Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [192]
Reluctantly, in view of the marvelous weather, the President continued to exercise indoors. After some vain efforts to strangle his Japanese wrestling instructor, he managed three new throws that were “perfect corkers.” As a result, he was mottled all over with bruises, and lame in both big toes, the right ankle, left wrist, and thumb.
HIS SIGNATURE FINGERS still worked, however. On 28 April he scrawled Theodore Roosevelt at the bottom of the last sheet of legislation to come his way before Congress adjourned: “An Act to Provide for the Temporary Government of the Canal Zone at Panama, the Protection of the Canal Works, and Other Purposes.” Simultaneously in Paris, documents confirming the sale and conveyance of French rights were signed. Thus, as the largest real-estate transaction in history was consummated, the largest engineering project in history was begun.
Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who had waited in New York for this moment, sailed for France. His last request of Panama was that the diplomatic salary he had declined should be put toward a monument to Ferdinand de Lesseps, the canal’s progenitor. For better or worse, the completed waterway (he could see it already, blue and brimming from Gatun to Balboa) would be identified with a more contemporary hero. Both men would always, for him, merit the supreme adjective great.
“I HAVE TAKEN possession of, and now occupy, on behalf of the United States, the Canal Zone and public land ceded by the Republic of Panama,” Roosevelt announced.
By terms of treaty and act, he could exercise as much military, civil, and judicial authority as he liked in the Zone. But he immediately delegated this authority to his Secretary of War. Taft was a proven, brilliant colonial administrator, sensitive to native pride. The Panamanians, who showed early signs of being temperamental neighbors, would be soothed by him. “A more high-minded and disinterested man does not live,” Roosevelt wrote fondly.
He sent Taft an official letter, stipulating a government and constitution for the Zone in precise, peremptory language. Power was to be invested in a new, seven-man Isthmian Canal Commission, already appointed. This would be chaired, as the old commission had been, by Admiral John G. Walker. Major General George W. Davis, USMC, was appointed Governor of the Zone. All but one of the other Commission members were engineers.
Roosevelt ordered Taft to “supervise and direct” this body, as he had the Philippines Commission. On the plainly administrative level, it could be trusted to regulate, recruit, survey, purchase, and disburse. The basic privileges of the Bill of Rights were guaranteed to all inhabitants of the Zone, except—as he robustly specified—“idiots, the insane, epileptics, paupers, criminals, professional beggars [and] persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases.” For good measure, he threw in felons, anarchists, and insurrectos.
Sanitary reform along the lines of General Wood’s pioneering work in Havana was “a matter of first importance,” the President wrote. “I desire that every possible effort be made to protect our officers and workmen from the dangers of tropical and other diseases, which in the past have been so prevalent and destructive in Panama.”
ON 10 MAY, Cornelius Bliss formally declined the party chairmanship. A few days later, J. Hampton Moore, leader of the youth-oriented National Republican League, hurried to Washington to press the name of Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania. Roosevelt could not see Moore until the late afternoon.
“You might as well know,” the President said, “that I shall recommend George B. Cortelyou.”
Shadows stole across the lawn outside,