Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [168]
Judging from his “trigonometrical” projections of the various movements involved—of United States warships, of Colombian reinforcements (already deploying), of junta agents throughout the Isthmus—the earliest likely date for such news was 29 October. When a cable from Amador arrived on that date, Bunau-Varilla congratulated himself. But the coded message was not what he expected:
FATE NEWS BAD POWERFUL TIGER. URGE VAPOR COLON.
SMITH
Some of it, at least, he could decipher. Fate: Bunau-Varilla. News: Colombian troops arriving. Bad: Atlantic side. Powerful: in five days. Tiger: more than two hundred men. Smith: Amador. But urge vapor Colón seemed more language than code. Urge must be English, vapor either American English or Spanish. Vapor: steam. Steamer!
He was being asked to arrange the dispatch of an American warship to Colón before the Colombian troops got there on 2 November. Bunau-Varilla grabbed a valise and rushed for a Washington train.
Francis B. Loomis received him at home, coldly and noncommittally. The next morning, Bunau-Varilla hung around Lafayette Square, wondering whether to knock on John Hay’s door, when Loomis chanced, or contrived, to bump into him. Now the Assistant Secretary was confidential, if cryptic: “It would be terrible if the catastrophe of 1885 were to be renewed today.”
Riding back to New York on the Congressional Limited, Bunau-Varilla deduced that Loomis had told him that the United States did not intend to permit the burning of Colón by government troops, as she had the last time Panama seriously rebelled. Which must mean that naval force of some sort was on its way. Newspapers aboard the train reported that the Nashville, last seen off Cuba, had arrived in Kingston, Jamaica—en route, surely, to the Isthmus. Five hundred nautical miles at ten knots an hour worked out to two days’ steam. About twelve extra hours would be necessary for preparations. Bunau-Varilla jumped out of the train at Baltimore.
It was ten minutes past noon, 30 October 1903. He sent a wire to “Smith” in Panama City.
ALL RIGHT. WILL REACH TON AND A HALF.
Ton and a half: two and a half days. Calculating from now, that meant the Nashville should arrive off Colón in the small hours of 2 November. The revolution might be slightly delayed, but not compromised. Bunau-Varilla waited for another train, knowing there was little more he could do for the moment. He had “urged a vapor” to Colón. Now everything depended on “Smith.”
ROOSEVELT SWATTED AWAY the late-October light on the White House tennis court. Despite twinges of gout and a thickening waistline, he triumphantly took a set from James Garfield. Then he put his racket away and prepared for humiliation in the November polls.
It was his habit to be gloomy about elections, even in a year as “off” as this. Some thirteen states were due to choose governors, mayors, and local legislatures. Of these, only three gave him real cause to worry, because of Republican infighting. In New York, the party was badly split, boding ill for the state’s all-important electoral-college vote. In Delaware, he was accused—with some justice—of being equivocal between two GOP factions, one of which was corrupt. And in Ohio, Tom L. Johnson’s run for Governor was threatening the legislative majority that Mark Hanna would need for re-election. Roosevelt hoped that Johnson would be beaten, because a Hanna happily back in the Senate would be a Hanna less likely to think of running for the presidency in 1904.
At least there was good news from London, where ElihuRoot, Henry Cabot Lodge, and George Turner won a near-total victory at the Alaska Boundary Tribunal. Canada was left with a few token islands. Lodge, overjoyed (insofar as a Brahmin could feel joyful about anything), wrote to say that Roosevelt should not worry about temporary setbacks to his domestic policy. Such things only “looked” bad, in contrast to his general popularity and success. “I think