Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [158]
Roosevelt came down from Sagamore Hill after breakfast and boarded the USS Mayflower. Nine and a half hours later, he returned home, eyes bloodshot from the glare of white metal and water, buffeted by the roar of continuous twenty-one-gun salutes—sixty-three thousand rounds in all. Hanging smoke thickened the dusk as he walked through the woods. An urgent cable from Beaupré awaited him.
BOGOTÁ, AUGUST 12, 7 P.M. THE TREATY WAS REJECTED BY THE SENATE TODAY IN ITS ENTIRETY.
ROOSEVELT WAS STILL digesting this news—“We may have to give a lesson to those jack rabbits”—when a note arrived from John Hay. The Secretary, who had never been a Panama enthusiast, reminded him that he could now revert to “the simple and easy Nicaraguan solution,” rather than press ahead with “the far more difficult and multifurcate scheme” articulated by Senator Cullom.
Before replying, Roosevelt studied the text of a startlingly aggressive memorandum by John Bassett Moore, the reigning American authority on international law. It had been forwarded to him by Francis B. Loomis, who was fast becoming his preferred contact at the State Department.
Professor Moore’s memorandum argued that Panama was the only place in the Americas to build a canal “for the world.” The question of Colombian sovereignty was therefore a global rather than a regional one. All nations had a right to benefit from the opening of this great “gate of intercourse” between East and West. One nation could not delay, or demand an exorbitant fee for, that constructive advance. Moore recalled that in 1846, Colombia—then known as New Granada—had guaranteed the United States free transit across the Isthmus “upon any modes of communication that now exist, or that may hereafter be constructed.” This “sort of supportive partnership” (Washington promising in return to protect both Colombian integrity and neutrality of the transit zone) must have been contracted in order to bring about, ultimately, a canal. Otherwise, as President Polk had pointed out, the United States had no direct interest in preserving the Colombian federation.
For almost six decades, successive administrations had honored the Treaty of New Granada, saving Colombia many times from outside attack and internal revolt. The Panama Railroad, designed and built by Americans, had operated continuously, to the profit of both countries. “Colombia has again and again claimed,” Moore wrote, “that it was our duty to protect the route … thus construing the treaty more broadly than we have done and less favorably to her own sovereignty.” This claim in effect “approached the point of making us responsible on the Isthmus.”
Moore noted, further, that the language of the 1846 treaty guaranteed passage across Panama not only to American citizens, but also to their “Government.” This by definition included military personnel and matériel. As early as 1852, indeed, President Fillmore had deployed troops on the Isthmus with neither permission nor protest from Bogotá. There had been other deployments since, with the express concurrence of the Colombian Senate.
Throughout the long special relationship, Americans had never “enjoyed the full benefit … that the treaty was intended and expected to secure”—namely, a canal. In view of the fact that Colombians had gotten their own side of the bargain—rail transit and armed protection—Washington could now reasonably “require” Bogotá to ratify the Hay-Herrán Treaty. All other considerations, including last-minute amendments, were superfluous and irrelevant. “The United States in constructing the canal would own it; and after constructing it, would have the right to operate it. The ownership and control would be in their nature perpetual.”
The effect upon Roosevelt of this vehement document was to make him strangely cautious. He referred it to Hay, suggesting that the Administration “do nothing,” at least not right away. “If under the treaty of 1846 we have a color of right to start in and build the canal, my offhand judgment would favor