Theodore Roosevelt [61]
that we have in the canal across Central America, why not in the partition of any part of Southern America? To my mind, we should consistently refuse to all European powers the right to control in any shape, any territory in the Western Hemisphere which they do not already hold.
'As for existing treaties--I do not admit the "dead hand" of the treaty making power in the past. A treaty can always be honorably abrogated--though it must never be abrogated in dishonest fashion.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 339-41.
Fortunately, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, remained benevolently disposed towards the Isthmian Canal, and in the following year he consented to take up the subject again. A new treaty embodying the American amendments and the British objections was drafted, and passed the Senate a few months after Roosevelt became President. Its vital provisions were, that it abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States full ownership and control of the proposed canal.
This was the second illustration of Roosevelt's masterfulness in cutting through a diplomatic knot. Arrangements for constructing the Canal itself forced on him a third display of his dynamic quality which resulted in the most hotly discussed act of his career.
The French Canal Company was glad to sell to the American Government its concessions on the Isthmus, and as much of the Canal as it had dug, for $40,000,000. It had originally bought its concession from the Government of Colombia, which owned the State of Panama: At first the Colombian rulers seemed glad, and they sent an accredited agent, Dr. Herran, to Washington, who framed with Secretary Hay a treaty satisfactory to both, and believed, by Mr. Hay, to represent the sincere intentions of the Colombian Government at Bogota. The Colombian politicians, however, who were banditti of the Tammany stripe, but as much cruder as Bogota was than New York City, suddenly discovered that the transaction might be much more profitable for themselves than they had at first suspected. They put off ratifying the treaty, therefore, and warned the French Company that they should charge it an additional $10,000,000 for the privilege of transferring its concession to the Americans. The French demurred; the Americans waited. Secretary Hay reminded Dr. Herran that the treaty must be signed within a reasonable time, and intimated that the reasonable time would soon be up.
The Bogotan blackmailers indulged in still wilder dreams of avarice; like the hasheesh-eater, they completely lost contact with reality and truth. In one of their earlier compacts with the French Company they stipulated that, if the Canal were not completed by a certain day in 1904, the entire concession and undertaking should revert to the Colombian Government. As it was now September, 1903, it did not require the wits of a political bandit to see that, by staving off an agreement with the United States for a few months, Colombia could get possession of property and privileges which the French were selling to the Americans for $40,000,000. So the Colombian Parliament adjourned in October, 1903, without even taking up the Hay-Herran Treaty.
Meanwhile the managers of the French Company became greatly alarmed at the prospect of losing the sum which the United States had agreed to pay for its rights and diggings, and it took steps to avert this total loss. The most natural means which occurred to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a revolution in the State of Panama. To understand the affair truly, the reader must remember that Panama had long been the chief source of wealth to the Republic of Colombia. The mountain gentry who conducted the Colombian Government at Bogota treated Panama like a conquered. province, to be squeezed to the utmost for the benefit of the politicians. There was neither community of interest nor racial sympathy between the Panamanians and the Colombians, and, as it required a journey of fifteen days to go from Panama to the Capital, geography, also, added its sundering influence.
'As for existing treaties--I do not admit the "dead hand" of the treaty making power in the past. A treaty can always be honorably abrogated--though it must never be abrogated in dishonest fashion.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 339-41.
Fortunately, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, remained benevolently disposed towards the Isthmian Canal, and in the following year he consented to take up the subject again. A new treaty embodying the American amendments and the British objections was drafted, and passed the Senate a few months after Roosevelt became President. Its vital provisions were, that it abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States full ownership and control of the proposed canal.
This was the second illustration of Roosevelt's masterfulness in cutting through a diplomatic knot. Arrangements for constructing the Canal itself forced on him a third display of his dynamic quality which resulted in the most hotly discussed act of his career.
The French Canal Company was glad to sell to the American Government its concessions on the Isthmus, and as much of the Canal as it had dug, for $40,000,000. It had originally bought its concession from the Government of Colombia, which owned the State of Panama: At first the Colombian rulers seemed glad, and they sent an accredited agent, Dr. Herran, to Washington, who framed with Secretary Hay a treaty satisfactory to both, and believed, by Mr. Hay, to represent the sincere intentions of the Colombian Government at Bogota. The Colombian politicians, however, who were banditti of the Tammany stripe, but as much cruder as Bogota was than New York City, suddenly discovered that the transaction might be much more profitable for themselves than they had at first suspected. They put off ratifying the treaty, therefore, and warned the French Company that they should charge it an additional $10,000,000 for the privilege of transferring its concession to the Americans. The French demurred; the Americans waited. Secretary Hay reminded Dr. Herran that the treaty must be signed within a reasonable time, and intimated that the reasonable time would soon be up.
The Bogotan blackmailers indulged in still wilder dreams of avarice; like the hasheesh-eater, they completely lost contact with reality and truth. In one of their earlier compacts with the French Company they stipulated that, if the Canal were not completed by a certain day in 1904, the entire concession and undertaking should revert to the Colombian Government. As it was now September, 1903, it did not require the wits of a political bandit to see that, by staving off an agreement with the United States for a few months, Colombia could get possession of property and privileges which the French were selling to the Americans for $40,000,000. So the Colombian Parliament adjourned in October, 1903, without even taking up the Hay-Herran Treaty.
Meanwhile the managers of the French Company became greatly alarmed at the prospect of losing the sum which the United States had agreed to pay for its rights and diggings, and it took steps to avert this total loss. The most natural means which occurred to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a revolution in the State of Panama. To understand the affair truly, the reader must remember that Panama had long been the chief source of wealth to the Republic of Colombia. The mountain gentry who conducted the Colombian Government at Bogota treated Panama like a conquered. province, to be squeezed to the utmost for the benefit of the politicians. There was neither community of interest nor racial sympathy between the Panamanians and the Colombians, and, as it required a journey of fifteen days to go from Panama to the Capital, geography, also, added its sundering influence.