Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [174]
By 10:30 P.M., the specific order to Commander Hubbard was ready for transmission and signed by Hay. Further cables went to the other ships involved, although their urgency was largely symbolic. The Atlanta had to finish stoking up in Kingston before it could join the Nashville; the Boston had not yet cleared Honduras; the rest of the Pacific Squadron would need three more days to get to Panama City. At least the Dixie was nearing Colón, where Hubbard could doubtless use it.
Up Pennsylvania Avenue, the stereopticon watchers were roaring, as result after result flickered onto the screens. Mayor Seth Low of New York City had conceded defeat. A Democratic rout was announced in Maryland. Especially loud cheers, around eleven o’clock, signaled a triumph for “Hanna Republicans” in Ohio.
The White House conference broke up fifteen minutes later, after another cable from Panama City announced that a government gunboat had tossed five or six shells into the city, “killing a Chinaman in Salsipuedes street and mortally wounding an ass.” If that was the extent of Colombia’s rage so far, a tired President could get some sleep.
THE BIG WORD REVOLUTION crowded election results on the right-hand side of the front page of The Washington Post the next morning. Most other newspapers, however, treated the story from Panama City as if it were the final, entirely predictable installment of a serial that had begun well but lost its power of suspense. In any case, the New York World had given away the ending nearly four months before—even forecasting yesterday’s date. This temporary lack of interest (the story being by no means over) enabled Roosevelt, Hay, Loomis, and Darling to concentrate on the worsening crisis in Colón.
Commander Hubbard, by triple authority of the White House and the State and Navy Departments, had issued a denial of rail transport to the tiradores. (They were free to march across the Isthmus, if they liked, on a mud trail two feet wide, through one of the wettest jungles in the world.) Hubbard informed Colonel Shaler in writing that any redistribution of troops, loyal or revolutionary, “must bring about a conflict and threaten that free and uninterrupted transit of the Isthmus which the Government of the United States is pledged to maintain.” He had sent an early copy of this order to Colonel Torres, emphasizing that it applied to both sides, and trusting in his “cordial” cooperation.
Torres reacted with cordial fury. He was still unaware of what had happened in Panama City, but he had grown increasingly nervous since the departure of his commanding officers. Their silence was suspicious, as was Hubbard’s cryptic reference to a possible “conflict.” Did the commander mean a clash with insurrectos inland, or an international battle right here on the Colón waterfront? Torres knew only that an American naval officer was denying him the right to cross his own country.
The mid-morning train from Panama City arrived, bringing the first unofficial news of yesterday’s uprising. Porfirio Meléndez offered to buy Torres a drink. Under soothing fans at the Astor Hotel, he confirmed that Panama had seceded from Colombia. The new republic’s security had been guaranteed by the United States, which was sending more warships. General Tovar was in jail, along with his fellow officers, and so was Governor Obaldía. All Panamanians supported the revolution, so resistance was “entirely useless.” If Colonel Torres would be so good as to order his men to surrender their arms, the junta would provide rations and passage back to Barranquilla.
Torres went in a frenzy to the prefect of Colón and told him to deliver an ultimatum to Consul Malmros. Unless Tovar and Amaya were freed by 2:00 P.M., he would open fire on the town “and kill every U.S. citizen in the place.”
When Commander Hubbard heard of this threat, shortly after one o’clock, he took it as tantamount to “war against the United States.” All male Americans in Col