of the " New Diplomacy," was Assistant Secretary of State at the time of the Panama revolution, and was very active in the negotiations having to do with that affair)—From the Herald (New York)

Panama,—A New Sister Republic

93

were prepared to keep order.   The ten million dollars that Bogota had  refused was gladly

THE  NEWS  REACHES  BOGOTA—From the Herald (New York)
accepted by the new Republic of Panama. The treaty was promptly signed that established our rights in the canal zone, and put the new republic virtually under our protection. The President of the United States was authorized by Congress to appoint a board of canal commissioners and to proceed with the work of construction. And all this constituted a notable episode in our history.

THE   HUNTER   HUNTED
From the Herald  (Baltimore)

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A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career

uncle sam : " He's good enough for me."
(This striking  cartoon  by  Homer  Davenport  was widely   circulated  in newspapers  and  on  billboards  and became   the   most   prominent   campaign   document   of   the Republican   party   in   1904.) From the Evening Mail  (New York)