Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [178]
South American reactions turned out to be surprisingly muted, with fears of “a foreign protectorate” in Panama tempered by pleasure at the prospect of a new commercial age. Very few newspapers saw evidence of United States involvement in the revolution. “The change is to be welcomed, no matter how it has been brought about,” said the Chilean Times. Even in Bogotá, El Relator published a litany of Colombia’s sins against her separated citizens:
We have converted the lords and masters of that territory into pariahs of their native soils. We have cut their rights and suppressed all their liberties. We have robbed them of the most precious faculty of a free people—that of electing their mandatories: their legislators, their judges.
In Europe, as in the United States, there was a preponderance of praise over dismay. The Times of London called Roosevelt’s attitude “studiously correct,” and expressed little sympathy for Colombia, “the most corrupt and retrograde republic in Central America—which is saying a good deal.” Conservative newspapers in both Britain and France marveled that the legislators of Bogotá had tried to milk a treaty that would have brought one fifth of the world’s trade to their shores. Only in Germany was fear expressed of Roosevelt the “master” expansionist. “He is the type of advancing Americanism, as clever as he is unscrupulous, as powerful as he is sly.”
The President himself remained unruffled by all the fuss. A British visitor to the White House on 11 November found him absorbed in Tittlebat Titmouse.
ON 13 NOVEMBER, a small man in brand-new diplomatic uniform paid a visit to the Blue Room. Secretary Hay presented him to Roosevelt as “His Excellency M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama.” Bunau-Varilla bowed, handed over his credentials, and begged permission to read a short discours of his own composition. It owed its brevity to Hay, who had edited out many Gallic metaphors likely to threaten the President’s composure. But Bunau-Varilla managed to mix a few more after Roosevelt joked, “What do you think, Mr. Minister, of those people who print that we have made the Revolution of Panama together?”
“It is necessary patiently to wait,” Bunau-Varilla replied, “until the spring of the imagination of the wicked is dried up, and until truth dissipates the mist of mendacity.”
Afterward, with Hay, Bunau-Varilla was all business. The United States must take advantage of his accreditation, as he would be unable to represent Panama for long. Already a delegation headed by Dr. Amador was reported to be en route to Washington for treaty “consultations.” That could mean endless Hispanic haggling.
Hay understood. “I shall send it to you as soon as possible.”
What Bunau-Varilla received, two days later, was a slightly altered version of the old Hay-Herrán Treaty, allowing for a ten-million-dollar indemnity and an annual rental of $250,000. Although these amounts were clearly fabulous to an impoverished little isthmian republic, the terms struck Bunau-Varilla as otherwise being not generous enough toward the United States. He wanted the quick approval of the United States Senate, and felt that he should add inducements, such as “a concession of sovereignty en bloc.” A presidential election year loomed; Democrats and anti-Roosevelt Republicans were looking for an opportunity to humiliate the Administration.
Working through the night, with only two hours’ sleep, Bunau-Varilla sent Hay the next day a new protocol, markedly more in the interest of the United States. “Simply a suggestion to enable you to decide,” he wrote. On 18 November, he received