Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [175]
Undeterred, Torres’s five hundred men surrounded the railroad yard.
IN WASHINGTON, the President lunched with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—“one of the most interesting men I have ever met”—and Sir Frederick Pollock, Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University. Roosevelt enjoyed their company, yet remained temperamentally unable to understand the workings of minds more concerned with reason than power.
In New York, Philippe Bunau-Varilla decoded a cable from his friend “Smith” in Panama City. It was not, as he expected, his appointment as the new republic’s Minister Plenipotentiary, but a pressing demand for one hundred thousand pesos. He decided to send half that amount. Fifty thousand pesos equaled about twenty-five thousand dollars, or one quarter of his total pledge. If junta members wanted the rest, they would have to make good on the ministership—and certify that they held both coasts. The United States was not likely to dig a canal on only one side of the continental divide.
“With all the insistence possible,” he cabled back, “I recommend you to seize Colón.”
COLONEL TORRES, closeted with Chief Meléndez, let his 2:00 P.M. deadline pass. For another hour and a quarter, Colombians and Americans continued to draw beads on each other across the railroad yard. The tension increased as the Cartagena, which had raised anchor after the Nashville lowered its guns, steamed toward the horizon at a speed suggesting she sought safety beyond it. Now that they had lost their troopship, the tiradores were more than ever compelled to stand and fight.
Then Torres approached the depot, smiling. Evidently there had been some pecuniary progress in his negotiations with Chief Meléndez. He told Colonel Hubbard that he now felt “most friendly” toward the United States. But he needed an authorization from his captive leader before he called off his men. Colonel Shaler undertook to transport a pair of Colombian envoys to Panama City for that purpose, and Commander Hubbard promised them safe conduct. After their special train had puffed off, Torres and Hubbard agreed to a mutual, modified fallback. The Marines would retire to the Nashville, and the battalion would camp on a hill outside town, while Colón would be left under the control of Chief Meléndez.
A state of unnatural calm settled over the shabby little port, even as Panama City, where the first revolutionary bonuses had just been paid out in silver, abandoned itself to wild celebrations. In Bogotá, mobs raged through the streets and stoned President Marroquín’s house. And in Washington, Roosevelt and Hay worried over a cable from Malmros: PANAMA IN POSSESSION OF COMMITTEE WITH CONSENT OF ENTIRE POPULATION…. COLON IN THE POSSESSION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
And in New York, a naval emissary boarded a steamer of the Panama Railroad Company with a secret package addressed to the commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Fleet. It contained war plans for an emergency occupation of the Isthmus.
COLONEL HUBBARD WENT ashore early on Thursday, 5 November, to find the tiradores (rendered irritable by mosquito bites) about to re-enter town. Torres said he had to be ready for the orders of General Tovar, due when his envoys arrived on the mid-morning train. Hubbard, infuriated, once more landed Marines, mounted cannons around the depot, and sent American women and children to safety. The Nashville resumed its sweep of the waterfront.
To popular relief, the envoys brought no orders, written or oral, from General Tovar. He declined to command from the depths of a jail cell; he merely expressed confidence that Colonel Torres “would always do his duty.” Chief Meléndez, scenting capitulation, reappeared at Torres’s elbow. The colonel blustered bravely all day; then, shortly before sunset,