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These actions provoked such antiwar and anticanal sentiment on Capitol Hill that TR, alarmed, ordered a radical change in policy on 21 Dec. Overriding both Moody and Root, he confined American and naval activities on the Isthmus to the canal zone only, and insisted on unaggressive behavior. “If there should come a brush with Colombia, I want to be dead sure that Colombia fires first.” (TR to Moody, 21 Dec. 1903 [TRP]). By the new year, Panama’s own defenses were strong enough for further reduction of United States forces. Sporadic threats of Colombian invasion continued through Jan. 1904, but when Commander Hubbard of the Nashville visited Cartagena on the thirty-first, he was received with resigned goodwill. Bogotá, it seemed, had accepted the inevitable. For detailed accounts, see DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, chap. 15, and Nikol and Holbrook, “Naval Operations.” The latter conclude: “The Navy was used by [the] Roosevelt Administration as a defensive weapon, not aggressively, in the ‘taking’ of Panama. The Administration made it clear to the Colombians that the Navy was defending Panama’s coast and the Transit and then left it up to Colombia to force the issue.”

11 ON 13 NOVEMBER White House diary (TRP); the most scholarly assessment of Bunau-Varilla’s brief ministry is Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.”

12 “It is necessary” Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 366. For the texts of the formal exchanges, see Foreign Relations 1903, 245–46.

13 Afterward, with Hay Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB); Bunau-Varilla, From Panama to Verdun, 154, 157.

14 “I shall send” Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla”; Foreign Relations 1903, 235; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 379; Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 157. According to Bunau-Varilla, he warned Hay, “After I go, you will have to deal with Panamanian lawyers, who are Colombian lawyers.” Hay’s own simile for negotiating with Latin Americans was “like holding a squirrel in your lap.” Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB); DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 384.

15 What Bunau-Varilla Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 368; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 379–80, 384. For the proffered text, see Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.”

16 Working through the Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 370–75; Fowler, John Coit Spooner, 281; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 382.

17 The Secretary was Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 376.

18 Conscious that Dr. Amador Bunau-Varilla, From Panama to Verdun, 159.

19 BUNAU-VARILLA WAS Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 378. Although Bunau-Varilla, who was more than slightly paranoiac, believed that the delegation had come to supplant him, he was empowered to act as he did. See the Panamanian dispatches qu. in Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.” On the other hand, Amador had reason to be shocked and enraged. They had brought with them studies of “important points of the treaty from the viewpoint of Panama,” and felt that they had the right to advise him in negotiating it on their behalf. Bunau-Varilla’s hasty and flawed convention caused permanent damage to United States–Panama relations. See also DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 380–85.

20 Amador reeled Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 378.

21 Congress had convened On 9 Nov. 1903.

22 The dragging, eighteen-month For TR’s second (10 Nov. 1903) Special Message to Congress on Cuban reciprocity, see TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 2, 645–48.

Chronological Note: Due to an aggressive investment and lobbying strategy, the American Sugar Refining Company had managed in 1903 to consolidate all domestic sugar interests behind the treaty. Amid cries that opponents of reciprocity had “sold out” to the “sugar trust,” the House overwhelmingly approved the treaty on 19 Nov., and the Senate followed suit on 16 Dec. Healy, United States in Cuba, 205–6.

23 Thanks to the “Speaker Cannon: A Character Sketch,” Review of Reviews, Dec. 1903.

24 On 19 November Literary Digest, 21 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1903.

25 Cannon pointed out Review of Reviews, Jan. 1904; Walter Wellman in Philadelphia Press, 7 Dec. 1903.

26 MARK HANNA, who Hamilton Fish to TR, 21 Nov. 1903 (TRP).

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