Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [423]
129 In New York Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 324.
130 “With all the” Story of Panama, 446–47; Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 344–46. As things turned out, the rest of Bunau-Varilla’s money was neither sent nor needed. See Charles D. Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla: New Light on the Panama Canal Treaty,” Hispanic-American Historical Review 46.1 (1966).
131 COLONEL TORRES, closeted Story of Panama, 443–44; John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 5 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
132 Colonel Shaler undertook Story of Panama, 444.
133 A state of unnatural DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 342; Foreign Relations 1903, 237.
134 And in New York Grenville and Young, Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy, 311. There is some evidence that TR, or at least Moody, had contemplated a punitive strike against Colombia nine days earlier. On 26 Oct. 1903, the Navy Department sent TR draft instructions for an attack on Cartagena by the Caribbean Squadron. Ibid., 310.
135 COLONEL HUBBARD WENT John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
136 To popular relief Story of Panama, 452–57; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 335.
137 Just then, at 7:05 Captain Delano (Officer Commanding, Dixie) to William H. Moody, 6 Nov. 1903 (TRP); Story of Panama, 458. The next morning, the Atlanta arrived, bringing United States strength in Colón to one thousand men. General Tovar and his staff were, under escort, sent back to Colombia on 12 Nov. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 2, 286.
138 ROOSEVELT’S CABINET MEETING Washington Times, 6 Nov. 1903; Story of Panama, 463, 467; Foreign Relations 1903, 239. The Frenchman’s appointment was officially upgraded to “minister plenipotentiary” that evening. Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 348–49.
139 There was no doubt Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 349.
140 Roosevelt and Hay Friedlander, “Reassessment,” rejects suggestions by John Hay’s biographers that the Secretary was less than happy with TR’s Panama policy in 1903. He quotes, e.g., Hay to John Ford Rhodes, 8 Dec. 1903: “It is hard for me to understand how anyone can criticize our action in Panama.… I had no hesitation as to the proper course to take, and have had no doubt of the propriety of it since.” Elihu Root was likewise supportive, insisting as late as 1931, “I have always felt that [Roosevelt’s] action was right.” Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1, 403.
141 Questions were being The Times (London), 5 Nov. 1903.
142 Roosevelt did not feel TR, “How the United States Acquired the Right to Dig the Panama Canal,” Outlook, 7 Oct. 1911; TR, Autobiography, 538. In 1887, the historian George Bancroft, revered by TR, had predicted that either an international consortium, or the United States alone, “as the power most interested” in safeguarding Panama as a neutral transit zone, would elbow Colombia aside and assume “whole control for the benefit of all nations.” DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 130.
143 Colombia was clearly Parks, Colombia and the United States, 406. While TR pondered his recognition decision, he very likely heard from Senator Morgan the comment of a Colombian general, just before the treaty was rejected: “It is ridiculous for the Americans to be treating with Colombia now, when we have to wait only a few years, until the French concession expires, [to] make you pay seventy, eighty, or one hundred millions.” Qu. in F. F. Whitteken to John T. Morgan, 2 Nov. 1903 (JTM).
144 “most just and proper” TR, Works, vol. 20, 485.
145 THE PEOPLE OF PANAMA Story of Panama, 463–64.
146 ROOSEVELT ADJOURNED Straus, Under Four Administrations, 174–75. The question of American moral obligations had long plagued policymakers. As far back as 1864, Attorney General Edward Bates deplored the 1846 treaty, with its guarantee of Isthmian rights and sovereignty to “New Granada,” as a mockery of “the wise and cautious policy of the fathers of this Republic.” But since the treaty was a fait accompli, Bates felt that “honesty and good faith require us to fulfill it.” He hoped that the United States would never again commit herself to “such dangerous