FOUR CENTURIES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RANAMA CANAL 
 
 WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON 
 
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FOUR CENTURIES OF THE 
 PANAMA CANAL 
 
Vaughan & Keith, Photo. 
 
 WILLIAM H. TAFT, 
 United States Secretary of War. 
 
FOUR CENTURIES OF THE 
 PANAMA CANAL 
 
 BY 
 WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON, A.M., L.H.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF • A CENTURY OF EXPANSION," ETC. 
 
 WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1906 
 
• 6" 
 
 Copyright, 1906 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published November, iqob 
 
aukcroft UbaQf 
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM H. TAFT, 
 
 SECRETARY OF WAR, JURIST, ADMINISTRATOR, DIPLOMAT, 
 AND, UNDER THE PRESIDENT, CHIEF BUILDER OF 
 THE PANAMA CANAL; IN SINCERE THOUGH IN- 
 ADEQUATE COMMEMORATION OF ESTEEMED 
 FRIENDSHIP AND INVALUABLE AID; 
 THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY 
 AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDI- 
 CATED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I SHALL try in this book to tell the story of the Panama 
 Canal, and incidentally that of Panama itself so far as the 
 latter is necessary to the completeness of the former. It 
 will be impossible for me to do so with any great elaboration 
 of detail. The vastness of the topic forbids it; unless in- 
 deed this single volume were to be multiplied into many. 
 The story is more than four centuries long, and it impli- 
 cates, literally, mankind from China to Peru. Any one of 
 half a dozen of its phases might well monopolise a volume. 
 But I shall hope to give in these pages some account of all 
 the really salient and essential features of the story, and 
 especially to make clear the relationships of cause and effect 
 among them, and to show how, by virtue of a somewhat 
 devious train of incidents and circumstances leading from 
 Christopher Columbus to Theodore Koosevelt, this country, 
 in opportunity and privilege, in authority and responsi- 
 bility, has become at Panama the ^'heir of all the ages." It 
 will also be impossible for me to give much detailed descrip- 
 tion of the Isthmian country, of its conditions of resources, 
 soil, and climate, of its people, or of the technical features 
 of the canal and its auxiliary works. To each of half a 
 dozen such topics, also, a volume might well be given. If 
 I touch upon these more lightly and briefly than upon his- 
 torical matters, that will be because this is to be a history 
 rather than a descriptive treatise. 
 
 It is now more than a quarter of a century since I be- 
 came, as a student of affairs and as a writer upon them, 
 interested in the chief proposals and problems of Isthmian 
 transit. Ferdinand de Lesseps had then achieved his splen- 
 did success at Suez, and was beginning his grandiose but 
 fatuous undertaking at Panama ; an American company was 
 
 vii 
 
viii PEEFACE 
 
 planning the final and fruitless essay at Nicaragua; and 
 James B. Eads was elaborating for Tehuantepec the most 
 ambitious scheme of his engineering genius. In those proj- 
 ects, applied to routes which had been selected by Cortez, 
 I became absorbed, and in all the years since that time I 
 have striven to keep myself in touch with them, as long as 
 two of them lasted, and with the one triumphant survivor 
 down to the present. It was also my privilege, through the 
 courtesy of the Government of the United States, and espe- 
 cially of its Secretary of War, the Hon. William H. Taft, 
 to spend some time at Panama and there to study historical 
 data, political and social conditions, and the various prob- 
 lems of the canal enterprise, under exceptionally favourable 
 conditions of authority and intimacy, at what was probably 
 the most important formative period thus far in the career 
 of the Isthmian Kepublic and of our relations to it. The 
 result will be found in this volume, in which I shall embody 
 information acquired through personal investigation at 
 Panama as well as in Washington and New York, and 
 through inquiry of authoritative sources at Paris and 
 Bogota — the five cities, in four lands and three continents, 
 in which the modern history of Panama and the Panama 
 Canal has been chiefly made. 
 
 Much more might be said, not only than I shall have space 
 to say, but also than it would be fitting for me to say. Much 
 has been imparted to me which is of indispensable value to 
 me in preparing this work, in directing me to other data, 
 and in enabling me .to judge correctly among diverse 
 opinions and reports, but which confidence forbids me to 
 reveal. I am deeply indebted, for information, opportunity, 
 and aid, to Dr. Amador, the President of Panama, and to his 
 son. Dr. R. A. Amador, the Panaman Consul-General in 
 New York ; to Dr. Arosemena, then First Designate of Pan- 
 ama ; to Seiior Obaldia, the Panaman Minister, and to Senor 
 C. C. Arosemena, the Secretary of Legation, at Washington ; 
 to Senors J. A. Arango, Tomas Arias, Ramon M. Valdes, 
 and other gentlemen at Panama ; to the lamented John Hay, 
 
PKEFACE ix 
 
 then Secretary of State; to Mr. William H. Taft, Secretary 
 of War; to Mr. F. B. Loomis, then Assistant Secretary of 
 State; to Mr. John Barrett, then American Minister, and to 
 Mr. Joseph Lee, then Secretary of Legation, at Panama; to 
 Mr. Charles E. Magoon, then counsel to the Canal Commis- 
 sion and since Governor of the Canal Zone ; to Rear-Admiral 
 John A. Walker, then Chairman of the Canal Commission; 
 to Mr. John F. Wallace, then Chief Engineer of the Canal; 
 to Colonel William C. Gorgas, Chief of the Sanitary Staff 
 of the Canal Zone; to Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, Coun- 
 sel to the French Panama Canal Company; and to many 
 others. I desire also to make grateful acknowledgments to 
 the Editors of The Forum magazine and of The Tribune 
 newspaper, of New York, for permission to use in this 
 volume portions of various articles contributed by me to the 
 pages of those publications. 
 
 With all its shortcomings, — which I sincerely trust no 
 reader will realise as keenly as the writer, — this book will 
 be offered to the public with a hope that it will in some 
 measure, by suggesting inquiry and stimulating study as 
 well as by imparting information, increase appreciation and 
 right knowledge of an undertaking which is not only the 
 greatest in our history but also the greatest of its kind 
 in the history of the world, and which is to be completed not 
 only for the immeasurable advantage of the American nation 
 but also for the promotion of the welfare of all mankind. 
 
 Willis Fletcher Johnson. 
 New Yobk, Octob&r, 1906. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I 
 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Columbus's Aim not to Find a New Continent but to Find a "Water 
 Highway from Europe to Asia — Theories of the World from 
 Aristotle to Toscanelli — Some Ante-Columbian Adventures — 
 The Alleged Letter and Map of Toscanelli — The Reports of Marco 
 Polo and Mandeville — Thinae — Columbus in Quest of the Land of 
 the Great Khan — His Identification of America with Asia — The 
 "Garden of Eden" — Origin of the Legend of the Strait — Isth- 
 mian Explorations of His Fourth Voyage — The Map of Wald- 
 seemiiller — Persistence of Columbus's Delusion ... 1 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 
 
 The Quests of Ojeda and Bastidas — La Cosa and Vespucci — First 
 Colonies on the Gulf of Darien — Pizarro and Enciso — The Ad- 
 vent of Balboa — Rivalry with Enciso — Discovery of the Pacific 
 Ocean — Pedrarias Davila and His Deviltries — The First Ships 
 in the South Sea — Judicial Murder of Balboa — Founding of 
 Panama — The Pearl Islands — Explorations at Nicaragua and 
 Tehuantepec — Work of De Soto and His Colleagues — The Voy- 
 age of Magellan — Cortez and the Mythical Strait — First Pro- 
 posal of a Canal — Alvaro de Saavedra Ceron — Four Rival Canal 
 Routes in the Time of Cortez — Decree of Charles V — Reversed 
 by Philip II — Advent of the English Freebooters — Morgan the 
 Buccaneer — Sharpe and Wafer — William Paterson's Colonial 
 Enterprise — Explorations of Condamine and Ulloa . . .18 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 EARLY PLANS AND RIVALRIES 
 
 Humboldt's Observations and Recommendations — Nine Canal Routes 
 across the Americas — Discussions of Panama and Darien — The 
 "Secret of the Strait" again — Goethe's Remarkable Prophecies — 
 
 xi 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rise of American Interest in the Canal Scheme — The First Pan- 
 American Congress — The First Nicaragua Canal Company — A 
 French Franchise at Panama — Question of the Level of the Two 
 Seas — Various American Expeditions to Nicaragua — Interest 
 of the French Government — Humboldt's Renewed Suggestions — 
 Louis Napoleon's Schemes at Nicaragua 39 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 THE CLAYTON-BULWER EPISODE 
 
 Origin of the British Claims in Central America — The Mosquito 
 Indians and Their Kings — Planting of British Colonies — Con- 
 troversies with Spain — Rapid Expansion of Belize and Mosquitia 
 — The Bay Islands — Aggressions upon Nicaragua — The Ameri- 
 can Migration to California — Treaty with New Granada — Enter- 
 prises at Nicaragua — Hise's Treaty — Squier's Treaty — Seizure of 
 Tigre Island — The Recommendations of Abbott Lawrence — 
 Negotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty — Its Provisions — Dis- 
 satisfaction with Its Terms — Walker the Filibuster — The British 
 Treaty with Nicaragua 51 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 Felix Belly and His Concessions — Effective Protest of the United 
 States — End of Louis Napoleon's Schemes — The Tehuantepec 
 Route — Rival Explorations at Panama — Persistent Efforts of 
 Frederick Kelly to Find a Route — A Sea-Level Canal Considered 
 — Renewal of French Enterprises — The Proposed Chiriqui 
 Colony — Surveys of Lull and Menocal — Gradual Development of 
 American Policy — The Dickinson-Ayon Treaty with Nicaragua 
 — Seward's Proposal of a "Canal Zone" — Grant's First Enuncia- 
 tion of the Policy of "an American Canal" — The First Inter- 
 oceanic Canal Commission and Its Surveys — The Nicaragua 
 Route Selected — The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in the Way — More 
 French Schemes at Panama — Wyse's Survey and De Lesseps's 
 Scheme — Call for an International Engineering Congress . . 65 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 "CONSULE LESSEPS" 
 
 The International Congress of 1879 — Dominated by De Lesseps — 
 Its Composition and Organisation — The Committee on Choice 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 of Route — Panama Approved — American Opposition to the 
 French Plans — Organisation of a Nicaragua Canal Company — 
 De Lesseps's Visit to Washington — Hayes's Message — Advanced 
 Ground Taken by the American Government — De Lesseps's 
 Change of Tactics — The "American Committee" and Its Work — 
 The Tehuantepec Ship Railroad Project — Blaine's Futile Diplo- 
 macy — The American Policy Stated — Controversy over the Clay- 
 ton-Bulwer Treaty — Abrogation Proposed — Blaine's Discomfiture 
 at the Hands of Granville — Frelinghuysen's Continuation of 
 the Controversy — An Impasse — Inauguration of De Lesseps's 
 Undertaking — "Le Grand Frangais" — Blundering and Plunder- 
 ing — Failure and Bankruptcy of the Panama Company — Tragic 
 End of De Lesseps — Confirmation of the American Policy . . 78 
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 WHY THE FRENCH FAILED 
 
 Profligacy in Finance — "Forty-Seven Miles of 'Graft'" — How the 
 Money was Wasted and Stolen — Snow-Shovels at Panama! — 
 Extortions of Colombian Administration — A Real Estate Trans- 
 action — Improving a Providential Opportunity — What We 
 Escaped by Establishing the Canal Zone — French Neglect of 
 Sanitation — Mismanagement of Hospitals — Too Many Experi- 
 ments with Machinery — Imperfect Surveys — Improper Disposi- 
 tion of Material — Errors for Americans to Avoid . . .99 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 Efforts of the French to Reorganise Their Scheme — Extension of 
 Their Franchise — Formation of the New Panama Canal Com- 
 pany — The Technical Committee and Its Report — American 
 Activity at Nicaragua — The Frelinghuysen-Zavala Treaty — 
 Cleveland's Attempted Reversal of American Policy — Charter- 
 ing of the Maritime Canal Company — Its Construction Company 
 — Work at Nicaragua — Embarrassment and Failure of the Com- 
 pany — A Long Campaign in Congress — Various Proposals for 
 Government Aid at Nicaragua — The Ludlow and Walker Canal 
 Commissions — The Grace-Eyre-Cragin Syndicate — The Voyage 
 of the Oregon — An Impressive Object-Lesson — A Triangular 
 Fight — Final Discomfiture of the Maritime Canal Company — 
 Seeking Abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty — The First 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pauncefote Treaty — Report of the Third Canal Commission — 
 Nicaragua Favoured — Desperation of the Panama Company — 
 Negotiations for Sale at Panama — Change of the Commission's 
 Report — Resolution of the Pan-American Congress — The Final 
 Struggle at Washington — Enactment of the Spooner Bill . 108 
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 Validity of the French Company's Sale of Its Property to the United 
 States — Seeking a Treaty with Colombia — Terms of the Pre- 
 liminary Protocol — Bad Condition of Colombian Finances — A 
 Covetous Plan of Colombian Politicians — German Interest in the 
 Isthmus — Efforts to Defeat the American Project — Rebellion at 
 Panama — Intervention by the United States — Colombian Protest 
 — Departure of Sefior Concha — The Hay-Herran Negotiations — 
 Terms of the Treaty — Colombia's Attitude toward It — Election 
 of a New Colombian Congress — President Marroquin in Con- 
 trol — Attempts to Extort Blackmail from the French Com- 
 pany — Anxiety in Paris — Colombian Plans for Delay — Lapsing 
 of the Treaty — Adjournment of the Colombian Congress . . 130 
 
 Chapter X 
 
 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 The Story of Colombia's Dealings with the Isthmus — Bolivar's 
 Achievement of Independence — Panama's Union with New 
 Granada — Revolt against the Bogota Government — Herrera's 
 Revolution — Isthmian Independence Restored — Federal Union 
 again — Bad Faith of a Packed Congress — Separation Proposed 
 — Mosquera's Promises of Reform — Reorganisation of the Fed- 
 eral System — "Organised Anarchy" — The Conquest of Panama — 
 "The Milch Cow of the Confederation" — Nunez and His Coup- 
 d'Etat — Repudiation and Despotism — "Ratification" of a New 
 Constitution — Marroquin's Description of Colombia — Panama's 
 Warning to Bogota — Dr. Amador — The Colombian Reply — J. A. 
 Arango's Revolutionary Plans — Captain Beers's Mission — Or- 
 ganising a Revolution — The Junta — Dr. Amador's Mission to the 
 United States — Appeal to William Nelson Cromwell — "Shadowed" 
 by a Colombian Spy — "Desanimado" — Bunau-Varilla's Oppor- 
 tune Arrival — "Esperanzas" — At the State Department — 
 Secretary Hay's Frank Talk — Dr. Amador's Return to Pan- 
 ama — Arrival of the Nashville at Colon — The Day Set — Arrival 
 of the Colombian Army — Conduct of General Huertas — "Spar- 
 
CONTENTS XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ring for Time" at Panama — "Do It Now !" — Arrest of Colombian 
 Generals — Action of the Gunboats — Declaration of Panaman 
 Independence — Organisation of a Provisional Government — 
 Soldiers Stranded at Colon — United States Protection of Pan- 
 ama — Departure of the Colombian Troops — Recognition of the 
 New Republic — Colombian Protests — Mission of General Reyes — 
 His Extraordinary Proposal — Constitutional Progress at Panama 150 
 
 Chapter XI 
 
 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 Criticisms of American Action — Justification of Our Policy — The 
 Orders to American Ships — Treaty Rights and Obligations — Pro- 
 priety of Recognising Panama — The Domestic Obligations of 
 the President — Legal Obligations to Colombia — Annals of Isth- 
 mian Outbreaks — Colombia's Inability to Govern Panama — Pro- 
 tection of Isthmian Transit — A Covenant that "Ran with the 
 Land" — Equity to Colombia — Colombia's Own Inequity — No 
 Analogy with Our Civil War — Law and Equity to Other Na- 
 tions — No Dog-in-the-Manger Policy — "International Eminent 
 Domain" — Good Faith of the American Policy . . . 187 
 
 Chapter XII 
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 The Constitutional Convention — Adoption of a Constitution — Salient 
 Features of that Instrument — The Legislature — The Executive — 
 The Judiciary — Miscellaneous Provisions — Organisation of the 
 Permanent Government — A Non-Partisan Regime — The Flag — 
 Coinage — An Endowed Republic — The Canal Treaty — Diplomatic 
 Relations with the United States — Area and Bounds of the Re- 
 public — Its Physical Features — Description of the Coasts — 
 Chiriqui Lagoon — Colon — The Bay of Panama — The Pearl 
 Islands — Principal Cities of the Republic — The Line of the 
 Railroad and Canal — Features of the Canal Route — Earth- 
 quakes — The Climate — Temperature — Humidity — Tropical Con- 
 ditions at Their Best 209 
 
 Chapter XIII 
 
 AN ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY EPISODE 
 
 Development of Partisanship — Inclinations toward Military Revolu- 
 tions — General Huertas's Demand for the Resignation of 
 
xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cabinet Ministers — An Amazing Letter — Threatening the Presi- 
 dent — Appeal to the American Legation — Mr. Lee's Discreet 
 Advice — A Significant Reminder — Keeping the Peace on a 
 Holiday — General Huertas's "Order of the Day" — Another Rail- 
 ing Letter — A Critical Review of the Army — Action and Advice 
 of the American Minister — Warships in the Harbour and Marines 
 in the Suburbs — Resignation of General Huertas — Disbandment 
 of the Army— The Crisis Safely Passed 238 
 
 Chapter XIV 
 
 A MISSION OF READJUSTMENT 
 
 Panaman Discontent with an American Executive Order — The Postal 
 and Customs Services Involved — Diplomatic Correspondence — 
 Secretary Taft's Mission — Pensacola and Its Memories — Recep- 
 tion at Panama — American Intentions Promptly Stated — Dip- 
 lomatic Conferences — A Notable Banquet — American and 
 Panaman Speechmaking — Excursion to the Pearl Islands — 
 Announcement of the Result of the Negotiations — The New 
 Executive Order — Gratification of the Panamans — Secretary 
 Taft's Address to the People — Interest in President Roosevelt's 
 Reelection — Net Result of the Mission — Permanence of the 
 Settlement 256 
 
 Chapter XV 
 
 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 The Old Colombian Spirit not Dead — Dr. Porras and the Revolution 
 — The Rise of a Partisan Opposition — Dr. Porras's Citizenship 
 Impeached — Railings against the Court's Judgment — Memorial 
 of the Liberal Directorate to Secretary Taft — A Bitter Arraign- 
 ment of the Panaman Government — Inquiries as to the Intentions 
 of the United States — Exaggerations of Partisan Campaign 
 Utterances — A Conservative Reply — American Policy Well 
 
 Pefined 
 
 Chapter XVI 
 
 BEGINNING THE WORK 
 
 The Canal the Thing — Its Construction at last Assured — Delusions 
 Concerning the "Mighty Mountain Wall" of the Cordilleras — 
 No Barrier to a Sea-Level Canal — What We Secured from the 
 French Company — The First Canal Commission — The President's 
 
CONTENTS xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Orders — Government of the Canal Zone — Organisation of the 
 Commission — Governor Davis's Proclamation — Engineering Work 
 — ^Wallace Made Chief Engineer — Organisation of His Staff — 
 Thoroughness of the Preliminary Surveys — The Gatun, Bohio, 
 and Gamboa Dams — The Culebra Cut — New Steam-Shovels — 
 Four Plans of Construction Considered — The Sea-Level Plan 
 Decidedly Favoured — Plans of Philippe Bunau-Varilla, Lindon 
 W. Bates, and Cassius E. Gillette — Arguments in Favour of a 
 Sea-Level Cut — The Questions of Earthquakes, the Chagres, 
 Cost, and Time 280 
 
 Chapter XVII 
 
 REORGANISATION 
 
 Dissatisfaction with the Commission — Too Much Red Tape and 
 Delay — Recommendations for Reorganisation — Failure of Con- 
 gress to Act — The President's Action — A New Commission 
 Formed — The Executive Committee — The President's Rules for 
 the Conduct of the Commission — A Promise of Increased Effi- 
 ciency — The Question of Purchasing Supplies in the Cheapest 
 Market — Secretary Taft's Business-like Policy — Protests of the 
 "Stand-Patters" — Purchase of All the Panama Railroad Stock 
 by the Government — Mr. Bristow's Report on Traffic — Chief 
 Engineer Wallace's Resignation — Its Circumstances and Causes — 
 Interview between Messrs. Taft and Wallace — Their Statements 
 about It — A Painful Episode — Appointment of John F. Stevens 
 as Chief Engineer — The Board of Consulting Engineers — The 
 President's Instructions — Two Reports on Plan of Construction — 
 The Majority for a Sea-Level Canal — The Chief Engineer's Re- 
 port — Action of the Canal Commissioners and the Secretary 
 of War — The President's Recommendation for a High-Level 
 Lock Canal — The Final Decision by Congress .... 297 
 
 Chapter XVIII 
 
 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 Progress of Medical Science — Vital Statistics of the French Canal 
 Company — Reappearance of Yellow Fever at Panama — Demoral- 
 isation of the American Colony — Neglect of Precautions — Mis- 
 takes of Our Government — Vigorous Action Taken by Governor 
 Magoon — Some Orders that Meant Business — Difficulties in the 
 Way of Sanitation — Thorough Inspection and Disinfection — 
 The War against Mosquitoes — Admirable Work of Colonel 
 
xviii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gorgas — Gradual Suppression of the Disease— Its Complete 
 Elimination — A Reward Offered for the Reporting of a Case 
 — Healthfulness of Panama Compared with Other Places — 
 Social Improvements — The Problem of Feeding the Workmen 
 — Governor Magoon's Commissary System — Suppression of 
 Gambling — The Eight-Hour Law and the Civil Service . , 326 
 
 Chapter XIX 
 
 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 The Tribe of Gifted Hopkins Not Extinct— A Political Propagandist 
 at Bogota — Seeking a Mare's Nest on the Isthmus — Adding to the 
 Joy of Nations — A Misinterpreted Metaphor — Foolish Com- 
 plaints at Culebra — A Sample of Descriptive Balderdash — A 
 Libel upon the Isthmus and Its People — Poultney Bigelow's 
 Encyclopaedic Researches in Twenty-Eight Hours and Ten Min- 
 utes — The Facts in the Case — Mr. Stevens's Comprehensive Con- 
 tradictions — Governor Magoon's Effective Reply — Probable 
 Animus of Mr. Bigelow's Outbreak — His Railings to Aliens 
 against the American Army — President Roosevelt on False 
 Accusers 340 
 
 Chapter XX 
 
 THE NEXT THING 
 
 The Task at Panama Well Begun — Need of Considering the Future — 
 Plan of the Canal and Auxiliary Works — The Question of 
 Labour — A Great Army of Workmen Needed — Permanent Colo- 
 nists also Needed — Can the Two be Combined? — Permanent 
 Chinese Immigration Undesirable — Negro Colonisation to be 
 Deprecated — Russians and Boers Suggested but not Available — 
 The Country Unsuited to American Labour — Possibility of Secur- 
 ing Spanish and Italian Workingmen — Chinese Contract Labour 
 as a Last Resource, to be Sent Back when the Work is Done — 
 American Relations with the Panaman Government and People — 
 Sensitiveness of the Isthmians— Tact the Supreme Desideratum 
 of Americans in Dealing with Southern Neighbours — The Point 
 of View — Panama to Remain Panaman, and not to be Made 
 American — No More "Damned Greasers" than "Damned 
 Yankees" — Need of Radical Improvement in Our Trade 
 Methods— The Future of Isthmian Sanitation . . . .352 
 
CONTENTS xix 
 
 Chapter XXI 
 PANAMA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Some Fascinating Memories — The Approach by Way of Colon — 
 A Dismal Spot — Beauties and Splendours of Isthmian Land- 
 scapes — Fertile but Little Cultivated Lands — Agricultural and 
 Other Possibilities — Scenes in the Villages — The Streets of Pan- 
 ama as They Were— The Parks and Buildings— The Old Sea 
 Wall — The Seamy Side of Panama — Vice — Absence of Drunken- 
 ness — An "Orgy" at State Expense — Open-Air Concerts — A 
 Sunday in Panama — Business and Shopping — The Thrifty Land- 
 lord—Cab Fares and Hotel Bills— Traditions of "Graff- 
 Courteous and Cultivated Society — A Cosmopolitan Menu — 
 Panama as a World's Highway — Some Suggestive Measure- 
 ments — A Prophetic Vision 370 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. The New Graxadan Treaty of 1846 391 
 
 II. The Claytox-Bulwer Treaty ...... 393 
 
 III. The Hay-Pauxcefote Treaty 398 
 
 IV. The Spooxer Bill 400 
 
 V. Paxama's Declaratiox of Ixdepexdece .... 405 
 
 VI. The Hay-Buxau Varilla Treaty 408 
 
 VII. The Goverxor's Proclamatiox to the Caxal Zone . . 419 
 
 VIII. The First Admixistrative Order ..... 423 
 
 IX. The Paxamax Protest ....... 426 
 
 X. The Revised Executive Order 430 
 
 XI. Data of Existing Ship Caxals 436 
 
 Index 443 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Hon. William H. Taft ..... Frontispiece 
 
 Founders of the Republic of Panama . . . . .164 
 
 President Amador, of Panama ....... 209 
 
 The Hon. Joseph Lee ......... 242 
 
 The Hon. John Barrett ........ 248 
 
 The Hon. Charles E. Magoon 330 
 
 VIEWS 
 
 Remains of Old Panama ........ 26 
 
 American Headquarters at Empire ...... 99 
 
 Hospital on Ancon Hill, Panama ...... 104 
 
 Landscape from Gold Hill ........ 281 
 
 The Culebra Cut 290 
 
 Canal Administration Building, Panama ..... 353 
 
 Old-Time Cabins, Empire 371 
 
 Typical Village Street, Empire 373 
 
 The Cathedral, Panama ........ 377 
 
 Panama, from the Bay 387 
 
 MAPS 
 
 The World according to the Theories of Ptolemy ... 7 
 
 The World according to Waldseemuller ..... 16 
 
 Various Proposed Isthmian Canal Routes ..... 41 
 
 The Republic of Panama . . . . . . . .216 
 
 The Panama Canal Route ........ 228 
 
 Map Contrasting Trade Routes by Way of Panama and Pataoonla 385 
 
 xrL 
 
FOUR CENTURIES OF THE 
 PANAMA CANAL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 The design of Spanish adventurers in the fifteenth century 
 is being fulfilled by American engineers in the twentieth 
 century. That, in epitome, is the story of the Panama 
 Canal, as it came vividly to mind during a recent visit to the 
 Isthmus. There were present on that historic ground the 
 associates and agents of President Roosevelt, and there were 
 also those whose family names were on the rolls of Colum- 
 bus's and Balboa's companies, and some whose ancestors 
 probably came to the American shores with those discover- 
 ers. Such meeting of the representatives of the new and 
 the old was suggestive, and it recalled the fact that Columbus 
 was the practical founder of the Panama Canal enterprise, 
 which, after four centuries of delay. President Roosevelt 
 has undertaken to complete. Columbus was the first to pro- 
 pose a water highway from Europe to Asia, westward, by 
 way of the Atlantic. It was such a highway that he sought, 
 and not the new world which he actually found. The pre- 
 Columbian voyages and explorations of the Northmen had 
 given Europe no knowledge of America, and down to the 
 time of the illustrious Genoese, Europe stood, figuratively, 
 with its face toward Asia, and with its back turned toward 
 the "Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic was often called. 
 So Columbus had no thought of finding a new continent, and 
 no notion that one existed; nor indeed did he ever fully 
 realise that he had found one. The lands which he dis- 
 
2 THE QUEST OE COLUMBUS 
 
 covered he regarded to the end of his life as merely some 
 outlying islands or fringes of the Asian continent, and as 
 impediments or obstacles to be passed by in some way, in 
 order to reach the mainland empire of Cathay. His theory 
 was not that such a land as America existed, but that by 
 crossing the Atlantic Ocean he would come directly to the 
 shores of China and Japan; for he clung to the old fallacy 
 that whatever was not Europe or Africa must be Asia. 
 (Isidore of Seville had taught more than eight centuries 
 before, concerning the globe: "Divisus est autem trifarie; 
 e quibus una pars Asia, altera Europa, tertia Africa.") 
 
 It is true that his theory had been held by others, long 
 before. Aristotle, Seneca, and Pliny had written the belief 
 that one might reach the Indies of Asia in a few days by 
 sailing westward from Spain. Strabo had put upon record 
 the same theory, adding that Menelaus, after the fall of 
 Troy, sailed past the Pillars of Hercules, around Africa, 
 and so reached India. It is not impossible that some ad- 
 venturous navigators in those early days had actually 
 crossed the Atlantic, and, like Columbus, had mistaken 
 America for Asia. Hanno of Carthage is, not incredibly, 
 declared by Pliny to have sailed around Africa to Arabia, 
 thus anticipating the plans of Henry the Navigator and the 
 achievements of Vasco da Gama. Antonio Galvano, the 
 Portuguese historian, citing Berosius, Gonsalvo Ferdinand 
 de Oviedo, and Pliny, tells us that "in the six hundred and 
 fiftieth year after the Flood there was a king in Spain 
 named Hesperus, who in his time, as it is reported, went 
 and discovered as far as Cape Verde, and the Island of St. 
 Thomas, whereof he was Prince; and Gonsalvo Ferdinand 
 de Oviedo affirmeth that in his time the Islands of the West 
 Indies were discovered, and called somewhat after his name, 
 Hesperides; and he allegeth many reasons to prove it, re- 
 porting particularly that in forty days they sailed from 
 Cape Verde unto those Islands." Again, upon the authority 
 of Aristotle ("Lib. de Mirandis in Natura Auditis"), Gal- 
 vano relates : 
 
SOME EARLIER VENTURES S 
 
 "In the year 590 before the incarnation of Christ, there 
 went out of Spain a fleet of Carthaginian merchants, upon 
 their own proper costs and charges, which sailed toward 
 the west through the high seas, to see if they could find any 
 land; and they sailed so far that they found at last the 
 islands which we now call the Antilles and New Spain; 
 which Gonsalvo Ferdinand de Oviedo saith were then dis; 
 covered; although Christopher Columbus afterwards, by his 
 travel, got more exact knowledge of them and hath left us 
 an evident notice where they be. But all these historians 
 which wrote of these Antilles before, as of doubtful and un- 
 certain things, and of places undiscovered, do now plainly 
 confess the same to be the country of New Spain.'' 
 
 Coming down to a much later date, the same scribe tells 
 us that "in the year 1344, King Peter, the fourth of that 
 name, reigning in Aragon, the chronicles of his time report 
 that one Don Lewis, of Cerda, grandson of Don Juan of 
 Cerda, craved aid of him to go and conquer the Canary Isl- 
 ands, standing in 28 degrees of latitude to the north, be- 
 cause they were given to him by Pope Clement the Sixth, 
 who was a Frenchman ; by which means, in those days, there 
 grew a great knowledge of those islands in all Europe, and 
 particularly in Spain; for such great Princes would not 
 begin nor enterprise things of such moment, without great 
 certainty. . . . About this time also," continues our 
 author, "the Island of Madeira was discovered by an Eng- 
 lishman named Macham; who, falling out of England into 
 Spain, with a woman of his, was driven out of his 
 direct course by a tempest, and arrived in that island and 
 cast anchor in that haven which is now called Machico, after 
 the name of Macham. And because his lover was then sea- 
 sick, he went on land with some of his company; but in 
 the meantime his ship weighed, and put to sea, leaving him 
 behind; which accident occasioned his lover to die of grief. 
 Macham, who was passionately fond of her, erected a chapel, 
 or hermitage, in the island, to deposit her remains, naming 
 it Jesus Chapel, and engraved on the stone of her tomb both 
 their names and the occasion that brought them there. 
 
4 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 After this he made himself a boat out of a tree (trees being 
 there of a great circumference), and went to sea in it, with 
 those men of his company that were left with him, and fell 
 in with the coast of Africa, without sail or oar. The Moors, 
 among whom he came, took it for a miracle, and presented 
 him to the King of the country, who, also admiring the 
 accident, sent him and his company to the King of Castile. 
 In the year 1395, King Henry III reigning in Castile, the 
 information Macham gave of this island and also of the ship 
 wherein he went thither, moved many of France and Castile 
 to go and discover it and the Great Canary." Still later, in 
 1428, ^4t is written that Don Peter, the King of Portugal's 
 eldest son, who was a great traveller, went into England, 
 France, Germany, and from thence to the Holy Land and 
 other places; and came home by Italy, taking Kome and 
 Venice in his way; from whence he brought a map of the 
 world which had all the parts of the world and the earth 
 described. The Strait of Magellan was called in it The 
 Dragon's Tail. . . ." Who was the author of this extraor- 
 dinary map, and what became of it, are unknown. There are 
 many other chronicles of early voyages to the Canary and 
 Madeira Islands, and of voyages along the African Coast, 
 even to and around the Cabo de Bona Speranza, or Cape of 
 Good Hope. 
 
 One of the most important steps toward the enterprise of 
 Columbus was taken in 1245 and 1253. In the former year 
 Friar John, of Piano Carpini, was sent by Pope Innocent IV 
 as a missionary to the Great Khan, and in the latter year 
 William of Rubruquis, a monk, was sent by King Louis (St. 
 Louis) of France on a similar errand. These pious and ob- 
 servant men learned much from the Chinese whom they 
 met about their empire of Khitai, or Cathay, and especially 
 that at the east it bordered upon a great sea. This was the 
 first definite information to that effect which Europe had 
 received since classical times, and it set philosophers and 
 geographers to thinking. Since Europe fronted upon an 
 ocean at the west, and Asia fronted upon an ocean at the 
 
TOSCANELLI'S MAP AND LETTER 5 
 
 east, it seemed probable — nay, it seemed certain — that those 
 oceans were one and the same, and by sailing due west from 
 Europe the eastern shore of Asia would be reached. But 
 though this theory was thus revived and discussed in the 
 thirteenth century, it was not for two hundred years adopted 
 as a rule of action ; and, with all these preliminaries, it seems 
 to be pretty well established that in the latter part of the 
 fifteenth century there was only one man who practically 
 believed in a westward waterway from Europe to the Indies, 
 or who was sufficiently earnest in his belief to put it to the 
 test. 
 
 It was about 1474 that the great enterprise was definitely 
 conceived. Columbus was then at Lisbon, upon the very 
 brink of the unexplored Atlantic. For aid and encouragement 
 in his scheme he is said to have entered into correspondence 
 with his countryman, Paolo Toscanelli. Whether he really 
 did so or not, whether the famous map and letter of Tos- 
 canelli were what they were said to be or were mere forgeries, 
 and indeed whether Columbus had, in advance of his first 
 voyage, any definite scientific theory, are questions imma- 
 terial to the present argument, which need not be considered 
 here. The recent researches and writings of Mr. Harrisse, 
 Mr. Vignaud, and their contemporaries have thrown much 
 light upon the early career of Columbus, and have placed it 
 in a somewhat different aspect from that familiar to readers 
 of Irving and other early historians. It is sufficient for 
 our purpose to note that grave doubt has been thrown upon 
 the whole story of Toscanelli's aid and encouragement to 
 Columbus, but to note, also, that whatever be the truth of 
 that matter, the theory and the aim of Columbus's venture 
 remain indisputable; and they are all with which this writ- 
 ing is concerned. 
 
 According to the old story, then, Toscanelli, a Florentine 
 and one of the foremost geographers of his time, sent to 
 Columbus two documents, priceless for information. One 
 was a map which he had prepared, partly according to the 
 theories of Ptolemy, but somewhat more according to the 
 
6 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 reports of Marco Polo. The other was a copy of a letter 
 which Toscanelli is said to have w^ritten to Ferdinand Mar- 
 tinez, or Martins, of Lisbon, in answer to some questions 
 which King Alfonso V of Portugal had asked. The map 
 was a map of the world, showing the eastern coast of Asia 
 to be at the western side of the Atlantic Ocean, about 4,000 
 miles west from Europe. The northern part of China was 
 called Cathay, and the southern part Mangi, or Mangu. Off 
 the coast were two great islands, one of which, Cipango, or 
 Zipangu, may be identified with Japan, and the other, Antilla 
 (which had been mentioned by Aristotle), corresponding 
 with Formosa. There was also some indication of the 
 Philippine Archipelago. The letter to Martinez was an ex- 
 planation of the map and an argument of the practicability 
 of sailing from Lisbon due west to China, a distance, as Tos- 
 canelli believed, of only 4,000 miles; for King Alfonso had 
 asked whether in Toscanelli's opinion the Indies and China 
 could be reached by sailing across the Atlantic more readily 
 than by circumnavigating Africa. In after years Arias 
 Perez Pinzon, son of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the fellow- 
 voyager of Columbus, testified that he and his father had 
 seen in Rome, in the Vatican library, a manuscript written 
 by a historian "contemporary with Solomon," in which it 
 was set forth that by sailing due westward from the Pillars 
 of Hercules a distance of 95 degrees of longitude, one might 
 reach the "Land of Cipango," a country equal in size to Eu- 
 rope and Africa united. The identity of that alleged manu- 
 script has not been certainly determined. That it was of 
 Solomon's time seems most improbable. That it was the 
 work of Marco Polo is by no means impossible, or even im- 
 probable. The chief interest of it, if Pinzon's report was 
 true, is that it seems to have hinted at a new continent, in- 
 stead of merely the eastern part of Asia, and that it makes 
 the distance from Spain to Cipango about the same as that 
 which Toscanelli and Columbus reckoned — their figures 
 being 120 degrees from the Azores to Thinae, the latter 
 being probably a considerable distance west of Cipango. It 
 
\^tat9 
 
EEROES OF PTOLEMY 7 
 
 may be noted, by the way, that 95 degrees of longitude west- 
 ward from the Pillars of Hercules bring us a little beyond 
 the extreme western shore of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 These geographical details of the Pacific coast of Asia are 
 said to have been derived by Toscanelli chiefly from the re- 
 ports of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville — travellers 
 who were once ignorantly denounced, as was Herodotus, as 
 great liars, but who have since been vindicated, as he was, in 
 their remarkable and substantial accuracy. Aristotle had 
 mentioned Antilla, from sources of information which seem 
 to have been lost soon after his time. Ptolemy knew noth- 
 ing of Asia further east than Thinae, if indeed he can be said 
 to have known anything of that legendary place. Just what 
 or where Thinae was is matter of conjecture. It may have 
 been a province of China, or China itself. It may have been 
 the old Chinese capital of Si-Ngan, in Shen-Si, in east longi- 
 tude 109° ; or Tai-Yuan, in Shan-Si, in east longitude 112°30'; 
 or yet Lo-Jang, in east longitude 113°. Ptolemy, following 
 Herodotus, put it in what is now east longitude 150°, and 
 two or three degrees south of the equator ; that is to say, in 
 the Pacific Ocean northeast of New Guinea. That was only 
 one of many similar inaccuracies. Thus he placed the 
 mouth of the Ganges midway between Hainan and Luzon; 
 the Golden Chersonesus just northwest of New Guinea ; the 
 great island of Taprobane (Ceylon) west of Sumatra and 
 the Malay Peninsula ; and the Chinese city of Sera, now 
 Cha-Ngan, which really is in east longitude 110°, he put 
 in east longitude 147°, or in the Pacific Ocean east of 
 Japan. 
 
 Ptolemy, moreover, supposed Asia and Africa to be con- 
 nected at the south as well as at Suez, and the Indian Ocean 
 to be an inland sea resembling the Mediterranean. Accord- 
 ing to his mind, beyond the Golden Chersonesus, or Malay 
 Peninsula, lay a great gulf, which we know as the Gulf of 
 Siam. Its further shore, instead of ending at Cape Cam- 
 bodia, he carried southward, making it continuous with 
 Borneo and the western end of Australia, and then, about 
 
8 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 20 degrees south of the equator, brought it due westward 
 so as to join Africa at Zanzibar or Mozambique. How 
 access was had to this inland Indian Ocean from the Atlantic 
 does not appear, though, as we have seen, Aristotle, Seneca, 
 Pliny, and others had held that there was such access. Of 
 the southern shore of the land south of the Indian Ocean, and 
 of the eastern shore of the land east of the Gulf of Siam, 
 Ptolemy professed no knowledge. 
 
 Of course this over-extension of the Asian continent east- 
 ward correspondingly restricted the remaining space in the 
 circuit of the globe, between the east coast of Asia and the 
 west coast of Europe; and this error in reckoning was fur- 
 ther exaggerated by under-estimating the size of the earth 
 itself. Perversely enough, the discovery of facts in some 
 measure increased the error. For Marco Polo and Mande- 
 ville, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, explored 
 the remainder of the Asian continent, clear to the Pacific 
 coast, and confirmed the reports of Friar John of Piano 
 Carpini and William of Rubruquis in describing its frontage 
 upon a great ocean, which was forthwith assumed to be the 
 Atlantic. As they showed Thinae to be far inland from that 
 coast, it was assumed that the Asian continent extended 
 much further eastward than the longitude which had been 
 attributed to Thinae, and that there was therefore only a 
 small part of the earth's circle left between Asia and Europe. 
 
 In constructing his scheme of geography, then, Toscanelli 
 clung to the old error of supposing there to be only one 
 ocean ; and the still greater error of vastly underestimating 
 the distance across it from Europe westward to China. 
 Ptolemy had known the world, or had thought he did, from 
 Thinae in the east to the Canary Islands in the west, and the 
 Portuguese under Henry the Navigator had advanced knowl- 
 edge westward to the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. 
 Working from these data, Toscanelli divided the circuit of 
 the globe into 360 degrees, subdivided into 24 hours of 15 
 degrees each. Then he reckoned that the distance from 
 Thinae to the Azores was 16 of the 24 hours, or 240 of the 
 
THE CIKCUIT OF THE GLOBE 9 
 
 360 degrees, or two-thirds of the circumference of the globe. 
 There remained, then, between the Azores and Thinae, going 
 westward, only eight hours or 120 degrees, or one-third the 
 circumference of the globe. Moreover, as Thinae was a con- 
 siderable distance inland from the eastern coast of Asia, 
 there was thus left between Asia and Europe room for only a 
 comparatively narrow ocean, about the actual width of the 
 Atlantic. He is said to have written to Columbus in 1474 
 that from Lisbon westward to Quisai — now Hang-Chow — 
 then the capital of China, was only 6,500 miles. Practically, 
 Toscanelli eliminated the American continents and the 
 Pacific Ocean, and vastly exaggerated the extension of Asia 
 toward the east, putting the eastern coast of Asia near where 
 the western coast of America is. These incorrect estimates 
 prevailed for a long time. Antonio Galvano, writing as late 
 as 1555, and reviewing all the records of his predecessors, 
 said: 
 
 "I gather by all the precedent discoveries that the whole 
 earth is in circuit 360 degrees, and to every degree ancient 
 writers allow seventeen leagues and a half, which amount 
 to 6,300 leagues ; yet I take it that every degree is just seven- 
 teen leagues. However it be, all is discovered and sailed 
 from the east to the west, almost even as the sun compasseth 
 it ; but from the south to the north there is great difference ; 
 for towards the north pole there is discovered no more than 
 77 or 78 degrees, which come to 1,326 leagues, and towards 
 the south pole there is discovered from the equinoxial to 52 
 or 53 degrees, that is, to the Strait Magellan passed 
 through, which amounts to about 900 leagues; and putting 
 both these said sums together, they amount to about 2,026 
 leagues. Now, take so many out of 6,300 leagues, there re- 
 maineth as yet undiscovered, north and south, above the 
 space of 4,000 leagues.'' 
 
 Accepting Toscanelli's erroneous reckoning of the width of 
 Asia, Columbus estimated that he would reach China and 
 Japan at just about the distance from Spain, and in just 
 about the longitude, in which he actually found America. 
 With the legends of Atlantis, St. Brandan, and the Island 
 
10 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 of the Seven Cities, we need not now concern ourselves. 
 Columbus appears to have put no faith in them. His aim 
 was to reach the Indies, to wit, Cathay, Mangi, Cipango, and 
 Antilla, and to do so by means of an unbroken waterway 
 westward across the Atlantic. In this it was providential 
 that he did make the error which we have noted concerning 
 the distance, for he would scarcely have ventured to set out 
 upon a supposed journey of more than 12,000 miles across 
 an unknown sea. 
 
 This aim appeared in almost every part of his great work. 
 When he set forth on his first voyage in 1492, he carried, 
 according to his subsequent statement, letters from the 
 sovereigns of Leon and Castile to the Great Khan of Tar- 
 tary. In his Journal, on the very opening page, he recorded 
 that he was being sent to India, to "a Prince who is called 
 the Great Khan," and that he was about to sail westward, 
 on and on, until he should "arrive at the Indies." There 
 was not a word nor a thought about the seeking of a new 
 continent. His maps and charts indicated the coasts of 
 Europe and Africa, from the British Isles to Guinea, and, 
 directly opposite them, in the same latitude, at the west side 
 of the Atlantic Ocean, the coast of Asia, with Cathay at the 
 north and Mangi at the south, and with Cipango lying almost 
 exactly where Florida really was. Toward Cipango he 
 directed his course, and kept it so well that he arrived at the 
 Bahamas, off the Florida coast. It was a part of his mis- 
 sion to convert the Great Khan of Tartary to Christianity, 
 wherefore he called the first island he reached San Salvador, 
 the Land of the Holy Saviour, and, supposing it to be a part 
 of the Indies, he called the inhabitants Indians. When the 
 natives spoke of the mainland lying north and west, he as- 
 sumed it to be Cathay, and when they told of a greater 
 island at the south, called Cuba, he supposed it to be 
 Cipango. Sailing southward among the Bahamas, he 
 thought himself among the Philippines, or other Asian isl- 
 ands described by Marco Polo, and on reaching Cuba he 
 had no doubt that it was Cipango. When, however, Marco 
 
DELUSIONS OF NOMENCLATUEE 11 
 
 Alonzo Pinzon reported to him that the natives were speak- 
 ing of a place called Cubanacan, he identified that name 
 with Kublai Khan, and assumed that he was on the mainland 
 of Cathay, and about only 100 leagues from the capital of 
 the Great Khan. This practice of confusing native names 
 in the American islands with those in Asia of which he 
 had heard, was continued, with further misleading results. 
 Thus, when he heard the island of Santo Domingo called 
 Quisqueya, he identified it with Quisai, the Chinese metropo- 
 lis mentioned by Marco Polo; and when the natives named 
 the place as Cibao he supposed that name to be a corruption 
 of Cipango. Constantly, as Lamartine observed, the phan- 
 tom of Asia interposed itself between Columbus and Amer- 
 ica, to rob him, for a chimera, of a great reality. Finally, 
 on his return from this voyage, Columbus explicitly reported 
 to the King of Portugal that he had not been to any of the 
 African lands claimed by that monarch, but to Cipango and 
 to India ; the Spanish sovereigns addressed him as "Viceroy 
 and Governor of the Islands discovered in the Indies" ; and 
 the general supposition in Europe was that he had reached 
 the eastern coast of Asia, and that Cuba was a part of the 
 mainland of Cathay. The letter of Columbus to Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, reporting the result of his voyage, was en- 
 titled a "letter . . . concerning the Islands discovered in 
 the Indian Sea," or, "the Islands of India beyond the 
 Ganges," and in the opening passages of that letter Colum- 
 bus said: "On the 33rd day ... I came to the Indian 
 Sea." 
 
 This delusion was not corrected but rather confirmed by 
 his second voyage. He then explored the many islands of 
 the Caribbean Sea, and believed himself to be among the 
 7,440 islands near Cipango, described by Marco Polo, who 
 probably referred to Formosa and the Loo Choos, or possibly 
 the Philippines. Marco Polo, following Aristotle's nomen- 
 clature, had named an island in that region Antilla, whence 
 Columbus — or else Peter Martyr— gave to these islands the 
 name of the Antilles. Thence Columbus revisited Cuba, 
 
12 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 skirting its southern coast for a long distance. Natives as- 
 sured him that nobody had ever travelled so far as its west- 
 ern extremity, wherefore he was confirmed in his belief that 
 it was indeed the mainland of Asia. Again the native 
 nomenclature led him into self-deception, for hearing of a 
 province named Mangon, he unhesitatingly identified it with 
 the Mangi of Marco Polo. When he was told it was in- 
 habited by people with tails, who wore long garments to 
 conceal those appendages, he found in that report further 
 confirmation of his belief; for he recalled that Sir John 
 Mandeville had mentioned the alleged existence of such a 
 tribe in Asia. Thus encouraged, he kept on, expecting to 
 reach the Golden Chersonesus, or Malay Peninsula, and thus 
 circumnavigate the world, returning to Europe by way of 
 the Indian Ocean. He in fact went as far as the Bay of 
 Philippina, or Cortez, and then turned back, still confident 
 in his belief that Cuba was Cathay, and that Hispaniola, or 
 Santo Domingo, was Cipango. Nor did he learn the truth 
 on his third voyage, but instead added to his stock of errors. 
 Directing his course further southward than before, in 
 order to ascertain whether the people of equatorial Asia 
 (which he supposed South America to be) were like those 
 of Africa, he reached the Island of Trinidad, and the coast 
 of Venezuela. He correctly judged the land at the south and 
 west of the Gulf of Paria to be part of a great continent, 
 though he persisted in the error of supposing it to be either 
 Asia or a continent lying just south of Asia. But he cher- 
 ished the extraordinary notion that it occupied the "highest 
 part of the globe," and was the seat of the Garden of Eden, 
 and that the great torrent of fresh water which flowed into 
 the Gulf of Paria proceeded from the fountain which fed 
 the Tree of Life! 
 
 The fourth and last voyage of Columbus was dominated 
 by the same erroneous conceptions, and was in addition 
 marked with the beginning of that quest for the "Secret of 
 the Strait" which so greatly occupied the attention of his 
 successors for many years, and which has scarcely yet been 
 
EXPLOKING THE ISTHMUS 13 
 
 wholly relinquished. Says the historian and explorer Gal- 
 vano, citing Gomara: 
 
 "In this same year, 1502, Christopher Columbus entered 
 the fourth time into his discovery, with four ships, at the 
 command of Don Ferdinand, to seek the Strait which, as 
 they said, did divide the land from the other side. . . . 
 They went first to the Island of Hispaniola, to Jamaica, to 
 the river Azua, to the Cape of Higueras, to the Islands 
 Gamares, and to the Cape of Honduras, that is to say, the 
 Cape of the Depths. From thence they sailed towards the 
 east, unto the Cape Gracias d Dios, and discovered the prov- 
 ince and river of Veraguas, and Rio Grande, and others 
 which the Indians called Hiemra; and from thence he went ( 
 to the River of Crocodiles, which is now called Rio de I 
 Chagres, which hath its springs near the South Sea, within I 
 four leagues of Panama, and runneth into the North Sea; 
 and so he went unto the island which is called Isla de Bas- 
 timentos, that is, the Isle of Victuals ; and then to Porto | 
 Bello, that is, the Fair Haven ; and so unto Nombre de Dios, \ 
 and to Rio Francisco, and so to the Haven of Retreat; and 
 then to the Gulf of Cabesa Cattiva, and to the Islands of 
 Caperosa; and, lastly, to the Cape of Marble, which is 200 
 leagues upon the coast ; from thence they began to turn again 
 to the Island of Cuba." 
 
 Thus is the story briefly told by the old historian, with 
 some terminology strange to modern ears. To paraphrase 
 the narrative, and to amplify it in the light of other knowl- 
 edge, we may say that, being refused entrance to the harbours 
 of Hispaniola, Columbus directed his course westward, pass- 
 ing completely by Cuba without realising the fact and its 
 significance, and reached Roatan, the Bay Islands, and the 
 coast of Honduras. There, on the mainland of Central 
 America, he found native tribes more civilised than any he 
 had seen before, and accordingly assumed that at last he was 
 approaching the capital of the Great Khan. The mainland 
 of Honduras he believed to be continuous with Cuba and to 
 be Cochin China, the southeastern part of Asia ; and he sup- 
 posed that if he went northward he would presently reach 
 that south coast of Cuba, along which he had sailed on his 
 
14 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 second voyage, and would thus be compelled to return east- 
 ward. Thus, to our lasting regret, he was deterred from 
 going on to Yucatan and visiting that country while it was 
 yet in the glories of Mayan civilisation. Instead, he turned 
 southward, to seek the Golden Chersonesus, and to go home 
 to Europe by way of the Strait of Malacca, which he believed 
 was to be found somewhere between Honduras and Vene- 
 zuela — between Cochin China, Cathay, and Mangi at the 
 north, and the Garden of Eden at the south. That "Secret 
 of the Strait" thereafter engaged his chief attention. He 
 rounded Cape Gracias a Dios, and so went down the Mos- 
 quito Coast, along Costa Rica, to the Chiriqui Lagoon, and 
 along the coast of Veraguas, the western part of the Carib- 
 bean coast of Panama. There he reckoned that he was only 
 ten days' journey from the mouth of the Ganges River. The 
 natives told him he was nearing what they called "a narrow 
 place between two seas." They meant, of course, a narrow 
 strip of land, the Isthmus of Panama. But Columbus, al- 
 ways believing that which he wished to be true, confidently 
 assumed it to be a narrow strip of w^ater — the much desired 
 Strait. No such Strait appearing, however, he pressed on 
 to the eastward along the Panama coast, entering the Bay of 
 Limon and the mouth of the Chagres River. On November 
 2, 1502, he entered the Bay of Porto Bello, east of Colon, and 
 thence proceeded to Nombre de Dios. Finally at El Retrete, 
 on December 5, he abandoned for a time the quest of the 
 Strait in that direction and turned back to the westward, 
 to explore more carefully the coast of Panama along which 
 he had already sailed. He spent the winter there, chiefly on 
 the coast of Veraguas, which, because of its gold mines, he 
 firmly believed to be a part of the Golden Chersonesus. He 
 vainly sought to plant a permanent colony on the Belen 
 River. At the end of April he set out again in quest of the 
 Strait. Reaching the Mulatas Islands, near Point Bias, he 
 identified them with a part of Mangi, or southeastern Asia. 
 Past them he proceeded as far as the entrance to the Gulf 
 of Darien, and then, instead of entering it and exploring its 
 
FAILUKE AND SUCCESS 15 
 
 waters and shores, the very native habitat of the Legend 
 of the Strait, he turned northward and eastward, and on 
 May 1 started back for Hispaniola, never again to approach 
 the mainland of the American continent. 
 
 Thus he ended his career under the same delusion which 
 had marked its beginning, and left his actual aim unaccom- 
 plished, though in the unconscious fulfilment of a far greater 
 aim. He died in the unshaken belief that he had reached 
 the Asian coast, and in ignorance of his real discovery of a 
 thitherto unknown continent, and without finding the myth- 
 ical Strait for which he sought. He had indeed "builded 
 better than he knew." In his will he reaffirmed the error 
 he had cherished, declaring that "It pleased the Lord Al- 
 mighty that in the year 1492 I should discover the Continent 
 of the Indies and many islands, among them Hispaniola, 
 which the Indians call Ayte and the Monicongos, Cipango." 
 It was not until 1508, two years after his death, that Cuba 
 was circumnavigated, and thus found not to be a part of the 
 mainland; though it may be that Amerigo Vespucci, in 
 1497-8, practically achieved that enterprise without realising 
 its significance, by sailing around the Gulf of Mexico from 
 Yucatan to Florida. 
 
 It is true that upon the Admiral's coat-of-arms was placed 
 the well-merited inscription, "A Castilla y k Leon, Nuevo 
 mundi dio Colon" — To Castile and Leon, Columbus gave a 
 New World. But it is not certain that Columbus himself 
 was the author of that inscription, or of the phrase "New 
 World." Peter Martyr seems to have been the first to speak 
 of the lands discovered by Columbus as the "New World," 
 in a letter written by him in 1494, while Amerigo Vespucci, in 
 1503, was probably the first to use the phrase in a published 
 book ; but Vespucci cherished the same delusions that Colum- 
 bus did. Writing to Lorenzo de Medici, on July 18, 1500, 
 after his voyage to America, he reported that about a month 
 before he had "arrived from the Indies;" of the Venezuelan 
 and Colombian coast, which he had explored, he said he had 
 concluded that "this land was a continent, which might be 
 
16 THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS 
 
 bounded by the eastern parts of Asia, this being the com- 
 mencement of the western part of the continent;" he spoke 
 of having discovered "a very large country of Asia ;" and he 
 promised in his next voyage to discover "the Island of 
 Taprobane, between the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of the 
 Ganges." Orontius Finaeus, in 1531, upon a geographical 
 globe, indicated Florida as the eastern coast of Asia, and 
 Mexico, Central America, and South America as an enormous 
 peninsula extending south and east from the continent of 
 Asia. 
 
 Centuries afterward, the illustrious scientist, Alexander 
 von Humboldt, in his "Personal Narrative," spoke of the old- 
 est existing map of America as that of John Ruysch ; a map 
 of the world, annexed to a Roman edition of Ptolemy in 
 1508. "We there," said Humboldt, "find Yucatan and Hon- 
 duras figured as an island, by the name of Culicar. There 
 is no Isthmus of Panama, but a passage, which permits of a 
 direct navigation from Europe to India. The great southern 
 island bears the name of Terra de Parias." That map was 
 dated two years after the death of Columbus, and probably 
 embodied the best conception of American geography which 
 he and his contemporaries had been able to form. 
 
 Since Humboldt's time, however, there has come to light 
 another map, of an earlier date. This is a map of the world 
 drawn by Martin Waldseemiiller (also known as Ilacomilus, 
 or Hylacomylus, his own translation of his name into Greek), 
 in 1507. This map follows in general the theories of Ptol- 
 emy, but of course shows much that was unknown to that 
 earlier geographer. It is especially interesting in connec- 
 tion with the subject now in hand, for the reason that it indi- 
 cates North America and South America as entirely separate 
 continents, with a broad seaway between them, connecting 
 the Atlantic with the Pacific. The North American conti- 
 nent is called on it Parias, and the southern continent bears 
 the name of America. This map apparently accompanied a 
 little Latin book, written by Waldseemuller and published 
 in April, 1507, in which it was suggested that the New World 
 
jias«ailUW«y 
 
THE NAME "AMEKICA" 17 
 
 should be named for Amerigo Vespucci. ^'Quarta orbis pars, 
 quam quia Americus invenit Amerigen, quasi America ter- 
 ram, sive American, nuncupare licet;'' or, "the fourth part 
 of the world, which it is proper to call America, or Ameri- 
 can Land, since Amerigo discovered it." Again, in another 
 chapter : "Alia quarta pars per Americum Yesputium, ut in 
 sequentibus audietur, inventa est : quare non video, cur quis 
 jure vetet ab Americo inventore sagacis ingenii viro Ameri- 
 gen, quasi Americi terram, sive Americam, dicendam;" or, 
 "the other fourth part (of the world) was discovered, as will 
 appear in what follows, by Amerigo Vespucci; wherefore I 
 do not see why any one can lawfully object to its being called 
 the Land of Amerigo, or America, after Amerigo or Americo, 
 the man of genius who discovered it by his sagacity." (It 
 will be recalled that Amerigo Vespucci is said to have ac- 
 companied Ojeda to the Isthmus of Panama in 1499, and to 
 have been the first European to set foot upon Terra Firma, 
 as the mainland of the American continent was then called.) 
 Nevertheless, the error of his conceptions and of his con- 
 clusions in no way detracts from the glory of Columbus. He 
 went to seek a new road to a known continent. Instead, he 
 found two hitherto unknown continents, and to their colo- 
 nised inhabitants in after centuries he left the lesser work of 
 creating by artifice the water highway which he had sought, 
 but which he had sought in vain because nature had failed to 
 create it. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 
 
 Columbus sought the "Secret of the Strait." He was not, 
 however, the first European to visit the American Isthmus. 
 Galvano, deriving his authority from Gomara, records that 
 "in the year 1502, one Alfonso Ojeda went to discover Terra 
 Firma, and followed his course till he came to the Province 
 of Uraba. The next year following also one Rodrigo Bas- 
 tidas, of Seville, went out with two caravels. . . . They 
 took their course toward the west to Santa Martha, and Cape 
 de la Vela, and to Rio Grande, or the Great River ; and they 
 discovered the haven of Zamba, the Coradas, Carthagena, 
 and the islands of St. Bernard, of Baru, and Islas de Arenas ; 
 and went forward unto Isla Fuerta, and to the point of Cari- 
 bana, standing at the end of the Gulf of Uraba, where they 
 had sight of the Farallones, standing on the other side, hard 
 by the river of Darien ; and from Cape de la Vela unto this 
 place are two hundred leagues, and it standeth in nine de- 
 grees and two parts of latitude." There are other records 
 bearing upon these adventures, and it is difficult to determine 
 with confidence the true story. 
 
 According to some, Alfonso, or Alonzo, de Ojeda landed 
 at Darien as early as 1499; having with him as his pilots 
 Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de Cosa, the latter being the 
 Biscayan navigator and cartographer who was the owner 
 and master of the Santa Maria and the companion of Colum- 
 bus on his first voyage. The weight of testimony, however, 
 inclines to the belief that in that voyage Ojeda and his famous 
 comrades visited only the coast of Venezuela and did not go 
 west of Cape Gallinas, and that we should give the credit of 
 discovering the mainland of the Isthmus to another, who has 
 
 18 
 
BASTIDAS, THE ISTHMIAN PIONEEK 19 
 
 been called ^^Spain's noblest and best conquistador.'^ Rodrigo 
 de Bastidas, a native of Seville, sailed from Cadiz in October, 
 1500, with La Cosa, and, passing by Hispaniola and the other 
 islands of the West Indies, was probably the first of all 
 Europeans to reach the American Isthmus, at or near Porto 
 Bello. Thence he skirted the coast, southward and eastward, 
 entering the Gulf of Darien, or the Gulf of Uraba, as far as 
 the mouth of the Atrato River, and going along the Colom- 
 bian coast as far as Cape Gallinas, at the extremity of the 
 Goajira Peninsula, and the entrance of the Gulf of Vene- 
 zuela and thence striking off on a tangent for Hispaniola. The 
 object of that voyage was partly to get pearls and gold, but 
 more to find the "Secret of the Strait," the entrance to that 
 fabled passageway from ocean to ocean of which there were 
 Innumerable traditions among the natives from California 
 to Peru, and of which you may still hear confident reports 
 among the Indians of San Bias, and the natives in the Val- 
 ley of the Atrato. Bastidas, then, was the pioneer at Pan- 
 ama, two years in advance of Columbus. His quest was un- 
 successful, but it inspired Columbus himself to follow him, 
 and many others. In 1505, from May to December, La Cosa 
 and Amerigo Vespucci diligently explored the Gulf of Darien 
 and ascended the Atrato River about 200 miles, in quest of 
 a passageway to India ; and two years later they went thither 
 again, not for the Strait but for gold, of which they found 
 much. Indeed, the profits of the voyage were so great that 
 they made a second visit to the same region in 1507, this 
 time seeking gold rather than the Strait. In 1506 came Juan 
 Diaz de Solis, and Vincente Yanez Pinzon, the latter the 
 commander of the ^ina on Columbus's first voyage ; who in 
 1497-8 had sailed with Amerigo Vespucci from Yucatan to 
 Florida. They reached Juanaja, the easternmost of the Bay 
 Islands, and sighted the mainland near Truxillo, and thence 
 surveyed the coast westward and northward almost to Yuca- 
 tan. Two years later they were sent again on the same 
 errand, but turned southward and followed the South Ameri- 
 can coast as far as the Rio de la Plata. It may be a cause of 
 
20 THE SECEET OF THE STKAIT 
 
 passing wonder that they did not enter the mouth of the 
 Amazon, and ascend that river, supposing it to be the much 
 sought Strait. 
 
 The next important name on the roll is that of Alfonso, or 
 Alonzo, de Ojeda, already mentioned, one of the most bril- 
 liant and gallant of the cavaliers of Spain, and the hero of 
 a thousand thrilling tales. Having shown his exceptional 
 efficiency as a commander at St. Thomas, he was in 1508 ap- 
 pointed Governor of what is now the Caribbean coast of 
 Colombia. The King of Spain, in shameful disregard of the 
 rights of Diego Columbus, divided that region into two 
 provinces, with a line of demarcation running north and 
 south through the Gulf of Uraba. All eastward from that 
 line, to Cabo de la Vela, he called Nueva Andalusia, or New 
 Andalusia, and made Ojeda its governor, while all westward, 
 to Cabo Gracias d Dios, he called Castilla del Oro, or Golden 
 Castile, and appointed as its governor Diego de Nicuesa, or 
 Niquesa. In 1509 these governors set out for their provinces, 
 with instructions to press diligently the search for the 
 "Secret of the Strait." Concerning them, we may again 
 quote Galvano: 
 
 "In the year 1508, one Alfonso de Ojeda, with the favour of 
 Don Ferdinand, purposed to go to Terra Firma, to conquer 
 the Province of Darien. He went forth at his own charges, 
 and discovered the Firm Land, where it is called Uraba, 
 which he named Castilla del Oro, that is, Golden Castile, be- 
 cause of the gold which they found among the sand along the 
 coast; and they were the first Spaniards that did this. Al- 
 fonso de Ojeda went first from the Island of Hispaniola and 
 the City of San Domingo, with four ships and three hundred 
 soldiers, leaving behind him the bachelor Enciso, who after- 
 wards compiled a book of these discoveries. And after him 
 there also went a ship with victuals, ammunition, and one 
 hundred and fifty Spaniards. He went on land to Cartha- 
 gena; but there the people of the country took, slew, and 
 ate seventy of his followers; whereupon he grew very 
 weak. ... In the year 1508, one Diego de Niquesa pre- 
 pared seven ships in the Port of Beate, to go to Veraguas, 
 and carried in them almost eight hundred men. When he 
 
THE COMING OF BALBOA 21 
 
 came to Carthagena, he found there Alfonso de Ojeda, much 
 weakened by his former loss ; but then they joined together, 
 and went on land, and avenged themselves on the people. 
 In this voyage Diego de Niquesa went and discovered the 
 coast called Nombre de Dios, and went unto the Sound of 
 Darien, and called it Puerto de Misas, which is upon the 
 Kiver Pito. When they were come unto Veraguas, he went 
 on shore with his army, his soldiers being out of hope to re- 
 turn to Hispaniola. Alfonso de Ojeda began a fortress in 
 Caribana against the Caribbees; which was the first town 
 the Spaniards builded on the firm land; and in Nombre de 
 Dios they builded another, and called it Nuestra Senora de 
 la Antigua. They builded also the town of Uraba. And 
 there they left for their captain and lieutenant one Fran- 
 cisco Pizarro, who was there much troubled. They builded 
 other towns also whose names I here omit. But these cap- 
 tains had not that good success which they hoped for." 
 
 Nicuesa died at sea. La Cosa was among those of Ojeda's 
 men who were slain by the savages. Ojeda also died, leav- 
 ing as his successor in command Francisco Pizarro, an 
 Estremaduran adventurer, formerly a swineherd, and after- 
 ward the conqueror of Peru. Pizarro, despairing of accom- 
 plishing much on the Gulf of Darien, was actually abandon- 
 ing the enterprise and leaving the place when he met Martin 
 Fernandez de Enciso coming to him with succour. Enciso 
 had been a partner of Ojeda, and, beside being a competent 
 adventurer and administrator, was one of the ablest cos- 
 mographers of his time, and wrote in 1519 "Suma de 
 Geografia," the first Spanish book ever published about 
 America. With this aid and encouragement Pizarro re- 
 turned to his place. 
 
 There now came npon the scene the most important figure 
 of all. This was an impoverished Hidalgo of Estremadura, 
 by name Vasco Nunez de Balboa. He had gone to the 
 Isthmian coast in 1500, with Bastidas, and thence to His- 
 paniola. While Bastidas was arrested and imprisoned by 
 Bobadilla, Balboa settled down as a farmer, at which occupa- 
 tion he had little success. Finally, overwhelmed with debts, 
 he fled from his creditors concealed in a cask, which was put 
 
22 THE SECKET OF THE STKAIT 
 
 aboard one of Enciso's ships, and was thus conveyed to San 
 Sebastian, which was the seat of Pizarro's government on the 
 Gulf of Darien. There he got Enciso recognised as the suc- 
 cessor of Diego de Niquesa as Governor of Castilla de Oro, 
 and with Enciso founded the colony and city of Santa Maria 
 del Antigua on the west coast of the Gulf, at the mouth of 
 the Darien Kiver, near the Atrato River. Balboa had 
 visited those regions before, with Bastidas and La Cosa, and 
 was thus better informed about it than the others; and he 
 advised the building of the town on the west shore of the 
 Gulf, because he knew the natives there were more friendly 
 than those on the east shore, who had made such havoc with 
 Ojeda's party. He himself became Alcalde of the town ; and 
 then presently quarrelled with Enciso, overthrew his govern- 
 ment, and arrested him and sent him back to Spain. En- 
 ciso appears to have been a man of overbearing disposition, 
 with whom it was difficult for any one to remain on friendly 
 terms. Balboa owed him no thanks, either, although he had 
 made his escape from his creditors on one of Enciso's ships ; 
 for Enciso was not privy to that trick, but was angry when 
 he learned of it, and was with difficulty restrained from ma- 
 rooning Balboa on a desert island where he would have 
 perished miserably. 
 
 Thus Balboa became Governor of Castilla del Oro, getting 
 a commission from the Royal Treasurer at Hispaniola; he 
 married the daughter of Careta, a powerful native prince of 
 Darien, and made an alliance with Comogre, another native 
 prince; and was on the high road to distinction. Enciso, 
 however, on arriving in Spain got the ear of the King, and 
 poured into it a tale which, in spite of the excuses of Bal- 
 boa's friend Zamudio, moved His Majesty to send for Balboa 
 to return to Spain and to explain his extraordinary con- 
 duct. This was awkward. It would be impossible to give a 
 satisfactory explanation, and Balboa would probably be re- 
 moved from the governorship which he had usurped, and 
 perhaps be cast into prison. In this desperate predicament 
 Balboa determined to do, if possible, some great deed which 
 
DISCOVEKY OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN 23 
 
 would command the favour of the King — or perish in the 
 attempt. He had heard from the chieftain Comogre and 
 other natives various tales of a great water lying not far to 
 the south and west, and also of a land where gold was so 
 abundant that people made bowls and cups of it, instead of 
 pottery. The reference was, of course, to the Pacific Ocean 
 and Peru. He shrewdly assumed that if he could discover 
 those regions, the King would overlook that irregular episode 
 with Enciso. Accordingly he organised an expedition for 
 the purpose. He sailed, on September 1, 1513, for Coiba, on 
 the coast of the Gulf of Darien, between Punto Tiburon and 
 Caledonian Bay, with a company of 290 men. Leaving half 
 of his force with the ships, and securing 100 Indian guides 
 and bearers, he started inland on September 6. Privations 
 and difficulties were great in those savage jungles and prog- 
 ress was slow. But at last, on September 25, 
 
 — '* With eagle eyes 
 He stared at the Pacific, — and all his men 
 Looked at each other with a wild surmise, — 
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien." 
 
 He was still some distance from that new-found sea, but 
 thereafter more rapid progress toward it was made. On 
 September 29 he reached the shore, strode into the water, and 
 proclaimed possession of it in the name of the King of Spain. 
 It was the day of St. Michael, wherefore he named the water 
 the Golfo de San Miguel, or Gulf of St. Michael, as it is 
 called to this day. He had by happy chance crossed the 
 Isthmus at its very narrowest part, by the route long after- 
 wards surveyed for a canal and known as the Caledonian 
 Canal route — the shortest route but not at the lowest level. 
 He spent some time exploring the coast, and saw afar the 
 beautiful Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama. "He em- 
 barked himself," says Galvano, "against the will of Chiapes, 
 who was lord of that coast, who wished him not to do so 
 because it was very dangerous for him. But he, desirous to 
 have it known that he had been upon those seas, went for- 
 
24 THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 
 
 ward, and came back again to land in safety, and with great 
 content, bringing with him good store of gold, silver, and 
 pearls, which they there took." The ''seas" upon which he 
 sailed were the Gulf of St. Michael. He landed upon the 
 northern shore of that gulf, and secured the friendship of a 
 powerful chief of that region, named Tumaco, or Tumaccus. 
 
 Balboa then returned to his capital, and, instead of pro- 
 ceeding to Spain in answer to the royal summons, he sent 
 thither an account of his great achievement. He had not 
 hoped too much for its effect. The King, appreciative and 
 grateful, reckoned that the man was doing too profitable a 
 work to be interrupted by coming home to Spain to answer 
 Enciso's charges, so he sent him word to stay where he was, 
 not merely as Governor but also as Adelantado of the new 
 coast and lands he had discovered. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, Balboa's messenger did not reach 
 Spain until after the King had despatched the infamous 
 Pedrarias Davila to the Isthmus to supersede him and to 
 hurry him to Spain. "In the year 1514," says Galvano, 
 citing Peter Martyr, ''and in the month of May, there went 
 out of St. Lucar, one Pedro Arias de Avila, at the command 
 of Don Ferdinand. He was the fourth Governor of Cas- 
 tilla del Oro, or Golden Castile, for so they named the coun- 
 tries of Darien, Carthagena, and Uraba, and that country 
 which was newly conquered. He carried with him his wife, 
 the Lady Elizabeth, and 1,500 men, in seven ships; and the 
 King appointed Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa Governor of the 
 South Sea, and of that coast." Pedro Arias de Avila is vari- 
 ously known in history as Pedrarias Davila and as Pedrarias. 
 There are now some most estimable people living in Pan- 
 ama who bear the name of Arias, for whose sake we shall do 
 well not to identify them more than we can help, through 
 similarity of name, with that "Timour of the Indies ;" where- 
 fore let him be disguised as Pedrarias. He was one of the 
 worst of the early conquistadors, having little real ability to 
 counterbalance his infernal cruelties and wickednesses, the 
 best thing about him being his old age, which made his days 
 
' JUDICIAL MUEDER OF BALBOA 25 
 
 comparatively few in the land which he cursed. Oviedo 
 reckoned that on the Day of Judgment Pedrarias would 
 have to confront the souls of 2,000,000 of his murdered vic- 
 tims. Probably this was an exaggeration, but it is note- 
 worthy that not one reputable historian of his time at- 
 tempted to defend the character and career of the man. 
 
 Pedrarias reached Santa Maria del Antigua and at once 
 arrested Balboa. The presiding judge was Gaspar de Es- 
 pinosa, a just man, and Balboa was acquitted. Thereafter 
 a bitter conflict prevailed between Balboa and Pedrarias, 
 which was much intensified by Balboa's manly refusal to 
 repudiate his Indian wife and marry a daughter of Pedrarias 
 — an arrangement which the Bishop of Darien proposed as a 
 means of ending the quarrel. However, an apparent truce was 
 in time made and then Balboa proceeded with great plans 
 for the exploration of the shores of the Pacific, which he 
 called the South Sea, and especially for reaching the "Golden 
 Land" of Peru. He recrossed the Isthmus in 1516, starting 
 from Adas, a new port on the Caribbean side, and some say 
 he carried with him overland four brigantines which he 
 launched into the Pacific, while others say he carried only 
 the tools and materials for constructing two ships. We need 
 not concern ourselves as to the choice between the tales. 
 Either attributes to him a marvellous achievement for those 
 days. With these, the first ships which ever sailed those 
 waters!, he took possession of the Pearl Islands, and then was 
 about to start for Peru, of which latter country he, instead 
 of Pizarro, should have been the discoverer and conqueror. 
 But during the delay caused by waiting for some supplies, he 
 was approached by a treacherous messenger from Pedrarias, 
 who persuaded him to stop and return to Adas, where he was 
 put through a mockery of a trial, and beheaded. The cap- 
 tain of the soldiers who arrested him under the orders of 
 Pedrarias was his old comrade, Francisco Pizarro. 
 
 Thus perished, in 1517, the man who first crossed the 
 American Isthmus and reached the eastern shore of the 
 Pacific — a wise statesman, a brave soldier, a daring and 
 
26 THE SECKET OF THE STKAIT 
 
 resourceful explorer ; a man of unconquerable determination, 
 of great gifts of leadership, and, for those times, of con- 
 siderable humanity. Even his flight from Hispaniola, and 
 his conduct toward Enciso, seem petty faults by the side of 
 the glaring iniquity of his murderer. However, it is to be 
 recorded that Pedrarias, fearing he was to be dismissed from 
 his governorship, in 1519 founded the city of Panama — not 
 the present city, but the old one, a few miles away, which 
 was destroyed by Henry Morgan, the Welsh buccaneer, in 
 1671, and of which now scarcely a trace remains, save a 
 picturesque old church tower. He also continued the search 
 for the Strait, surveyed the coast from a little below the 
 Tuyra River up to Costa Rica, and first heard of Lake Nic- 
 aragua, which was said to connect directly with both seas 
 and thus to form the Strait for which he was seeking. 
 
 Galvano attributes to Pedrarias, also, the discovery and 
 conquest of the Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama, which 
 have been ascribed to Balboa. "In the beginning of the year 
 1515," he says, apparently on the authority of Peter Martyr, 
 and also of Gomara, "the Governor, Pedro Arias de Avila, 
 sent one Gaspar Morales with 150 men unto the Gulf of 
 St. Michael, to discover the islands of Tararequi, Chiapes, 
 and Tumaccus. There was a Cacique, Balboa's friend, which 
 gave him many canoes or boats made of one tree, to row in, 
 wherein they passed unto the Island of Pearls; the lord 
 whereof resisted them at their coming to land. But Chiapes 
 and Tumaccus did pacify him, in such order that the captain 
 of the isle had them come unto his house, and made much 
 of them, and received baptism at their hands, naming him 
 Pedro, after the Governor's name ; and he gave unto them, for 
 this, a basket full of pearls, weighing an hundred and ten 
 pounds ; whereof some were as big as hazel nuts ; of 20, 25, 26, 
 or 31 carats, and every carat is four grains. There was given 
 for one of them one thousand two hundred ducats." Pizarro, 
 by the way, was with Morales on this expedition. 
 
 In that same year, 1515, Pedrarias also sent Gonsalvo de 
 Badajos and Louis de Mercado, with one hundred and thirty 
 
Calm, Photo. 
 
 THE REMAINS OF OLD PANAMA. 
 
GIL GONZALEZ DAVILA 27 
 
 men, to make further explorations of the Isthmian regions. 
 They went by sea from Darien to Nombre de Dios, and 
 thence, with Indian guides, struck southward along the coast. 
 They found much gold, and captured forty negro slaves who 
 had apparently escaped from Portuguese masters, for Peter 
 Martyr tells us they were branded with hot irons according 
 to the Portuguese practice of those times. After a long 
 march, however, the expedition came to grief at the hands of 
 a native Cacique, named Parisa, who killed or captured 
 nearly all of them. Thereupon Pedrarias sent out his son, 
 Juan Arias de Avila, to inflict revenge upon the natives and 
 to continue the explorations. Juan went westward to Cape 
 de Guerra, and thence to Punta de Borico and to Cape 
 Blanco. "They discovered 250 leagues, as they affirm," says 
 Galvano, "and peopled the city of Panama." 
 
 Among those who worked under or with Pedrarias in his 
 explorations were Gonzalez Gomez Espinosa, whose rela- 
 tive, the judge Caspar Espinosa, supplied the funds for the 
 conquest of Peru, and whose name is now conspicuously and 
 most honourably borne in Panama; Fernando Ponce, Bar- 
 tholomew Hurtado, and Gonsalvo de Badajos. A contempo- 
 rary, but by no means a colleague, was his own kinsman, Gil 
 Gonzalez Davila (de Avila). The last named, a man of fine 
 character and high ability, arrived at the Isthmus in 1517 
 with a commission to explore the west coast. Pedrarias 
 wanted a monopoly of the undertaking himself, and accord- 
 ingly refused to provide him with ships for the purpose, 
 whereupon Gil took his two caravels apart at Porto Bello, 
 carried them across the Isthmus, rebuilt them, and launched 
 them into the Pacific; thus practically repeating Balboa's 
 feat. This was in 1522. Gomara records that he "armed 
 four ships in the Island of Tararequi, standing in the South 
 Sea, with intent to discover the coast of Nicaragua, and espe- 
 cially a strait or passage from the South Sea into the North 
 Sea." 
 
 He went up the Pacific Coast as far as the Bay de Salinas, 
 and then went inland and discovered the great lake of which 
 
28 THE SECEET OF THE STKAIT 
 
 reports had been heard; his pilot, Andrea Nino, meantime 
 going along the coast as far as Tehuantepec, vainly seeking 
 the mysterious Strait. The principal native chieftain of 
 that region, with whom Gil made a treaty, was named 
 Nicarao, wherefore the Spaniards called the lake Nicaro 
 Agua, or Nicaragua^ — the Sea of Nicarao. It was not until 
 three years later, in the year 1525, however, that it was as- 
 certained that this lake and the smaller Lake Managua, while 
 connected with the Caribbean Sea by a river, were in no way 
 connected with the Pacific, and therefore gave no solution 
 of the "Secret of the Strait." There were ancient legends, 
 which indeed survive to this day, among the natives of Cen- 
 tral America, that once a waterway existed across that 
 region, by way of the San Juan River, Lake Nicaragua, and 
 Lake Managua, to the Bay of Fonseca, and that it was closed 
 up by volcanic action. 
 
 Worthy of note in passing, too, are various others who in 
 that time sought the "Secret of the Strait." Francisco Her- 
 nandez de Cordova, Hernando de Soto (afterward the dis- 
 coverer of the Mississippi River), Christopher Morantes, and 
 Lopez Ochoa, in 1517, explored the coast of Yucatan and the 
 Gulf of Campeachy ; and Juan de Grijalva in 1518 continued 
 those explorations along the Mexican coast as far as 
 Tampico; and Alvarez de Pineda made the circuit of the 
 Gulf of Mexico. It was on the same errand, "to find a 
 shorter route to Cathay," that France sent Giovanni da Ver- 
 razzano and Jacques Cartier, who explored the coasts further 
 north from Hatteras to Labrador. Had it not been for the 
 quest of the mythical Strait, there might have been no French 
 colony planted in Canada. Meantime, the famous explorer 
 Magellan joined in the search, sailing southward, and was 
 of them all alone successful. He did indeed find a strait, 
 and the only strait existing across the American continents; 
 but that waterway, which bears his name, was much too re- 
 mote in the far south to satisfy those who were seeking a 
 short cut to the East Indies. The search at Darien there- 
 fore was continued, and was presently taken up by another 
 
HERNANDO CORTEZ 29 
 
 famous man, to whom Keats, in the familiar lines already 
 quoted, ascribed the great achievement of Balboa. 
 
 Hernando Cortez was, like Balboa, an impoverished noble- 
 man of Estremadura. He went to Hispaniola in 1504, thence 
 to Cuba, and in 1518 to Mexico, where his marvellous achieve- 
 ments easily gave him rank as the greatest of all the Spanish 
 conquerors, and as second in fame to only Columbus him- 
 self among the discoverers and explorers of America. After 
 the conquest of Mexico and Central America, he was in 1523 
 directed by Charles V to engage in the quest of the Strait, 
 and he entered upon that work with characteristic zeal. Al- 
 ready he had heard in Mexico of the Strait and had in 1520 
 tried to get from Montezuma information concerning it. 
 Montezuma had pleaded ignorance, but had provided Cortez 
 with maps and guides, with the aid of which Cortez had sent 
 Diego Ordaz to explore the Huasacualco River, which Cortez 
 called Quacalco and which is now known as the Coatzacoal- 
 cos. In 1521 Gonzalo de Sandoval had completed the con- 
 quest of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and had ascertained 
 that no Strait existed in that region, though the Huasacualco 
 River was utilised as a part of an overland route from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 
 But in 1523 Cortez was still hopeful of discovering the 
 elusive Strait, and, what was more to the purpose, he was 
 convinced of the desirability and the practicability of creat- 
 ing such a Strait if one were not found to exist. To find a 
 way or make one was his strenuous rule. How intent he 
 was, and how important he deemed the quest, were shown in 
 a letter which he wrote to the King in 1524, saying that he 
 had determined to send five ships upon the strait-seeking 
 errand, and expected the enterprise would cost him more 
 than ten thousand pesos in gold; a heavy expense, yet one 
 which he would gladly incur, because, he said, "If the Strait 
 is found, I shall hold it to be the greatest service I have yet 
 rendered. It would make the King of Spain master of so 
 many lands that he might call himself the Lord of the whole 
 world." He also sent out a fleet to search the Pacific Coast 
 
30 THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 
 
 for that end of the Strait, with orders to keep on southward 
 until it reached the scene of Magellan's discovery, while those 
 on the Caribbean side were to examine the coast all the way 
 northward to Labrador. ''Thus/' said the conqueror of 
 Mexico, "on the one side or the other I shall not fail to solve 
 the secret." He spoke in the same letter to Charles V of 
 California and other lands on the Pacific Coast, as of great 
 value and well worth exploring ; ''but," he added, "being well 
 aware of the great desire of your Majesty to know the secret 
 of this Strait, and of the great advantage the crown would 
 derive from its discovery, I postpone all other schemes and 
 interests, some of them of the highest moment, to pursue this 
 object alone." 
 
 "In this year 1524," says Galvano, quoting the "General 
 History" and "Conquest of Mexico" of Gomara, "Cortez sent 
 one Christopher de Olid with a fleet of the Island of Cuba, 
 to receive the victuals and ammunition which Alonzo de Con- 
 treras had prepared, and to discover and people the country 
 about Cape de Higueras and the Honduras; and to send 
 Diego Hurtado de Mendoza by sea, to search the coast from 
 thence even unto Darien, to find out the Strait which was 
 thought to run into the South Sea, as the Emperor had com- 
 manded. He sent also two ships from Fanuco, to search 
 along the coast unto Florida. He commanded also certain 
 brigantines to search the coast from Zacatullan to Panama. 
 This Christopher de Olid made a league with Diego Velas- 
 quez against Cortez. He took Gil Gonzalez de Avila 
 prisoner, and killed his nephew and the Spaniards that were 
 with him, and showed himself an enemy to Cortez, who had 
 spent in that expedition 30,000 Castellans of gold to pleas- 
 ure him." The treason of Christopher de Olid and the hos- 
 tility of Pedrarias compelled Cortez to turn his attention 
 away from the Strait. In 1532, however, he sent Diego 
 Hurtado de Mendoza from Acapulco 200 leagues down the 
 Pacific Coast, without making any important discovery. 
 
 At about this time, indeed, men began to doubt the exist- 
 ence of a natural waterway, and to consider the practicabil- 
 
FIEST PLANS FOR A CAKAL 31 
 
 ity of constructing an artificial one. The pioneer in this 
 ambitious scheme, after Cortez himself, appears to have been 
 Alvaro de Saavedra Ceron, who had been a follower of Bal- 
 boa, and later became one of the most faithful and efficient 
 lieutenants of Cortez, whose cousin he was. He was a 
 brother of the Ferdinand de Saavedra who was at the head 
 of the colony founded by Cortez at Truxillo, in 1525. As 
 early as 1517, Gomara tells us, he turned his attention to the 
 secret of the Strait. Doubting the existence of a natural 
 strait, he recalled the narrowness and low elevation of the 
 Isthmus at Panama, where he had been with Balboa. In 
 1529, according to Galvano, he prepared plans for the con- 
 struction of a canal at that point, and was about to lay 
 them before the King of Spain when death ended his promis- 
 ing career. 
 
 It is related that Cortez, learning that Magellan's ships had 
 passed through the Patagonian Strait into the Pacific Ocean, 
 sent three ships to join that expedition and to go with it 
 to the Moluccas, and open up navigation between Mexico 
 and the East Indies. "There went as Governor in those 
 ships, one Alvaro de Saavedra Ceron, cousin to Cortez, a man 
 fit for that purpose." Saavedra reached the Moluccas in 
 1528, and in June of that year set out to return to Mexico, 
 but was detained at the Island of Tidore until the next year. 
 In 1529 he again essayed to return. He visited Papua 
 and the Marquesas Islands, and then "perceiving that the 
 time and weather were then somewhat better for his purpose, 
 made sail toward the Firm Land and city of Panama, where 
 he might unload the cloves and merchandise which he had, 
 that so in parts it might be carried four leagues to the river 
 of Chagres, which they say is navigable, running out into the 
 North Sea not far from Nombre de Dios, where the ships 
 ride which come out of Spain; by which ways all kinds of 
 goods might be brought unto them in shorter time and with 
 less danger than to sail around the Cape of Bona Speranza. 
 For, from Molucca unto Panama, they sail continually be- 
 tween the tropics and the line ; but they never found wind to 
 
32 THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 
 
 serve that course, and therefore they came back again to 
 Molucca very sad, because Saavedra died by the way ; who, if 
 he had lived, meant to have opened the land of Castilla del 
 Oro and New Spain from sea to sea. Which might have 
 been done in four places, namely, from the Gulf of San 
 Miguel to Uraba, which is 25 leagues; or from Panama to 
 Nombre de Dios, being 17 leagues distance; or through 
 Xaquator, a river of Nicaragua, which springeth out of a lake 
 three or four leagues from the South Sea and falleth into the 
 North Sea. The other place is from Tehuantepec through a 
 river to Verdadera Cruz, in the Bay of Honduras, which 
 might also be opened in a strait. Which if it were done, then 
 they might sail from the Canaries unto the Moluccas, under 
 the climate of zodiac, in less time and with much less danger 
 than to sail about the Cape of Bona Speranza or by the 
 Strait of Magellan, or by the northwest. And yet if there 
 might be found a strait there, to sail into the Sea of China, 
 as it hath been sought, it would do much good." 
 
 Thus, according to Gomara and Galvano, at this early 
 date the four major canal routes, so much discussed and 
 surveyed in our own time, were indicated : Darien, Panama, 
 Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec; and the superiority of one of 
 them over the routes by the Cape of Good Hope, by the Strait 
 of Magellan, and by the problematic North West Passage, 
 was appreciated. Meantime, it is of curious interest to ob- 
 serve, there arose at the very outset the long maintained 
 rivalry between Panama and Nicaragua for the location of 
 the canal. While Saavedra was planning at Panama, Pedra- 
 rias turned for a time from the congenial work of torturing 
 and massacring the natives of Nicaragua, and of reducing 
 a population of 2,000,000 to 200,000, and sent his lieutenant 
 Estete to establish an overland traffic route from the lakes 
 to the Pacific, and also to survey a route for a canal. It 
 does not appear, however, that any definite plans for such a 
 canal were at that time made, and happily in 1530 Pedrarias 
 died. 
 
 Charles V continued earnestly and urgently in his desire 
 
PHILIP II KEVEESES CHAKLES V 33 
 
 and his efforts for a waterway across the Isthmus, and in 
 1534 directed Andagoya, the Governor of Costa Firme, as the 
 Panama region was then called, to make surveys in the valley 
 of the Chagres River and elsewhere, to determine the most 
 practicable route. That functionary seems to have been, in 
 that matter at least, an unworthy successor of Balboa and 
 Cortez, for he showed no stomach for the undertaking and 
 soon declared it to be quite impossible. Others were more 
 resolute and optimistic. The historian Gomara, in his official 
 ^'History of the Indies," dedicated to Charles V, in 1551, un- 
 hesitatingly declared a canal to be practicable at any of the 
 four places named by Galvano. He recognised the obstacles, 
 but refused to regard them as insurmountable. "There are 
 mountains," he wrote, "but there are also hands. Give me 
 the resolve, and the task will be accomplished. If determina- 
 tion is not lacking, means will not fail ; the Indies, to which 
 the way is to be made, will furnish them. To a King of 
 Spain, seeking the wealth of Indian commerce, that which is 
 possible is also easy." But not even with this eloquent en- 
 couragement was Charles V able to effect the enterprise, but 
 he was compelled to leave it as unfinished business to his 
 successor. 
 
 Philip II at first took up the matter hopefully. In 1567 
 he sent an engineer, Batista Antonelli, to survey the Nica- 
 ragua route, but got from him as a result an unfavourable 
 report, of difficulties too great to be overcome. Soon after 
 this, however, he reversed his policy. The difficulties re- 
 ported by Antonelli discouraged him, the rising power of the 
 English at sea made him fear lest he should not be able to 
 control the canal if one v/ere constructed, and finally the re- 
 actionary bigotry which so completely dominated him and 
 dwarfed his statesmanship led him to conclude — according 
 to the Jesuit historian, Jose de Acosta — that it would be 
 contrary to the Divine Will to unite two oceans which the 
 Creator of the world had separated, and that to attempt so 
 impious a deed would surely provoke some appalling catas- 
 trophe. Accordingly he not only abandoned all schemes for 
 
34 THE SECKET OF THE STKAIT 
 
 a canal, but he forbade the making of them, decreed that no 
 canal should be constructed, and imposed the penalty of 
 death upon any one who should make known, or should 
 attempt to seek, a better route across the Isthmus than the 
 overland trail from Porto Bello to Panama ; especially inter- 
 dicting attempts on the Mandingo or Atrato River. Mr. 
 W. L. Scruggs, in his "History of the Colombian and Vene- 
 zuelan Republics," quotes an official document, written in 
 1743, by Dionysius Alceda, Governor of Panama, in which 
 reference was made to this prohibition of navigation of the 
 Atrato River, "owing to the facility it affords for passing 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean," and which positively 
 declared that "this passage was effected in the year 1679 by 
 the arch pirates John Guartem, Edward Blomar, and 
 Bartholomew Charles." 
 
 There was indeed cause for Philip to fear the maritime 
 might of England. The Islands and the Peninsula were nomi- 
 nally at peace. But English privateers, freebooters, and buc- 
 caneers began to harry the treasure fleets of Spain. About 
 1570 they became such a terror in the Caribbean that Span- 
 ish trade was practically driven from the Isthmus to the 
 roundabout route through the Strait of Magellan. Then 
 in 1579 Francis Drake went to the latter scene and played 
 havoc with the Spanish ships in the South Sea, so that a 
 return to the Isthmian route was deemed advisable; Nica- 
 ragua, however, being chosen instead of Panama. In those 
 times there was no thought of canal building, and the task 
 of holding the overland trail against the freebooters was 
 sufficient to tax the power and ingenuity of Spain. For a 
 generation the plan of an Isthmian waterway slumbered and 
 slept ; to be revived in 1616, when Philip III directed Diego 
 Ferdinand de Velasco, Governor of Castilla del Oro, to make 
 surveys for a canal by way of the Gulf of Darien and the 
 Atrato River — the very route which Philip II had most for- 
 bidden. Yelasco's report has been lost to the world, and its 
 nature is unknown, but its results were nothing. 
 
 The pernicious activities of the freebooters and buccaneers 
 
FREEBOOTERS ON THE ISTHMUS 35 
 
 were meantime maintained, and an actual state of war be- 
 tween England and Spain added to the embarrassments of 
 the latter. In 1655 the English seized the Island of Jamaica, 
 and vigorous efforts were made to establish an English foot- 
 hold in Central America. Wallace indeed had established 
 himself in Belize, as early as 1638. Other settlements were 
 made on the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua, and a party 
 of adventurers under Edward David went up the San Juan 
 River, stormed Fort San Carlos, sacked Leon, and explored 
 the shores of Lake Nicaragua. Thus for the first time the 
 English were led to realise the magnitude of that sheet of 
 water and its potential value as part of a transit route from 
 sea to sea. From that time dated the persistent English at- 
 tempts to get control of Nicaragua. 
 
 The Spanish rebuilt Fort San Carlos, only to have it again 
 attacked by a second English expedition. Then, in a desper- 
 ate effort to baffle the English, a Spanish engineer, Fernando 
 de Escobedo, determined to make the San Juan River more 
 difficult for them to navigate. He accordingly opened the 
 southern branch of that river, the Rio Colorado, through 
 which to divert some of the waters of the main stream. In 
 that mad enterprise he succeeded beyond expectation, and 
 the result in time was the ruin of the good natural harbour 
 at Greytown. The freebooters no longer ventured to go up 
 the river, but they blockaded its mouth, and when, in 1685, 
 L'Olonnais entered the Bay of Fonseca, and thence marched 
 to Granada, and sacked it, the Nicaraguan route as a high- 
 way of commerce became for a time a thing of the past. 
 
 Nor did the British neglect the lower Isthmus, of Panama 
 and Darien. That worst of all buccaneers, the Welshman 
 Sir Henry Morgan, in 1671 seized and sacked Porto Bello, 
 and then marched across the Isthmus and did the same in- 
 fernal work at Panama, so effectively that the city was never 
 rebuilt on the old site. In that nameless tragedy Spanish 
 commerce across that Isthmus was all but destroyed, and it 
 received its death blow nine years later, when another British 
 freebooter, Captain Sharpe, landed in Caledonian Bay, 
 
36 THE SECKET OF THE STEAIT 
 
 marched over to the Tuyra River, and destroyed the town of 
 Villa Maria. But this latter expedition had a still more 
 important result than such harrying of the Spaniards. One 
 of Sharpe's companions was Lionel Wafer, an ambitious, if 
 not an entirely trustworthy, observer. On his return to Eng- 
 land, he reported that in that part of the Isthmus there was 
 no mountain range at all. There were only detached hills, 
 among which were broad, low valleys, extending across the 
 narrow Isthmus from sea to sea. 
 
 This report attracted the attention of that extraordinary 
 man, William Paterson, of Scotland, the founder of the Bank 
 of England, and he, about 1694, conceived the grandiose 
 scheme of planting on the Isthmus of Darien a British 
 colony, which should, in his own words, secure for Great 
 Britain "the keys of the universe, enabling their possessors 
 to give laws to both oceans, and to become the arbiters of the 
 commercial world." Thus did this canny Scot repeat the 
 glowing estimates of Cortez and Gomara. He energetically 
 set about the execution of the project. "The Company of 
 Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies" was organised 
 by him, and was incorporated by the Scotch Parliament. A 
 large party of colonists was recruited, and sailed from 
 Leith, 1,200 strong, on July 26, 1698. It arrived at the 
 Isthmus on November 4, and established itself at Puerto 
 Escoces, or Scotch Port, in Caledonian Bay, founding the 
 "cities" of New Edinburgh and New St. Andrews, near the 
 site of Pedrarias's Adas, where Balboa was put to death. 
 Unfortunately for the enterprise, the situation chosen was a 
 most unhealthful one, the English and Dutch East India 
 Companies were bitterly and effectively opposed to it, and 
 exerted much political and commercial influence against it, 
 the English and Dutch colonists in the West Indies were for- 
 bidden to trade with the new company, and the Spaniards 
 and Indians were openly hostile. In June, 1699, the dis- 
 couraged colonists abandoned the place and departed, but 
 two months later were succeeded by another company. The 
 latter had scarcely got settled on shore when word came that 
 
FAILUKE OF PATEESON'S SCHEME 37 
 
 a Spanish force at Tubacanti, on the Santa Maria River, was 
 preparing to attack it in concert with a fleet. The colonists 
 hastened to anticipate the attack with a march against the 
 Spaniards, whom they defeated and dispersed, but on return- 
 ing to their "city" they found themselves confronted by a 
 Spanish fleet too strong to be successfully resisted. Ac- 
 cordingly they evacuated and abandoned the place, in April, 
 1700. 
 
 That was the end of the whole enterprise, save that the 
 names of Caledonian Bay and Puerto Escoces remained upon 
 the map, and that Paterson, after personal survey of the 
 Isthmus, was led to record his conviction of the practicabil- 
 ity of a canal. In his "Central America in 1701," he wrote 
 that if such interoceanic communication were established, 
 through its ports would flow at least two-thirds of the com- 
 merce of the East Indies, amounting to not less than |150,- 
 000,000 a year ; while the time and expense of the voyage to 
 China and Japan, and the richest parts of the East Indies, 
 would be lessened by more than one-half, and the consump- 
 tion of European commodities in those countries would soon 
 be more than doubled and thereafter would be yearly in- 
 creased. There is interesting food for speculation in the 
 reminder that Paterson's enterprise was undertaken only a 
 few years before the union of England and Scotland, which 
 occurred in 1707, and in the inquiry of what might have hap- 
 pened had that union been effected before his undertaking, 
 or had his venture been postponed until after the union. 
 In such case, it is to be assumed, there would have been 
 no effective English opposition to his colony, but on the con- 
 trary it would have received earnest support from English 
 commerce and from the English army and navy. With such 
 support, it would probably have been successful. The Isth- 
 mus of Panama would have become an English colony, and 
 generations ago an Isthmian canal might have been suc- 
 cessfully constructed under the British flag. 
 
 With the final collapse of Paterson's enterprise, the whole 
 scheme of an Isthmian canal practically lapsed for a century. 
 
38 THE SECEET OF THE STKAIT 
 
 Charles Maire de la Condamine, the astronomer, was sent by 
 the French government in 1735 to measure an are of the 
 meridian on the plain of Quito, and on his return in 1740 
 he addressed the French Academy of Sciences in behalf of a 
 canal at Nicaragua, which he declared to be quite prac- 
 ticable. He was accompanied across the Isthmus by Don 
 George Juan, and by Don Antonio de Ulloa, the distinguished 
 Spanish scientist and statesman who was afterward gov- 
 ernor of Louisiana in 1764 ; but competent as the expedition 
 was, it appears to have made only most superficial examina- 
 tions of the ground. During the latter half of the eighteenth 
 century a few sporadic and futile essays were made to select 
 a route. Augustin Cramer and Miguel del Corral surveyed 
 the Tehuantepec route, and Ysasi, Muestro, and Alexandre 
 the Nicaragua route, but their labours were fruitless. The 
 illustrious Horatio Nelson led an expedition to Nicaragua 
 in 1780, to seize the lakes and control the interoceanic route, 
 but did little more than permanently impair his own health. 
 The next year Manuel Galisteo surveyed the Nicaragua route 
 and reported to the Spanish government that it would be 
 impossible to construct a canal from the lakes to the Pacific. 
 In 1788 a Spanish engineer officer, Manuel Milla, was sent 
 by his government over the Caledonian Bay route, which 
 Sharpe and Wafer had traversed long before, and which 
 Paterson had surveyed. His report was even more favour- 
 able than Wafer's had been and must be regarded as grossly 
 exaggerating the ease with which a canal could be con- 
 structed there. The native tribes were so troublesome, how- 
 ever, as to keep the Spanish government from making any 
 further efforts in that region. Moreover, both war and 
 science were preparing to open an entirely new era in the 
 history of the Isthmus and of interoceanic trade. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EARLY PLANS AND RIVALRIES 
 
 With the opening years of the nineteenth century a new era 
 in Isthmian exploration and in canal schemes was begun. Its 
 foremost pioneer was the great scientific genius Alexander 
 von Humboldt, who spent the years from 1799 to 1804 in 
 Mexico (then still called New Spain), Central America, and 
 the northwestern states of South America. His scientific 
 researches were of incalculable value, but none of them sur- 
 passed in interest and suggestion his observations upon the 
 feasibility and desirability of constructing an artificial 
 waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In his 
 "Political Essay on New Spain" he described the Central 
 American Isthmus, the "barrier against the waves of the 
 Atlantic," as having been for many ages "the bulwark of the 
 independence of China and Japan." Only by making a 
 navigable channel across that Isthmus, he believed, could 
 "any great changes be effected in the political state of 
 Eastern Asia." Such an undertaking was "calculated to 
 immortalise a government occupied with the true interests 
 of humanity." Of the practicability of it he had no doubts. 
 No fewer than nine routes were considered by him, for water- 
 ways between the two oceans. The first, beginning at the 
 north, involved the Mississippi, Missouri, Peace, and Colum- 
 bia rivers, with a passage over the "Stony" or Rocky Moun- 
 tains, which latter, he was informed, were in some places as 
 much as 3,520 feet high ! The second was by way of the Rio- 
 Bravo, or Rio Grande del Norte, in Mexico, and the Rio 
 Colorado, entering the Gulf of California. The third was at 
 the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, making use of the 
 Coatzacoalcos River. The fourth was at Nicaragua, where 
 
40 EAELY PLANS AND KIYALKIES 
 
 the great lakes appeared to him to offer special facilities 
 for navigation, as did also the San Juan River. He appears 
 to have known, as he certainly should have known, that the 
 San Juan River flows from the lakes to the Caribbean Sea, 
 though strangely enough one of his maps of that region in- 
 dicates it as flowing into the lakes, and a separate river, the 
 Colorado, flowing into the Caribbean, with a mountain range 
 between them. 
 
 The fifth route was that at Panama, from the City of Pan- 
 ama to Venta de Cruces, at the head of navigation on the 
 Chagres River, near Obispo and Gamboa, on the present rail- 
 road and canal route. To this he devoted most attention of 
 all. ''That canal," he said, "would have to pass through a 
 hilly tract, of the height of which we are completely 
 Ignorant. ... It is very astonishing that in crossing the 
 Isthmus neither La Condamine nor Don George Juan and 
 Ulloa had the curiosity to observe their barometer, for the 
 sake of informing us what is the height of the most elevated 
 point on the route. . . . However, it appears beyond a 
 doubt that we find the principal Cordillera, or, rather, a 
 range of hills that may be regarded as a prolongation of the 
 Andes of New Granada, between Cruces and Panama. It 
 is from them that the two oceans are said to be discernible 
 at the same time, which would only require an absolute 
 height of 290 metres. However, Lionel Wafer complains 
 that he could not enjoy this interesting spectacle. He as- 
 sures us that the hills are separated by valleys which allow 
 free course for the passage of the rivers. If this be true, we 
 might believe in the possibility of a canal from Cruces to 
 Panama, of which the navigation would be interrupted by 
 only a very few locks." The 290 metres, or 951 feet, sug- 
 gested by Humboldt, was really more than three times the 
 actual height of the loftiest hill on the route ultimately 
 selected for the Panama Canal. 
 
 After further consideration of the Panama route, Hum- 
 boldt continued : ''It appears to me that the expectation of a 
 canal of seven metres in depth and from 22 to 28 metres in 
 
h 
 
HUMBOLDT'S CANAL PROPOSALS 41 
 
 breadth, which, like a passage or strait, should go from sea 
 to sea and admit the vessels which sail from Europe to the 
 Indies, ought to be completely abandoned. The elevation of 
 the ground would force the engineer to have recourse either 
 to subterraneous galleries, or to the system of sluices; and 
 the merchandises destined to pass the Isthmus of Panama 
 could only thereafter be transported in flat-bottomed boats 
 unable to keep the sea. . . . Supposing, then, that this 
 canal were cut, the greatest number of these vessels would 
 probably continue their voyage round Cape Horn. ... It 
 would be otherwise with the products of Western America, or 
 with the goods sent from Europe to the coast of the Pacific 
 Ocean. These would cross the Isthmus at less expense and 
 with less danger.'' But he urged as most desirable good 
 roads for camel traffic at Tehuantepec and at Panama. 
 
 Humboldt's sixth route for a canal was that from Cupica, 
 on the Pacific, by way of the Napipi and Atrato rivers to the 
 Gulf of Darien. "We might almost say," he wrote, "that the 
 ground between Cupica and the mouth of the Atrato is the 
 only part of all America in which the chain of the Andes is 
 entirely broken" — in which he was much in error. It will 
 be observed that he ignored the Caledonian and Mandingo 
 routes, although on one of his maps the Bay of Mandingo is 
 so enormously exaggerated in size as to make the Isthmus at 
 that point scarcely more than one-third its width at Panama. 
 His seventh route revived the old legend of the "Secret of the 
 Strait," in the form already cited in the records quoted by 
 Mr. Scruggs. This route was through the Ravine of Raspa- 
 dura, uniting the sources of the Noanama or San Juan, and 
 the Quito, Andagega, Zitara, and Atrato rivers. "A monk, 
 cure of the village of Novita," wrote Humboldt, "employed 
 his parishioners to dig a small canal in the Ravine de la 
 Raspadura, by means of which, when rains are abundant, 
 canoes loaded with cacao can pass from sea to sea. This in- 
 terior communication has existed since 1788, unknown in 
 Europe." The eighth route was by way of the Rio Callaga, 
 in Peru, across the Andes to the headwaters of the Amazon. 
 
42 EARLY PLANS AND RIVALRIES 
 
 The ninth was from the Gulf of St. George across Patagonia. 
 Five of these routes, the second, third, fourth, fifth, and 
 sixth, were seriously considered and commended by him, as 
 worthy of practical and immediate investigation. To him 
 they all seemed about equally desirable. "They are," he 
 wrote in his "Personal Narrative,'^ "at the centre of the New 
 Continent, at an equal distance from Cape Horn and the 
 Northwest Coast. . . . Opposed to each, on the same 
 parallel, are the seas of China and India, an important cir- 
 cumstance in latitudes where the trade winds prevail. All 
 are easily entered by vessels coming from Europe and the 
 United States.'^ 
 
 The observations and conclusions of Humboldt gave in- 
 spiration upon the same theme to another great genius, John 
 Wolfgang Goethe. In the record of his "Conversations with 
 Eckermann and Soret," under date of February 21, 1827, it is 
 related : 
 
 "He spoke much, and with admiration, of Alexander von 
 Humboldt, whose work on Cuba and Colombia he had begun 
 to read, and whose views as to the project for making a pas- 
 sage through the Isthmus of Panama appeared to have a 
 particular interest for him. 'Humboldt,' said Goethe, 'has, 
 with a great knowledge of his subject, given other points 
 where, by making use of some streams which flow into the 
 Gulf of Mexico, the end may perhaps be better attained than 
 at Panama. All this is reserved for the future and for an 
 enterprising spirit. So much, however, is certain, that if 
 they succeed in cutting such a canal that ships of any burden 
 and size can be navigated through it from the Mexican Gulf 
 to the Pacific Ocean, innumerable benefits will result to the 
 whole human race, civilised and uncivilised. But I should 
 wonder if the United States were to let an opportunity escape 
 k of getting such a work into their own hands. It may be 
 I foreseen that this young State, with its decided predilection 
 U to the West, will, in thirty or forty years, have occupied and 
 ' peopled the large tract of land beyond the Rocky Moun- 
 tains. It may, furthermore, be foreseen that along the whole 
 coast of the Pacific Ocean, where nature has already formed 
 the most capacious and secure harbours, important com- 
 mercial towns will gradually arise, for the furtherance of a 
 
GOETHE ON THE CANAL 43 
 
 great intercourse between China and the East Indies, and the 
 United States. In such a case it would be not only desirable 
 but almost necessary that a more rapid communication 
 should be maintained between the Eastern and Western 
 shores of North America, both by merchant ships and men-of- 
 war, than has hitherto been possible with the tedious, dis- 
 agreeable, and expensive voyage around Cape Horn. I 
 therefore repeat that it is absolutely indispensable for the 
 United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to 
 the Pacific Ocean: and I am certain that they will do 
 it. ... I should like to see another thing, — a junction of 
 the Danube and the Rhine, but this undertaking is so gi- 
 gantic that I have grave doubts of its completion, particu- 
 larly when I consider our German resources. And, thirdly 
 and lastly, I should wish to see England in possession of a 
 canal through the Isthmus of Suez. Would I could live to 
 see these three great works! It would well be worth the 
 trouble to last some fifty years more for the very purpose !^ " 
 
 Both of these illustrious men erred as prophets: Hum- 
 boldt in saying that only by cutting the Isthmus could the 
 political status of Eastern Asia be changed, and Goethe in 
 thinking the Danube-Rhine canal more remote and doubtful 
 than the Isthmian : though we must regard with admiration 
 the latter's forecast of the American occupation of the 
 Pacific Coast and the demand for an Isthmian canal as a con- 
 necting link between our east and west coast lines, as well 
 as his suggestion of British possession of the Suez Canal. 
 
 At a date between the exploration of Humboldt and the 
 prophecies of Goethe, however, statesmen and engineers be- 
 gan to busy themselves with practical schemes for canal con- 
 struction. In 1814 the Spanish Government, feeling its need 
 of doing something to restore the waning prestige of Spain 
 and to renew its failing hold upon its American colonies, 
 decreed the construction of an Isthmian canal. Before any 
 steps could be taken to make the decree effective, however, 
 the Central and South American provinces declared and es- 
 tablished their independence. The first to do so was the 
 Colombian confederation, which comprised Venezuela (the 
 present republic of that name), Quito (the present republic 
 
44 EAELY PLANS AND RIValEIES 
 
 of Ecuador), and New Granada (the present republic of 
 Colombia) . These provinces, under the lead of Miranda and 
 Bolivar, began their struggle for independence in 1811, and 
 in 1821 their efforts were crowned with success. A year 
 later, in 1822, the Isthmian provinces of Panama and Vera- 
 guas (the present republic of Panama) followed the example, 
 asserted their independence, and allied themselves with New 
 Granada. The Central American provinces came next. In 
 1821 the independence of Guatemala was proclaimed and the 
 other provinces joined the movement the next year. For a 
 time Mexico, under the Emperor Iturbide, tried to annex 
 them, but upon Iturbide's defeat by Santa Anna in 1823 
 the five republics — Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nica- 
 ragua, and Costa Rica — became independent and formed 
 a short-lived federal union. 
 
 Very soon thereafter the governments of those countries 
 began in their turn to urge the construction of a canal. The 
 first Central American envoy to the United States, Antonio 
 Jose Canaz, in 1825, immediately upon his arrival at Wash- 
 ington, addressed a written communication to the American 
 Government, inviting it to participate with Central America 
 in the enterprise and in the advantages which its execution 
 would produce, and to that end to enter into a treaty which 
 would perpetually secure the possession of the canal to the 
 two nations. Our Secretary of State, Henry Clay, was 
 doubtless in sympathy with this proposal, but could scarcely 
 commit the Government to it offhand. He therefore assured 
 Seiior Canaz "of the deep interest taken by the Government 
 of the United States in an undertaking so highly calculated 
 to diffuse an extensive influence on the affairs of mankind," 
 and instructed Mr. Williams, the United States envoy to 
 Central America, to investigate the matter and to report all 
 possible data concerning the practicability of constructing 
 a canal at Nicaragua. At the same time commissioners from 
 New Granada were in Washington, asking the United States 
 to participate in the first Pan-American Congress, at Pan- 
 ama, in June, 1826. Fearing that Congress would discuss 
 
EFFORTS AT NICARAGUA 45 
 
 the question of human slavery, and would adopt resolu- 
 tions in favour of emancipation, the United States Senate 
 adopted a resolution to the effect that this country should 
 not be represented there, save in a diplomatic way, an^ 
 should not enter into any alliance with Central and South 
 American States. Mr. Clay nevertheless oflScially declared 
 to the envoys that the question of a canal might properly 
 be discussed at the Congress, and that such a canal, if ever 
 it should be constructed, would be of interest to all the world, 
 while its greatest benefits would accrue to this continent. 
 
 In 1825 the Congress of the United States of Central Amer- 
 ica ordered the construction of a canal at Nicaragua, and gave 
 to a promoter named Beniski a concession for the enterprise. 
 This concession was afterwards transferred to an American 
 company, known as the Central American and United States 
 Atlantic and Pacific Canal Company, among the members of 
 which were De Witt Clinton, the builder of the Erie Canal ; 
 Monroe Robinson, President of the Bank of the United 
 States; and Stephen Van Rensselaer and A. H. Palmer, of 
 New York City. A second scheme was the outcome of the 
 Congress of Panama, and was organised by General Wer- 
 weer, of Belgium, who endeavoured to organise a Nicaragua 
 Canal Company. He secured from the Nicaragua Govern- 
 ment, in 1829, a canal concession for the King of Holland, 
 and a monopoly of the coasting trade. This latter provision 
 was offensive to the Monroe Doctrine, and threatened un- 
 pleasant complications; but the revolution in the Nether- 
 lands and the secession of Belgium, the next year, caused 
 the whole project to be abandoned. 
 
 A third scheme was fathered by Simon Bolivar, then Presi- 
 dent of New Granada, who gave to a Frenchman, Baron 
 Thierry, — a picturesque adventurer, who had got some half- 
 savage Maoris to elect him ^'King of New Zealand," — a 
 franchise for a canal at Panama. The next year, finding 
 Thierry was unable to proceed with the work, Bolivar under- 
 took it himself. His two officers, Lloyd, a British engineer, 
 and Falcmar, a Swedish captain, surveyed the route, but 
 
46 EARLY PLANS AND RIVALRIES 
 
 made the curious error of reporting that there was three feet 
 difference between the mean levels of the two oceans. This 
 error was generally accepted as a fact, and was enlarged 
 upon, until it was widely believed that the Pacific Ocean was 
 from 10 to 20 feet higher than the Caribbean Sea. The Lloyd- 
 Falcmar route was, however, on the whole singularly well 
 chosen, and was afterwards substantially adopted for the 
 Panama Railroad. This error concerning the level of the 
 two oceans was not original with or confined to Lloyd and 
 Falcmar. Many years before Humboldt had referred to the 
 "vulgar opinion" existing in every age and clime, that of two 
 seas, separated by an isthmus, one was invariably higher 
 than the other. Strabo mentioned that in his time the Gulf 
 of Corinth was believed to be higher than the -^gean Sea, 
 and that thus it would be dangerous to make a canal across 
 that isthmus. In America, Humboldt recalled, the South 
 Sea or Pacific Ocean had long been supposed to be higher 
 than the Caribbean. This theory had been combated by 
 Don George Juan, however, who found the barometric read- 
 ings the same at Panama and at the mouth of the Chagres 
 River. A French engineer, on the other hand, had reported 
 that the Red Sea was 38 feet higher than the Mediterranean. 
 Humboldt's own observations made him believe that if there 
 was a difference between the Pacific and the Caribbean, it 
 could not possibly be more than from 19 to 22 feet, but he did 
 not believe, as he afterward declared, that there was any dif- 
 ference at all. 
 
 Another interesting speculation of Humboldt's related to 
 the possible effects which the construction of an Isthmian 
 canal at tide level might have upon the currents of the ocean. 
 "We cannot doubt," he said, "that if the Isthmus of Panama 
 were once burst, the current of rotation, instead of ascend- 
 ing toward the Gulf of Mexico and issuing through the 
 Bahama Channel, would follow the same parallel from the 
 coast of Paria to the Philippine Islands. The effect of this 
 opening, or new strait, would extend much beyond the Banks 
 of Newfoundland, and would either occasion the disappear- 
 
AMEKICAN INTEEEST ABOUSED 47 
 
 ance or diminish the celerity of the Gulf Stream." But such 
 a result could not follow the construction of a canal with 
 locks, and probably would not follow the construction of one 
 at sea level on account of its small size. 
 
 That the United States should become interested in the 
 Isthmian canal project was, as Goethe observed, natural and 
 inevitable. Henry Clay, the Secretary of State, as we have 
 remarked, in 1826 ordered an official survey of the Nicaragua 
 route, and in the next three or four years several canal 
 schemes were put forward in this country to no avail. The 
 United States Senate in 1835 adopted a resolution for the 
 construction of a canal at Nicaragua, and President Jack- 
 son sent Charles Biddle to the Isthmus to make surveys and 
 negotiations ; but Biddle, instead of visiting Nicaragua, went 
 to Panama, and privately secured Thierry's concession, 
 whereupon he was repudiated by the United States Govern- 
 ment, and the whole business lapsed. Next the United 
 States of Central America took up the work again, President 
 Morazan sending two engineers, Bailey and Bates, — the 
 former having been the agent of an English corporation, — to 
 survey the Nicaragua route, but the chief result was a 
 twelve years' war with the Mosquito Indians, and the dis- 
 solution of the Central American Government ended the 
 enterprise. 
 
 Horatio Allen, the engineer of the Croton Aqueduct, in 
 New York, in 1837 aroused American interest in the scheme, 
 and got Mayor Aaron Clark, of New York City, and other 
 leading citizens of New York and Philadelphia to prepare 
 a plan for the Nicaragua Canal, and to present a memorial 
 to Congress on the subject, in January, 1838. In this me- 
 morial it was asked that the Central American States, the 
 United States, and all the great powers of Europe, should 
 unite in opening a ship canal across the Isthmus, and that 
 the United States should at once begin the preliminary sur- 
 veys. The outcome of this was the adoption of a non-com- 
 mittal resolution by Congress, simply expressing deep inter- 
 est in the project. Captain Edward Belcher, in 1838, made 
 
48 EAELY PLANS AND EIVALKIES 
 
 explorations at Nicaragua, and proposed a canal with its 
 Pacific outlet in the Bay of Fonseca. In 1839 the United 
 States Government sent John L. Stephens on a confidential 
 mission to Central America to do the work which Biddle 
 had failed to do. He recommended the construction of a 
 canal on the Nicaragua route, and estimated its cost at 
 125,000,000, but added that the country was at that time too 
 unsettled and revolutionary for capital to risk investment 
 in it. 
 
 In the political chaos which then prevailed, various wild 
 schemes were launched. Guatemala sent ecclesiastical en- 
 voys to Rome, to get the Pope to patronise the canal scheme. 
 New Granada gave vast concessions to a French speculative 
 scheme, whose promoters professed to have found, by Morel's 
 surveys, a route between Porto Bello and Panama with no 
 elevation above 10 1-2 metres. This preposterous fiction 
 was pushed by Messrs. Salomon & Co., until Guizot, for 
 Louis Philippe, sent Napoleon Garella to find out the truth. 
 He reported that the elevation of the lowest pass was more 
 than 115 metres. At about this time Nicaragua and Hon- 
 duras also tried, through a French promoter, to get French 
 capital interested in their routes. 
 
 In time the French Government became further interested 
 in the matter, and upon the strength of the surveys made by 
 Garella and Courtines was inclined to attempt the construc- 
 tion of a canal at Panama, which should have 25 locks, be 
 navigable by vessels of 600 tons only, and cost |40,000,000. 
 In support of this scheme Guizot read in the French Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, on June 10, 1843, a letter which Baron von 
 Humboldt had written, on August 1, 1842, to Salomon, the 
 French promoter already mentioned. In this letter Hum- 
 boldt referred to the advice which he had formerly given to 
 the British Embassy at Paris, that a competent engineer 
 should be sent to explore the various routes across the 
 Isthmus, and expressed regret at the failure to act upon his 
 advice. "I am," he wrote, "sorry to learn that you are no 
 further advanced in your interesting undertaking than you 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON INTERESTED 49 
 
 were when I had the pleasure of seeing you in my last visit 
 to Paris. Twenty -five years have now elapsed since the proj- 
 ect of a communication between the two oceans, either by 
 the Isthmus of Panama, the Lake of Nicaragua, or the 
 Isthmus of Cupica, has been proposed and discussed topo- 
 graphically; but nothing toward realising this project has 
 even yet been begun. I should have thought that the English 
 Embassy might have found the means of inspiring confidence 
 by proposing to send a scientific engineer to study the valley 
 between the two seas along which the canal might be cut 
 to the western part of the port of Chagres. Be persuaded 
 that those persons who make use of the authority of my name 
 to support the idea that the two seas are not on a level, do 
 so only in order to excuse themselves from engaging in the 
 undertaking." 
 
 In 1844, Francisco Castellon, of Nicaragua, disgusted with 
 the unsettled political state of Central America, went 
 to France as a Nicaraguan envoy, to try to persuade Louis 
 Philippe to establish a protectorate over Nicaragua, and to 
 undertake the construction of a canal. The King paid little 
 attention to him, but Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, then a 
 State prisoner in the fortress of Ham, became deeply inter- 
 ested in the scheme. That ^^man of destiny" began to regard 
 it, because of the old concession to Baron Thierry, as prop- 
 erly a French enterprise, and while yet in prison secured 
 from the Nicaraguan Government, in 1846, a concession and 
 franchise for a company to construct the "Canale Napoleon 
 de Nicaragua." So interested was he in the scheme that he 
 informed the French Government of it and begged to be re- 
 leased from prison, in order that he might carry it out. He 
 promised that if he were released he would proceed to Amer- 
 ica, and trouble France no more, but the Government refused 
 to grant his request. In the same year, however, he escaped 
 from Ham, and went to London, where he published a pam- 
 phlet on the subject of an Isthmian Canal, advocating a 
 route in Nicaragua by way of the San Juan River and the 
 two lakes, to Realejo. In this he said: 
 
50 EARLY PLANS AND RIVALRIES 
 
 "The geographical position of Constantinople rendered 
 her the Queen of the ancient world. Occupying, as she does, 
 the central point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, she could 
 become the entrepot of the commerce of all these countries, 
 and obtain over them immense preponderance; for in poli- 
 tics, as in strategy, a central position always commands the 
 circumference. This is what the proud city of Constantine 
 could be, but it is what she is not, because, as Montesquieu 
 says, 'God permitted that the Turks should exist on earth, as 
 a people most fit to possess uselessly a great empire.' There 
 exists in the New World a State as admirably situated as 
 Constantinople, and we must say up to this time as uselessly 
 occupied. We allude to the State of Nicaragua. As Con- 
 stantinople is the centre of the ancient world, so is the town 
 of Leon the centre of the New, and if the tongue of land 
 which separates its two lakes from the Pacific Ocean were 
 cut through, she would command by virtue of her central 
 position the entire coast of North and South America. The 
 State of Nicaragua can become, better than Constantinople, 
 the necessary route of the great commerce of the world, and 
 is destined to attain an extraordinary degree of prosperity 
 and grandeur. France, England, and Holland have a great 
 commercial interest in the establishment of a communica- 
 tion between the two oceans, but England has, more than the 
 other powers, a political interest in the execution of this 
 project. England will see with pleasure Central America 
 becoming a powerful and flourishing State, which will es- 
 tablish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America 
 a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give 
 rise to a feeling of nationality, and to prevent, by backing 
 Mexico, any further encroachments from the north." 
 
 This essay attracted much attention in Great Britain and 
 elsewhere in Europe. But two years later the revolution 
 in France gave its author his opportunity to become 
 President and to plot for the establishment of the Second 
 Empire, and the canal was forgotten by him in those larger 
 ambitions. 
 
CHAPTER rV 
 THE CLAYTON-BULWER EPISODE 
 
 In order fully to understand the British claims in Central 
 America, we must turn back nearly two and a half centuries. 
 In the middle of the seventeenth century British freebooters 
 established themselves at various points on the coast of 
 Honduras and Nicaragua, where they presently, in order to 
 secure Government countenance and protection, abandoned 
 their piratical ways and became J)ona fide colonists, develop- 
 ing a large trade in the fine lumber and dyewoods which 
 there abounded. In 1670 a treaty between Great Britain and 
 Spain confirmed all the British in and about the West Indies 
 forever in possession of all the lands they then actually 
 held. The Spanish Government two years later declared 
 that this applied only to those in Jamaica and other islands, 
 and not to those on the mainland, whom it regarded as free- 
 booters and pirates, while the British Government insisted 
 that it did apply to the lumber colonists of Honduras and 
 Nicaragua. 
 
 There was on the Nicaragua coast a tribe of Indians known 
 as the Moscoes, of a good-natured and easy-going disposition. 
 Early in the seventeenth century it received from British 
 adventurers a certain mixture of Caucasian blood, and to 
 this was added a strain of negro blood from the refugees 
 from a wrecked Dutch slave ship. The hybrid race which 
 was thus produced, of Indian, negro, and Caucasian amal- 
 gamation, proved most prolific, and soon occupied the entire 
 coast from the Guayape or Patuca to the San Juan River. 
 The name Moscoe was transformed into Mosquito and the 
 people were called Mosquito Indians and their country the 
 Mosquito Coast. About the time of the treaty of 1670, 
 
 51 
 
62 THE CLAYTON-BULWEK EPISODE 
 
 the chief of this tribe, Oldman by name, was persuaded by 
 the British settlers to proclaim himself King, and an ally 
 of the King of England. According to some, he actually 
 visited England, and was received by Charles II. Thus in 
 "Churchill's Voyages" we read that "he, the King, says that 
 his father, Oldman, King of the Mosquito men, was carried 
 over to England soon after the conquest of Jamaica, and 
 there received from his brother King a crown and commis- 
 sion, which the present Old Jeremy still keeps safely by him ; 
 which is but a cocked hat and a ridiculous piece of writing 
 that he should kindly use and relieve such straggling Eng- 
 lishmen as should choose to come that way, with plantains, 
 fish, turtle, etc." 
 
 Upon his death in 1686, Oldman was succeeded by his 
 son Jeremy, who the next year went to Jamaica, to beg the 
 British Government to take him and his "kingdom" under 
 the protection of the British Crown. The Governor seems 
 to have regarded the application with suspicion and dis- 
 favour, and not to have granted Jeremy's request. Says Sir 
 Hans Sloane : "One King Jeremy came from the Mosquitoes 
 (an Indian people near the provinces of Nicaragua, Hon- 
 duras, and Costa Rica) ; he pretended to be a King there, 
 and came from the others of his country to beg the Duke of 
 Albemarle, Governor of Jamaica, his protection, and that 
 he would send a governor thither with power to war on the 
 Spaniards and pirates. This he alleged to be due to his 
 country from the Crown of England, who had in the reign 
 of King Charles II submitted itself to him. The Duke of 
 Albemarle did nothing in this matter." The British settlers 
 on the Mosquito Coast held their ground, however, and some 
 years later sent Jeremy to Jamaica again, to renew the re- 
 quest for protection. This time he was a little more suc- 
 cessful. The British Governor went so far as to make a 
 private agreement with him, under which the Governor was 
 to support the "King" with money and arms, and the "King" 
 was to lend the Governor a company of fifty men to capture 
 runaway slaves in Jamaica. This compact was ratified by 
 
THE "MOSQUITO KING" A PUPPET 53 
 
 the Jamaica Assembly, and was thereafter regarded as a 
 practical recognition of the sovereignty of the Mosquito 
 King. 
 
 The next step toward British rule in Central America was 
 taken in 1739-40, when efforts were made to rouse the Mos- 
 quitoes and other Indians to join the British in the war 
 against Spain, and British fleets operated on the Mosquito 
 Coast and also along the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. Brit- 
 ish troops were landed in the Mosquito territory, British 
 forts were built, and a British "Superintendent" became 
 practically the ruler of the land, though the Mosquito "King" 
 retained the outward form of sovereignty. Under the 
 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the war, no definite 
 disposition was made of the Mosquito territory, and the Brit- 
 ish remained in possession of their holdings there, as before, 
 in defiance of the Spanish protests. When the Seven Years' 
 War was begun, in 1754, the British Government offered to 
 relinquish all its holdings and claims on the mainland to 
 Spain, if the latter would join Great Britain against France. 
 Spain declined this offer, and allied herself with France, and 
 in consequence the British retained possession of the Mos- 
 quito Coast colonies, and this possession was confirmed by 
 the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, which in addition gave British 
 subjects the right to cut trees and engage in the lumber 
 trade not only on the Mosquito Coast but anywhere along 
 the eastern shore of Central America, though it also pro- 
 vided for the demolition of all the forts which the British 
 had erected. . 
 
 In 1775 the British colonists in the Mosquito country, 
 numbering nearly 500, with twice as many slaves, and with 
 extensive cotton and other plantations in addition to the 
 lumber trade, were organised as a dependency of Jamaica, 
 with a Superintendent, a Council of Government, and a 
 Court of Common Pleas. In this the Spanish Government 
 apparently acquiesced, until war arose again between the 
 two countries in 1779, when an attempt was made to expel 
 the British colonists. In return the British Government 
 
54 THE CLAYTON-BULWER EPISODE 
 
 sent thither a fleet, which protected the colonists, and then 
 a second fleet under Horatio Nelson (already referred to in 
 Chapter II), to seize the San Juan River and the lakes, and 
 thus extend British rule across the country from the Carib- 
 bean to the Pacific. The latter enterprise failed, and the 
 British colonists were in time driven from all points except 
 the Mosquito Coast. At the end of the w^ar, in the Treaty of 
 Versailles, Great Britain formally abandoned her claim to 
 sovereignty on the mainland, and retained nothing but the 
 privilege of cutting and shipping lumber in Belize (now 
 British Honduras), and it was expressly stipulated that this 
 should in no wise derogate from the Spanish rights of sover- 
 eignty over that territory. The British settlements on the 
 Bay Islands and the Mosquito Coast were to be entirely 
 abandoned. 
 
 This last agreement, however, was not fulfilled. The Brit- 
 ish made no pretence, even, of withdrawing, and the Spanish 
 made no attempt to compel them to do so, save to protest 
 against their remaining. A little later, in 1786, a new con- 
 vention was made, under which the Spanish greatly en- 
 larged the area in Belize in which the British might cut tim- 
 ber, while the British government agreed "to give the most 
 positive orders" for the evacuation of all other regions by 
 British subjects, and, if they disregarded the orders, to with- 
 hold from them all succour or protection, and to "disavow 
 them in the most solemn manner." Even in Belize, where 
 they had lumber rights, the British were not to establish 
 any agricultural plantations, or any manufactures, or to 
 make any permanent settlements. Despite this, many Brit- 
 ish colonists remained on the Bay Islands and the Mos- 
 quito Coast, and held their ground against various efforts 
 of the Spanish to expel them. Some time after the end 
 of the Napoleonic wars, the Treaty of 1786 was practically 
 disregarded by the British, and the British settlements were 
 confirmed in their former status. 
 
 It would be difficult to tell just when or in what form the 
 British pretensions and aggressions were thus renewed. 
 
BRITISH PRETENSIONS CHALLENGED 55 
 
 James Buchanan, the United States Minister to England, in 
 January, 1854, in a "statement for the Earl of Clarendon," 
 discussed this question : 
 
 "At what period, then, did Great Britain renew her claims 
 to the country of the Mosquitoes, as well as the continent in 
 general, and the islands adjacent, without exception? It 
 certainly was not in 1801, when, under the Treaty of Amiens, 
 she acquired the Island of Trinidad from Spain, without 
 any mention whatever of further acquisitions in America. 
 It certainly was not in 1809, when she entered into a treaty 
 of alliance!^ offensive and defensive, with Spain, to resist the 
 Emperor Napoleon in his attempt to conquer the Spanish 
 monarchy. It certainly was not in 1814, when the com- 
 mercial treaties, which had previously existed between the 
 two powers, including, it is presumed, those of 1783 and 1786, 
 were revised. On all these occasions there was no mention 
 whatever of any claims of Great Britain to the Mosquito 
 protectorate, or to any of the Spanish-American territories 
 which she had abandoned. It was not in 1817 and 1819, 
 when acts of the British Parliament distinctly acknowledged 
 that the British settlement at Belize was ^not within the 
 territory and dominion of His Majesty' but was merely a 
 'settlement for certain purposes, in the possession and under 
 the protection of His Majesty;' thus evincing a determined 
 purpose to observe with the most scrupulous good faith the 
 treaties of 1783 and 1786 with Spain." 
 
 Steps toward the reassertion of British claims were taken, 
 however, with or without authority, as early as 1816. The 
 "Crown Prince" of the Mosquito Indians, George Frederick, 
 and his half-brother, Robert, were taken by British settlers 
 to Belize, and thence to Jamaica, to be educated and also to 
 be subjected to British influences. Upon the death of his 
 father, George Frederick was taken back to the Mosquito 
 Coast in a British warship, and was formally crowned and 
 enthroned as "King of the Mosquito Shore and Nation." He 
 soon got killed in a drunken brawl, and was succeeded by 
 Robert, who showed himself more friendly to the Spanish 
 of Nicaragua than to the British, and was accordingly de- 
 posed. A negro, named George Frederick, was put into his 
 
66 THE CLAYTON-BULWER EPISODE 
 
 place, but he, proving unsatisfactory to the British, was in 
 turn arbitrarily displaced in favour of another negro, called 
 Robert Charles Frederick, who was taken to Belize, dressed 
 in a British army oflScer's uniform, and crowned King of the 
 Mosquito Coast. This was in April, 1825. He was then 
 taken back to his "kingdom" for a time, but, his reign giv- 
 ing little satisfaction to the British, he was soon practically 
 exiled to Belize and was kept there for the rest of his life. 
 In his place Patrick Walker, the private secretary of the 
 British Superintendent of Belize, was established as a sort 
 of regent at Blueflelds, where he renamed the country "Mos- 
 quitia" and established a purely British administration. 
 
 Since there seemed little prospect of extending the British 
 power northward, the sovereignty of Mosquitia was next 
 declared to extend southward as far as Boca del Toro, on the 
 Chiriqui Lagoon, in Panama, and there thus loomed large a 
 scheme of British rule in Central America from Yucatan to 
 Darien. This scheme was promoted by the dissolution of the 
 Central American union and by the weakness of the separate 
 States which succeeded it. In 1835 a Legislative Assembly 
 was formed in Belize, the name of that country was changed 
 to "British Honduras," its boundaries were much enlarged, 
 and it was declared to be a British possession entirely in- 
 dependent of any Central American State. The Bay Islands 
 and Mosquitia were similarly declared to be independent of 
 Honduras and Nicaragua, and the British Government was 
 asked to recognise them as Crown Colonies. 
 
 Before acting upon these strenuous proposals of its agents, 
 the British Government sent special commissioners to in- 
 vestigate matters, and also a naval force to protect its colo- 
 nists and to compel Nicaragua to acknowledge the independ- 
 ence of Mosquitia, not as a British colony but as a native 
 kingdom allied with Great Britain. Guatemala, Nicaragua, 
 and New Granada protested against these acts and pro- 
 posals, while Costa Rica acquiesced in them. The United 
 States was for some time silent and inactive. It was too 
 busy with its plans for the spoliation of Mexico to pay much 
 
THE ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA 67 
 
 attention to what was going on so far southward. More- 
 over, it had not yet acquired a great territory on the Pacific 
 Coast with which it needed to have intercourse by way of the 
 Isthmus. Great Britain therefore went on unchecked and 
 almost unchallenged, under Lord Palmerston's vigorous 
 leadership. War was waged against Nicaragua, with the re- 
 sult that British control was established on the San Juan 
 River, and Nicaragua was compelled formally to relinquish 
 forever to the Mosquito King all her rights in that region. 
 It needed only the subsequent British seizure of Tigre Isl- 
 and in the Bay of Fonseca, off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, 
 to make the British conquest and control of that Isthmus 
 complete. 
 
 It was not until matters had gone thus far that the United 
 States was roused to action, and even then it was aroused 
 not so much by resentment at Great Britain's aggression as 
 by the desire and the need of securing a line of communica- 
 tion with those Pacific Coast possessions which it was seizing 
 from Mexico. The best route from New York to California 
 was by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and in order to secure 
 the use of that route the United States made in 1846 — at 
 the beginning of the Mexican war and long before the dis- 
 covery of gold in California — a treaty with the Republic of 
 New Granada, which was destined to have a profound and 
 far-reaching effect upon all further Isthmian Canal schemes. 
 (See Appendix I.) Under that treaty the United States 
 secured the exclusive right of transit across the Isthmus of 
 Panama, including all routes in the country between the 
 Chiriqui Lagoon and the Atrato River, and in return under- 
 took to maintain the neutrality of such routes and of any 
 lines of traffic which might be established on that Isthmus, 
 and also the sovereignty of the Isthmian territory against 
 any attack by alien powers. Under this treaty American 
 capitalists promptly proceeded to the construction of a rail- 
 road across the Isthmus, from Aspinwall (now Colon), 
 on the Caribbean coast, to Panama, on the Pacific Coast, 
 which was opened for traffic in 1855, and which has ever 
 
68 THE CLAYTON-BULWER EPISODE 
 
 since proved one of the most important factors in the whole 
 problem of interoceanic commerce. 
 
 Nor was the traditional rivalry of Nicaragua lacking. In 
 March, 1849, New York capitalists organised the "Compania 
 de Transito de Nicaragua," and made a contract with the 
 Nicaraguan Government for the construction of a canal ; and 
 later in the same year Cornelius Vanderbilt and others 
 organised the American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal 
 Company, absorbed into it the "Compania de Transito de 
 Nicaragua," and in 1851, under the name of the Accessory 
 Transit Company, established a transit route across Nica- 
 ragua, with steamboats on the river and lakes and coach and 
 truck lines for the remainder of the way. This was for 
 years a much frequented route of interoceanic travel, but in 
 time was overcome and destroyed by the superior facilities 
 of the Panama Railroad route: 
 
 Diplomacy next began to dominate the scene, and not to 
 the advantage or the credit of America. The British seizure 
 of the Mosquito Coast and the San Juan River, and the Brit- 
 ish designs upon the Bay of Fonseca, were so great a menace 
 to existing American interests at Nicaragua and to all pros- 
 pect of extending them that much commercial and popular 
 indignation was excited in the United States. In response 
 to this President Polk and his Secretary of State, James 
 Buchanan, sent Elijah Hise in 1849 as a special envoy to 
 Nicaragua to see what was being done and what needed to be 
 done. Conceiving it to be his duty to uphold the principles 
 of the Monroe Doctrine, and regarding the treaty concluded 
 with New Granada three years before as a precedent which 
 it would be proper to follow, Mr. Hise soon concluded a 
 treaty with Nicaragua, giving the United States or its citi- 
 zens the exclusive right to construct a transit way, railroad 
 or canal, across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, and to control it 
 and guard it with fortifications; and in return giving to 
 Nicaragua an American guarantee of the inviolability of her 
 territorial sovereignty. 
 
 It was substantially an application to Nicaragua of the 
 
SQUIER'S TREATY WITH NICARAGUA 59 
 
 principles which had just been applied to Panama. But there 
 was this radical difference between the two cases: Great 
 Britain was not directly interested in Panama, while she 
 was very directly interested in Nicaragua. In almost every 
 clause Mr. Hise's treaty ignored, traversed, or defied the pre- 
 tensions and ambitions of Great Britain in that region. So 
 the Washington Government, which had no stomach for a 
 direct conflict with a great power, flatly repudiated him and 
 all his doings, on the ground that he had exceeded his in- 
 structions; which was true enough, seeing that he had been 
 sent down there practically without any instructions at all. 
 In his place. President Taylor and his Secretary of State, 
 John M. Clayton, — who had succeeded Polk and Buchanan 
 while Hise was in Nicaragua, — sent E. G. Squier to the 
 Isthmus, with instructions to negotiate with Nicaragua for 
 an ^'equal right of transit for all nations through a canal 
 which should be hampered by no restrictions." In addition 
 he was bidden to be careful "not to involve this country in 
 any entangling alliances, or any unnecessary controversy." 
 
 Mr. Squier went to work with zeal and with discretion, 
 and in September, 1849, secured from Nicaragua a favour- 
 able concession for a canal, in behalf of the Com.pany already 
 mentioned, which had been organised that year by Cornelius 
 Vanderbilt. But he also, moved by much the same spirit 
 that had animated Mr. Hise, made a treaty with Nicaragua, 
 guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal and the sovereignty 
 of Nicaragua over the territory traversed by the canal and 
 over the ports at its terminals. This, again, was practically 
 a challenge to Great Britain, since she was already asserting 
 her sovereignty, or at least her control, over much of the line 
 of the canal, and over its Caribbean terminus. The British 
 answer came promptly. Honduras, the owner of Tigre Isl- 
 and in the Bay of Fonseca, was pressed for immediate pay- 
 ment of an old British claim, the obvious intent of Great 
 Britain being to seize the Island in default of settlement. 
 To prevent this, Mr. Squier hastened to make a treaty with 
 Honduras, under which Tigre Island and certain lands on 
 
60 THE CLAYTON-BULWER EPISODE 
 
 the shore of the Bay of Fonseca were practically ceded to 
 the United States. This was on September 28, 1849. On 
 October 16, following, a British fleet appeared in the Bay 
 of Fonseca, and took forcible possession of Tigre Island in 
 the name of the British Government. Mr. Squier at once 
 protested against such seizure of what he regarded as the 
 property of the United States, and ordered the British to 
 evacuate within a week ; which they declined to do. 
 
 This awkward and menacing situation was disposed of at 
 Washington by the negotiation of one of the most famous 
 and most criticised treaties in American history. It is 
 probable that a much different course would have been fol- 
 lowed, had it not been for some very necessary political 
 considerations. President Taylor and Secretary Clayton 
 were Whigs. But there was a Democratic majority in the 
 Senate, which would have to pass upon any treaty which 
 might be made. It was therefore necessary to do something 
 which would meet the approval of the political opponents 
 of the administration. Mr. Clayton entered into negotiations 
 with the British Minister at Washington, Mr. Crampton, and 
 offered practically to recognise British control on the Mos- 
 quito Coast, provided Great Britain would not make that 
 control an obstacle to the construction and maintenance of a 
 neutral canal. To this the British Minister and British 
 Government assented. The American Minister to England, 
 Abbott Lawrence, however, after an elaborate investigation 
 of the matter, declared that the British claim of a pro- 
 tectorate over the Mosquito territory had no foundation in 
 history, law, or justice, and argued that it should be 
 abandoned, or at any rate that Great Britain should relin- 
 quish all claim to or control of the Caribbean terminal of 
 the proposed canal. Unfortunately the Washington Govern- 
 ment did not support Mr. Lawrence in this contention, but 
 proceeded, over his head, with negotiations in which the in- 
 dependence of the Mosquito territory from Nicaragua, and 
 also its "close political connection" with Great Britain, were 
 practically conceded. Sir Henry Bulwer was then sent as 
 
MAKING THE TREATY 61 
 
 British Minister to Washington, and work upon the draft of 
 a treaty was begun by him and Mr. Clayton. 
 
 It was while this work was in progress that news came of 
 the British seizure of Tigre Island, and the Democratic ma- 
 jority in the Senate, quite willing and perhaps eager to em- 
 barrass the Whig administration, demanded the immediate 
 consideration of Mr. Squier's treaties with Nicaragua and 
 Honduras, and asked the President for all letters and papers 
 relating thereto. This request was refused, "on grounds of 
 public policy," because such disclosure of documents might 
 embarrass important negotiations then pending; and then, 
 in order to strengthen that argument for refusal, Mr. Clay- 
 ton urged Sir Henry Bulwer to conclude the treaty at once. 
 Sir Henry suggested as a preliminary that the United States 
 Government should disavow and cancel Mr. Squier's treaty 
 with Honduras and his acquisition of Tigre Island, in return 
 for which the British Government would disavow and undo 
 its agent's seizure of that Island. This was done, and there 
 upon the famous Clayton-Bulwer treaty was concluded, 
 signed, sent to the Senate, and ratified. (See Appendix II.) 
 
 It provided that neither the United States nor Great 
 Britain should exclusively control the Nicaragua canal or 
 build any fortifications along it; that neither should ever 
 take possession of, fortify, colonise, or exercise dominion or 
 protection over any part of Central America; that they 
 should mutually guard the safety and neutrality of the pro- 
 posed canal, and should invite all other nations to do the 
 same; that both should give aid and support to any satis- 
 factory company which would construct the canal ; and that 
 thus a general principle should be established for application 
 to all Isthmian canals or railroads, at Panama or Tehuante- 
 pee as well as at Nicaragua. On the face of it this seemed a 
 splendid thing, and the treaty was generally applauded. 
 But there was something deeper than the face of it. Even 
 before the treaty was ratified, the British Government In- 
 formed the United States that it did not interpret the pro- 
 visions of the treaty as applicable to the existing British 
 
62 THE CLAYTON-BULWEK EPISODE 
 
 settlement in Honduras "or its dependencies," — to wit, the 
 Bay Islands and the Mosquito coast. In other words. Great 
 Britain was to be confirmed in all her disputed claims in 
 Central America, and was thus to be enabled to do to a 
 great extent the very things the treaty forbade the United 
 States to do. 
 
 In this Mr. Clayton practically acquiesced, and so the 
 treaty, which was signed on April 18, 1850, was ratified on 
 July 5, 1850. The treaties negotiated by Messrs. Hise and 
 Squier were cancelled, and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty be- 
 came the supreme law of the land. 
 
 Meantime various schemes of canal construction arose, 
 only to be defeated by the circumstances established by this 
 very treaty whose ostensible object was to promote the enter- 
 prise. The Republic of Costa Rica had Andreas Oersted, a 
 Danish engineer, in 1847, survey a Nicaragua canal route 
 which instead of running to the Bay of Fonseca should 
 reach the Pacific through Costa Rican territory. Stephen 
 Bailey proposed another route in the same general region. 
 Immediately after the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty. Colonel O. W. Childs, a distinguished American 
 canal engineer, was sent to Nicaragua, where he laid 
 out an entirely new route, having its Pacific terminus at 
 Brito. His plans were approved by the War Department at 
 Washington, and also by British official engineers, and 
 formed the basis of the actual attempt which was made in 
 after years to construct a canal in Nicaragua. But all these 
 enterprises were hampered and frustrated by political con- 
 siderations. Friction and disputes arose between the United 
 States and Great Britain over the interpretation and appli- 
 cation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. Great Britain in- 
 trigued with Costa Rica and opened the way for a boundary 
 dispute between that country and Nicaragua. Presently, 
 the republics of Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras united 
 in a federal league, while Guatemala and Costa Rica re- 
 mained aloof, the latter almost openly hostile to the com- 
 bination. 
 
WKANGLING OVEK THE TKEATY 63 
 
 President Pierce and his Secretary of State, William L. 
 Marcy, took up the controversy with Great Britain, sending 
 Solon Borland as a special agent to Central America and 
 James Buchanan as Minister to England, with instructions 
 to insist upon such construction of the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty as would require Great Britain to withdraw from the 
 Mosquito Coast. This demand Lord Clarendon, the British 
 Foreign Minister, met with a flat refusal, to which he added 
 that the British Government would not recognise the Monroe 
 Doctrine as international law, and would not consent to be 
 questioned further by the United States concerning her 
 original rights in Central America. The American answer 
 to this should have been Immediate notice of abroga- 
 tion of the Clayton Bui wer treaty. Instead, our Govern- 
 ment contented itself with bombarding, in the interest 
 of Cornelius Vanderbilt's company, the British-Mosquito 
 settlement of Greytown, at the mouth of the San Juan 
 River. 
 
 Then Walker, the filibuster, began in 1855 his nefarious 
 operations in Nicaragua, and affairs in all that part of 
 America became chaotic. In Honduras some further work 
 was done toward establishing satisfactory interoceanic 
 transit. A British concern known as the Honduras Inter- 
 oceanic Railway Company was organised in 1854, and 
 secured a concession for its route across that country. Dip- 
 lomatic complications ensued, however, among Honduras, 
 Great Britain, and the United States, with the result that 
 by 1857 all plans and operations were practically shelved. 
 There followed some futile diplomatic passages between 
 Great Britain and the United States, in which abrogation 
 of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was threatened by this country, 
 but was not effected ; and then Great Britain made a highly 
 profitable series of treaties with various Central. American 
 States, taking advantage of the facts that Walker's filibuster- 
 ing had aroused much prejudice against the United States 
 in those countries, and that the United States was, more- 
 over, too much concerned with its own domestic troubles 
 
64 THE CLAYTON-BULWEE EPISODE 
 
 and impending civil war to pay much attention to its south- 
 ern neighbours. 
 
 The climax of these diplomatic achievements of Great 
 Britain was the negotiation, in 1860, of a treaty with Nica- 
 ragua, in which Great Britain, with an appearance of much 
 magnanimity, agreed to abandon her protectorate over the 
 Mosquito Coast, and to hand the whole of that region back 
 to Nicaragua, in return for which Nicaragua was to ac- 
 knowledge the validity of the claims which were thus re- 
 linquished. In fact the British withdrawal was only nomi- 
 nal, and the sovereignty restored to Nicaragua was the 
 merest shadow, for it was stipulated that if Nicaragua at- 
 tempted to make her sovereignty fully effective Great Britain 
 should have the right to intervene under a title whose valid- 
 ity and sufficiency Nicaragua had now herself admitted. 
 
CHAPTER y 
 
 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 While Great Britain and the United States were wran- 
 gling over their ill-made treaty, another French essay was 
 made in Nicaragua. Louis Napoleon had temporarily 
 abandoned his canal scheme in favour of his imperial coup- 
 Wetat, but he took it up again during the Anglo-American 
 deadlock following the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty, in a way which caused some concern. At the time of 
 Walker's filibustering operations, one Felix Belly, an en- 
 thusiastic French adventurer and promoter, organised a com- 
 pany for the construction of a canal along Oersted's route, 
 through Nicaragua and Costa Rica. He played strongly 
 upon local sentiment in those countries by exploiting the 
 evils of Walker's raids, publicly declaring that thitherto all 
 the official agents of the United States in Nicaragua had 
 been accomplices and auxiliaries of Walker and other fili- 
 busters; and in order to protect Nicaragua from any more 
 such outrages he proposed that the canal, if not, indeed, the 
 whole country, should be placed under the protection of the 
 European powers which had just guaranteed the integrity 
 of the Turkish empire, to wit, France, Great Britain, and 
 Sardinia. Working with shrewd pertinacity along such 
 lines. Belly persuaded the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican gov- 
 ernments to adjust their boundary disputes, and then, in 
 May, 1858, to grant him a canal concession for ninety-nine 
 years on the Oersted route. He was to have all the privi- 
 leges which had been enjoyed by the American Atlantic and 
 Pacific Canal Company, and in addition that of stationing 
 two French warships in Lake Nicaragua. At this the 
 United States Government was aroused, and it warned Nica- 
 
 65 
 
66 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 ragua that such stationing of French warships in the lake 
 would not be tolerated, and insisted that the rights already 
 granted to American citizens must be respected. Mr. Cass, 
 the American Secretary of State, writing to Mr. Mason, the 
 American Minister to France, spoke plainly as follows, his 
 words being intended for the French Government: 
 
 "The general policy of the United States concerning Cen- 
 tral America is familiar to you. We desire to see the Isth- 
 mian routes opened and free for the commerce and inter- 
 course of the world, and we desire to see the States of that 
 region well governed and flourishing and free from the con- 
 trol of all foreign powers. The position we have taken we 
 shall adhere to, that this country will not consent to the 
 resubjugation of those States, or to the assumption and 
 maintenance of any European authority over them. The 
 United States have acted with entire good faith in this whole 
 matter. They have done all they could to prevent the de- 
 parture of illegal military expeditions with a view to estab- 
 lish themselves in that region, and at this time measures are 
 in progress to prevent the organisation and departure of an- 
 other, which is said to be in preparation. Should the 
 avowed intention of the French and British governments be 
 carried out and their forces be landed in Nicaragua, the meas- 
 ure would be sure to excite a strong feeling in this country, 
 and would greatly embarrass the efforts of the Government 
 to bring to a satisfactory close these Central American diflS- 
 culties which have been so long pending." 
 
 In the face of that strong and statesmanlike assertion of 
 American principles and purposes, the French and British 
 governments paused, and Nicaragua quickly reversed her 
 untenable attitude. Belly and his schemes were swept aside, 
 and in March, 1861, the Central American Transit Com- 
 pany, directed by William H. Webb, of New York, received 
 a franchise for the old monopoly of navigation on the San 
 Juan River and Lake Nicaragua. The French menace was 
 not, however, past. Louis Napoleon would not openly sup- 
 port Belly in his schemes, but he presently took them up 
 on his own account. He was already deeply involved in 
 schemes for the practical conquest of Mexico and the crea- 
 
FKENCH AMBITIONS 07 
 
 tion of a French Empire in America, and he conceived the 
 design of extending his aggression southward so as to secure 
 the Nicaraguan Isthmus and the site of the future inter- 
 oceanic canal. To this end he sent Michael Chevalier, a dis- 
 tinguished French engineer, to survey a route and to obtain 
 a concession for a canal at Nicaragua, in which errand 
 Chevalier was successful. Unfortunately for the imperial 
 intriguer, however, the civil war in America came to an end, 
 and the United States Government was thus enabled to 
 vindicate the Monroe Doctrine by practically driving the 
 French out of Mexico. For a few years longer Napoleon 
 clung to his Nicaragua canal scheme, but could do nothing 
 with it before the German war of 1870 brought his career to 
 an end. Meantime, in 1869, the Nicaragua transportation 
 line which had been established by Cornelius Vanderbilt 
 twenty years before was abandoned, and its almost worthless 
 franchise was sold to an Italian corporation, which held it 
 for twenty years and then resold it to the ill-fated American 
 Maritime Canal Company. 
 
 Some attention was also paid, from time to time, to the 
 Tehuantepec route. Thus in 1842 Don Jos^ de Garay, a 
 Mexican promoter, sent Gaetano Moro, an Italian engineer, 
 to survey the Mexican Isthmus for a railroad or a canal 
 route, and secured a concession from President Santa Anna. 
 The route adopted was intended for both a railroad and a 
 canal, the latter to be fifty miles long and provided with 
 locks. At the end of the war between Mexico and the United 
 States, President Polk offered to double the |15,000,000 in- 
 demnity to be paid by the United States under the treaty of 
 Guadelupe Hidalgo, if the Mexican Government would cede 
 to this country the exclusive right of way across the Isthmus 
 of Tehuantepec. This offer was declined, the Mexican Gov- 
 ernment expecting Garay to fulfil his plans, which he failed 
 to do. Instead, he sold out his concession to a syndicate of 
 New York capitalists, and after the Gadsden treaty in 1853 
 the Mexican Government confirmed to the United States the 
 privileges it had granted to Garay, for a Tehuantepec rail- 
 
68 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 road. There was still, however, too much ill-will in Mexico 
 against the United States for capitalists to risk important 
 investments in that country, and moreover the Panama rail- 
 road was being pushed to completion ; wherefore the Tehuan- 
 tepec scheme was abandoned, to be revived many years later 
 by Captain James B. Eads, with his imposing project of a 
 ship railway, and finally to be carried to completion in the 
 twentieth century by a British company under the lead of 
 Sir Weetman Pearson, in the construction of a fine railroad 
 with ample shipping terminals, a work calculated to be a 
 not insignificant rival of the Panama railroad and canal. 
 
 More and more, however, both European and American at- 
 tention was recalled to and centred upon the Panama route, 
 and other possible routes on the lower Isthmus. There 
 arose in that region a sharp rivalry between Great Britain 
 and the United States. This had its origin in 1850, when 
 Dr. Edgar Cullen, of Dublin, residing at Bogota, laid before 
 the Royal Geographical Society of London a most favourable 
 report upon the Caledonian Bay route. Lord Palmerston, 
 flushed with his Clayton-Bulwer triumph, and expecting 
 great things in Nicaragua, paid no attention to it, but practi- 
 cal business men in London assumed a more favourable atti- 
 tude. A corporation was formed, which sent out Lionel Gis- 
 borne, an engineer, to make surveys. The local Indian tribes 
 drove him away from the Caledonian Bay region, and he 
 went to Panama. There he began surveys, but had more 
 trouble with the natives, and finally went home with his 
 work unfinished. He made a favourable report upon the 
 Panama route, declaring that the greatest height of land 
 to be overcome was only 150 feet above sea level, a statement 
 which attracted much attention in England and on the 
 continent. Meantime Dr. Cullen secured from the New 
 Granadan Government at Bogota a concession for a canal 
 on the Caledonian Bay route, and declined the earnest en- 
 treaties of a French company to be permitted to share in the 
 enterprise. 
 
 These things aroused the apprehension of James Bu- 
 
FREDEEICK KELLY'S SURVEYS 69 
 
 chanan, then American Minister to England, and he urged 
 the United States Government to do something to counter- 
 act them. Accordingly, Lieutenant Isaac C. Strain, of the 
 United States Navy, was sent to Caledonian Bay with a sur- 
 veying party. Marching inland, he found mountains from 
 1,000 to 3,500 feet high in the way of a canal, which he re- 
 garded as practically insurmountable obstacles. He there- 
 upon returned to the coast, discouraged, and there met Gis- 
 borne's party and a French surveying party. Joining forces 
 with the former, he returned inland and made his way across 
 the Isthmus, with great difficulty and with complete con- 
 firmation of his first unfavourable impressions. Thus, as 
 he said, he ''dispersed a magnificent and dangerous fallacy" 
 — the fallacy originated in 1680 by Sharpe and Wafer. 
 
 The Caledonian Bay route was thereupon abandoned. The 
 several Atrato routes were next considered. We have al- 
 ready referred to the legends of a natural waterway in that 
 region (quoted by Mr. Scruggs from Governor Alceda), and 
 of the canal dug by a priest in 1788 in the Raspadura Ravine 
 (cited and credited by Humboldt). It was further said that 
 in 1799 the attention of the French Government had been 
 called to the Raspadura canal by a French pilot, and that 
 in 1820 a ship's boat had been taken from ocean to ocean by 
 that route. Moreover, Humboldt, as the result of personal 
 observations and inquiries, had declared that no chain of 
 mountains or even ridge of partition existed in that region. 
 If these reports were true, it seemed that there was the most 
 promising route for a canal. In order to determine their 
 truth or falsity Frederick Kelly, an American capitalist, in 
 1851, sent J. C. Trautwine, one of the engineers of the Panama 
 Railroad, to explore the Atrato valley. The result was that 
 the story of the priest's canal in the Ravine of Raspadura 
 was pronounced to be entirely fanciful. Two more survey- 
 ing parties were sent to the same general region by Mr. Kelly 
 in 1853, with unsatisfactory results. A fourth, sent in 1854 
 to the Atrato-Truando route, made more favourable reports. 
 Mr. Kelly then went to England and France and aroused 
 
10 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 there some interest in his researches and plans, but failed 
 to attain any practical results. 
 
 In 1857 President Buchanan sent to the Atrato region 
 Lieutenants Nathaniel Michler, U. S. A., and T. A. Craven, 
 U. S. N., to make surveys. The former made a favourable 
 report, declaring that a canal could be constructed at that 
 point, at a cost of $134,000,000. Lieutenant Craven, on the 
 other hand, condemned the entire scheme as quite imprac- 
 ticable. Again, Mr. Kelly asked Colonel Totten, U. S. A., the 
 chief engineer of the Panama railroad, his opinion concern- 
 ing a canal at Panama, and especially concerning one at sea 
 level. Colonel Totten replied that a sea-level canal was im- 
 practicable, that any canal that was cut there would neces- 
 sarily have ten or twelve locks, and that it was by no means 
 certain that the Chagres River could be controlled by any 
 engineering device. From these discouragements Mr. Kelly, 
 who was one of the most resolute and unsparing of canal 
 promoters, in 1863 turned to the San Bias route as a last 
 resort. That route was at that date almost unknown, the 
 formidable San Bias Indians, who down to this day keep all 
 strangers out of their country, having prevented explora- 
 tions and surveys. A party was sent thither by Mr. Kelly, 
 but the Indians would not permit anything like a thorough 
 survey. Enough was ascertained, however, to convince the 
 explorers that a tunnel seven miles long would be necessary, 
 and on their return they so reported. At this Mr. Kelly 
 reluctantly^, but finally, gave up the whole enterprise. 
 
 Lieutenant Strain's exposure of the Caledonian Bay fal- 
 lacy did not discourge some enthusiastic French promoters, 
 who in 1861 had further surveys made there by M. Bourdiol, 
 working from the Pacific coast. He did not succeed in cross- 
 ing the Isthmus, but reported that it was entirely feasible 
 to make a canal there, and that the extreme elevation of land 
 on the route was only 144 feet. M. Airian, a French resi- 
 dent of Bogota, also made surveys, and reported that there 
 was no mountain range in that region, but only scattered 
 hills, and that the extreme elevation was only 161 feet A 
 
THE CHIKIQUI LAGOON 11 
 
 third Frenchman, M. de Puydt, professed to have discovered 
 another route, near by, with an elevation of only 101 feet, 
 and backed up his report with some old Spanish documents 
 and a map which had been found in Madrid. Two properly 
 equipped surveying parties were thereupon sent to that 
 region. One was sent by a speculative company, and it pro- 
 fessed to find a satisfactory Atrato-San Miguel route with 
 an extreme elevation of 190 feet. The other, sent by the 
 Compagnie Gen^rale Transatlantique, reported that it would 
 be practically impossible to construct a canal in that place. 
 
 Nor was the other end of the Panama Isthmus neglected. 
 The great Chiriqui Lagoon, adjoining the Costa Rica border, 
 on the Caribbean coast, appeared to furnish an advantageous 
 starting place for a canal, and in 1859-60 President Bu- 
 chanan had surveys made there, though not so much for a 
 canal as for a railroad and for a naval and coaling station. 
 A Chiriqui Improvement Company was formed in the United 
 States, and secured valuable concessions. At the outbreak 
 of the Civil War the enterprise languished, but in 1862 
 President Lincoln planned to purchase the rights of the 
 company and to establish there a great colony of emanci- 
 pated negroes. The employment of the negroes in the army 
 and elsewhere caused, however, the abandonment of this 
 scheme. 
 
 After the Civil War renewed attention was given to the 
 canal project. Rear-Admiral Davis, U. S. N., in 1866-67 
 made a strong report against the Childs route in Nicaragua, 
 and in favour of a canal at Panama. Following this, in 
 1869, the United States made a treaty with Colombia (the 
 new name of New Granada) for the construction by this 
 country of a canal at Panama, which was to be, as after- 
 ward explained, "an American canal under American con- 
 trol," but the Senate of the United States refused to ratify 
 the treaty when it was submitted by President Johnson, and 
 the submission of a similar treaty by President Grant in 
 1870 met with the same deplorable fate. In 1872-73 the 
 United States had surveys made of several routes, the report 
 
72 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 upon ^Nicaragua, made by Commander E. P. Lull and Lieu- 
 tenant A. G. Menocal, being the most favourable. This so 
 encouraged the Niearaguan Government to expect the speedy 
 construction of a canal by the United States that in 1877 it 
 refused a concession to Ferdinand de Lesseps who, flushed 
 with his great success at Suez, was looking to America for 
 new isthmuses to conquer. 
 
 More and more diplomacy entered into the problem, and 
 it became evident that there would have to be a strong 
 assertion of the American policy and of American rights. 
 In 1856 Secretary Marcy had announced his intention of 
 asking other nations to join in guaranteeing the neutrality 
 of the Panama route. Secretary Seward in 1862, in the 
 midst of the perplexities and complications of the Civil War, 
 was for a time inclined to follow that unworthy precedent, 
 and went so far as to make overtures to the British and 
 French governments to that end. On both these occasions, 
 however, it should be noted, the provocation to such action 
 was found in serious disorders on the Isthmus. A better 
 policy was enunciated by Mr. Seward in 1866, when the re- 
 turn of peace had given him a more free hand in dealing 
 with foreign affairs. He then suggested the purchase of 
 Tigre Island from Honduras as a coaling station, and hinted 
 at the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, or the 
 declaration that it had already become void, on the ground 
 that its object, the construction of a canal, had not been 
 accomplished nor even attempted. Mr. Charles Francis 
 Adams, our Minister to England, however, deprecated any 
 further controversy with Great Britain at that time, wisely 
 realising how great a controversy with that country was al- 
 ready on hand, in the Alabama claims. The matter of 
 abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was therefore not 
 pressed. 
 
 In 1868 the highly important Dickinson-Ayon treaty was 
 made with Nicaragua, under which this country secured — 
 though not exclusively — the right of way for a canal across 
 that country. In return, the United States was to guarantee 
 
AMEEICAN POLICY ASSEKTED 73 
 
 the neutrality of the canal, under the supreme sovereignty 
 of Nicaragua, and was to ask other nations to join in the 
 guarantee. Mr. Seward also attempted to make a new 
 treaty with Colombia in 1869, under which the United States 
 should have exclusive rights in the canal to be constructed 
 there. In time of war the canal was not to be open to ene- 
 mies of the United States, and there was to be a twenty-mile 
 "Canal Zone" under the neutral guarantee of this country. 
 This treaty was negotiated but failed of ratification. It 
 was nevertheless an indication of the change of official and 
 popular sentiment which was taking place in this country. 
 
 Finally, the true and ultimate American doctrine was 
 enunciated by President Grant — that of "an American canal 
 under American control," though this exact phrase was put 
 forth by President Hayes. "I regard it," said President 
 Grant, in 1869, "as of vast political importance to this coun- 
 try that no European government should hold such a work." 
 Later, in a notable article in the North American Review, 
 in February, 1881, he wrote these golden words: 
 
 "In accordance with the early and later policy of the gov- 
 ernment, in obedience to the often expressed will of the 
 American people, with a due regard to our national dignity 
 and power, with a watchful care for the safety and pros- 
 perity of our interests and industries on this continent, and 
 with a determination to guard against even the first ap- 
 proach of rival powers, whether friendly or hostile, on these 
 shores, I commend an American canal, on American soil, to 
 the American people." 
 
 It was in pursuance of the policy expressed by him in 
 1869 that in that year he appointed an Interoceanic Canal 
 Commission. This body consisted of General A. A. Hum- 
 phreys, the Chief of Engineers of the United States Army ; 
 C. P. Patterson, Superintendent of the Coast Survey; and 
 Kear-Admiral Daniel Ammen, the Chief of the Bureau of 
 Navigation of the United States Navy. Under the direc- 
 tions of this very competent commission, four important 
 surveys were promptly undertaken. The first, under Com- 
 
U SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 mander T. O. Selfridge, U. S. N., proceeded to the Isthmus of 
 Darien. It carefully examined the Caledonian Bay route, 
 confirmed the unfavourable reports of Strain, and finally 
 pronounced that route impracticable. The same expedition 
 then went to the San Bias route and examined it far more 
 thoroughly than any preceding party had done, in the end 
 reporting that it, too, was impracticable. The next year, 
 1871, Commander Selfridge led his men to the valley of the 
 Atrato River, and there surveyed two routes. One of these, 
 the Atrato-Tuyra, he pronounced impossible. The other, the 
 Atrato-Napipi route, to Chiri-Chiri Bay, impressed him 
 favourably, and he made a report recommending its 
 adoption. 
 
 The second party, under Captain R. W. Shufeldt, went in 
 the fall of 1870 to the Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec and 
 carefully surveyed it. The resulting report was to the effect 
 that a canal at that point was practicable, but was not ad- 
 visable because of the great expense of constructing it. The 
 third party was under the direction of Captain Chester Hat- 
 field. It went in. 1872 to Nicaragua and investigated the 
 principal routes which had been suggested there. Of these 
 it rejected Oersted's as impractical, or at least undesirable, 
 and recommended Childs's. Another surveying party, under 
 Captain E. P. Lull and Lieutenant A. G. Menocal, followed 
 in the same region and with the same result, advocating the 
 construction of a canal on Childs's route, with its Pacific 
 terminal at Brito. The fourth survey was effected by 
 Messrs. Lull and Menocal at Panama, on the route from 
 Panama to the Bay of Limon. The report was to the effect 
 that a canal with locks might be constructed there, but that 
 the Chagres River made a sea-level canal impossible. 
 
 Upon receiving these reports, the Interoceanic Canal Com- 
 mission hesitated to decide among them, and ordered some 
 further surveys to be made. It sent a special surveying 
 party, composed of Major Walter MacFarland and Captain 
 W. H. Heuer, U. S. A., engineers, and Professor Henry 
 Mitchell of the U, S, Coast Survey, to examine the Nica- 
 
NICARAGUA FAVOURED 15 
 
 ragua and Darien routes. Messrs. Lull and Menocal were 
 sent to San Bias, and confirmed Selfridge's unfavourable 
 report. Lieutenant Frederick Collins was detailed to ex- 
 amine the Atrato-Napipi route, and reported that a canal 
 there would cost more than fifty per cent, more than Self- 
 ridge had estimated. At last, at the end of 1875, the Com- 
 mission had secured all available data, and on February 7, 
 1876, it made a unanimous report to President Grant in 
 favour of the Nicaragua route, from Greytown to the San 
 Juan River, to Lake Nicaragua, through the Rio del Medio 
 and Rio Grande valleys, to Brito, on the Pacific Coast. 
 
 This report was received as practically conclusive. It 
 was evident, however, that if it was to be adopted and a 
 canal was to be built at Nicaragua according to President 
 Grant's policy of exclusive American control, the Clayton- 
 Bulwer treaty must be modified or abrogated. The Secre- 
 tary of State, Hamilton Fish, therefore began tentative 
 negotiations with Great Britain to that end, and at the 
 same time he opened negotiations with Nicaragua for a canal 
 treaty. In neither case was anything practical effected, and 
 President Grant's administration closed with the canal proj- 
 ect apparently as far from realisation as ever. It left, how- 
 ever, to the succeeding administration of President Hayes an 
 invaluable legacy of plans and sound policy. 
 
 Meantime the French were at work again. In the winter 
 of 1874-75 an adventurer named Gorgoza appeared at 
 Bogotd, representing himself as the agent of a French com- 
 pany which was ready to undertake the construction of a 
 canal. In that capacity he secured a hearing before the 
 Colombian Congress, which was quite ready to listen to any 
 scheme that promised to put money into its treasury. M. 
 Gorgoza positively asserted that in 1868 he had himself 
 solved the ^^Secret of the Strait" by making the passage 
 from sea to sea in a boat, by way of the Atrato River. This 
 achievement, he said, he had reported to Commander Self- 
 ridge, when the latter was surveying that region for the 
 United States Government, but Sel fridge had simply laughed 
 
76 SOME FUTILE SCHEMES 
 
 at him for his pains. It is quite possible, indeed probable, 
 that this latter story was true. There is little doubt that if 
 Gorgoza did tell the story of his marvellous voyage, Selfridge 
 laughed at him ; for Gorgoza solemnly declared that he had 
 been accompanied on the trip by two other men, one of whom 
 had since died, while he really could not remember who the 
 other was. 
 
 On the strength of this cock-and-bull story, however, Gor- 
 goza secured a concession for a canal, which he took back 
 to Paris in triumph in the fall of 1876. This moved a lot 
 of "Old Imperialists," who still hoped to effect a Bonapartist 
 restoration, to organise a speculative corporation called "La 
 Society Civile Internationale du Canal Interoceanique," for 
 the promotion of canal schemes on the lower Isthmus. At 
 the head of it were Lieutenant Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte 
 Wyse, and his brother-in-law. General Etienne Turr. Count 
 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, was 
 also interested in it, and on his advice Lieutenant Wyse went 
 to the Isthmus and explored Gorgoza's Atrato-Tuyra route, 
 which he found impracticable. A modification of it, how- 
 ever, from the Tuyra River to Acanti Bay, commended itself 
 to him and he reported in its favour. De Lesseps was not 
 pleased with it, and on his urging Wyse again, in 1877, went 
 to the Isthmus, with Lieutenant Armand Eeclus — a member 
 of the famous family of that name, of geographers and 
 scientists. They first examined the San Bias route, and 
 found it impracticable, and then Wyse's Acanti route, which 
 seemed no better, Wyse himself confessing it to be quite 
 hopeless. 
 
 As a last resort, therefore, they proceeded to Panama. 
 There Reclus undertook a survey of the route, while Wyse 
 hastened to Bogotd, and persuaded the Government to give 
 him a concession for a canal anywhere on the Isthmus, pro- 
 vided he or his company could make satisfactory terms with 
 the Panama Railroad Company. Wyse, on his part, cove- 
 nanted to organise a construction company within two years, 
 and to complete the canal within twelve years thereafter. 
 
ORIGIN OF THE DE LESSEPS SCHEME 77 
 
 From Bogotd he went to Nicaragua and devoted his atten- 
 tion to defeating in the Legislature of that country a bill 
 giving a concession there to a rival French company. Thence 
 he came to New York, and made a bargain with the Panama 
 Railroad Company. Finally he returned to Paris, in Au- 
 gust, 1878, and laid his plans before De Lesseps and the 
 Soci^te Civile. Reclus, meantime, had done little more at 
 Panama than to walk across the Isthmus along the line of 
 the railroad, but on the strength of that achievement he too 
 returned to Paris in 1878, and made an authoritative and 
 favourable report upon the Panama route. Thereupon the 
 Societe Civile decided to adopt that route, the canal to be 
 cut at sea level, with a tunnel four and a half miles long. 
 The Atrato-Tuyra, the Acanti, and the San Bias routes were 
 still talked about, but only as foils to that at Panama. 
 Finally, announcement was made that an International 
 Engineering Congress would be held in Paris in 1879, under 
 the presidency of De Lesseps, to consider and definitely pass 
 upon the whole question. It is interesting to observe that 
 the "Old Imperialists" thus promoted and committed them- 
 selves to a canal at Panama, of which Louis Napoleon had 
 written in 1848 that it "could cross only a country which 
 was marshy, unwholesome, desolate, and uninhabitable, 
 which would afford a passage of thirty miles through stag- 
 nant waters and barren rocks, yielding no spot of ground 
 fitted for the growth of a trading community, for sheltering 
 fleets, or for the development and interchange of the produce 
 of the soiL" 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 "CONSULE LESSEPS" 
 
 The International Engineering Congress, or Interna- 
 tional Scientific Congress, as it has been variously called, 
 was assembled at the call of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, in 
 Paris, on May 15, 1879. It consisted of 136 delegates, offi- 
 cial and unofficial. The majority of them — seventy-four — 
 were Frenchmen, as w^as not unnatural, and were friends and 
 supporters of De Lesseps. Indeed, the whole body was most 
 favourably disposed toward that distinguished man, who 
 had at Suez achieved in the face of enormous difficulties a 
 success beyond even 'the loftiest flights of his own imagina- 
 tion. Eleven members were from the United States. Of 
 these, only two were officially commissioned by the American 
 Government, to wit. Rear- Admiral Ammen and Lieutenant 
 Menocal, and they were carefully instructed not to commit 
 the United States in any way to support or approval of the 
 decisions of the Congress. Other American members, who 
 attended in an unofficial capacity, on De Lesseps's invita- 
 tion, were Nathan Appleton, of Boston, a close friend of 
 De Lesseps; Cyrus W. Field, and Commander Selfridge. 
 
 Whether the Congress was or was not a "packed" body, 
 with a predetermined programme, is a question which prob- 
 ably never can be satisfactorily answered. De Lesseps and 
 his friends earnestly protested that it was not. Many Amer- 
 ican and British observers with equal positiveness declared 
 that it was, and the latter opinion probably prevails and will 
 continue to prevail the more widely. One thing is certain, 
 from the record, that it was a great misnomer to call it an 
 "Engineering" or a "Scientific" congress. It was nothing 
 of the sort. It was a speculative gathering. Of the 136 
 
 78 
 
CUT AND DKIED PLANS 79 
 
 members, only forty -two were engineers or geographers. The 
 majority were politicians, financiers, speculators, and "pro- 
 moters.'^ That fact gave much colour to the charge that it 
 was a "packed" body, and the proceedings of the Congress 
 did not dispel that impression. 
 
 Ferdinand de Lesseps himself presided, and appointed 
 a number of committees, the most important of which, and 
 the only one which we need consider, was that on the choice 
 of route. It consisted of fifty-four members, and was be- 
 lieved to have been chosen by De Lesseps to ratify his own 
 judgment in favour of the Panama route. Its American 
 members were Commander Selfridge and Lieutenant Meno- 
 cal. It spent some time in consideration of the various 
 routes. De Lesseps was 6utspoken in favour of the Wyse- 
 Reclus route, at Panama, which was, as he said, to go up the 
 Chagres River, then "under the Cordillera by means of an 
 immense tunnel," afterward abandoned in favour of a cut, 
 and then down the Rio Grande to the Pacific; at sea level 
 all the way. Mr. Appleton still clung to the San Bias route, 
 as the shortest, despite its forbidding length of tunnel. 
 Commander Selfridge advocated his Atrato route, at Darien. 
 
 If this committee was "packed," the fact did not at once 
 appear. In fact, at first it seemed decidedly hostile to the 
 Panama route, on the ground that it was much more costly 
 than that at Nicaragua. To meet and dispose of this ob- 
 jection. Lieutenant Wyse modified his plans so as to pro- 
 vide for a canal with locks, which would be cheaper than one 
 at sea level. This, however, would deprive the Panama 
 route of its one great advantage over all others, and it was 
 argued that if there must be locks, a lock canal at Nicaragua 
 was preferable to one at Panama. The partisans of De 
 Lesseps began, however, to make it clear that despite their 
 apparent hesitation at first, they were resolved to report in 
 favour of Panama. A number of the committee, including 
 the Americans, the English, and some French engineers, 
 withdrew from the proceedings in disgust. Then the re- 
 mainder of the committee quickly adopted a resolution in 
 
80 " CONSULE LESSEPS " 
 
 favour of Panama, and submitted it to the whole Congress, 
 or to all that was left of the latter body. When it came to a 
 vote, only 98 of the 136 delegates recorded themselves. Of 
 these, seventy-five, an overwhelming majority, were in favour 
 of Panama. But of these seventy-five, only nineteen were 
 engineers, only five were practising engineers, and only one 
 had ever set foot upon the Isthmus of Panama. In such 
 fashion did this "scientific" congress decide this momentous 
 question. But it served its purpose. On October 20, fol- 
 lowing, the Universal Interoceanic Canal Company was 
 organised and incorporated by De Lesseps in Paris, under 
 Wyse's concession of May 18, 1878, the Soci6t6 Civile having 
 already sold out to him its rights. 
 
 Public reports of these doings, and especially the official 
 reports of Messrs. Ammen and Menocal, aroused American 
 interest in the French scheme, and moved both Houses of 
 Congress to apprehension, and to resentment against what 
 threatened to be an infringement upon the Monroe Doc- 
 trine. American enterprise also busied itself with counter 
 schemes. A Provisional Interoceanic Canal Company was 
 organised, for the purpose of constructing a canal at 
 Nicaragua, among its members being Captain S. L. Phelps, 
 Rear-Admiral Ammen, General George B. McClellan, Lieu- 
 tenant A. G. Menocal, and Messrs. Levi P. Morton, George 
 W. Riggs, and Hugh J. Jewett. Lieutenant Menocal was 
 commissioned to go to Nicaragua to secure a concession, 
 which he did, the condition being that the company should 
 begin work within two years from May 22, 1880, the time 
 being afterward extended to September 30, 1884. There 
 also arose some distrust of De Lesseps's scheme and some 
 reaction against him in France itself, on account of which 
 he deemed it desirable to do something spectacular, which 
 would appeal to the imagination and arouse enthusiasm. 
 He accordingly went to Panama in the fall of 1879, and 
 "inaugurated" the canal scheme in a showy fashion. In 
 February, 1880, he reported that the plans of the canal were 
 perfected. It was to be a tide-level canal, twenty -eight feet 
 
PRESIDENT HAYES'S MESSAGE 81 
 
 deep, costing |132,000,000, and under a European guarantee 
 of neutrality. Then he came to the United States, was en- 
 tertained at a great public banquet at Delmonico's in New 
 York on March 1, and proceeded to Washington to try to 
 conciliate the Government — an impossible task. President 
 Hayes had been profoundly impressed by Grant's resolute 
 American canal policy, and committed himself unreservedly 
 to its maintenance. He received De Lesseps courteously, 
 but on March 8, just after their interview, he sent to the 
 Senate a message in which he said : 
 
 "I deem it proper to state briefly my opinion as to the 
 policy of the United States with respect to the construction 
 of an interoceanic canal by any route across the American 
 Isthmus. The policy of this country is a canal under Amer- 
 ican control. The United States cannot consent to the sur- 
 render of this control to any European powers. If existing 
 treaties between the United States and other nations, or if 
 the rights of sovereignty or property of other nations, stand 
 in the way of this policy, — a contingency which is not appre- 
 hended, — suitable steps should be taken by just and liberal 
 negotiations to promote and establish the American policy 
 on this subject, consistently with the rights of the nations to 
 be affected by it. The capital invested by corporations or 
 citizens of other countries in such an enterprise must, in a 
 great degree, look for protection to one or more of the great 
 powers of the world. No European power can intervene for 
 such protection, without adopting measures on this con- 
 tinent which the United States would deem wholly inadmis- 
 sible. If the protection of the United States is relied upon, 
 the United States must exercise such control as will enable 
 this country to protect its national interests and maintain 
 the rights of those whosd private capital is embarked in the 
 work. 
 
 "An interoceanic canal across the American Isthmus will 
 essentially change the geographical relations between the 
 Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, and be- 
 tween the United States and the rest of the world. It will 
 be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and 
 our Pacific shores, and virtually, a part of the coast line of 
 the United States. Our mere commercial interest in it is 
 larger than that of all other countries, while its relation to 
 
82 " OONSULE LESSEPS '' 
 
 our power and our prosperity as a nation, to our means of 
 defence, our unity, peace, and safety, are matters of para- 
 mount concern to the people of the United States. No other 
 great power would, under similar circumstances, fail to as- 
 sert a rightful control over a work so closely and vitally 
 affecting its interest and welfare. 
 
 ^'Without urging further the grounds of my opinion, I 
 repeat, in conclusion, that it is the right and the duty of the 
 United States to assert and maintain such supervision and 
 authority over any interoceanic canal across the isthmus 
 that connects North and South America as will protect our 
 national interests. This, I am quite sure, will be found not 
 only compatible with, but promotive of, the widest and most 
 permanent advantage to commerce and civilisation." 
 
 It will be worth while to pause for a moment in our nar- 
 rative and to note in detail some of the terms of this ad- 
 mirable declaration; especially since the present policy and 
 conduct of our Government have been ignorantly or heed- 
 lessly criticised as a new and dangerous departure. Noth- 
 ing that Theodore Roosevelt has said or done concerning 
 the Panama Canal has surpassed by one jot or tittle the 
 policy enunciated by Rutherford B. Hayes nearly a quarter 
 of a century before. Mr. Hayes proposed a canal under 
 sole and exclusive American control. No European power 
 w^as to be admitted to even the smallest share in it. If 
 European capitalists invested their money in the enterprise, 
 they must look to the United States alone for protection. 
 Moreover — and this is the climax of the matter — no existing 
 treaties, and no rights of property or of sovereignty of other 
 nations, were to be permitted to stand in the way of our 
 assertion of such control. If the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was 
 in the way, it must be abrogated. If any foreign power had 
 secured concessions or property rights on the Isthmus, it 
 must surrender them. If one of the Isthmian States at- 
 tempted to exercise its sovereignty so as to give a foreign 
 power control over a canal, that sovereignty must be trav- 
 ersed, and the State must be made to understand that its 
 sovereignty was not superior to the rights and interests of 
 
STRONG AMERICAN DOCTRINE 83 
 
 the United States. Mark that Mr. Hayes did not talk about 
 any American "privileges" on the Isthmus, but about our 
 *^rights." Of course, our control was to be established — if 
 possible — through just and liberal negotiations; such, for 
 example, as those which we essayed with Colombia in 1903. 
 But suppose negotiations failed, and some country attempted 
 to assert its property rights or rights of sovereignty, as 
 superior to and inimical to the rights and interests and wel- 
 fare of the United States? Nothing could be more clear and 
 unmistakable than the answer implied in Mr. Hayes's mes- 
 sage. No matter what happened, it would be "the right and 
 the duty of the United States to assert and maintain super- 
 vision over any interoceanic canal across the Isthmus.'' 
 
 Strong doctrine, that. Put forward in these days, it 
 would be denounced by some as "strenuous," "imperialistic," 
 "big stick," and what not. But that was the doctrine of 
 President Hayes, and of William M. Evarts, his Secretary of 
 State, in March, 1880. It was a much-needed warning to 
 De Lesseps and to France, that this country would not per- 
 mit the canal to be under European control or under any 
 European guarantee of neutrality, but that if Frenchmen 
 built it with French capital, the United States would as- 
 sume absolute control of it; French property rights to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. It was also a much-needed warn- 
 ing to Colombia to quit her secret dallyings with French in- 
 triguers. For De Lesseps was surreptitiously trying to per- 
 suade the Colombian Government to abrogate its Treaty of 
 1846 with the United States, or at least that part of it 
 (Article 35) which gave to the Government of the United 
 States "the right of way or transit across the Isthmus of 
 Panama . . . free of all incumbrances or restrictions 
 whatever," upon any railroad, canal, or other means of trans- 
 portation which might ever be constructed. De Lesseps per- 
 ceived that that treaty provision was as much in the way of 
 his canal as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was in our way at 
 Nicaragua, and so he bent every effort to secure its abroga- 
 tion, in which he might have succeeded had it not been for 
 
84 " CONSULE LESSEES " 
 
 the prompt and energetic action of the United States. The 
 President and the Secretary of State gave Colombia plainly 
 to understand that she would not be permitted to exercise 
 her sovereignty in the matter in a way displeasing to the 
 United States. It will be well to keep that masterful prec- 
 edent in mind hereafter, when considering American rela- 
 tions with Colombia at a later date. Nor was our Govern- 
 ment in 1880 content with mere words. Under the old con- 
 tract which President Lincoln had made in 1862 with the 
 Chiriqui Company, it took possession of a coaling station at 
 Boca del Toro, on the Chiriqui Lagoon, and also of another 
 at Golfito, and Congress appropriated |200,000 for the 
 Secretary of the Navy to use in taking further steps to con- 
 trol the Panama route. 
 
 In the face of this resolute attitude of the American Gov- 
 ernment, De Lesseps changed his tactics. He nominally 
 abandoned his "European control" scheme, and announced 
 to his French supporters that President Hayes's message 
 assured "the political security of the canal." Then he went 
 to work in another way to get rid of the troublesome Colom- 
 bian treaty, and also to kill off the rival Nicaragua scheme. 
 He organised an "American Committee," at the head of 
 which was the Hon. Richard W. Thompson, who had been 
 Secretary of the Navy under President Hayes; and he en- 
 gaged as American fiscal agents of his company the great 
 banking houses of J. & W. Seligman, Drexel, Morgan & Co., 
 and Winslow, Lanier & Co. The Committee and the bankers 
 were supplied with vast sums of money, presumably to be 
 used in influencing American opinion, subsidising the Amer- 
 ican press as that of France was subsidised, and affecting 
 legislation. 
 
 Some of the activities of these agents were soon visible 
 in the suggestion which was made by various public men 
 and papers in America, that the United States ought not to 
 oppose the abrogation of the Treaty of 1846 with Colombia, 
 but should rather itself seek it and take the initiative to that 
 end. Why? Because the treaty as it stood might presently 
 
THE FKENCH CAMPAIGN 86 
 
 involve us in some of those foreign entanglements which 
 the "Fathers of the Constitution'' had so deprecated and had 
 so earnestly warned us against. That is to say, France was 
 going to build and control the canal, anyway, and if we did 
 not want trouble over it, we would better get out of the road. 
 Some Americans, whose relations with De Lesseps's "Amer- 
 ican Committee" have not been fully disclosed but may be 
 imagined, actually set forth in public prints that for the 
 United States to insist upon and enforce the provisions of 
 that treaty would be such a violation of the Colombian con- 
 cession to the De Lesseps company that the French Govern- 
 ment might be called upon to intervene for the protection 
 of the latter, and so, if we did not wish to incur trouble 
 with France, we would better abrogate the treaty and with- 
 draw from our pretensions upon the Isthmus. 
 
 With this campaign of unparalleled impertinence set afoot 
 in the United States, and with lobbyists working day and 
 night at Washington to defeat the Nicaragua project, De 
 Lesseps in April, 1880, returned to France with the air of a 
 victor, to secure capital and organise a construction com- 
 pany. He reported that the construction of the Panama 
 Canal would be a mere trifle compared with that at Suez, and 
 that American opposition to it arose solely from Yankee 
 jealousy of French glory. He also subsidised a large part 
 of the French press and secured the active support of a num- 
 ber of influential French politicians. 
 
 Meantime there was a serious revival of interest in the 
 Tehuantepec route. It had the obvious advantage of being 
 much further north than either of the others. It was there- 
 fore closer to the coasts of the United States, and would 
 afford a shorter line of communication between them. It 
 would also give a shorter route from Europe to all points 
 on the northern Pacific Ocean. Climatically, it was decidedly 
 preferable to either Nicaragua or Panama. Politically, it 
 was the best of the three, for it was entirely included within 
 Mexico, a far larger, richer, and more powerful State than 
 Colombia or any of the Central American republics, and one 
 
86 « CONSULE LESSEPS '' 
 
 enjoying under the masterful statesmanship of Porfirio Diaz 
 a far more stable and enlightened government. The one grave 
 objection to Tehuantepec as a canal route was the greater 
 width and elevation of the Isthmus, and the consequent 
 necessity for so much more cutting. In 1880-81, however, it 
 was proposed to construct not a canal but a ship railroad, 
 by means of which the largest ocean steamship, fully laden, 
 would be taken from the water, placed upon an enormous 
 train of cars, conveyed overland, and put into the ocean at 
 the other side. Colossal as this scheme was, there is no rea- 
 son to think it was visionary or impracticable. It was con- 
 ceived and elaborated in detail by one of the most competent 
 engineers of his time. This was Captain James B. Eads, 
 who designed and built the great steel railroad bridge across 
 the Mississippi River at St. Louis, and who was the author 
 of the system of jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi, by 
 means of which the entrance to that river was made and 
 kept deep enough for navigation. He was fully convinced 
 of the practicability of his ship railroad scheme, and secured 
 from the Mexican Government a concession on favourable 
 terms for building it. 
 
 The summer and fall of 1880 were largely taken up in the 
 United States with a Presidential campaign and election, 
 but upon the reassembling of Congress in December the vari- 
 ous Isthmian transit schemes were taken under considera- 
 tion, and in that winter and the ensuing spring much time 
 was devoted to discussion of them. Captain Eads estimated 
 the cost of his railroad at only |18,750,000, but Congress 
 declined to give him any financial guarantee, and he was 
 ultimately compelled to abandon the splendid enterprise. 
 Neither was any aid given to the Nicaragua and Panama 
 undertakings. Therefore the tactical victory remained with 
 De Lesseps, since his venture was the only one which did not 
 seek nor need aid from the American Government. It was 
 felt in Congress, however, that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty 
 was a barrier against American action on any of the Isth- 
 muses, whether for building a canal of our own or for 
 
BLAINE'S "VIGOEOUS" POLICY 87 
 
 thwarting the unwelcome schemes of France. Accordingly, 
 on April 16, 1881, a joint resolution was adopted, requesting 
 the President to proceed immediately with steps for the 
 formal and final abrogation of that treaty. 
 
 James A. Garfield had then become President, and had 
 made James G. Blaine his Secretary of State. The latter, 
 who had long cherished a marked suspicion of and antago- 
 nism toward Great Britain, and who was inclined toward 
 what was called a ^^vigorous and aggressive" foreign policy, 
 obeyed the instructions of Congress with promptness and 
 avidity, and with rather more zeal than discretion. He be- 
 gan his negotiations against the Clayton-Bulwer treaty by 
 sending a circular letter to the American Ministers to all 
 the great powers, to be repeated by them to the governments 
 to which they were accredited, strongly — and rightly — 
 deprecating the proposal to establish a European guarantee 
 over an American canal. Such a guarantee, he argued, 
 would be superfluous, since the United States had already 
 "positively and efficaciously" guaranteed the neutrality of 
 the route in question, to wit, at Panama, and this guarantee 
 did not require reinforcement, accession, or assent from any 
 other power. 
 
 The proposed European guarantee would, moreover, he 
 argued, be offensive to the United States, since it would be 
 an uncalled-for intrusion into a field which this country 
 properly considered its own and in which the interests of the 
 United States were to be considered before those of any 
 other country, save Colombia. Quoting the words of his 
 predecessor, Mr. Evarts, he added that the United States 
 would insist upon its right to take all needful precautions 
 against the canal's ever being used offensively against Amer- 
 ican interests. He pointed out that if the proposed canal 
 were in or near Europe, it would be proper for the European 
 powers to safeguard it in their own interest, and that, con- 
 versely, as it would form practically a part of the American 
 coast line, remote from Europe, it was similarly proper for 
 the United States to safeguard it, and to do so without any 
 
88 " CONSULE LESSEPS " 
 
 European aid or intervention. Finally he roundly served 
 notice that any attempt of European powers to guarantee 
 the neutrality of the canal, and thus practically to establish 
 political control over it, would be viewed by the United 
 States with the gravest concern ; and any attempt to super- 
 sede the American guarantee with an agreement among Eu- 
 ropean military powers, would be regarded as a hostile alli- 
 ance against the United States. 
 
 That was all perfectly sound doctrine, in line with prec- 
 edents already well established by our Government. There 
 was no reason to suppose, either, that it would be challenged 
 or objected to by any of the powers of continental Europe. 
 But Mr. Blaine made the mistake of reckoning without 
 Great Britain. That kingdom stood in an entirely different 
 relation to the American Isthmuses from that of any other 
 power. It had territorial possessions there, and treaty 
 rights there, recognised and solemnly guaranteed by the 
 United States. This letter of Mr. Blaine's was practically 
 an attempt to ignore the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which was 
 something he had no right to do, and which from a tactical 
 point of view was a fatal mistake. He was putting the cart 
 before the horse. He should have first secured the abroga- 
 tion of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which could easily have 
 been done. Then this circular note would have been appro- 
 priate and effective. His mistake was in issuing first the 
 note, which should have come second, and of postponing to 
 the second place that which should have come first. 
 
 Realising the special interests of Great Britain in Central 
 America, and anticipating British resistance to his policy, 
 Mr. Blaine strove to fortify his position by rallying the 
 Central American States to his side. He first suggested to 
 those States the desirability of their reunion into a con- 
 federacy, as of old. This was found impracticable, where- 
 upon he changed his tactics and invited them to send dele- 
 gates to a "Pan-American Congress," to be held under 
 his management at Washington in November, 1882. This 
 scheme appeared to some like a revival of the old Panama 
 
BRITISH PRESSURE ON NICARAGUA 89 
 
 Congress of 1826, which the United States had treated with 
 scant courtesy, and was more favourably received by the 
 Central American States than his first suggestion had been. 
 Indeed it was approved by all excepting Costa Rica, which 
 was just then under French influence, and preparations were 
 made for the holding of the Congress. 
 
 British diplomacy, however, was not to be caught napping. 
 On the contrary, it got to work more quickly and more 
 effectively than Mr. Blaine's. At the first hint of American 
 action against the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the British Gov- 
 ernment confirmed its hold upon the Nicaragua route. This 
 was done by complaining of what was quite true, that Nica- 
 ragua had failed to pay the promised indemnity to the Mos- 
 quito Indians and had otherwise disregarded the treaty of 
 Managua (of 1860 — see Chapter IV), and by demanding that 
 the case thus established be submitted to the arbitration of 
 the Emperor of Austria. Now, Nicaragua had ignored her 
 treaty obligations because of American encouragement and 
 expectations of American aid. But when Great Britain 
 thus called her to account, American aid was not forth- 
 coming, and she was accordingly compelled to acquiesce in 
 the British proposals. The dispute was arbitrated by the 
 Austrian Emperor, and in July, 1881, his decision was 
 rendered. As might have been expected, it was unfavour- 
 able to Nicaragua. It declared that "Mosquitia" was au- 
 tonomous; that Nicaragua had no right to regulate trade, 
 levy duties, or grant concessions in Mosquitia; that the in- 
 demnity or subvention provided in the treaty of Managua 
 must be paid by Nicaragua ; and that in case of Nicaragua's 
 failure strictly to observe the treaty, Great Britain had a 
 right to intervene, for the protection of her own special 
 interests. Thus, with Nicaragua's assent, the British claim 
 to control of the Caribbean terminus of the Nicaragua canal 
 was re-established. 
 
 It was only when this had been done that Mr. Blaine made 
 his belated move for the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty — a move, in the circumstances, very much like trying 
 
90 " CONSULE LESSEPS " 
 
 to lock the stable door after the horse had been stolen, for it 
 was an attempt to prevent Great Britain from doing some- 
 thing after she had done it. The secret of this blundering 
 was, doubtless, the same that had been baneful ly operative 
 in Buchanan's time. The American Government wanted to 
 eat its cake and have it too. It wanted to get rid of the 
 Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and yet keep that instrument still in 
 force. It wanted to free itself of restrictions under it, and 
 yet keep Great Britain bound by those restrictions. And it 
 hesitated to abrogate the treaty, as it could have done at any 
 time, for fear of the consequences which might ensue when 
 Great Britain was freed from its suppositious trammels. 
 This was an attitude all the more weak and unworthy on our 
 part, because as a matter of fact Great Britain had never 
 been bound by the treaty in a more than nominal way, but 
 had, whenever she pleased, been able to find in it a loop- 
 hole big enough to permit the passage of a coach and four. 
 
 So it was not until four months after the re-establishment 
 of practical British sovereignty over the Mosquito Coast, to 
 wit, on November 19, 1881, that Mr. Blaine definitely moved 
 for abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. He then 
 wrote a long letter to the British Government, through the 
 American Minister in London, James Russell Lowell, elabo- 
 rately reviewing the history of the treaty and analysing the 
 changed conditions. He pointed out that the United States 
 was now able and ready to build the canal, but that while 
 under the treaty this country would be forbidden to send a 
 , single soldier to guard it, Great Britain would be free to 
 send warships thither to control it. This, he rightly argued, 
 was unjust. A European guarantee of neutrality would be 
 ineffective, because a European war, between two of the 
 guaranteeing powers, would instantly convert the canal into 
 a scene of hostilities. Again, the existence of that treaty 
 prevented the United States from asserting its own treaty 
 rights against France in Panama. For these and other rea- 
 sons, he insisted that the Isthmuses should be placed under 
 the sole protection of the United States, in return for which 
 
GKANVILLE^S KEPLY TO BLAINE 91 
 
 this country would guarantee absolute neutrality of the 
 canal to all European powers. He therefore hoped the 
 British Government would assent to a modification of 
 the treaty in accordance with American demands — that is, 
 that America should be released from the treaty, while 
 Great Britain should still be bound by it. 
 
 Before this weak and impotent communication reached 
 England or was known to the British Government, the 
 British Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville — a statesman al- 
 ways conspicuous for his friendliness to America — had des- 
 patched a note to Washington, commenting with some ex- 
 pression of surprise upon Mr. Blaine's circular letter of 
 June 24, reminding the American Government of the pro- 
 visions of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and saying bluntly 
 that the British Government expected all the provisions of 
 that treaty to be fulfilled. This note was dated November 
 10, 1881. On November 29 Mr. Blaine sent to Mr. Lowell a 
 second note, elaborately trying to reopen the phases of the 
 case which had been definitely closed by Mr. Buchanan 
 twenty-five years before. He argued, as Mr. Buchanan had 
 argued, that the treaty engagements had been entered into 
 misunderstandingly, comprehended imperfectly, and inter- 
 preted contradictorily. But instead of concluding, as Mr. 
 Buchanan had done, that in spite of these things the treaty 
 might stand, he insisted that it should be revised or abro- 
 gated. Mr. Buchanan in 1859 declared himself "entirely 
 satisfied." Mr. Blaine in 1881, on precisely the same 
 grounds and no others, declared himself entirely dissatis- 
 fied. Had Mr. Blaine based his dissatisfaction and his 
 demand for revision upon occurrences subsequent to Mr. 
 Buchanan's closure of the case, his argument might have 
 been effective. Failing to do so, he subjected himself to 
 Lord Granville's curt reply, that his contentions were "novel 
 in international law." 
 
 The British diplomat continued, on January 7, 1882, with 
 a long historical and legal argument, effectively traversing 
 Mr. Blaine's two letters. He reminded the American Gov- 
 
92 " CONSULE LESSEES " 
 
 ernment that Great Britain had at one time offered to abro- 
 gate the Clayton-Bulwer treaty on condition that there 
 should then be a reversion to the status quo ante, but that 
 the United States had declined ; and in fine he refused to let 
 the treaty be made over to suit the United States without 
 regard to British interests. 
 
 Meantime, in the summer of 1881, President Garfield had 
 been murdered, and had been succeeded by Chester A. 
 Arthur. In time there was a reorganisation of the Cabinet, 
 and Frederick T. Frelinghuysen took Mr. Blaine's place as 
 Secretary of State. It fell to his lot to reply to Lord Gran- 
 ville's note and to continue the controversy, and while he 
 did so to no substantial effect, he somewhat improved upon 
 the controversial standard of his predecessor. Writing to 
 Mr. Lowell, he set down as the corner-stone of his policy the 
 principle of the Monroe doctrine, that the American Gov- 
 ernment could not assent to any intervention of European 
 powers in the political affairs of the American republics, and 
 therefore, he continued, European guarantee of the neutral- 
 ity of an American canal was inadmissible. 
 
 Proceeding from this general principle to a consideration 
 of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, he argued that the objects of 
 that instrument were three in number. One was the con- 
 struction of a Nicaragua Canal. It had failed, after many 
 years, to effect that object, and therefore in that respect was 
 to be considered as having lapsed. The second object was to 
 prevent Great Britain from extending or establishing settle- 
 ments and sovereignty in Central America, under whatever 
 guise. This object also had failed, he said, through Great 
 Britain's flagrant disregard and violation of the treaty ; and 
 he denied the right of Great Britain to erect the timber-cut- 
 ting camps in Honduras into a colony. The third object 
 was the co-operation of the two governments in the control 
 of any canal that might be built, at Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, 
 or Panama. But this, argued Mr. Frelinghuysen, obviously 
 applied to only the projects at that time under considera- 
 tion, all of which had long since lapsed ; and it could not be 
 
FRELINGHUYSEN AND GRANVILLE 93 
 
 regarded as applying to entirely new projects which had 
 originated since that time. Finally he argued, with much 
 cogency, that the United States treaty with Colombia, of 
 1846, giving this country exclusive rights over the Isthmus 
 of Panama, had been concluded before the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty, and was not superseded by the latter; and therefore, 
 whether or not the United States was to remain bound by 
 the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in Nicaragua, it certainly was not 
 so bound at Panama, but had a free hand under the Co- 
 lombian treaty of 1846. 
 
 Lord Granville replied by denying that Great Britain had 
 violated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. He pointed out that 
 that treaty was by its own terms applicable not only to then 
 existing canal schemes but also "to any other" which might 
 at any time be put forward, and especially to any at 
 Tehuantepec or Panama. As to the colony of British Hon- 
 duras, he defended it with Mr. Frelinghuysen's own argu- 
 ment of priority, on the ground that it had been established 
 before the negotiation of the treaty. He would not even 
 concede that the treaty had lapsed in respect to its first ob- 
 ject, of securing a canal at Nicaragua, because no time had 
 been stipulated in which that canal was to be built. Fi- 
 nally, he neatly argued that the United States ought not to 
 bring up the Monroe Doctrine as a reason for abrogating the 
 Clayton-Bulwer treaty, since that doctrine had not been re- 
 garded as a bar to the making of that treaty. The corre- 
 spondence between Mr. Frelinghuysen and Lord Granville 
 finally ceased, leaving the whole controversy about where it 
 had been before. The United States was hopelessly handi- 
 capped by the blunderings of Mr. Buchanan's time, and by 
 Mr. Blaine's inept attempt to reopen them, and settlement 
 of the vexatious matter was deferred to a later date and to 
 the hands of a more diplomatic statesman. 
 
 From these fruitless debates American attention was 
 turned back to the schemes and operations of De Lesseps. 
 That ambitious and resourceful promoter went rapidly and 
 resolutely forward with his great undertaking. Actual 
 
94 « CONSULE LESSEPS " 
 
 construction work was begun on February 1, 1881, and an- 
 nouncement was made that within a year thousands of men 
 would be busy all along the line, and that the canal would 
 be open to commerce in 1888. So well did he succeed in 
 arousing interest, enthusiasm, and confidence in the enter- 
 prise that when the first subscriptions for $60,000,000 cap- 
 ital were called for, |120,660,900 was promptly offered. Of 
 these offerings, $99,450,800 were from French people, mostly 
 in small lots. The original share-holders were 102,230 in 
 number, about 16,000 of them being women in their own 
 names. Of them, 80,839 had from one to five shares each, 
 19,143 from six to twenty shares, and 3,028 from twenty-one 
 to fifty shares. 
 
 The work was ^'inaugurated" on February 1, 1881. In 
 emulation of the gala performance of Verdi's "Aida" at the 
 opening of the Suez Canal, Sarah Bernhardt went to Pan- 
 ama and presented a drama in the wretched little box of a 
 playhouse which was then the only theatre of the city. In 
 October of that year about three hundred Europeans went to 
 the Isthmus to prepare for extensive operations, and in 1882 
 thousands of men were at work from Colon to Panama. 
 Money was spent lavishly. Enormous salaries were paid to 
 directors and engineers. Thousands of buildings were 
 erected, for hospitals, hotels, warehouses, and what not. 
 Elegant private mansions were built for the directors of the 
 work. Machinery and other supplies were purchased in 
 vast quantities, largely untried and unsuited to the work. 
 An army of gamblers and harlots invaded the Isthmus. 
 Neglect of sanitation gave opportunity for pestilences to run 
 riot and to sweep off thousands of victims. A great amount 
 of effective work was done, but at far too great a cost. The 
 general state of affairs was scarcely exaggerated by Froude, 
 when he wrote that ''in all the world there is perhaps not 
 now concentrated in any single spot so much swindling and 
 villainy, so much foul disease, such a hideous dungheap of 
 moral and physical abomination." Meantime, De Lesseps 
 remained in France, probably unconscious of half that was 
 
going on at Panama. Glowing reports came of what was 
 being done, and his fame steadily rose to the climax of hero- 
 worship. In 1884 he was elected to the French Academy as 
 the successor of Henri Martin, who had been the successor of 
 Adolphe Thiers, and was saluted by Leon Gambetta with the 
 title of "Le Grand Frangais," which ever afterward clung to 
 him. On April 23, 1885, he was formally seated among the 
 "Immortals," Victor Hugo being his sponsor and Ernest 
 Renan delivering the oration of welcome. 
 
 Behind all this brilliance, the shadows were gathering. 
 In* 1885 a serious insurrection occurred on the Isthmus, 
 largely promoted, if not incited, by French intrigues. The 
 city of Colon was looted and burned, and Panama was saved 
 from a like fate only by the intervention of a United States 
 naval force, which went thither under the provisions of the 
 Treaty of 1846. Against this perfectly lawful action of the 
 American Government the French consul bitterly protested, 
 and French sympathy with the insurgents was further 
 shown by the asylum given to the insurgent chief, Aizpuru, 
 on board the French flagship. Two years later came the be- 
 ginning of the end. Far more money had been spent than 
 the total original estimates, yet the work was scarcely two- 
 fifths done. The Congress of 1879 had reckoned a tide-level 
 canal twenty-eight feet deep could be completed for |114,- 
 000,000, in seven or eight years. By 1887 it was concluded 
 that a lock canal, only fifteen feet deep, would cost $351,- 
 000,000 and would take twenty years to build. The seven 
 construction companies which had been working under con- 
 tracts withdrew from the field, and in November, 1887, the 
 whole job was turned over to M. Eiffel, the French engineer, 
 who had had the contract for building the locks. Efforts 
 were made to raise more money, which met with little suc- 
 cess. Government aid was sought, through the wholesale 
 bribing of Ministers, Senators, and Deputies. A popular 
 petition, signed with 158,000 names, asked for the licensing 
 of a national lottery for the raising of funds. This was 
 granted, but proved ineffectual. 
 
dd " CONSULE LESSEPS '' 
 
 The crash came on December 13, 1888, when the company 
 suspended payments and went into bankruptcy, and on Feb- 
 ruary 4, 1889, was put into the hands of a receiver. The 
 Congress had estimated the cost of the canal at 1114,000,000. 
 The company had promised to finish it for |120,000,000. At 
 the end of 1888 the work was scarcely two-fifths done, 
 while nearly |400,000,000 had been disposed of. This colos- 
 sal sum was said, not altogether untruthfully, to have been 
 one-third spent on the canal, one-third wasted, and one- 
 third stolen. Here are the amounts of the various subscrip- 
 tions : 
 
 Original capital, $ 60,000,000 
 
 Subscription of 1882, 25,000,000 
 
 " " 1883, 60,000,000 
 
 " '' 1884, 34,129,200 
 
 " " 1885, 6,837,500 
 
 « '' 1886, 91,760,000 
 
 " '' 1887, 51,778,400 
 
 " " 1888, 64,000,000 
 
 Total, 1393,505,100 
 
 Which produced in cash, $201,546,740 
 
 Losing in discounts, etc., 191,958,360 
 
 This was an appalling showing. It opened the eyes of the 
 world, even of France, to the monstrous futility of the en- 
 terprise as it had been conducted There was no salvation 
 for it in the patronage which the pinchbeck conspirator 
 Boulanger, then in the height of his brief popularity, gave 
 it, in proclaiming himself the protector and promoter of the 
 enterprise, and subscribing for twenty-five of its bonds. 
 The United States Government promptly took advantage of 
 its opportunity to complete the discomfiture of the concern 
 that had flouted and defied it. A few days after the com- 
 pany's suspension of payments. Senator Edmunds proposed 
 a resolution expressing American disapproval of any con- 
 nection of any European government with any canal across 
 any American Isthmus, which, on January 7, 1889, was 
 
THE PANAMA DEBACLE 97 
 
 adopted by an all but unanimous vote. A few weeks later, in 
 February, Congress adopted another resolution, protesting 
 against French control of the Panama Canal, and appropri- 
 ating 1250,000 to be used by the President in the protection 
 of American rights and interests on that Isthmus. On Feb- 
 ruary 7, the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua, an 
 American organisation, chiefly of New York capitalists, was 
 incorporated by act of Congress. 
 
 The remaining history of the De Lesseps enterprise, partly 
 pathetic, partly tragic, and wholly unsavoury and disgrace- 
 ful, may be briefly dismissed. Humanity forbids us long to 
 dwell upon such a theme. Judicial proceedings and Par- 
 liamentary investigations and trials were conducted at 
 Paris in 1892-93, and there was disclosed to the horrified 
 world such an orgy of corruption as history had never be- 
 fore recorded. A hundred Senators and Deputies were ac- 
 cused of having taken bribes. The Ministry and the Police 
 department were under the same charge. Ten Senators and 
 Deputies, including five former Ministers, were brought to 
 trial, together with the Directors of the Company. Baron 
 Jacques Reinach, the financial agent of the company, who 
 had done much of the bribing, committed suicide. Arton, a 
 banker, who had been associated with him in the dirty work, 
 fled into exile, and long afterward, in 1905, also killed him- 
 self. Cornelius Herz, the third member of the triumvirate 
 of corruption, went to England, and either fell or pretended 
 to fall ill, so that he could not be extradited, and thus spent 
 the rest of his life. Ferdinand de Lesseps collapsed, physic- 
 ally and mentally, and probably never fully realised what 
 had happened or what afterward happened. On January 10, 
 1893, these sentences were pronounced:' Ferdinand de Les- 
 seps, five years' imprisonment and |600 fine, and his son, 
 Charles de Lesseps, the same ; Baron Cottu, and Marius Fon- 
 tane, each two years' imprisonment and |600 fine ; M. Eiffel, 
 two years' imprisonment, and |4,000 fine. The sentence 
 against the elder De Lesseps was never executed, and that 
 against his son was annulled by the Court of Appeals. The 
 
98 " CONSULE LESSEPS " 
 
 judgment of the world was that both Ferdinand and Charles 
 de Lesseps had been accused and condemned without cause, 
 and that they were guiltless of the iniquities which had been 
 perpetrated in their names. Ferdinand de Lesseps died on 
 December 7, 1894, without ever rallying from his prostra- 
 tion, and his fame will be immortal despite the melancholy 
 ending of his career. 
 
 In the United States it became clear that extravagant 
 sums of money had been used in secret if not illicit measures 
 to promote the interests of Panama and to hamper and de- 
 feat the rival enterprise at Nicaragua. It was proved that 
 combinations for trade monopoly had been formed by the 
 Panama railroad, then owned by the French canal company, 
 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and certain transcon- 
 tinental railroads; all of which strengthened the resolution 
 to enforce the established principle of an American canal 
 under American control. The De Lesseps scheme had been 
 conceived and elaborated in defiance and denial of that prin- 
 ciple, and in its hopeless collapse it left that principle tri- 
 umphant above all danger of future challenge. 
 
CHAPTER yil 
 WHY THE FRENCH FAILED 
 
 There is a familiar story of a lawyer who told a judge 
 there were twelve good and sufficient reasons why his client 
 had not obeyed a summons to appear in court. *^In the first 
 place," he began in recounting them, "he is dead." "Never 
 mind the other eleven reasons," said the judge. Perhaps it 
 will be risking a similar interruption for me to attempt to 
 tell the reasons why the French under De Lesseps so signally 
 and disastrously failed at Panama, after even the brief men- 
 tion which I have already made of their financial wasteful- 
 ness and corruption. Nevertheless, some of the reasons are so 
 instructive that they deserve more than passing notice ; some 
 of them apply not only to the original De Lesseps Company 
 but also to its successor, the New French Canal Company; 
 and some of them were such as were not realised by the 
 world at large at the time, but have only now become ap- 
 parent to those who have visited the Isthmus and have 
 studied the records and the situation there. 
 
 Let me begin with the matter of finances, since I have al- 
 ready referred to it. The extent of the profligacy of the De 
 Lesseps regime was not bounded by the bribery of French 
 officials, the subsidising of the French press, and the exer- 
 cise of secret and sinister influences in the United States. 
 "The trail of the serpent is over it all," on the Isthmus as 
 well as at Paris, New York, and Washington. We were 
 standing one day on the wind-swept veranda of Major Le 
 Jeune's cottage at Empire, that sightly and salubrious hill 
 where camp the United States troops which guarantee the 
 order of the Canal Zone and also, indirectly, of the Republic 
 of Panama. It was one of the highest points on the Isthmus 
 
 99 
 
100 WHY THE FREKCH FAILED 
 
 along the line of the canal, and as we could see almost from 
 sea to sea we fell to likening it to that "peak in Darien" 
 whereon stout Cortez — alias Balboa — stood and gazed on 
 the Pacific ; in the midst of which, reverting to the topic we 
 had been discussing on our way thither, I asked a man who 
 knew, "What was the real cause of the French failure, and 
 how can we hope to succeed where De Lesseps failed?" For 
 answer, he persisted in the lighter fancies of our vision, and 
 pointing to the splendid vistas, toward the Pacific and to- 
 ward the Caribbean, he said: "You see all that?" "Yes." 
 "Forty-seven miles from Colon to Panama?" "Yes." 
 "Well, in De Lesseps's time, it was forty-seven miles of 
 'graft.' " "Yes ; and what is it now ?" "Oh, now it is an 
 American Canal Zone!" 
 
 Nor was his answer altogether obscure, to one who had 
 seen what had already been pointed out to me. There was 
 the house which had been built for the Director-General, at 
 stockholders' expense, at a cost of |100,000. There was also 
 his summer house, at La Boca, which cost |150,000 of stock- 
 holders' money. He drew a salary of |50,000 a year, and 
 got an extra allowance of |50 for every day — or fraction of 
 a day — in which he travelled along the line in that sumptu- 
 ous private car which had been provided for him at a cost of 
 142,000 of stockholders' money. Stables cost $600,000; the 
 hospitals at Ancon cost |5,600,000, and those at Colon |1,- 
 400,000 — they were needed, but they cost three times as 
 much to the stockholders as they did to the builders. Office 
 buildings, etc., cost — the stockholders — 15,250,000. Every- 
 where the grossest extravagance prevailed, and in addition 
 to the extravagance there was invariably an enormous "rake- 
 off." Where a |50,000 building was needed, a |100,000 
 building was erected, at a corrupt cost of |200,000. 
 
 The same conditions prevailed in the purchase of "sup- 
 plies." In one place I saw where there had been stored a 
 huge consignment of snow-shovels — thousands of them. 
 Snow-shovels in Panama ! In another place there had been 
 received and stored some 15,000 kerosene torches, such as 
 
"GKAFT" 101 
 
 are used in torchlight processions. They were sent to the 
 Isthmus at the beginning of operations, for use in the grand 
 celebration which was to mark the completion of the canal ! 
 Away up in the hills of Culebra, in the almost impenetrable 
 jungle, miles from navigable water, I saw a number of sec- 
 tional and portable iron steamboats. They had been sent 
 from France, and carted up thither, overland, to aAvait the 
 time, years afterward, when the canal should be constructed 
 up to them and they could be floated in it. Such examples 
 might be repeated a thousand times. 
 
 Apparently, agents were sent all over France, asking man- 
 ufacturers if they had any surplus stocks of goods of which 
 they wished to get rid. If the answer was in the affirmative, 
 as of course it usually was, they were told to ship the goods 
 to Panama. But they were nothing that was wanted or 
 could be used there. No matter; ship them along. So they 
 sent cargo after cargo, of the most useless things, from hair- 
 pins to grand pianos. Almost every week the men at Colon 
 were surprised by the arrival of a shipload of things they 
 had not ordered, did not want, and could not use. But pro- 
 test and demur were vain. They were told to take the things 
 off and store them somewhere, anywhere, so that the ships 
 could go back to France for more. The system was simple 
 and effective. The manufacturers got rid of surplus, out- 
 of-date and almost worthless stock, at top prices. The pur- 
 chasing agents got large commissions. The railroad and 
 steamship companies got high freight rates. The managers, 
 in France and on the Isthmus, got a rich "rake-off," and the 
 stockholders paid the bills. 
 
 So much for the "graft," which consumed tens of millions 
 of dollars and which was alone sufficient to cause the failure 
 of the enterprise. What was suggested in the next place, 
 by my informant's reference to the "American Canal Zone" ? 
 This: That the French did not secure control of such a 
 zone, but tried to build a canal on Colombian soil, under 
 Colombian control and jurisdiction. That was not their 
 fault; it was their misfortune; since the United States cer- 
 
102 WHY THE FEENCH FAILED 
 
 tainly would not have permitted them to obtain, or Colombia 
 to grant, control of such a zone. But what did it mean to 
 the French? It meant that they were left at the mercy of 
 the Colombian police and of the Colombian courts. What 
 that meant, in turn, let a single example, one of many, 
 indicate. 
 
 There was a man of Panama, who owned some thirty acres 
 of about the most worthless land on the whole Isthmus. It 
 might have been used as a breeding place for malarial mos- 
 quitoes, or as a playground for baby alligators, but scarcely 
 for anything else. It was, however, exactly in the path of 
 the canal builders. They needed it. It was absolutely 
 necessary that they should have it, and have it at once. So 
 they went to the man with an offer of purchase. Ten dollars 
 an acre would have been a fair price. But the Frenchmen 
 wanted to be liberal so as to ingratiate the natives, and also 
 were willing to pay a large price for the sake of closing the 
 bargain at once, so they offered him a hundred dollars an 
 acre. He flatly declined it. How much, then, did he want? 
 Would he be satisfied with a thousand dollars an acre? Oh, 
 no; he could not think of accepting |30,000 for his land. 
 Why ? Because it was too much, and he did not wish to rob 
 the generous Frenchmen ? Oh, no ; because it was too little. 
 Well, then, how much would he accept? He answered, with- 
 out the quiver of a nerve, |300,000. 
 
 Of course, they appealed to the courts — Colombian courts. 
 Elsewhere it would have been for a writ de lunatico in- 
 quirendo. There it was simply for condemnation proceed- 
 ings and judicial assessment of value. They presented their 
 case. They showed that the land was necessary for the 
 construction of the canal, but they proved, by abundant tes- 
 timony, that for any other purposes it was practically 
 worthless, and that ten dollars an acre would be a fair price 
 for it. All that was, however, quite superfluous, for the man 
 did not dispute it. He frankly admitted that his land was not 
 worth ten dollars an acre, and that in other circumstances he 
 would have been glad to sell it at that price. But, he added 
 
DEFECTIVE SANITATION 103 
 
 in substance, an all-wise Providence had made him the owner 
 of that land, possession of which was essential to this rich 
 canal company, and had thus put it into his power to exact 
 for it whatever price he saw fit to name; and who was he, 
 a humble but, he trusted, a pious man, that he should slight 
 the opportunity which Providence had placed before him? 
 
 That was all. The case was closed. The court deliber- 
 ated for a moment, and then it awarded to the man the full 
 $300,000 which he had demanded. In similar fashion, in 
 great things and small, the French company was bled by 
 Colombian rapacity, and that is the sort of thing which was 
 abolished and thereafter prevented by the establishment of 
 American administration, jurisdiction, and control over the 
 Canal Zone. That is something which might well be consid- 
 ered by some of those critics who have condemned our 
 acquisition of the zone as an invasion of Colombian sover- 
 eignty and as a measure calculated to involve us in un- 
 pleasant and dangerous entanglements. The fact is, it was 
 essential to the construction of the canal. 
 
 Another reason for the French failure had to do with san- 
 itation, and was partly the misfortune and partly the fault 
 of the De Lesseps company. It was their misfortune that 
 science had not then discovered that malaria and yellow 
 fever, the most serious of the Isthmian plagues, are propa- 
 gated and spread chiefly, if not entirely, by the bites of 
 certain varieties of mosquitoes, and that therefore the most 
 effective means of extirpating and preventing those diseases 
 are to be found in the destruction of the mosquitoes, and in 
 guarding both sick and well against their bites — the sick, 
 that the insects may not become charged with virus from 
 them, and the well, that they may not become infected by 
 mosquitoes which previously have bitten the sick. But if 
 this was the misfortune of the French, their faults were no 
 less marked. They neglected to begin their enterprise, as 
 the Americans have done, with a complete sanitary renova- 
 tion of the Isthmus. They were content to go on with the 
 unspeakably vile conditions then prevailing, with the worse 
 
104 WHY THE FEENCH FAH^ED 
 
 than unpaved streets, covered with the filth of ages, with the 
 total absence of sewers or of a water supply, and in general 
 with sanitary arrangements which would have been discredit- 
 able in Dahomey. It is true, they built fine hospitals. But 
 they were for the cure of diseases which were permitted to 
 run riot, unchecked. Far better would it have been to have 
 sought prevention of the diseases. 
 
 A grave fault lay, too, in the management of the hospitals. 
 The sites selected for the hospitals, especially at Ancon, 
 were admirable. The buildings, too, were well planned and 
 well constructed. They are now being used by the Ameri- 
 cans, with little change, and with much satisfaction. It 
 would be difficult to find a better operating room than that 
 at Ancon, the delight of every surgeon who sees it. The 
 equipment, of medicines, instruments, etc., was also as good 
 as was possible at that time. But the management was 
 hopelessly defective. The doctors and surgeons were com- 
 petent. But they left most of the practical details of admin- 
 istration during the day, and everything at night, to the 
 nurses. The latter were Sisters of Charity. Of those ex- 
 cellent and devoted women I would not say a word that 
 savoured of disrespect or ingratitude. But a Sister of Char- 
 ity is not necessarily a trained nurse. All her piety and de- 
 votion may give her no practical idea of sanitation, of 
 hygiene, of the care of the sick. Nor, with all due reverence, 
 can the saving of Aves and Paternosters supply the need of 
 ventilation, of bathing, and of fresh dressings for wounds. 
 To say a prayer in a hospital at evening is no doubt a pious 
 and a commendable act. But we can scarcely consider it so 
 all-sufficient as to warrant the physicians and nurses in 
 thereupon going away for the night, shutting the wards up 
 nearly air-tight, and leaving all the suffering inmates with- 
 out care or comfort or attention, until it was time to say 
 the morning prayers — and incidentally to carry out the 
 bodies of those who had died during the night. Excellent 
 sites, excellent buildings, excellent equipments, excellent 
 physicians and surgeons, and excellent women — as women — 
 
INEFFICIENT APPLIANCES 105 
 
 for nurses, but a practical administration which was a grim 
 travesty of therapeutics and sanitation, and which would 
 have been unworthy of the Ninth, not to mention the Nine- 
 teenth, Century. 
 
 Another serious error was made in the use of experimental 
 machinery. Panama was the happy hunting ground of 
 every mechanical inventor with a fad, where he could get his 
 device practically tried at the expense of some one else. 
 Pick and shovel were old and well tried, of course, but it was 
 not alone with them that the canal was to be cut. Dredges 
 and steam shovels were needed, and these and other ma- 
 chines were too often untried, impractical, and fantastic 
 types, which, after experiments costly in both money and 
 time, were found unsuitable or worthless. A single ex- 
 ample, a minor one, will illustrate how the French were 
 handicapped by imperfect utensils. The crux of the whole 
 work, after the sea-level plan was abandoned for a canal 
 with locks, was the monster dam at Bohio, and of course 
 the crux of the dam-building was to find a secure foundation. 
 There are those now who say there is no need of going down 
 to bed-rock for the foundation, but that the great dam can 
 be securely built upon clay or gravel. However that may 
 be, the Frenchmen clung to the old theory that a rock base 
 was necessary. In making their surveys and estimates, 
 therefore, they made borings to ascertain the depth at which 
 the bed-rock lay, so as to determine how great the excavation 
 would have to be and how high the structure of masonry. 
 They had, however, no diamond drills, though such imple- 
 ments were in common enough use elsewhere ; and the result 
 was that when they struck a boulder as big as a barrel, they 
 supposed it to be bed-rock, and so reported it, when in fact 
 the actual rock was fifty feet below. 
 
 Not to extend the catalogue of errors too far, another 
 grave mistake lay in the manner and place of their disposal 
 of the material excavated, especially at Culebra. Our pres- 
 ent plan is to take it a long distance away, and indeed to 
 cart most of it down to the coast at Colon, to raise the level 
 
106 WHY THE FKENCH FAILED 
 
 of that city and to fill in the surrounding swamps. The 
 French, however, dumped it close to the sides of the cuttings. 
 Now the cuttings are not all through rock, but chiefly 
 through clay, marl, and other comparatively soft and yield- 
 ing soils. They are so soft that the sides of the cuttings can- 
 not be left nearly as steep as they would be in a firmer soil. 
 A steeper slope than one of forty-five degrees is likely to be 
 marked with trouble, the side wall presently bulging and 
 sliding down into the cut. That is why the canal must be 
 made so wide at the surface in comparison with the width at 
 the bottom. Now the French, not appreciating these con- 
 ditions, and seeking to save time and labour as much as pos- 
 sible, did not cart the excavated earth away, but piled it 
 up on the high ground at each side of the cutting, where, of 
 course, its weight, superimposed upon the earth which be- 
 longed there, greatly increased the tendency of the sides to 
 bulge and slip into the cutting, and thus greatly aggravated 
 the natural conditions. It is to avoid this error and its con- 
 sequent mischief that the American engineers have ruled 
 that no earth shall be deposited within a certain and very 
 considerable distance of the cutting. This rule necessitates 
 the building of many miles of railroad, to carry the material 
 away, but it will in the end greatly facilitate and expedite 
 the completion of the canal. 
 
 With all these and various other errors to handicap them, 
 we can but wonder that the French accomplished as much 
 as they did. In fact, they really did a vast amount of ad- 
 mirable work, most of which is now being utilised by the 
 American engineers. They also, with all their consign- 
 ments of snow-shovels and petroleum torches, and with all 
 their improvident experiments with untried and impractical 
 devices^ took to the Isthmus a vast amount of excellent ma- 
 chinery, tools, and hardware supplies, which is still, much of 
 it, in first-rate condition. Our engineers, on taking posses- 
 sion of the works, found vast storehouses stocked with hard- 
 ware of all kinds, practically as good as when it was shipped 
 from France. Moreover, astounding as it may seem, in view 
 
EKKOKS TO BE AVOIDED 107 
 
 of popular impressions of Isthmian climate and of its effect 
 upon metal work of all kinds, they found locomotives and 
 other steam engines, which had been standing neglected 
 since De Lesseps's day, some of them actually in the open 
 jungle, which needed only a little oiling and new leather 
 belting to be set to work, as good as new. The dredges down 
 in the submerged parts of the canal were chiefly rusty junk. 
 But up on the highlands, around Culebra and Empire and 
 Matachin, machinery has been preserved from ruin in a sur- 
 prising and gratifying way. 
 
 It would be ungracious to dwell too long upon the errors 
 of the French, and it would be vainglorious to exploit too 
 highly the manner in which Americans are avoiding them. 
 It was not strange, perhaps it was inevitable, that the 
 French should make some serious blunders, in undertaking 
 so vast a work, and a work so unlike, in some fundamental 
 particulars, any they had ever undertaken before. It would 
 be inexcusable for Americans to fall into the same errors. 
 The French, too, as we have seen, suffered from certain un- 
 fortunate conditions beyond their control, to which we are 
 not subject. We have the advantage of the great advance 
 which has been made in the last score of years in medical 
 science, and we were not prevented by the Monroe Doctrine 
 from securing control of the Canal Zone. Much more, almost 
 immeasurably more, is properly to be expected of us than of 
 the French. That we shall meet those expectations in a satis- 
 factory manner is to be hoped, but is yet to be proved. 
 The first year and more of our work there, as we shall 
 presently see in greater detail, was by no means free from 
 errors, serious, though happily not disastrous. There are at 
 the present time, moreover, potentialities and even menaces 
 of further complications of an embarrassing and even dis- 
 creditable character. The lesson of the French failure is, 
 therefore, not one of vaunting on the part of Americans, but 
 rather one of prudence, circumspection, and that eternal 
 vigilance which is the price of honesty and efficiency as well 
 as of liberty. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 The French did not propose, however, to lose all they had 
 done and spent at Panama without a struggle. They real- 
 ised as fully as the most censorious of their critics the 
 blunders which had been made and the appalling corruption 
 which had prevailed. They knew, however, that much good 
 work had been done, and their confidence in the practica- 
 bility of the enterprise was not diminished. Resolute and 
 resourceful, they rose from the ruins of the De Lesseps com- 
 pany with splendid determination. The receiver of the 
 bankrupt company, M. Brunet, promptly organised a com- 
 mittee to study the situation and to devise ways and means 
 to rehabilitate the enterprise and to push it to completion. 
 This committee was composed of nine Frenchmen, one Bel- 
 gian, and one Dutchman. It met in October, 1889, and two 
 months later five of its members visited Panama for personal 
 observation and investigation. In May, 1890, it reported to 
 M. Brunet that the canal could be completed, on the high- 
 level plan, with locks, and recommended the organisation 
 of a new company to undertake the work. M. Brunet 
 accepted the report and decided to act according to its 
 recommendations. His first step was to send Lieutenant 
 Wyse to Bogota to secure an extension of the franchise. 
 The original concession dated from May 28, 1878. On De- 
 cember 26, 1890, Lieutenant Wyse secured an extension of it 
 for ten years, on condition that the new company should be 
 fully organised by February, 1893. This condition it was 
 found impossible to fulfil, but the Colombian Government 
 complaisantly — for a substantial consideration — extended 
 the time little by little, until on August 4, 1893, it gave a 
 
 108 
 
THE NEW FRENCH COMPANY 109 
 
 concession running until October, 1904, at which date the 
 canal must be opened to commerce. Finally, in December, 
 
 1898, it added six years more to the time allowed, giving 
 until October, 1910; though it was afterward said this last 
 extension of time had not been legally made and was 
 invalid. 
 
 Meantime, on October 21, 1893, the New Panama Canal 
 Company was organised, under French laws. It had a cap- 
 ital of 113,000,000, and expected to complete the canal for a 
 total of 1180,000,000. Under its agreement with the receiver 
 of the old De Lesseps company, it was to take as its own all 
 the material assets of the latter, and when the canal was 
 completed, forty per cent, of the profits was to be retained 
 by the new company, and the remaining sixty per cent, was 
 to go to the old company, for its liquidation. A Technical 
 Committee was formed, of distinguished membership, con- 
 sisting of one Colombian, one Russian, one Belgian, two Ger- 
 man, two American, and seven French engineers. Work 
 then proceeded, on the lines established by the original com- 
 pany, until in 1898 the Technical Committee estimated that 
 ten years more would be sufficient to finish the canal, at a 
 cost of 1100,000,000. By this time, however, the funds of the 
 new company had been exhausted, and in accordance with 
 its statutes a commission of five members — one American 
 and four French engineers — was appointed to consider the 
 question of further procedure. This committee canvassed 
 the situation and prospects thoroughly, and in February, 
 
 1899, unequivocally approved the report of the Technical 
 Committee and advised the continuation of the work. That 
 course was thereupon adopted, and the work of construct- 
 ing the canal was incessantly pushed. 
 
 The rivalry of Nicaragua was, however, by no means 
 ended. It was indeed entering upon a new and more strenu- 
 ous phase. A most important step toward the construction 
 of a canal at Nicaragua was taken in 1884, when Mr. Fre- 
 linghuysen, the American Secretary of State, and General 
 Joaquin Zavala, the Nicaraguan Minister at Washington, 
 
110 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 negotiated a treaty, which provided that the United States 
 should construct such a canal, to be owned by it and Nica- 
 ragua jointly, that there should be a perpetual alliance be- 
 tween the two countries, and that the United States should 
 guarantee the territorial integrity of Nicaragua. This was 
 obviously a bold challenge to Great Britain. It violated the 
 Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and was doubtless intended so to do, 
 as an offset to Great Britain's former violations of it; and 
 its probable result would have been to drive Great Britain 
 to abrogation of that treaty, and then to precipitate a diplo- 
 matic struggle between the United States and Great Britain 
 over control of the Mosquito Coast. The treaty would also 
 have made the United States to some extent a partner of 
 Nicaragua in the possible and not improbable wars of that 
 country with its neighbours, or else, and more probably, 
 would have established a practical American protectorate 
 and control over Nicaragua. 
 
 The treaty was negotiated in the last months of President 
 Arthur's administration, and was still before the Senate 
 awaiting ratification when Mr. Cleveland succeeded to the 
 Presidency. One of the early acts of the incoming ad- 
 ministration was to withdraw several treaties from the Sen- 
 ate, this one among them, and so it failed of ratifica- 
 tion. Mr. Cleveland made it plain that he withdrew and 
 suppressed it, not because he was opposed to a canal, but 
 because he was opposed to a purely American canal, and 
 because he regarded the alliance with Nicaragua and the 
 guarantee of that republic's territorial integrity as an 
 entanglement contrary to the traditional policy of this 
 country. He said: 
 
 "I do not favour a policy of acquisition of new and distant 
 territory, or the incorporation of remote interests with our 
 own. ... I am unable to recommend propositions involv- 
 ing paramount privileges of ownership or right outside of 
 our own territory, when coupled with absolute and unlim- 
 ited engagements to defend the territorial integrity of the 
 State where such interests lie. . . . Whatever highway 
 
PKESIDENT CLEVELAND'S ATTITUDE 111 
 
 may be constructed across the barrier dividing the two 
 greatest maritime areas of the world must be . . . re- 
 moved from the chance of domination by any single power. 
 . . . An engagement combining the construction, owner- 
 ship, and operation of such work by this Government, with 
 an offensive and defensive alliance for its protection, with 
 the foreign State whose responsibilities and rights we would 
 share, is in my judgment inconsistent with such dedication 
 to universal and neutral use." 
 
 In this utterance Mr. Cleveland did far more than to 
 disapprove the Frelinghuysen-Zelaya treaty. He flatly re- 
 versed and repudiated the policy of his predecessors, Arthur, 
 Hayes, and Grant, which was, as we have seen, for "a canal 
 under American control." More than that, he repudiated 
 the policy established in 1846 by the treaty with New Gra- 
 nada, under which the United States did receive "para- 
 mount privileges of ownership or right outside of our own 
 territory . . . coupled with absolute and unlimited en- 
 gagements to defend the territorial integrity of the State 
 where such interests lie." There can be no doubt that Mr. 
 Cleveland's objections to the Frelinghuysen-Zelaya treaty 
 would have been equally applicable to the Treaty of 1846. 
 Happily this divergence from the well-established course of 
 the United States was not maintained. The Nicaragua 
 treaty perished unratified, but the United States Govern- 
 ment returned to and continued in the course indicated by 
 President Polk in 1846 and so strongly confirmed by Presi- 
 dents Grant and Hayes in later years. 
 
 The next step at Nicaragua was taken in 1887, when Lieu- 
 tenant Menocal was sent thither at the head of an elaborate 
 survey expedition, to determine the exact route of the pro- 
 posed canal. Following this, on January 10, 1888, a bill 
 was introduced into Congress for the chartering of the Pro- 
 visional Canal Company under the new name of the Mari- 
 time Canal Company of the United States, and after more 
 than a year's fighting, largely against the insidious opposi- 
 tion of the moribund Panama Company, the bill became a 
 
112 NICAEAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 law on February 20, 1889. A necessary concession from 
 Costa Rica was in the mean time secured, since the canal 
 would for a part of the way traverse the territory of that re- 
 public. The company thus chartered was organised on May 
 9, 1889, with Hiram Hitchcock, of New York, as its Presi- 
 dent. Its capital was |150,000,000, in preferred stock at five 
 per cent., and |100,000,000 in common stock. In March, 
 1890, a Construction Company was also organised, under 
 the presidency of ex-Senator Warner Miller, of New York, 
 with a capital stock of $12,000,000, the shares of which 
 were all sold at fifty per cent, discount, thus netting only 
 $6,000,000. 
 
 Work was actually begun at Greytown on June 8, 1890, 
 and was pushed with considerable energy and discretion, 
 chiefly in building a breakwater, wharves, warehouses, work- 
 shops, etc., at Greytown, a railroad, and a part of the canal ; 
 and large supplies of material, machinery, some steamboats, 
 and other essential appliances, were purchased. In this 
 way in the course of three years the whole of the |6,000,000 
 capital of the Construction Company was exhausted. There 
 would probably have been no difficulty in securing additional 
 capital, to almost any amount; for the Nicaraguan project 
 was popular in America, as an offset to the offensive French 
 scheme at Panama, and there was full confidence not only 
 in the practicability of it but also in the integrity and effi- 
 ciency with which it was being promoted, and which formed 
 a grateful and inspiring contrast to the blundering and 
 plundering at Panama. But in 1893 occurred an almost un- 
 precedented financial stringency in the United States, with 
 widespread depression of business. In those circumstances 
 it was impossible to get more capital, and in consequence, 
 on August 30, 1893, the Construction Company was com- 
 pelled to go into the hands of a receiver, and work on the 
 Nicaragua Canal ceased, never to be resumed. 
 
 Thereafter for ten years a persistent campaign was waged 
 in Congress, led conspicuously and with unsurpassed per- 
 tinacity and confidence by Senator Morgan of Alabama, for 
 
SEEKING AID FOR NICARAGUA 113 
 
 government aid for the Maritime Canal Company, or for 
 government assumption of its enterprise at Nicaragua. 
 Twice before 1893 Senator Sherman had introduced a bill 
 for giving a government guarantee to the company's bonds, 
 to the extent of |100,000,000, but each time it had failed to 
 reach a vote. In 1894 the measure was reintroduced, in the 
 Senate, providing for a guarantee to the extent of $70,000,- 
 000, and was passed by the Senate, but failed of a vote in the 
 House. The same thing occurred in 1895, but on this occa- 
 sion Congress provided for a commission of investigation. 
 This commission was headed by General William Ludlow, a 
 competent engineer, but it was able to do little, because the 
 parsimony of Congress provided only |26,176 for its ex- 
 penses. It did some careful work, however, and reported 
 that the company's plans were feasible. In this year a new 
 Construction Company was organised, but lack of means 
 and the lack of government encouragement prevented it from 
 resuming work. During the next two years Congress de- 
 voted much time to futile debates upon the matter. In the 
 session of 1897-98 it was proposed to purchase the Maritime 
 Company's franchise and property and assume all its lia- 
 bilities, paying its stock- and bond-holders and other cred- 
 itors $4,500,000 in bonds and $7,000,000 in stock. Again, in 
 1898-99, a similar proposition was made; the Government to 
 pay the company $5,000,000 in bonds, and to assume all its 
 indebtedness, in return for its franchise and property. 
 Under these schemes the enterprise was to pass into the 
 hands of the Government. Neither of these proposals, 
 originating in the Senate, was enacted, nor was the one 
 which originated in the House of Representatives in 1898-99, 
 and which provided for the purchase outright of a strip of 
 land from Nicaragua and Costa Rica, extending from sea 
 to sea, and for the construction of a canal on it, at a cost 
 of $115,000,000. 
 
 Another Isthmian Canal Commission was constituted by 
 Congress in June, 1897, headed by Rear-Admiral John G. 
 Walker, U. S. N., and with an appropriation of $300,000 — a 
 
114 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 liberal increase over the pittance given to the former com- 
 mission under General Ludlow. It went to Nicaragua, 
 partly to investigate matters and partly to gain time, for 
 the ten years of the Maritime Company's concession expired 
 in April, 1897, and it was necessary to make a brave show of 
 activity, if the Nicaraguan Government was to be persuaded 
 to extend the time. Nicaragua was, in fact, feeling anxious 
 over the matter, was losing faith in the Maritime Company, 
 if not in the United States, and was beginning to look else- 
 whither for some one to build her canal. She was, moreover, 
 again quarrelling with Costa Rica, over the old boundary 
 question. In June, 1897, she gave to an English steamship 
 company exclusive privileges on and along the San Juan 
 River and Lake Nicaragua, for navigation and railroad 
 building, though it was stipulated that the rights of the 
 Maritime Canal Company were to remain superior and 
 unimpaired. 
 
 This was an ominous warning to the latter company, but 
 it was followed by something worse. On October 31, 1898, 
 the Nicaraguan Government formally declared that the 
 Maritime Company's concession would become null and void 
 on and after October 9, 1899, and would thereupon immedi- 
 ately be renewed in favour of a new combination of American 
 capitalists, which was known as the Grace-Eyre-Cragin Syn- 
 dicate, and which included among its members William R. 
 Grace, John D. Crimmins, John Jacob Astor, Darius O. 
 Mills, Levi P. Morton, and other New York capitalists and 
 promoters. Appeal was made by the Maritime Canal Com- 
 pany to the United States Government for protection, or for 
 intervention in its behalf, and the whole matter w^as pres- 
 ently taken under consideration by Congress. 
 
 The aid of the Government had indeed been urgently 
 sought, in the form of diplomatic intervention, early in 1898, 
 but had necessarily, in the then existing circumstances, been 
 denied. It was quite evident to judicious observers that 
 nothing practical could be done by the United States with- 
 out first securing abrogation or material modification of the 
 
VOYAGE OF THE OKEGON 115 
 
 Clayton-Bulwer treaty. But at the beginning of 1898 the 
 United States was obviously within measurable distance of a 
 war with Spain. In the spring of that year that war actu- 
 ally began. It was therefore deemed desirable to maintain 
 perfectly cordial relations with Great Britain, instead of re- 
 opening an irritating, if not acrimonious, controversy with 
 her; especially as Great Britain was the only important 
 European power of whose sympathy and friendship this 
 country felt entirely assured. The canal company's plans 
 and requests were therefore put aside for the time. At the 
 end of the war, however, the State Department made repre- 
 sentations to Nicaragua in behalf of the Maritime Company, 
 and in January, 1899, the war being ended, a general canal 
 campaign was opened in Congress. 
 
 This campaign was the more earnestly and vigorously 
 pushed, and indeed its prosecution was imperatively de- 
 manded by popular sentiment, because of a striking incident 
 of that very war which had caused a postponement of canal 
 activities. At the beginning of the war the battleship Ore- 
 gon, perhaps the finest in the navy, was at San Francisco, 
 where there was no probability of her being needed. She 
 was therefore summoned to proceed at once to the West 
 Indies, where she was urgently needed. To get from the 
 Pacific to the Atlantic coast of the United States, she was 
 compelled to make the long and perilous voyage by way of 
 the Straits of Magellan, 13,400 miles, instead of the short- 
 cut which the canal would have provided, of only 4,600 
 miles. Had the Oregon met with disaster on that long voy- 
 age, our victory over Spain would have been less certain and 
 more difficult. Even the length of time consumed in the 
 voyage might have been costly to us, had the Spaniards 
 acted more promptly. Happily, thanks to the excellence of 
 her construction and to the intrepidity and skill of her com- 
 mander, Captain — afterward Rear-Admiral — Clark, the ship 
 made the run in record-breaking time and in perfect safety, 
 reaching the Florida coast in entire readiness for action. At 
 that there was universal rejoicing, official and popular, but 
 
116 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 there was also a widespread resolution that there should 
 be no more need of such a roundabout voyage from one part 
 of our coast to another, but that the short-cut of the Isth- 
 mian canal should be provided at the earliest possible date. 
 
 There were now three competitors in the field, all earnest 
 and exigent, and all well represented at Washington. These 
 were the Maritime Canal Company, the Grace-Eyre-Cragin 
 Syndicate, and the New Panama Canal Company. Each 
 was hostile to each of the others, and each realised that the 
 success of either of the others meant its own ruin. The re- 
 sult of the triangular contest was inconclusive. The Senate 
 passed a bill for the construction of a canal at Nicaragua, 
 as a national enterprise. This would have been a practical 
 triumph for the Maritime Company, had it been enacted. 
 But through the personal opposition of the Speaker, Thomas 
 B. Reed, it failed to pass the House of Representatives. 
 Meantime, Admiral Walker's Commission returned and pre- 
 sented a report which, while divided in opinion as to the 
 cost of the canal, was unanimously and emphatically com- 
 mitted to the practicability and desirability of a canal at 
 Nicaragua, following the Lull survey from the Caribbean 
 Sea to Lake Nicaragua, and the Childs survey from that 
 lake to the Pacific Coast at Brito. 
 
 Consideration of the Panama route as an alternative was, 
 however, vigorously and persistently urged, and on March 
 3, 1899, the last day of the Congressional session, the Presi- 
 dent was authorised to send still another commission, to 
 investigate both Nicaragua and Panama. An appropriation 
 of 11,000,000 was made for the purpose. On June 9, follow- 
 ing, the new commission was appointed, Rear-Admiral 
 Walker being at its head. 
 
 Congress thus having adjourned without affording relief 
 to the Maritime Canal Company, that organisation saw its 
 only hope of continued life in securing, through the diplo- 
 matic aid of the State Department, a reconsideration of the 
 action of the Nicaraguan Government in forfeiting its con- 
 cession. Before anything could be done, however, the fatal 
 
DISASTER TO NICARAGUA 117 
 
 date, October 9, arrived. Without aid from Washington, 
 the Maritime Canal Company would have been ruined. But 
 the State Department intervened, with a request that Nica- 
 ragua would reopen the case. This request was granted, so 
 far as to waive the technicality of the lapse of the concession 
 through time limitation, and to refer the whole matter to 
 arbitration. In pursuance of that scheme, the Nicaraguan 
 Government appointed two arbitral commissioners, and in- 
 vited the company to do the same. The company did so, 
 selecting two of its own members. To such choice the Nica- 
 raguan Government objected, and then it demanded that the 
 company should select two Nicaraguans. To this the com- 
 pany in turn objected. Finally, a satisfactory tribunal was 
 constituted, which took the whole case under advisement, 
 and in the fall of 1900 rendered a decision, against the com- 
 pany. This the company refused to accept, and it protested 
 against it to the United States Government, but the protest 
 was ineffective. 
 
 Meanwhile the Grace-Eyre-Cragin Syndicate was becoming 
 involved in embarrassments. The Nicaraguan Government 
 had given it a concession under the mistaken notion, which 
 seems to have been disingenuously fostered by somebody in 
 the interest of the syndicate, that it was backed by the 
 guarantee of the United States Government. When it found 
 this was not the case, the Nicaraguan Government regarded 
 the syndicate with suspicion and disfavour, and sought to 
 cancel its engagement with it. This it finally did, on the 
 ground that the syndicate had failed to pay its bonus of 
 1500,000 at the stipulated time. 
 
 When Congress met again, in the fall of 1899, it promptly 
 took up again the canal question where it had laid it down 
 in the preceding spring, and bills were introduced into both 
 Senate and House for governmental construction of the 
 Nicaragua Canal. The Senate also asked the President to 
 secure abrogation or modification of the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty, as an essential preliminary, but the House bill ig- 
 nored the treaty and the rights of Great Britain under it, the 
 
118 NICAKAGUA OK PANAMA? 
 
 author of the bill declaring that the treaty had been a dead 
 letter since the day on which it was signed. This measure 
 was passed by the House, by an overwhelming majority, but 
 happily failed of passage in the Senate. However well 
 meant, it was egregiously ill-timed, in view of the fact that 
 diplomatic negotiations were at that very moment pending 
 between the United States and Great Britain for an amicable 
 disposal of the obstructive treaty. 
 
 These negotiations, conducted by the Secretary of State, 
 John Hay, and the British Ambassador, Lord Pauncefote, 
 culminated in a treaty which was laid before the Senate for 
 ratification on February 5, 1900. It provided that an Isth- 
 mian canal might be constructed, operated, and regulated by 
 the United States alone, but that it should be neutralised ac- 
 cording to the principles of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, so 
 that in both peace and war it should be open to both the 
 merchant ships and the w^^rships of all nations, and should 
 never be blockaded; that the United States should never 
 erect fortifications commanding the canal or the adjacent 
 waters; and that the other great powers should be invited 
 to join in the guarantee. 
 
 This convention was doubtless well meant by both its 
 makers. It was, however, received by the Senate and by 
 the majority of the American nation with surprise, dis- 
 appointment, and strong disapproval. It was objected that 
 it did not abrogate nor supersede the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 
 but practically reaffirmed those features of that instrument 
 which were most objectionable to America; that it required 
 the United States to give free use of its own '?anal to any 
 power which might be at war with this country and which 
 might wish to use the canal for this country's harm; and 
 that it violated the Monroe Doctrine and reversed the estab- 
 lished policy of this country by calling for European guar- 
 antees of American neutrality. Under the lead of Senator 
 Cushman K. Davis, therefore, the Senate amended the treaty, 
 by the insertion of declarations that none of the stipulations 
 of neutrality should be interpreted so as to forbid the United 
 
THE HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TKEATY 119 
 
 States to take whatever measures it saw fit for its own pro- 
 tection and the maintenance of order. This would have per- 
 mitted the United States to close the canal against an enemy 
 in time of war. There were also adopted amendments pro- 
 posed by Senator Joseph B. Foraker, specifically declaring 
 the Clayton-Bulwer treaty to be superseded by this new one, 
 and striking out the proposal to invite other powers to join 
 in the guarantee of neutrality. All these amendments were 
 in accord with the well-established policy of the American 
 Government, and they must be regarded as having been de- 
 sirable, if not essential to our welfare as a nation and to the 
 success of the canal enterprise. With these amendments, 
 the treaty w^as ratified by the Senate on December 20, 1900. 
 The changes made were, however, unacceptable to the Brit- 
 ish Government, and the treaty was accordingly permitted to 
 lapse. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Minister, was sin- 
 cerely desirous of effecting a settlement of the old con- 
 troversy on terms satisfactory to the United States, and 
 with that end in view he made, on February 22, 1901, a 
 statement of his reasons for not accepting the amended 
 treaty, coupled with a suggestion that a new one be negoti- 
 ated in its place. This suggestion was acted upon, the work 
 being undertaken by the same patient and benevolent states- 
 men who had framed the former treaty, and on November 
 18, 1901, the second Hay-Pauncefote treaty was signed. It 
 was laid before the Senate on December 5, and on December 
 16 it was ratified by that body without amendment. (See 
 Appendix III.) This memorable convention, which in due 
 time went into effect and has since been law, specifically 
 abrogated and superseded the Clayton-Bulwer treaty; it 
 gave the United States the sole power to construct, operate, 
 and control the canal, without any co-operation or guarantee 
 from Great Britain or any other country; and it gave to 
 the United States practically a free hand over the canal in 
 time of war. (On this latter point, it is true, the treaty is 
 somewhat vague, and may be interpreted according to the 
 
120 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 requirements of the occasion. While it forbids the block- 
 ading of the canal it does not forbid the construction of forti- 
 fications along it.) Thus happily the half-century's dispute 
 over the inept Clayton-Bulwer treaty was peacefully and 
 profitably ended, a cause of much misunderstanding and irri- 
 tation between the United States and Great Britain was re- 
 moved, and the chief diplomatic barrier to the construction 
 of an Isthmian canal was swept away, and international 
 sanction was given to, and indisputable opportunity was 
 afforded for, the fulfilment of the policy enunciated by Grant 
 and repeated and elaborated by Hayes, of an American canal 
 under American control. 
 
 The report of the third Canal Commission was received by 
 the President, and was transmitted to Congress on December 
 4, 1900. It discussed in detail the comparative merits and 
 demerits of the Nicaragua and Panama routes. Its prac- 
 tical recommendation was for the construction of a canal 
 at Nicaragua on the lines indicated by the preceding com- 
 mission of 1897. The cost of the enterprise was estimated 
 at 1200,540,000 ; or, by using only a single set of locks, and 
 narrowing the bottom of the canal to 100 feet, at |163,913,- 
 000. The time required for construction was set at ten 
 years. The report estimated the cost of a canal at Panama 
 at only |142,342,579, or nearly $58,000,000 less than at Nica- 
 ragua, but added that no way had been found by which the 
 United States could secure complete ownership and control 
 of the Panama Canal, unless at a cost that would make its 
 total expense much higher than at Nicaragua. Therefore, 
 in conclusion, it said : 
 
 "The estimated cost of building the Nicaragua Canal is 
 about 158,000,000 more than that of completing the Panama 
 Canal, leaving out the cost of acquiring the latter property. 
 This measures the difference in the magnitude of the ob- 
 stacles to be overcome in the actual construction of the two 
 canals, and covers all physical considerations. . . . The 
 New Panama Canal Company has shown no disposition to 
 sell its property to the United States. Should that company 
 be able and willing to sell, there is reason to believe that the 
 
NICARAGUA RECOMMENDED 121 
 
 price would not be such as would make the total cost to the 
 United States less than that of the Nicaragua Canal. The 
 Panama Canal, after completion, would be shorter, have 
 fewer locks, and less curvature than the Nicaragua Canal. 
 The measure of these advantages is the time required for a 
 vessel to pass through, which is estimated for an average 
 ship at twelve hours for Panama and thirty-three hours for 
 Nicaragua. On the other hand, the distance from San Fran- 
 cisco to New York is 377 miles, to New Orleans 579 miles, 
 and to Liverpool 386 miles greater via Panama than via 
 Nicaragua. . . . The Government of Colombia, in which 
 lies the Panama Canal, has granted an exclusive concession, 
 which still has many years to run. It is not free to grant 
 the necessary rights to the United States, except upon con- 
 dition that an agreement be reached with the New Panama 
 Canal Company. The commission believes that such agree- 
 ment is impracticable. . . . The governments of Nica- 
 ragua and Costa Rica, on the other hand, are untrammelled 
 by concessions and are free to grant the United States such 
 privileges as may be mutually agreed upon. 
 
 "In view of all the facts, and particularly in view of all the 
 difficulties of obtaining the necessary rights, privileges, and 
 franchises on the Panama route, and assuming that Nica- 
 ragua and Costa Rica recognise the value of the canal to 
 themselves, and are prepared to grant concessions on terms 
 which are reasonable and acceptable to the United States, 
 the commission is of opinion that 'the most practicable and 
 feasible route' for an isthmian canal to be 'under the control, 
 management, and ownership of the United States' is that 
 known as the Nicaragua route." 
 
 It was doubtless shrewd and wise for the Commission thus 
 to report the apparent impracticability of making satis- 
 factory terms with the New Panama Canal Company. 
 Nothing could have been better calculated to bring that com- 
 pany to precisely such terms. Indeed, long before the date 
 of this report, the directors of the New Panama Canal Com- 
 pany had begun to distrust their own ability to finish their 
 job, to appreciate the force of American objections to an alien 
 canal on American soil, and to realise that their only pru- 
 dent course was to transfer their undertaking in some way 
 to American control. Resort was first had to the expedient 
 
122 NICAKAGUA OK PANAMA? 
 
 of reorganisation under an American charter. Early in 1900 
 the "Panama Canal Company of America" was organised 
 and incorporated in New Jersey, and it was planned to 
 transfer the canal to it. But it was soon seen that that 
 would not be sufficient to satisfy American demands. The 
 ownership of the canal must be vested not in any private 
 corporation, French or American, but in the United States 
 Government. Nothing short of that would be acceptable to 
 this country, despite President Cleveland's protest against 
 such a policy, only a few years before. 
 
 The French company, at Panama, did not desire thus to 
 sell out, and indeed, was prohibited by its charter from so 
 doing. It began to see, nevertheless, that some such course 
 was inevitable, and accordingly sought permission from the 
 Colombian Government to make a transfer of its concession. 
 The Colombian Government did not greatly care who con- 
 structed the canal, whether a French corporation or the 
 American Government, nor indeed, did it display any con- 
 suming eagerness to have the canal constructed at all. 
 What it did want was to extort as much profit from the en- 
 terprise as possible, in the shape of bonuses, not only for the 
 original concession but for every extension of time that was 
 granted, and for the transfer of ownership. The New Pan- 
 ama Canal Company at last secured, however, on certain 
 conditions, from the Colombian Government, permission to 
 sell its concession and unfinished works to the United 
 States. That was in the spring of 1901. Thereupon, on 
 May 8, Rear-Admiral Walker, the chairman of the United 
 States Isthmian Canal Commission, categorically asked M. 
 Hutin, the President of that company, if the company was 
 willing, ready and able to sell, and if so, at what price. He 
 inquired not only if Colombian permission had been fully 
 granted, but also if the company had the right and power to 
 sell in view of its agreement with the old De Lesseps com- 
 pany, and also of its terms of incorporation under the laws 
 of France. 
 
 Much depended upon the answer to these questions, for, as 
 
NEGOTIATIOISrS AT PANAMA 123 
 
 we have seen, the report of the Canal Commission, which had 
 been made in the fall of 1900, favoured the Nicaragua route 
 largely because of the assumed impossibility of securing 
 complete ownership of the Panama route on satisfactory 
 conditions and at an acceptable price. If now the Panama 
 route could be acquired, that recommendation in favour of 
 Nicaragua might be revised and reversed. The fact that 
 the Commission had, on those grounds, reported in favour 
 of Nicaragua was unquestionably what chiefly moved the 
 Panama company to seek permission to sell, for it knew that 
 if the United States once seriously entered upon the con- 
 struction of a canal at Nicaragua, the Panama scheme 
 would be ruined and dead beyond all hope. On the other 
 hand, it was this move of the Panama company to get per- 
 mission to sell that caused our Commission to suspect that 
 after all it might be possible to secure the Panama route 
 on terms that would make it preferable to Nicaragua. 
 
 M. Hutin replied promptly, on May 15. His company, he 
 said, had unquestionable legal right and power to sell, sub- 
 ject to certain conditions imposed by Colombia: namely, 
 that the United States should be the purchaser, and that the 
 transfer should be effected on or before March 1, 1902. He 
 was, however, unable to fix a definite price. That would 
 have to be done by discussion, or by arbitration. Thus the 
 matter stood in an indefinite state for some months, the 
 American Canal Commission seeking and awaiting a state- 
 ment of price from the French company, at any rate before 
 Congress should reassemble in the fall, and the company 
 hesitating to commit itself to any definite sum. 
 
 At last, on October 2, 1901, M. Hutin gave to Rear- 
 Admiral Walker not an offer of sale at a fixed price, but a 
 memorandum of estimate of value, representing the maxi- 
 mum of the company's possible demands for its properties. 
 It was not stated nor intimated that the sum named was 
 the least the company would accept, or even that it would 
 ask such an amount. The estimates, it was explained, were 
 to serve as an indication of what the canal had thus far cost 
 
124 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 the French company, and as a basis of negotiation. The 
 Canal Commission, however, chose to regard this statement 
 of values as an offer of sale, or rather as a demand of price, 
 and accordingly reported the lump sum total of the esti- 
 mates as the price which the Panama company placed upon 
 its property, and for which it would "sell and transfer its 
 canal property to the United States." The sum was |109,- 
 141,500. Now the Commission had already estimated the 
 difference in cost between the two routes at only about 
 f 58,000,000, aside from the cost of acquiring Panama, and 
 had come to the conclusion that $40,000,000 was the maxi- 
 mum price which the United States should pay for the 
 Panama concession and unfinished works. It, therefore, 
 regarded the sum above mentioned as more than twice too 
 large for this country to pay, and repeated its recommenda- 
 tion in favour of Nicaragua. The statement of the French 
 company it regarded as confirming its former anticipation 
 that "the price would not be such as would make the total 
 cost to the United States less than that of the Nicaragua 
 Canal." In fact, the payment of the sum named would have 
 made the cost of the Panama Canal the greater by more than 
 $50,000,000. 
 
 When this action and report of the Commission became 
 known in Paris, a crisis occurred in the affairs of the com- 
 pany. Its President and most of its directors resigned their 
 places in despair, seeing nothing but bankruptcy and ruin 
 ahead. A general meeting of the stockholders was held on 
 December 21, 1901, at which, after much debate, it was 
 voted to negotiate for a sale of the canal to the United 
 States on the best terms that could be secured — presumably 
 the price already suggested by the Commission as the maxi- 
 mum which the United States should pay, $40,000,000. At 
 the same time it was earnestly protested that the Commis- 
 sion had misrepresented or misinterpreted the company's 
 former statement of values, and had unjustly "forced the 
 company's hand" by reporting that it demanded such a 
 price for its property. A definite offer of sale of the entire 
 
PANAMA RECOMMENDED 125 
 
 property of the company for |40,000,000 was made to the 
 Commission by cable, on January 4, 1902, and was confirmed 
 by later mail advices, whereupon the Commission, in a sup- 
 plementary report, on January 18, revised and reversed its 
 former judgment in accordance with the new conditions thus 
 established, and recommended the adoption of the Panama 
 route and the purchase of the unfinished French canal. 
 
 It was at this time pretty generally recognised through- 
 out the world that the United States was at last in earnest, 
 and would not only insist upon controlling whatever canal 
 was constructed across any American isthmus, but also 
 would itself promptly proceed with the construction of such 
 a canal. The International Conference of the American 
 States, commonly known as the Pan-American Congress, in 
 January, 1902, unanimously adopted the following resolu- 
 tion: 
 
 ^'The Republics assembled at the International Conference 
 of Mexico applaud the purpose of the United States Govern- 
 ment to construct an interoceanic canal, and acknowledge 
 that this work will not only be worthy of the American 
 people, but also in the highest sense a work of civilisation 
 and to the greatest degree beneficial to the development of 
 commerce between the American States and the other coun- 
 tries of the world." 
 
 In this resolution the common sentiment of the American 
 republics, and indeed of the world, was accurately expressed. 
 It remained for the United States to justify that sentiment, 
 and this was not done without one more struggle at Wash- 
 ington. It was now the turn of the advocates of Nicaragua 
 and those interested in the Maritime Canal Company to be 
 stricken with despair, since, if this latest report of the 
 commission were acted upon favourably, the Nicaragua 
 scheme would be killed. There accordingly arose in Con- 
 gress the final and most vehement controversy over canal 
 routes, the culmination of the age-long duel between Nica- 
 ragua and Panama. On January 8, before the revised 
 supplementary report of the Commission was presented, the 
 
126 NICARAGUA OP. PANAMA? 
 
 House of Representatives adopted by the overwhelming vote 
 of 223 to 25, Mr. Hepburn's bill authorising the President 
 to proceed to the construction of a canal at Nicaragua, at 
 a cost of 1180,000,000, and appropriating |10,000,000 on 
 account for immediate use. An amendment was proposed to 
 this bill, leaving the choice of routes to the discretion of the 
 President, but it was rejected by a vote of 120 ayes to 170 
 nays. Briefly stated, the argument against Panama and in 
 favour of Nicaragua, which prevailed at this time and which 
 brought about this vote, was that the Panama route was 
 the further from the United States, making the voyage 
 from our Atlantic to our Pacific coast much longer than by 
 way of Nicaragua; that Panama was the less desirable for 
 sailing vessels on account of the prevailing calms in the Bay 
 of Panama ; that the 'Tanama lobby" was not to be trusted ; 
 and that it would not be possible to make as satisfactory 
 arrangements with Colombia as with Nicaragua and Costa 
 Rica. There was also the general sentiment that Nicaragua 
 was the "traditional American route," while Panama was a 
 French route. 
 
 When this bill was reported from the House to the Senate, 
 vigorous opposition was promptly manifested toward it. It 
 is true. Senator Morgan had long been distinguished as the 
 foremost advocate and champion of Nicaragua. But there 
 were other Senators almost equally resolute in their advo- 
 cacy of Panama, and their number was much increased and 
 their position was greatly strengthened by the supplemen- 
 tary report of the Commission, showing how cheaply the 
 Panama Canal could be purchased. An amendment to the 
 Hepburn bill was therefore offered by Senator Spooner, 
 which amounted practically to a substitute measure. It 
 authorised the President to purchase the rights and property 
 of the Panama company for not more than |40,000,000, to 
 secure by treaty with Colombia perpetual control of the 
 strip of land, not less than six miles wide, through which 
 the canal was to run ; and then to proceed with the work of 
 constructing the canal. If, however, he was unable in a 
 
DAKIEN RESURKECTED 127 
 
 reasonable time to make the necessary bargain with Colom- 
 bia and with the Panama Canal Company, then he was to 
 make terms with Nicaragua and construct the canal there. 
 
 A long and earnest debate followed, during which all the 
 old arguments for and against each of the routes were re- 
 hearsed, while the lobbyists of both sides were indefatigable 
 in their efforts to influence Senatorial votes. In addition, 
 the old Darien route was once more brought forward. It 
 was said that a site had been discovered at which a sea-level 
 canal could be constructed with only twenty-nine and a half 
 miles of cutting, or nearly twenty miles less than at Pan- 
 ama, and with no curves, dams, or locks. There would, it 
 was true, have to be a tunnel nearly five miles long through 
 the mountains, but the scheme of making a rock tunnel five 
 miles long and three hundred feet in diameter, these ardent 
 propagandists affected to regard as an inconsiderable trifle, 
 nor did they fear the possible results of an earthquake shock 
 upon such a passageway. It was shrewdly observed, how- 
 ever, that the most vehement advocates of this chimerical 
 project were the very men who had been most opposed to the 
 construction of any canal at all, to wit, the agents of certain 
 transcontinental railroad lines. The game was quite obvi- 
 ous; too much so to delude any Senator or Representative 
 who did not desire, for a consideration, to be deluded. It 
 was, first, to oppose any canal at all ; and then, failing that, 
 to set the Government off on a wild-goose chase after some 
 entirely impossible though at first sight plausible route. In 
 this way, if the canal was not ultimately defeated, it would 
 be greatly delayed, and every year's delay meant a year's 
 profit to the railroad monopoly. It was actually proposed 
 that if the Government would guarantee the bonds, a private 
 corporation would supply the capital and do the whole 
 work at Darien in four years at a cost of $100,000,000. This 
 precious lure was, however, disregarded or relegated to the 
 limbo of fantastic follies. 
 
 There was a long fight over the so-called Spooner bill in 
 the Senate, and there were many rumors of "abhorrent and 
 
128 NICARAGUA OR PANAMA? 
 
 forbidden forces" employed by lobbyists for and against it, 
 most of which probably had their origin in nothing more 
 than imagination or desire. The result was, however, gen- 
 erally regarded as doubtful until the vote was actually 
 taken. That incident occurred on June 19, 1902, when the 
 measure was adopted by the overwhelming vote of sixty- 
 seven to six. It was supposed by many that the House of 
 Representatives would offer strenuous objection to this com- 
 plete transformation of its own measure, but such proved 
 not to be the case. The very same House which only a few 
 months before had voted overwhelmingly in favour of Nica- 
 ragua, and had strongly voted against giving the President 
 any option in the matter, now, on June 26, by a still more 
 overwhelming vote — 259 to 8 — accepted the Spooner amend- 
 ment, giving the President a certain discretion in the matter 
 but directing him to make his first choice at Panama ! 
 
 The measure thus passed by Congress was signed by Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt on June 28, and thus became law — the law 
 under which the world's desire is now being fulfilled at 
 Panama. (See Appendix IV.) It was the ending of a con- 
 troversy which had lasted for nearly four hundred years. 
 It was, in fact, the death warrant of the Nicaragua project, 
 which had for so long and at so great expense been kept 
 before American attention. It is true, the advocates of 
 Nicaragua for a time regarded it, or affected to regard it, as 
 a victory for them, on the ground that the President would 
 find it impossible to make satisfactory terms with Colombia 
 within the "reasonable time" prescribed by Congress, and 
 would, therefore, eventually turn to the Nicaragua route; 
 and indeed, this expectation came very near to fulfilment. 
 The moment the Spooner bill became law, the tactics of the 
 Nicaraguans, and of the enemies of any canal, were changed, 
 and their energies were directed toward the creation of 
 obstacles to a satisfactory agreement between the United 
 States and Colombia. There is reason to believe, too, that 
 some alien influences were exerted to the same end. In a 
 measure these were successful. The United States and 
 
A SUDDEN CHANGE 129 
 
 Colombia did not reach a satisfactory agreement. But, by a 
 dramatic turn of events, which, however, was surprising to 
 none but those who were wilfully or needlessly blind, the 
 United States was enabled, with little delay, to attain its 
 end without such an agreement, and on terms actually more 
 advantageous to it than had been expected. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 A LAW for the construction of a canal was at last enacted 
 and in force. It was next necessary, in fulfilment of the 
 provisions of that law, to effect a valid purchase of the 
 French canal company's rights and property, and to make 
 a suitable treaty with Colombia. The first thing to be con- 
 sidered was whether the laws of France, under which the 
 canal company was incorporated, would permit such a sale. 
 The officers of the company, and the company's legal counsel 
 in this country, were confident that they would. But some 
 further assurance was necessary for the satisfaction of the 
 United States Government, and this the Attorney-General 
 of the United States, Philander C. Knox, undertook to 
 secure. After a thorough investigation in France, he gave 
 his opinion, on October 25, 1902, that the French laws would 
 permit the sale, and that the French company could make 
 the sale and give the United States a valid and indisputable 
 title to the property thus conveyed — at least, so far as 
 France was concerned; Colombia was to be reckoned with 
 separately. 
 
 This opinion was based upon the revelations and results of 
 legal proceedings in Paris. The offer of the stockholders of 
 the company to sell to the United States had been referred 
 for consideration to the Civil Tribunal of the Seine, which, 
 under a special law enacted in 1893, had jurisdiction over 
 the matter, and had been approved by it. From that approv- 
 ing decision a dissenting stockholder had made appeal to 
 the Court of Cassation, the supreme tribunal of French 
 justice, and the latter instead of reversing had affirmed it, on 
 August 5, 1902. We need not here review, even in epitome, 
 
 130 
 
THE TERMS PROPOSED 131 
 
 the intricate legal arguments, pro and contra, which were in- 
 volved in the case. It is sufficient to say that after an 
 elaborate and painstaking consideration of it the highest 
 court in France decided that the transfer could legally be 
 made ; that after a detailed personal observation and inves- 
 tigation by the Attorney-General, the opinion above men- 
 tioned was given, and that no serious attempt was made 
 thereafter to challenge the validity of the transaction. 
 
 The next step was much more difficult and more tedious. 
 It was necessary to secure from Colombia a treaty giving to 
 the United States perpetual control of a strip of territory, 
 from sea to sea, and Colombia promptly exhibited an incli- 
 nation not to make such a grant. It had long been the 
 characteristic practice of both Colombia and Nicaragua 
 to play a somewhat capricious part. Each was ready 
 to offer all sorts of concessions in order to entice canal 
 projectors to it and away from its rival, but the moment it 
 felt pretty sure its route was to be chosen it would increase 
 its demands to an extortionate degree. So it was with 
 Colombia in 1902-3. During the long duel with Nicaragua, 
 Colombia had been profuse in its invitations to the United 
 States to go thither and build a canal. Now that the duel 
 was practically ended in its favour, it began to demand 
 terms which it should have known the United States would 
 not and could not grant. 
 
 The terms proposed by the United States and accepted by 
 Colombia in a preliminary protocol were in brief as fol- 
 lows : That Colombia should approve the sale of the French 
 company's rights and property to the United States; that 
 the United States should have the sole and exclusive right to 
 construct, operate, and control the canal ; that a Canal Zone 
 five kilometers (3.105 miles) wide should be established, to 
 be under Colombian sovereignty but under United States 
 administration, its neutrality to be guaranteed by the 
 United States, and the sanitary and police services to be 
 jointly maintained by the two governments; that the 
 United States should construct all necessary ports, light- 
 
132 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 houses, hospitals, etc., the ports to be free and the canal 
 tolls to be equal to all nations; that damages arising from 
 the construction of the canal should be appraised by a joint 
 commission and be paid by the United States; that no taxes 
 should be levied upon the canal property; that Colombia 
 should not cede nor lease to any foreign power any lands or 
 islands adjacent to the canal ; that the canal should forever 
 be neutral; that Colombia should provide the forces neces- 
 sary for the policing and protection of the canal, but if she 
 were unable to do so, she might call upon the United States 
 for aid; that the United States should begin work upon the 
 canal within two years after the ratification of the treaty, 
 and should complete it within twenty-four years; and that 
 the United States should pay to Colombia a bonus of 
 17,000,000 in cash and after fourteen years a reasonable 
 annuity, the amount of which, it was at first proposed, 
 should be fixed by mutual agreement or by arbitration, but 
 which was afterward set at |250,000. 
 
 These terms were widely regarded in the United States 
 as too liberal to Colombia, and as not sufficiently safeguard- 
 ing the vast interests of the United States in the canal. It 
 was thought that the Canal Zone should be wider, if indeed 
 it did not include the whole State or Department of Panama, 
 and that it should become outright the property of the 
 United States. This latter idea was not perhaps held by a 
 majority of the American people, but the feeling was prac- 
 tically universal that the terms proposed set forth the maxi- 
 mum of what the United States could afford to offer Colom- 
 bia, and the minimum of what it could afford to accept in 
 return. Colombia, however, affected to regard them as 
 entirely too illiberal toward her, and on November 25, 1902, 
 the Colombian Minister, Senor Jose V. Concha, informed Sec- 
 retary Hay that he could not accept them in behalf of his 
 government. Whether in assuming that attitude he was 
 acting upon his own judgment and initiative, or in response 
 to instructions from Bogota, did not appear. Subsequent 
 revelations, however, gave much colour to the belief that he 
 
HAKD TIMES AT BOGOTA 133 
 
 was in entire accord with his home government, and that 
 both were intent upon either the extortion of extreme terms 
 from the United States or the defeat of the American proj- 
 ect altogether in favour of some other interest. 
 
 The Colombian Republic was at that time in a bad way. 
 Its government was of revolutionary origin and of disputed 
 validity. Dr. Manuel Sanclemente, elected President on 
 July 4, 1898, had been violently deposed and thrown into 
 prison by a coup-d^etat on July 31, 1900, and had been suc- 
 ceeded as "Acting President" by the Vice-President, Dr. 
 Jos6 Manuel Marroquin, a man of fine literary and scien- 
 tific attainments, but not gifted with the genius of govern- 
 ment, who had established a dictatorship at once absolute 
 and ineflScient. The treasury was depleted, the silver peso 
 was worth only 38 1-2 cents instead of 50 cents, and the 
 paper currency, of which 350,000,000 pesos were in circula- 
 tion, was so debased that gold was at 2,500 per cent, pre- 
 mium. In 1901-2 revenues were less than 29,000,000 pesos, 
 while expenses, swelled by the chronic state of war, were 
 more than 40,000,000 pesos. The public debt, both domestic 
 and foreign, was large and was increasing rapidly, and 
 could not be stayed by the activity of the printing presses, 
 which were producing reams of depreciated paper currency. 
 
 In such circumstances, what must have been the covetous- 
 ness with which the politicians of Bogota regarded the |40,- 
 000,000 which the United States proposed to pay in cash to 
 the French Canal Company for its concession and unfinished 
 works! It occurred to them that the canal was on Colom- 
 bian soil, that the concession for its construction had been 
 granted by the Colombian Government, that the whole enter- 
 prise thus naturally belonged to Colombia, and that, there- 
 fore, Colombia ought to have that money, or at least a large 
 share of it. Why, indeed, should not Colombia have it all? 
 Nothing could be simpler. The French company's conces- 
 sion had only until October, 1910, to run. Indeed, it had not 
 so long, but only until October, 1904, for the extension of it 
 beyond the latter date, though made by the Colombian 
 
134 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 President, had not been ratified by the Colombian Congress. 
 If the Congress should refuse to ratify it, the concession 
 would lapse in October, 1904, unless the canal were finished 
 by that time. It was, of course, a physical impossibility for 
 the company to finish the canal by that time, and so the 
 concession would lapse, the franchise would be forfeited, and 
 all the rights and property of the company would revert to 
 the Colombian Government, which could then sell to the 
 United States on its own terms and for its own profit, and 
 the usufruct would go into the depleted Colombian treasury, 
 to which it would be a veritable godsend. All that Colombia 
 had to do, therefore, was to delay action for a couple of 
 years, to "sit tight," and that |40,000,000 would drop into 
 its hands. 
 
 Nor was that potent consideration the only force at work. 
 The German "colonial party" had for some time been deeply 
 interested in Colombian affairs. This was natural, for a 
 number of reasons. One was, that the Colombian foreign 
 debt was largely held in Germany. Another was, that Ger- 
 man commercial interests in Colombia were large and were 
 steadily growing. A third was, that the Isthmian canal 
 might be of practical use if not a necessity to Germany as 
 an alternative route to her insular colonies in the Pacific 
 and to the western countries of South America, with which 
 she was developing a considerable commerce. Still another 
 was, that it seemed eminently desirable for Germany to 
 obtain, if possible, proprietary or at least leasehold rights 
 in some lands somewhere about the Caribbean Sea. With 
 the opening of the canal, and with the development of the 
 West Indies and Central and South America, the Caribbean 
 would become a centre of the world's commerce, and Ger- 
 many, aspiring to commercial supremacy, could ill afford 
 to forego the advantages enjoyed by her rivals. The United 
 States was, of course, securely established upon the borders 
 of the Caribbean. So was Great Britain, on mainland and 
 on islands. So was France. So, too, was Holland. Even 
 Denmark possessed a group of islands in those waters. It 
 
GEKMAN INTEEESTS 135 
 
 seemed intolerable, to the "forward" party in Germany, that 
 the German empire alone should be denied such an advan- 
 tage. If it could not have an extensive colony, it certainly 
 should have a naval and coaling station. 
 
 Some aggressive German statesmen of the "colonial" 
 school had for some time fixed their eyes on the Danish West 
 Indies, the Dutch West Indies, and various Venezuelan and 
 Colombian islands, as promising a convenient and commo- 
 dious addition to German possessions. Now it occurred to 
 them that control of, or even a share in the control of, an 
 Isthmian canal would be a supremely felicitous realisation 
 of their ambitions. True, the Monroe Doctrine might be 
 regarded by some as an obstacle. But, they argued, America 
 had already tolerated the French enterprise for twenty 
 years, and apparently would have been willing for the 
 French company to go on and finish the canal. Would not 
 that complaisant attitude of the United States Government 
 serve as an estoppel against any American protests against 
 continuation of the work under German auspices? If 
 America permitted the French to begin the canal, how could 
 it logically forbid the Germans to complete it? The United 
 States had not only acquiesced in the construction, or 
 attempted construction, of the canal by the French com- 
 pany, but it had actually recognised the validity of the 
 French company's title by negotiating for the purchase of 
 it. Logically, then, it would have to acquiesce in the com- 
 pletion of the canal by a German company, and would have 
 to concede the validity of the sale of the unfinished work 
 to such a company. If, then, the French company could be 
 prevented from selling to the United States, and persuaded 
 to sell to a German company instead, the German scheme 
 would be successful and the German position would be 
 impregnable. Or if the whole matter could be delayed until 
 the French's company's franchise had been forfeited to 
 Colombia, and then Colombia should sell to a German com- 
 pany instead of to the United States, the same end would be 
 gained. 
 
136 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 There was in this ingenious line of argument, however, one 
 fatal flaw, or a flaw that would surely have proved fatal had 
 the matter ever been put to the test. The United States 
 could and doubtless would have objected, consistently and 
 logically, to the transfer of the canal from a French to a 
 German company, because it had long before laid down and 
 maintained the principle that while European countries 
 might possess property in the Americas, they could not 
 transfer it from one to another, but upon relinquishing it 
 must leave it independent or else surrender it to the United 
 States or some other American power. It was on that 
 ground that the United States had protested against any 
 transfer of Cuba from the ownership of Spain to that of any 
 other European power, and had announced its readiness to 
 go to war, if necessary, to make that protest effective. On 
 that principle the United States could and would have made 
 effective objection to the transfer of the canal from French 
 to any other European ownership. Happily, however, it 
 was not necessary to take that stand. Diplomacy guards 
 some of its secrets well, and it is not now possible to say 
 with confidence to what extent, or indeed if to any extent at 
 all, the German Government or any of its agents was re- 
 sponsible for or even cognisant of these designs and such 
 efforts as were made for their fulfilment. It was quite 
 notorious, however, that during much of the protracted 
 period of negotiations between the United States -and Colom- 
 bia, and between these countries and the New Panama Canal 
 Company, German agents, official or unofficial, were par- 
 ticularly busy at Bogota and also in Paris, and seemed to be 
 exceptionally influential with the Colombian Government 
 and to enjoy its confidence and its favour to a remarkable 
 degree. It was also observed that Senor Concha, the Colom- 
 bian Minister to the United States, in both Washington and 
 New York, was in close and frequent association with other 
 German agents and apparently much under their influence. 
 All this is to be recalled without offence, because it was, of 
 course, quite legitimate for Germany to seek commercial, 
 
THE KEYOLT OF 1902 137 
 
 industrial, and political advantages in Colombia to whatever 
 extent she could without traversing or infringing upon the 
 rights of other nations. Moreover, given the scene of an 
 enterprise which had been for four centuries the world's 
 desire, and which was yearly growing of more and more 
 importance to all commercial powers, and given the owner- 
 ship and nominal control of that region by a State at once 
 weak, disordered, and peculiarly susceptible to either politi- 
 cal or pecuniary considerations, and we have an ideal situa- 
 tion for the exercise of diplomatic intrigue. 
 
 The year 1902 marked, moreover, the culmination of the 
 latest of Colombia's many revolutionary movements. This 
 widespread insurrection of the Liberal party against the 
 oppressive Conservative and Clerical government had been 
 maintained with varying success for several years, and 
 early in 1902 it began to gather chiefly on and about the 
 Isthmus. A new Governor of Panama — F. Mutis Duran — 
 was appointed by the Bogotd Government in February. A 
 few weeks later the danger of obstruction of commerce and 
 travel over the Isthmus became so marked that the American 
 Government deemed it essential to send a naval force thither 
 to protect the rights and interests of this country, according 
 to the provisions of the Treaty of 1846. On March 8 an 
 American vessel reached Colon and thereafter commanded 
 that city with its guns, thus exercising a most salutary 
 influence over the belligerents. Six months later the situa- 
 tion grew more serious at the southern side of the Isthmus, 
 and accordingly on September 12 another American vessel 
 entered the harbour of Panama, and on September 19 Ameri- 
 can marines were landed. This action was taken under an 
 order of the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Moody, which ran in 
 part as follows : 
 
 "The United States guarantees perfect neutrality of Isth- 
 mus, and that a free transit from sea to sea be not inter- 
 rupted or embarrassed. . . . Any transportation of troops 
 which might contravene provisions of treaty should not be 
 sanctioned by you; nor should use of road be permitted 
 
138 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 which might convert the line of transit into a theatre of 
 hostility." 
 
 This order, sent on September 12, was reasonable and logi- 
 cal, and intended simply to maintain our fixed policy and 
 to fulfil our treaty rights and obligations. Against it the 
 Governor of Panama protested, but without effect. The 
 American authorities persisted in their intervention, in 
 which they were clearly within their rights under the treaty. 
 Indeed they were doing no more than they had done several 
 times before with Colombian approval. 
 
 Nor was the American intervention confined to a mere 
 show of force. Actual force was exercised to prevent either 
 of the belligerents from interfering with traffic over the rail- 
 way, or from using the railway as an engine of war. Colom- 
 bian troops were disarmed on September 22, and three days 
 later insurgent troops were prevented from using the rail- 
 road and were actually compelled to leave a train which 
 they had seized and entered. There was, of course, no inter- 
 ference by Americans excepting to keep the railroad neutral 
 and in peaceful operation. The principle was enunciated and 
 maintained that no combatants under arms should be trans- 
 ported on the railroad, no matter to which party they be- 
 longed. That was because to permit such transportation 
 would be to make the railroad an adjunct to that side in the 
 war, and to subject it to attack by the other party. If the 
 Colombian troops used the road, the insurgents would 
 attack it, and the United States would either have to permit 
 such attack, which might suspend the traffic on the road 
 which this country was bound under the treaty to keep free 
 and open, or to prevent it with force, which would make this 
 country the ally of Colombia against the insurgents. If the 
 insurgents were permitted to use it, the case would be, 
 mutatis mutandis^ precisely the same. The only logical and 
 safe course was, then, that which was taken, to forbid the 
 military use of the road by either party. This vigorous 
 American policy had the desired effect. The road was kept 
 
HEERAN SUCCEEDS CONCHA 139 
 
 open and undisturbed, and the belligerents, disappointed 
 and discouraged in their efforts to involve the road, finally 
 retired from that region, so that by November 19 it was 
 deemed prudent to withdraw the United States forces. 
 
 Meantime, of course, diplomatic negotiations, both open 
 and secret, had been going on. The first part of them came 
 to an end at the beginning of December, 1902. At that time 
 Senor Concha suddenly ceased to be the Colombian Minister 
 to the United States, and was succeeded, as Charge d'- 
 Affaires, by Dr. Tomas Herran. He denied the reports that 
 he had been removed from his place by the Colombian Gov- 
 ernment, insisting that he had voluntarily resigned, and 
 that, indeed, his resignation had for some months been in 
 the hands of the government, he having presented it as a 
 protest against the intervention of United States troops dur- 
 ing the disturbances on the Isthmus. He added that the 
 proposals of the United States for the canal were entirely 
 unacceptable to him and to his government, on financial 
 grounds, and that it would be far more profitable to Colom- 
 bia to have matters remain as they were, than to make the 
 proposed treaty, even with the payment of a bonus of $10,- 
 000,000 instead of the |7,000,000 first proposed— the United 
 States having, during the negotiations, agreed to such 
 increase of the bonus. He also emphasised the determina- 
 tion of Colombia not to surrender to any extent her sover- 
 eignty or administrative control of the Isthmus, and her 
 irreversible opposition to the creation of a canal zone under 
 American administration. Having thus delivered himself, 
 from his hotel in New York, Seiior Concha departed for 
 Europe, in the company of a prominent German with whom 
 his association had long been intimate. 
 
 This incident gave new hope to the advocates of the canal 
 enterprise. It was felt that Senor Concha's departure from 
 the scene removed a hostile influence, and that Dr. Herran's 
 succession to him was of good omen. Dr. Herran was known 
 to be favourably disposed toward the canal. He was at once 
 a most loyal and eflScient servant of Colombia, and a sincere 
 
140 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 friend of the United States. His capacity and integrity 
 were of the highest order, and all his motives were above 
 suspicion. He was earnestly desirous of effecting an 
 arrangement whereby the United States should become the 
 proprietor and builder of the canal, and he entered into 
 negotiations with Secretary Hay, early in December, 1902, 
 with that end in view. He laboured under some disadvan- 
 tage, at first, in being not a full Minister but merely Charge 
 d' Affaires, and also in being much hampered by the hesi- 
 tancy and unreasonableness of the Bogota Government. His 
 patience and tact triumphed in the end, however, and a 
 convention, known as the Hay-Herran treaty, was signed on 
 January 22, 1903. 
 
 Dr. Herran had delayed signing it much longer than he 
 personally thought fit, under the constraint of the urgings 
 of the Bogota. Government, which bade him to hold out with 
 all possible tenacity for a more ample subsidy from the 
 United States. Indeed, at the end Secretary Hay was prac- 
 tically compelled to deliver to him an ultimatum, telling him 
 that if the treaty were not signed by a certain date, the 
 United States would abandon Panama altogether and build 
 a canal at Nicaragua. This menace, coupled with a re- 
 minder that the United States might so construe and enforce 
 the Monroe Doctrine and the Treaty of 1846 as to prevent 
 the construction of a canal at Panama by any other power 
 or foreign corporation, brought the Bogotd Government to 
 terms, and it gave Dr. Herran permission to sign the treaty. 
 Nor was this reminder vain, for under the Treaty of 1846 
 the United States indisputably had the exclusive right of 
 control over any transportation route, whether railroad or 
 canal, that might at any time be established across that 
 Isthmus. 
 
 Under the Hay-Herran treaty, Colombia was to authorise 
 the New Panama Canal Company to sell and transfer to the 
 United States all its rights, privileges, concessions, and prop- 
 erties, including the Panama Railroad. The United States 
 was to have perpetual administrative control, for canal pur- 
 
THE HAY-HERRAN TREATY 141 
 
 poses, of a strip of land 30 miles wide, extending across the 
 Isthmus, the sovereignty of which was to remain vested in 
 Colombia; police powers were, however, to be exercised by 
 the United States. There were to be three sets of courts: 
 One, Colombian, with jurisdiction over causes between 
 Colombians and Colombians, or between Colombians and 
 foreigners other than citizens of the United States ; a second, 
 American, with jurisdiction in cases between Americans, or 
 between Americans and foreigners other than Colombians; 
 and a third, jointly American and Colombian, with juris- 
 diction in cases between Americans and Colombians, and in 
 general civil, criminal, and admiralty matters. 
 
 In return for the concession of territory and the canal 
 franchise, the United States was to pay Colombia a cash 
 bonus of 110,000,000 immediately, and $100,000 yearly, be- 
 ginning nine years after the ratification of the treaty. These 
 terms were decidedly more liberal to Colombia than those 
 prescribed in the original protocol under which the negotia- 
 tions were begun. Let us compare them. Under the protocol 
 Colombia was to get a bonus of |7,000,000 and an annuity of 
 1250,000 beginning after fourteen years. Under the treaty 
 she was to have a bonus of |10,000,000 and an annuity of 
 1100,000 beginning after nine years. If she had invested the 
 bonus, say at five per cent., she would have had under the 
 protocol an income of |350,000 a year for fourteen years, 
 and $600,000 a year thereafter, while under the treaty she 
 would have had |500,000 a year for nine years and $600,000 
 a year thereafter. Under the protocol she would have got 
 in fourteen years an accumulated income of $4,900,000, 
 while under the treaty she would have got in the same time 
 $7,500,000, a difference of $2,600,000 in her favour under 
 the treaty. These points are to be borne in mind, in view of 
 the fact that while Colombia assented to the original proto- 
 col, as a fair basis of negotiation, she objected to the treaty 
 as not sufficiently generous to her in its financial provisions. 
 
 The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 
 March 17,1903, and it was assumed that the Colombian Con- 
 
142 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 gress would also ratify it at an early date. The Acting 
 President — and actual Dictator — of Colombia was under- 
 stood to be favourable to it, but he either would not or could 
 not exert any influence in behalf of the treaty. In view of 
 his dictatorial conduct in other matters, and of the various 
 circumstances already described, it seems not unjust to 
 suspect that he was not unwilling to witness the failure of 
 the convention which had been made under the direction of 
 his administration. Such failure would, he might have reck- 
 oned, promote Colombian interests, for it would necessitate 
 the negotiation of a new treaty, and by the time that was 
 done the canal concession would lapse and Colombia would 
 be able to sell the franchise and the unfinished work to the 
 United States, and thus secure the coveted |40,000,000 for 
 itself. 
 
 The animus and aim of the Bogota Government were, 
 moreover, shown by a significant incident. During the ne- 
 gotiations over the Hay-Herran treaty, and before the sign- 
 ing of that document. President Marroquin ordered the 
 New Panama Canal Company to appoint a special agent, 
 who should come to Bogotd when Congress assembled, and 
 who should have full power to transact any business which 
 might come up between the company and the government. 
 It was explained that the Colombian Government did not 
 mean to oppose the transfer of the company's rights and 
 property to the United States, but that the government 
 would require of the company a "sum of money" in pay- 
 ment for permission to make the transfer, and would also 
 "cancel every liability and obligation" which it had assumed 
 in the original canal concession. This obviously meant that 
 the Colombian Government would compel the company to 
 surrender to it a part if not the whole of the |40,000,000 
 paid by the United States, and then would practically abro- 
 gate the canal concession for which the United States had 
 paid that sum. Never was there a more barefaced proposal 
 to "eat a cake and have it, too" — or to get a purchase price 
 without delivering the goods. 
 
ATTEMPTS AT EXTOKTION 143 
 
 Later it came out that the government intended to exact 
 one-fourth of the $40,000,000 from the company. The agent 
 of the canal company at Bogotd, who had been appointed, 
 but not with such power as President Marroquin had 
 ordered, reported to the American Minister there, Mr. 
 Beaupre, on June 20, that the Colombian Government had 
 officially informed him that the Hay-Herran treaty would 
 be ratified, if the company would pay the government |10,- 
 000,000 — the intimation being, of course, that unless that 
 sum was paid, the treaty would not be ratified. This was 
 after the Congress which was to pass upon the treaty had 
 been elected ; indeed, on the very day on which it assembled. 
 The government must have known, when it made that propo- 
 sition, therefore, what the Congress would do, and must 
 have felt sure of its ability to secure whatever action it 
 desired from the Congress. In other words, the Congress 
 would do whatever President Marroquin wanted it to do, 
 and if the treaty failed of ratification, it would be because 
 he was willing or desirous that it should fail. 
 
 A new Congress, which should act upon the treaty, was 
 nominated and elected in Colombia after the treaty had been 
 made and its terms were known. That body was, after the 
 fashion of Colombian Congresses ever since the revolution of 
 President Nunez, practically selected through government 
 dictation. Had President Marroquin so desired, he could 
 have secured a Congress which would have ratified the 
 treaty. Instead, he dictated the election of one that 
 would reject it. Even in advance of its election it was 
 openly announced that the Congress would be hostile to the 
 treaty. In some cases, as we shall presently see, the govern- 
 ment dictated the election of men conspicuously hostile to 
 the treaty, if not to the whole canal scheme. 
 
 These facts were notorious, not only at Bogotd and Pan- 
 ama but in the United States, and the knowledge of them 
 inspired the Washington Government to instruct its repre- 
 sentatives in Colombia to warn the Colombian Government 
 frankly of the sentiment of this country in the matter. Mr. 
 
144 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 Beaupre communicated to the Colombian Foreign Minister 
 the substance of a despatch from Secretary Hay, which ran 
 as follows : 
 
 "The Colombian Government apparently does not appre- 
 ciate the gravity of the situation. The canal negotiations 
 were initiated by Colombia, and were energetically pressed 
 upon this Government for several years. The propositions 
 presented by Colombia with slight modifications were finally 
 accepted by us. In virtue of this agreement, our Congress 
 reversed its previous judgment and decided upon the Pan- 
 ama route. If Colombia should now reject the treaty or 
 unduly delay its ratification, the friendly understanding 
 between the two countries would be so seriously compro- 
 mised that action might be taken by Congress next winter 
 which every friend of Colombia would regret." 
 
 This energetic "reading of the riot act" had, however, no 
 restraining effect upon the Colombian zeal for delay, obstruc- 
 tion, and ultimate loot. The body which was to pass upon 
 the treaty was made up in predetermined hostility to that 
 instrument, or at any rate in complete servility to the will 
 of the Acting-President. Thus constituted, the Congress 
 met on June 20, 1903. It quickly showed that its reputation 
 of hostility to the treaty was deserved. It was not only 
 hostile to the treaty, but it was not willing to give the advo- 
 cates of that measure a fair hearing. It made no secret of 
 its bias and its intentions, and these were generally notori- 
 ous at Bogotd. Just a week after the Congress met, the 
 American Minister reported to the Washington Government 
 that the friends and partisans of President Marroquin were 
 in full control of both Houses, and that thus, he thought, 
 the ratification of the treaty was assured, since President 
 Marroquin was practically pledged to it. That report indi- 
 cated only the unfortunate extent to which Mr. Beaupre 
 had been deceived as to the real intentions of the Colombian 
 Government. Other diplomats at Bogota, who were taken 
 more fully into the Acting-President's confidence, were bet- 
 
ANXIETY IN PARIS 145 
 
 ter informed. The German Minister is said to have told his 
 friends at an earlier date than this that the treaty was 
 absolutely sure to be rejected. 
 
 A little later Mr. Beaupr^ began to see the light. He 
 reported on July 2 that a majority of the Colombian Senate 
 had expressed hostility to the treaty, and ten days later he 
 added that the Colombian Government had informed him 
 that the treaty would not be ratified unless the canal com- 
 pany would pay Colombia $10,000,000 and the United States 
 would pay |15,000,000 instead of |10,000,000 as its bonus. 
 Thus were the intimations of the notice served by President 
 Marroquin upon the canal company being fulfilled. Secre- 
 tary Hay replied, of course, that such conditions were 
 entirely unacceptable to the United States. 
 
 Meantime, great anxiety prevailed in Paris. The French 
 company was little short of desperate. It knew its sale of 
 its properties to the United States was contingent upon this 
 country's making a satisfactory treaty with the sovereign 
 of the Isthmus. It assumed, also, and with reason, that if 
 it did not effect such a sale before October, 1904, its fran- 
 chise would lapse and all its possessions would be forfeited. 
 As time passed without Colombian ratification of the treaty, 
 and as the prospects of such ratification waned, the company 
 felt itself to be confronted by ruin. Naturally, therefore, it 
 began to lend an eager ear to all suggestions of escape from 
 its plight, even to other offers of purchase. If it could not 
 sell to the United States for $40,000,000, it would be better 
 to sell for a smaller sum, to Germany, to Colombia, or to 
 any purchaser, than to lose all. The situation was much 
 intensified on August 12, when the Colombian Senate, in 
 fulfilment of Mr. Beaupr^'s prognostications, rejected the 
 treaty. There was still, of course, a possibility of reconsid- 
 eration of that action, for there was yet a month, until Sep- 
 tember 12, before the treaty would expire by time limitation, 
 but that possibility was little more than infinitesimal. 
 Again and again the United States reminded Colombia 
 that under the Spooner law the President could wait 
 
146 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 only "a reasonable time" for the conclusion of satisfac- 
 tory arrangements with Colombia, and would then be 
 bound to turn to Nicaragua, but these warnings were 
 unheeded. 
 
 At the same time offers of purchase of the canal by other 
 parties were renewed with redoubled zeal, and the pressure 
 upon the unhappy company to accept one of them became 
 almost irresistible. The American counsel for the company, 
 William Nelson Cromwell, who had been most active and 
 efficient in promoting negotiations thus far, was put almost 
 at his wits' ends to restrain his clients from such action. 
 The Atlantic cables were kept busy with appeals, arguments, 
 remonstrances, and what not, and finally a hurried trip 
 was made to Paris, with successful results. The company 
 was persuaded to be patient and to expect, through some 
 means, the consummation of its bargain with the United 
 States. In pursuing this course it was justified by the event. 
 What certain prescience of the coming event Mr. Crom- 
 well had, is matter for conjecture. There is reason to be- 
 lieve that he had no part in the revolution which so soon 
 thereafter occurred. Indeed, he is said on at least one 
 occasion to have discouraged and opposed it. But he nat- 
 urally shared the knowledge which many had, in New York, 
 in Washington, at Panama, and at Bogota, of the movement 
 then in progress and of the warnings which had already 
 been given to the Colombian Government of the inevitable 
 result of its rejection of the treaty. So the company 
 declined all other offers for its property, and patiently, 
 though anxiously, awaited the result of the American nego- 
 tiations with Colombia. 
 
 The Colombian Government persisted in its fatuous 
 course. In accordance with its policy of delay, it proposed 
 to the United States further negotiations, for the modifica- 
 tion of the treaty, on the lines of the extortionate demands 
 made by it and reported by Mr. Beaupre on July 12. As 
 Secretary Hay had already with the utmost positiveness 
 declared those conditions entirely inadmissible, he naturally 
 
KILLING THE TKEATY 147 
 
 declined this proposal. Strenuous warnings to Colombia 
 were repeated. On August 5, Mr. Beaupre told the Colom- 
 bian Foreign Minister that occurrences which had already 
 taken place with respect to the canal treaty had been of such 
 a character as fully to warrant the United States in consid- 
 ering any modification of the conditions stipulated in the 
 treaty a violation of the compact between the two govern- 
 ments, which would produce most serious complications in 
 the friendly relations which had thitherto existed between 
 the United States and Colombia. 
 
 The only reply to this and other like utterances was a 
 declaration that Colombia had a right to do as she pleased 
 in the matter. Then, on September 8, 1903, the Colombian 
 Government "confidentially" informed the Washington State 
 Department that, despite its rejection of the proposal for 
 further negotiations, it intended to propose a reopening of 
 negotiations, upon bases which it judged would be accepta- 
 ble "to the Congress of next July." That is to say, the Hay- 
 Herran treaty was to be killed, and then Colombia would 
 ask for the negotiation of a new treaty which would be 
 acceptable to a new Congress the next year! This charac- 
 teristic bit of jugglery did not meet with favour at 
 Washington. 
 
 A few days later, on September 12, the treaty automatic- 
 ally lapsed, through the expiration of the time allotted for 
 ratification. Still, a single, solitary, infinitesimal hope 
 remained. The Colombian Congress was still in session, and 
 it might yet reconsider its unfavourable action and ratify 
 the treaty, and then request the United States Government 
 to accept it, though ratified at technically too late a date. 
 Whether the United States would or could have done so is 
 an open question. But what is certain is that the Colombian 
 Government had no thought of taking such action. On the 
 contrary, it emphasised its intention of killing the Hay- 
 Herran treaty, and of blocking the whole canal scheme until 
 it could command success in its extortionate demands. On 
 October 14 a committee of the Colombian Senate reported 
 
148 NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLOMBIA 
 
 to the Senate a recommendation that Colombia should not 
 negotiate an^^ canal treaty with the United States until 
 after the time granted in the concession to the French Com- 
 pany had expired and its franchise had lapsed. The object 
 of this was obvious, and was two-fold. It would enable 
 Colombia to secure the whole price paid by the United 
 States, since she would then have confiscated the company's 
 property, and it would enable Colombia to insist upon less 
 favourable terms in her new concession to the United States 
 than she had granted to the original De Lesseps Company. 
 This recommendation was not acted upon by the Colombian 
 Senate, but neither did that body direct or authorise the 
 government to seek the negotiation of a new treaty. A show 
 was made of generosity to the French company, in a proposal 
 to ratify the prolongation of the time of its concession from 
 1904 to 1910. This proposal is said to have met with the 
 unanimous approval of the Senate when it was first pre- 
 sented. It was then, however, deftly inserted into a con- 
 venient pigeon-hole and was never heard of again and, of 
 course, was never acted upon. 
 
 In the face of these things, the inexorable predetermina- 
 tion of President Marroquin's government to kill the treaty 
 of its own making, unless extortionate and oppressive con- 
 ditions were adopted, seems beyond question, and it is 
 evident that there never was any real hope that the Hay- 
 Herran treaty would become operative. The United States 
 Government, however, was patient. The President inter- 
 preted the "reasonable time" provision of the Spooner law as 
 permitting him to wait a little while, even after the time 
 allowed for ratification had expired, before abandoning 
 negotiations with Colombia for a canal at Panama and 
 going to Nicaragua. So he waited patiently until the end 
 of the Congressional session at Bogotd. That came on Octo- 
 ber 31. On that day the Colombian Congress adjourned 
 without any favourable action upon the treaty, and the 
 American Minister at Bogota received a leave of absence, 
 though he remained at Bogotd, or at least in Colombia, until 
 
THE END AT BOGOTA 149 
 
 November 24 following. On October 31, therefore, our rela- 
 tions with Colombia, in connection with an Isthmian canal, 
 ceased. There was apparently nothing to do but to turn to 
 Nicaragua. But before that could be done, there came a 
 revolution. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 The Colombian Congress adjourned on October 31. On 
 November 3, occurred the Panama Revolution. It was by no 
 means unexpected. As I have said m the preceding chapter, 
 the menace of it and the preparations for it had been known 
 for months in New York, at Washington, at Panama, and 
 at Bogotd. In order, however, to understand its causes and 
 its justification perfectly, we must turn back to the time of 
 Bolivar himself. Colombia, or New Granada, was one of 
 the first Spanish provinces of South America to establish 
 its independence from Spain, in 1819. At the same time it 
 showed itself one of the least worthy of such a state. In 
 the words of Quijano Otero, a historian of that time, "Colom- 
 bia had lived so fast in her years of glory and great deeds 
 that, though still a child, she was already entering a pre- 
 mature decrepitude." It was actually proposed to establish 
 a monarchy, and the plans to that end were so strongly 
 pushed that Bolivar was moved to seek for aid in preventing 
 their consummation. With the monarchical scheme and 
 with the general turbulence and lack of progress, the more 
 orderly and enterprising people of Panama were disgusted. 
 While Colombia, or, rather, the provinces of New Granada, 
 Venezuela, and Quito, or Ecuador, became independent in 
 1819, it was not until November 28, 1821, that the two Isth- 
 mian provinces of Panama and Veraguas made their Decla- 
 ration of Independence. Thereupon they voluntarily allied 
 themselves with New Granada. But in a few years much 
 dissatisfaction arose, and in 1830 many of the foremost 
 Isthmians regarded the union as a grievous mistake and 
 began agitating for its repeal. 
 
 150 
 
ISTHMIAN DISCONTENT 151 
 
 It was in 1819 that Bolivar overthrew the Spanish power 
 and, at the Congress of Angostura, established under its 
 first Constitution the Republic of Colombia, consisting of 
 the three provinces of Venezuela, Quito (now Ecuador), 
 and New Granada, the last named corresponding with 
 the Colombia of later years. In 1821, that Constitution, 
 with some changes, was reenacted by the Colombian 
 Constitutional Congress at Cucuta, and it was maintained 
 until 1830. In that year the Republic was broken up 
 into three parts, Venezuela, Ecuador, and New Granada, 
 each becoming an independent state, and a Constitu- 
 tional convention at Bogota enacted and proclaimed a 
 "fundamental law" for "the State of New Granada." 
 This instrument was not fully sanctioned until 1832, 
 wherefore it is known historically as the Constitution 
 of 1832. Meantime, as we have said, discontent arose in 
 Panama, and in 1830 a great mass meeting was held, pre- 
 sided over by the Governor of Panama, General J. D. 
 Espinar, a distinguished veteran of the War of Independence, 
 at which resolutions were adopted calling for "separation 
 from the rest of the Republic, and especially from the gov- 
 ernment of Bogota." It was proposed to establish an inde- 
 pendent republic, and even, according to Otero, to seek the 
 protection of, or annexation to. Great Britain, if freedom 
 from Bogotan oppression and misgovernment could in no 
 other way be assured. In the end, however, as a mark of 
 personal deference to Bolivar, these plans were laid aside 
 and Panama remained a member of the New Granadan 
 federation, though against the better judgment of a large 
 part of the Isthmian people. 
 
 Ten years later, the provocation being not alleviated but 
 aggravated, Panama arose in determined revolt. On Novem^ 
 ber 18, 1840, under the leadership of the famous Colonel 
 Tomas Herrera, its independence was proclaimed and 
 actually established, and on March 18, 1841, a fundamental 
 law, preliminary to a Constitution, was adopted, which read 
 in part as follows : 
 
152 THE PANAMA EEYOLUTION 
 
 "Article I. — The Cantons of the former provinces of Pan- 
 ama and Veraguas shall compose a sovereign and inde- 
 pendent State, which shall be constituted under the title 
 of State of the Isthmus. 
 
 "Article II. — Should the government of New Granada be 
 organised according to the federal system and convenient to 
 the interests of the Isthmus, the latter shall form a State of 
 the Confederation. 
 
 ^^Special. — In no case shall the Isthmus be incorporated 
 with the Republic of New Granada under the system of Cen- 
 tral Government." 
 
 It is interesting to recall, by the way, that this funda- 
 mental law was signed by Jose de Obaldia, President; by 
 Mariano Arosemena, Vice-President, and by Antonio Ama- 
 dor, a Deputy of the convention — family names which are 
 to-day honourably conspicuous in the public life of Panama. 
 It was also countersigned by the Secretary-General of the 
 provisional government, Jose Agustin Arango, whose son, 
 Jose Agustin Arango, Jr., was one of the foremost leaders 
 in establishing the present Republic of Panama in 1903. 
 Tomas Herrera was unanimously chosen "Chief of State." 
 
 Thus Panama became an independent republic in name 
 and in fact. Presently Carthagena followed the example 
 and declared its independence. But the government at 
 Bogotd, alarmed at this result of its own evil doings, and 
 unable by force to undo the revolution, sent General Tomas 
 C. de Mosquera to Panama to negotiate a return of the 
 Isthmian State to the New Granadan federation. He made 
 many promises, which were doubtless sincere so far as he 
 was personally concerned, of decentralisation, reforms, and 
 better times for all members of the federation, with the 
 result that in 1842-3 Panama was induced to rejoin New 
 Granada. Immediately thereafter, however, and unques- 
 tionably as a result of the action of Panama, Veraguas, and 
 Carthagena, in 1843, a new Constitution was adopted at 
 Bogota, practically repudiating the promises which had 
 been made by Mosquera, and making the government even 
 more centralised than before. Under it the country was 
 
"THE STATE OF PANAMA" 153 
 
 called the ^'Republic of New Granada" instead of "State of 
 New Granada," and was divided into provinces, the prov- 
 inces into cantons, and the cantons into parishes. Every- 
 thing was subordinated to centralised power, and the 
 attempt to secede or to withdraw from the union, as Panama 
 had done in 1840, was made a penal offence against the 
 common criminal law. 
 
 Against this constitution Panama protested vigorously, 
 amid the various civil wars which followed, with the result 
 that on May 28, 1853, the "Constitution of 1853" was pro- 
 mulgated in place of that of 1843. Under it a federal 
 system was established, giving the various provinces a con- 
 siderable measure of autonomy. This was not, however, 
 sufficient to satisfy the just demands of the Isthmians, and 
 agitation was accordingly continued until, on February 27, 
 1855, the Congress at Bogotd enacted an amendment to the 
 Constitution, specifically erecting "the territory which com- 
 prises the provinces of the Isthmus of Panama, to wit, 
 Panama, Azuero, Veraguas, and Chiriqui" — the present 
 Republic of Panama — into "a sovereign federal state, inte- 
 gral part of New Granada, under the name of the State of 
 Panama." In addition, power was given to the other prov- 
 inces to become such states also. This amendment was 
 unanimously adopted. For six years then following peace 
 and prosperity prevailed in Panama, under the presidential 
 administration of Justo Arosemena, Francisco de Fabrega, 
 Bartholome Calvo, Ramon Gamboa, Rafael Nunez, and Jos6 
 de Obaldia. In 1856 Antioquia also became a state. In 
 1857 the other provinces were all made states, and in 1858 
 the federal system was extended throughout the whole of 
 New Granada, which again changed its name and became 
 known as the "Granadine Confederation." 
 
 The next year, however, a packed Congress enacted an 
 election law and other measures greatly infringing upon the 
 sovereignty of the states and aiming at the perpetuation of 
 the power of the conservative party under President Ospina. 
 Thereupon the State of Cauca rebelled, under the lead of 
 
154 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 General Mosquera, and declared its independence of Bogota, 
 and was followed by the States of Bolivar, Santander, 
 Boyaca, and Magdalena, and a part of Cundinamarca, 
 which last became known as the State of Tolima. These 
 leagued themselves into "the United States of New Gra- 
 nada." A general civil war ensued, which ended with General 
 Mosquera's triumphal entry into Bogotd. In this war 
 Panama was not involved, but it manifested in the strongest 
 way its disapproval of the unconstitutional legislation of 
 1859, its opposition to the Bogotd Government, and its 
 sympathy with General Mosquera's revolution. Before the 
 overthrow of the Bogota Government by General Mosquera, 
 indeed, the President of Panama, Jose de Obaldia, issued a 
 proclamation advising the final and complete separation of 
 the Isthmus from the Granadine Confederation, on the 
 ground that the latter was hopelessly unworthy of further 
 confidence. This was enthusiastically received by the people, 
 and steps were taken to fulfil the proposition, appealing, if 
 necessary, to the United States of America for protection. 
 
 Before the thing could be completed, however. President 
 Obaldia retired from office and was succeeded by Santiago 
 de la Guardia. To him General Mosquera, who had become 
 provisional President of the United States of New Granada, 
 wrote on August 3, 18G1, urging him to reconsider the 
 matter and to use his influence to have Panama remain with 
 the confederation, hinting that if it did so, the city of Pan- 
 ama would become probably the political capital and 
 certainly the metropolis of the whole country. After due 
 consideration of the matter, Senor de la Guardia signed an 
 agreement with Dr. Manuel Murillo, the envoy of General 
 Mosquera, making "the sovereign State of Panama" one of 
 the federated members of the United States of New Granada. 
 "But," it was added, "the State, in use of its sovereignty, 
 reserves to itself the right to veto the new agreement and 
 the constitution from which it receives authority, whenever, 
 in its judgment, the principles embodied in the treaty of 
 Carthagena are violated in detriment to the self-government 
 
"UNITED STATES OF COLOMBIA'^ 155 
 
 of the States." Other stipulations emphasised the fact that 
 Panama was to remain practically independent. There were 
 to be no public officials in Panama appointed from Bogota, 
 but only those "created by the laws of the State." The courts 
 of Panama were to be supreme and not subject to review by 
 the courts of Bogotd. The federal government at Bogota 
 was not to send troops into Panama without the special 
 permission of the Isthmian Government. This agreement 
 was signed on September 6, 1861, and was ratified by the 
 Panama legislature on October 15 following. On September 
 20, 1861, the name of the country was changed to "United 
 States of Colombia," as it has ever since remained. In 1862, 
 Mosquera's revolution was triumphant throughout every 
 state. 
 
 Plenipotentiaries from the various states held a National 
 Convention at Rio Negro, in the State of Antioquia, in 1863, 
 the object of which was the reorganisation of the federal 
 system. It repudiated and ignored the agreement under 
 which Panama had reentered the federation, and adopted a 
 constitution of the United States of Colombia, creating what 
 has been graphically and not inaccurately described as "or- 
 ganised anarchy." The states were made constitutionally 
 independent, with absolute and unqualified sovereignty. The 
 majority of them could nullify any act of the federal con- 
 gress, and even defeat the acts of the general government in 
 foreign relationships. Any state was free to indulge in 
 revolutions ad libitum, the general government being forbid- 
 den to interfere and obliged to recognise any de facto 
 government that might be established by force or fraud. A 
 worse system was probably never devised. To counteract the 
 powers of the states, the federal government promptly 
 resorted to all sorts of extreme and violent measures. There 
 was a series of insurrections, revolutions, and public scan- 
 dals, provoked by the action of the Bogotd Government, in 
 trying to control by military force the elections in the vari- 
 ous States. Panama would have been justified in withdraw- 
 ing from the confederation, under the terms of the agreement 
 
156 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 of 1861, but did not, hoping that better counsels would in 
 time prevail at Bogota. 
 
 A crisis came in October, 1875. At that time General 
 Sergius Camergo, commander of the Colombian troops which 
 had invaded Panama unconstitutionally, forcibly deposed 
 and imprisoned Dr. Pablo Arosemena, the constitutional 
 President of the State of Panama, for no other reason than 
 that he would not give his support to the electoral plans of 
 the President of the Confederation. Against this act of 
 oppression Dr. Arosemena vigorously protested, and the 
 Panama legislature adopted scathing resolutions of protest 
 and suspended its session to mark its denunciation of 
 Bogotan tyranny. Thereafter Panama, never ceasing to 
 protest, but in vain, was at the mercy of the centralised 
 government at Bogota, and its interests were sacrificed to 
 those of a sordid coterie of politicians who were practically 
 as alien to the Isthmus as though they were natives of 
 Kamchatka. Panama was made "the milch cow of the con- 
 federation," the profits accruing from its fortunate situation 
 being diverted to the treasury at Bogota In 1885 conditions 
 became intolerable and a desperate but fruitless insurrection 
 occurred in Panama, Boyaca, Magdalena, Cundinamarca, 
 and Santander. Immediately upon the suppression of these, 
 in September, 1885, came a coup-d'etat. 
 
 Dr. Rafael Nunez had been elected President in 1884 for a 
 term of two years. Under the Constitution he would be 
 ineligible for a second term. But what was a little thing 
 like the Constitution between a strenuous statesman and his 
 ambitions? He simply issued a presidential decree, indefi- 
 nitely suspending the Constitution. Then he appointed a 
 new Governor, of his own arbitrary choice, for each state 
 and instructed them each to appoint two delegates to a 
 national convention "to reform the Constitution." This 
 precious body met at Bogota on November 11, 1885, to regis- 
 ter its creator's will. Dr. Nuiiez addressed to it a senten- 
 tious and dictatorial message, containing many "resounding 
 and glittering generalities" about freedom, justice, and prog- 
 
COLOMBIAN DICTATORSHIP 157 
 
 ress. The gist of it was, however, a denunciation of the 
 federal system as the source of all evils and the sum of all 
 villainies, and a practical command for the establishment of 
 a strongly centralised government. The dictator also sug- 
 gested the establishment of a large standing army, sug- 
 gestively saying that "the State of Panama alone requires a 
 numerous and well-paid garrison.'^ The convention obeyed 
 orders promptly. By the end of the month it had completed 
 its task, and on December 1, Dr. Nuiiez appended his approv- 
 ing signature to the new Constitution. That instrument was, 
 by its own terms, to be ratified by the Colombian people 
 before it should become effective, but the President was 
 empowered to determine the manner of such ratification. 
 He decided to have it done not by popular vote, but by vote 
 of the various municipal Boards of Aldermen ! In this way, 
 of course, ratification was promptly secured, and in due time 
 under the new Constitution Dr. Nunez was re-elected Presi- 
 dent. It was provided, by way of guarding against any 
 undoing of this work, that no amendment could be made to 
 the Constitution unless it was asked for by a majority of 
 the state legislatures and was unanimously voted by them 
 all. Mr. King, the United States Minister to Colombia, 
 appropriately described this Constitution as "an embodi- 
 ment of precepts enjoining the obedience and submission of 
 the former sovereigns to the will of their central agents, and 
 bestowing all the prerogatives of Government upon an 
 oligarchy of select individuals." This Constitution was rat- 
 ified in 1886, and is consequently known in history by the 
 name of that year. 
 
 The general quality of President Nuiiez and his govern- 
 ment may be appreciated when we remember that one of his 
 first acts as dictator was to repudiate the foreign debt of 
 the country, on the ground, as he himself expressed it, that 
 "any one who pays a debt, unless he is forced to do so under 
 pain of being hanged, is an imbecile." Under the delightful 
 system thus established Panama, instead of enjoying the 
 special favours it had formerly possessed, was made the 
 
158 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 object of most invidious discrimination. For the whole 
 country an avowedly and intensely centralised system was 
 adopted in place of federation, but under Article 201 of the 
 Constitution Panama Wias deprived of even such remnants of 
 local self-government as the other states were permitted to 
 retain, and was "placed under the direct authority of the 
 central government, to be ruled according to special laws.'' 
 In brief, the once independent sovereign state was made a 
 crown colony under the autocracy of Bogota. Nor was this 
 discrimination merely nominal. It was actual. That op- 
 pressive provision of the Constitution was enforced to the 
 letter. Practically, the Isthmus had no rights which the 
 politicians at Bogota were bound to respect. 
 
 The two delegates from Panama to the Bogota Congress 
 were Miguel A. Caro and Felipe F. Paul. They voted for 
 this arbitrary and tainted Constitution, of course, since they 
 had been appointed at the dictation of President Nunez, 
 for that purpose. More noteworthy was the manner of rat- 
 ification of the Constitution by the Cabildo or Council of the 
 District of Panama in the "Department" (formerly State) 
 of Panama. The Council met for the purpose on February 
 20, 1886. The Governor of the District was present, together 
 with seven delegates. Two other delegates, Henry Ehrman 
 and Ignacio Fuerth, were excused on the ground that they 
 were foreigners. The new Constitution was read, and a vote 
 was taken upon the question of ratification. According to 
 the Official Gazette, of Panama, there were three votes 
 given for ratification: namely, those of Francisco de la 
 Guardia, Nicanor de Obarrio, and Jose Maria Vives Leon, 
 the last named being the Secretary of the Council; and 
 three votes against ratification: namely, those of Pablo 
 Arosemena, Mateo Iturralde, and Pedro J. Sosa. There- 
 upon the deciding vote was cast in favour of ratification by 
 the Chairman, Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero. The act of 
 ratification, thus adopted by the narrow margin of a single 
 vote, was then signed by the Governor and by all the dele- 
 gates excepting Dr. Pablo Arosemena. It is to be noted that 
 
BABK VIEWS OP COLOMBIA 159 
 
 Dr. Amador Guerrero, who cast the deciding vote for ratifi- 
 cation, and Dr. Pablo Arosemena, who alone refused to sign 
 the act, afterward became respectively the first President 
 and First Designate of the Republic of Panama. 
 
 This ratification did not mean that Panama was satisfied 
 with the new system, but merely that it considered itself 
 unable at that time to offer effective resistance. Protest 
 against discrimination and demands for at least equal rights 
 with the other departments were vigorously continued, with 
 the result that at length, on September 3, 1892, the Bogota 
 Government enacted a law nominally amending the Con- 
 stitution by the elimination of the objectionable Article 201, 
 and ordering Panama to be comprehended in the general 
 legislation of the Republic. At the same time, however, it 
 practically confirmed the offensive system by providing that 
 "in fiscal matters, special legislative and executive ordi- 
 nances may be enacted for the Department of Panama." 
 Thus the discriminations against Panama were to be 
 removed, excepting in respect to the most important of all 
 matters, and in that respect they were to be retained. To 
 what a deplorable condition the policies and practices of 
 the Bogotd Government reduced Panama, and indeed the 
 whole country, may be estimated from the official declaration 
 of Dr. Jose Marroquin, in his inaugural address on becom- 
 ing Vice-President at Bogota, in August, 1898. He said : 
 
 "Hatred, envy, and ambition are elements of discord; in 
 the political arena the battle rages fiercely, not so much with 
 the idea of securing the triumph of principles as with that of 
 humbling and elevating persons and parties; public tran- 
 quillity, indispensable to every citizen for the free enjoyment 
 of what he possesses either by luck or as the fruit of his 
 labour, is gradually getting unknown; we live in a sickly 
 atmosphere; crisis is our normal state; commerce and all 
 other industries are in urgent need of perfect calmness for 
 their development and progress ; poverty invades every home. 
 The notion of mother country is mistaken or obliterated, 
 owing to our political disturbances. The conception of 
 mother country is so intimately associated with that of 
 
160 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 political disorders and with the afflictions and distrust 
 which they engender that it is not unusual to hear from one 
 of our countrymen what could not be heard from a native 
 of any other country: 'I wish I had been born somewhere 
 else.' Could many be found among us who would feel proud 
 when exclaiming, ^I am a Colombian/ in the same way as a 
 Frenchman does when exclaiming, 'I am a Frenchman'?" 
 
 It thus came naturally to pass that while the Colombian 
 Government at Bogotd chose to play fast and loose with the 
 American Canal proposition, and was willing to delay it 
 indefinitely and even to threaten it with ultimate defeat, 
 the people of Panama felt an intense interest in it and much 
 eagerness to have. the great work begun. The prosperity of 
 the Isthmus, and its peace and order, depended upon it. The 
 contemplation of the possibility of an abandonment of the 
 Panama route and of the building of the canal at Nicaragua 
 was regarded with consternation and dismay, for such a turn 
 of affairs would be an irremediable catastrophe. It would 
 mean utter ruin. When, therefore, the Panamans saw the 
 dilatory conduct of the Bogota Government, and understood 
 its purport and its possible if not its probable result, they 
 became desperate, and the resolution began to arise among 
 the foremost men to take things into their own hands for 
 the promotion of their own welfare. Too long already the 
 independence of Panama had been subverted and the state 
 had been misgoverned and spoliated for the sordid gain of 
 Bogotd. For Colombia now to deny Panama the oppor- 
 tunity of securing the long desired canal under the best 
 possible auspices, would be more than the Isthmians could 
 endure. 
 
 They gave Colombia fair warning. Early in 1903 they 
 explicitly told the authorities at Bogota that failure to ratify 
 the canal treaty with the United States would be followed on 
 the Isthmus by the most serious consequence. The Colom- 
 bian Congress, which would pass upon the Hay-Herran 
 treaty and either ratify or reject it, was to meet at Bogota 
 on June 20. Long before that date, indeed before the mem- 
 
FAIR WARNING GIVEN 161 
 
 bers of that Congress were elected or ^ even nominated, a 
 significant step was taken. Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero 
 had been, as already noted, chairman of the Council which 
 ratified the Constitution of 1885, and had himself cast a 
 deciding vote in favour of that instrument. He was there- 
 fore loyally affected toward the Colombian Government. He 
 was at the same time one of the most eminent citizens of 
 Panama, a physician of distinguished repute, a veteran 
 statesman, a man of unblemished character, of large prop- 
 erty interests, and of social leadership. There was probably 
 no one on the Isthmus who could with better grace or with 
 more authority have taken the step which he took. He wrote 
 to the acting President of Colombia, Dr. Marroquin, who 
 was his personal friend and former political associate and 
 colleague, urging him for the sake of their common country 
 to use his best efforts to secure the ratification of the treaty, 
 and warning him that the consequence of failure to ratify it 
 would be most serious. 
 
 To the surprise and consternation not only of Dr. Amador, 
 but of all Panamans, the reply came in the form of a Con- 
 gressional nomination. F. Mutis Duran, who was then 
 Governor of Panama, under appointment of the Bogota 
 Government, nominated, as the government candidate for 
 member of Congress from Panama, Senor Perez y Soto, one of 
 the most implacable and outspoken opponents of the canal 
 scheme, and a bitter enemy of the United States. There 
 was only too good reason to suspect that this nomination 
 was made in fulfilment of Dr. Marroquin's orders, and was 
 practically his reply to the representations of Panama. It 
 was obvious what the election of this candidate would mean. 
 If this representative of Panama in Congress should lead — • 
 as he doubtless would — the opposition to the Hay-Herran 
 treaty, that convention would have no chance of ratification. 
 There was an outburst of indignation, remonstrance, and 
 protest, which availed nothing. Senor Perez y Soto was 
 declared elected. J. Domingo de Obaldia, a distinguished 
 citizen of Panama, of eminent public service, and unques- 
 
162 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 tioned loyalty to Colombia, hastened to Bogota to remon- 
 strate in person and to plead with Congress in favour of 
 the treaty. He was received with so little courtesy, and 
 the intent of Congress to disregard the sentiment and inter- 
 ests of Panama, and to kill the treaty, was so evident, that 
 he soon left Bogota in disgust, not pacified nor mollified, 
 even by the appointment as Governor of Panama which Dr. 
 Marroquin bestowed upon him — in September, to succeed F. 
 Mutis Duran — in hope of placating him and confirming his 
 allegiance. 
 
 One of the foremost leaders, if not indeed the foremost, in 
 the practical organisation of the separatist movement in 
 Panama was Jos6 Agustin Arango, son of the distinguished 
 patriot of the same name who has already been mentioned 
 as Secretary of the Provisional Government of 1841. He was 
 in 1903 a Senator from Panama to the Colombian Congress 
 at Bogotd, and was strongly in favour of ratification of the 
 Hay-Herran canal treaty. When he perceived that the 
 Colombian Government intended to defeat that measure, he 
 revolted against what he justly deemed a sacrifice of Isth- 
 mian interests, and began to plot some means of averting 
 the ruin which seemed to threaten Panama. While medi- 
 tating upon this subject, he chanced to come into conference 
 with Captain J. R. Beers, the freight agent of the Panama 
 Railroad Company, and in the course of their conversation 
 the suggestion arose that Panama might become independent 
 of Colombia again, and then make for itself a treaty with 
 the United States. Seilor Arango became convinced that 
 this was the only hope of Panama, and he requested Captain 
 Beers, during a visit to the United States which he was 
 about to make, to ascertain the sentiment of various 
 representative men in this country upon the subject and to 
 ascertain how such a movement would be regarded here. 
 Meantime he proceeded with the enlistment of a working 
 force of revolutionary propagandists. First of all he took 
 into his confidence his own sons, Ricardo Manuel, Belisario, 
 and Jose Agustin, and his sons-in-law, Samuel Lewis, 
 
ORGANISING FOR INDEPENDENCE 163 
 
 Raoul Orillac, and Ernest T. Lefevre, and his close friend, 
 Carlos Constantino Arosemena. 
 
 The next man to enter the conspiracy was the one destined 
 to become the leader of it. This was Dr. Manuel Amador 
 Guerrero, of whom I have already spoken, and who had 
 already taken strong ground against the Colombian design 
 to burke the canal treaty. He and Seiior Arango, who were 
 old and confidential friends, chanced to meet one day at 
 the office of the Panama Railroad, and the conversation 
 naturally turned upon the subject which was then heaviest 
 upon their hearts and upon the hearts of the people of Pan- 
 ama. Seiior Arango expressed to Dr. Amador his gloomy 
 forebodings of the action of the Bogotd Government and its 
 effect upon Panama, and his patriotic resentment thereat, 
 and finally revealed to him the separatist plan which he had 
 been cherishing and the mission to the United States which 
 Captain Beers had undertaken. To his profound gratifica- 
 tion. Dr. Amador not only sympathised with him in every 
 detail, but also approved heartily the separatist plan and 
 committed himself to it with enthusiasm. Captain Beers 
 soon returned from the United States and made on the 
 whole an encouraging report. It does not appear that he 
 even attempted any negotiations with the United States 
 Government, or any "sounding" of it, and he certainly made 
 to the Panama revolutionists no promises in its behalf. But 
 he reported truly, what every observant man in America 
 knew at that time, that both popular and official sentiment 
 in America was overwhelmingly in favour of the canal, was 
 outraged at the tactics of Colombia, and would be inclined 
 toward close relations with Panama if the latter should 
 secure its independence. 
 
 Upon the strength of this, Senor Arango and Dr. Amador 
 proceeded with the organisation of the revolution. They 
 two and C. C. Arosemena constituted themselves into a 
 Junta, which should assume both direction of and responsi- 
 bility for the movement. Senor Arango's sons and sons-in- 
 law remained loyal to and active in the cause, but were left 
 
164 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 a little in the background in order that the revolution might 
 not look too much like a family affair, and a goodly com- 
 pany of influential and representative Panamans were dis- 
 creetly introduced into the conspiracy. Among these were 
 Nicanor A. de Obarrio, who had been born in New York City 
 but was the head of an old Panaman family and was prom- 
 inently identified with the Isthmus; Federico Boyd, a 
 Panaman banker, son of that American of Irish parentage, 
 James Boyd, who was the founder of the Panama Star and 
 Herald; Tomas Arias, formerly Minister of Finance, and 
 his brother Kicardo Arias, members of a family that had 
 been settled in Panama since Balboa's time; and Manuel 
 Espinosa B., a brother-in-law of Dr. Amador and one of the 
 foremost men of the city of Panama. These men met occa- 
 sionally at Senor Boyd's house, but oftener at the electric 
 lighting works of the city of Panama, the latter place — and 
 the hour of midnight — being chosen for the sake of secrecy 
 and security. 
 
 Other additions were rapidly made to the company, 
 through the discreet invitation of trustworthy friends. 
 Carlos A. Mendoza and Juan Antonio Henriquez joined the 
 conspiracy, and undertook the task of preparing a formal 
 declaration of independence and other documents which 
 might be needed at a fitting time, in which work they were 
 aided by Eusebio A. Morales. Gerardo Ortega, living on the 
 Island of Taboga, was an enthusiastic and valuable recruit, 
 as was Carlos Clement. Eduardo Ycaza not only joined the 
 company but also undertook to bring into it General Do- 
 mingo Diaz and Pedro A. Diaz. Ramon Valdez Lopez was 
 commissioned to proceed to the interior of the country and 
 organise the revolution there. Pastor Jimenez and Carlos R. 
 Zachrisson V. undertook successfully to bring into line their 
 ) friend General Esteban Huertas. Fernando Arango, nephew 
 of J. A. Arango, was Chief of Police, but for sufiScient 
 reasons did not join the conspiracy and so, on the initiative 
 of Tomas Arias, the manipulation of the police force in 
 harmony with the revolution was intrusted to the deputy 
 
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PLANS OF THE REVOLUTIONISTS 165 
 
 chief, Captain Felix Alvarez. Others who entered the move 
 ment and did important work for it, at Colon and elsewhere, 
 were Hector Valdez, General H. O. Jeffries, Porfirio Melen 
 dez, the Alcalde of Colon ; General Ortiz, Chief of Police at 
 Colon; Captain Achurra, Orondaste Martinez, and J. E. 
 Lefevre. I recall all these names, partly in order to give 
 them the historical credit due to them for their part in the 
 revolution, and partly in order to show how largely — almost 
 exclusively — the revolution was a native Panaman move 
 ment in inception, development, and execution, and how 
 baseless is the imputation that it was an American con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 The sentiment of these men was practically unanimous in 
 favour of a revolution which should restore Panama to its 
 rightful place as an independent sovereign state — in case 
 Colombia should fulfil its purpose of killing the canal treaty. 
 To insure the success of such a revolution, however, two 
 things were necessary. One was some fuller assurance con 
 cerning the attitude of the United States and its subsequent 
 policy toward the new Republic, and the other, a certain 
 amount of cash to serve as the "sinews of war." It was 
 presently agreed that Dr. Amador and Ricardo Arias should 
 visit the United States to secure, if possible, those ends. 
 Domestic reasons at the last moment prevented Senor 
 Arias from undertaking this mission, and Dr. Amador ac- 
 cordingly set out upon it alone. He sailed directly for New 
 York. His only concealment of purpose was at the moment 
 of leaving Panama. Knowing that he was watched by Gov- 
 ernment agents, and would probably be stopped if he 
 attempted to leave the Isthmus without some urgent but 
 non-political pretext, he caused the impression to be created 
 that his son was seriously ill in New York and that he had 
 been hastily summoned to see him. By that means he got 
 away from Panama without interference. He was suspected, 
 however, of having some revolutionary business in mind, and 
 was therefore closely followed and watched by agents of the 
 Colombian administration. At the same time, in view of 
 
166 THE PANAMA KE VOLUTION 
 
 his absence, the Junta was reorganised so as to consist of 
 Federico Bojd, Nicanor A. de Obarrio, Ricardo Arias, 
 Tomas Arias, and Manuel Espinosa B. 
 
 On reaching New York, Dr. Amador first called upon 
 William Nelson Cromwell, the Counsel for the Panama Rail- 
 road Company, and for the French Panama Canal Company, 
 who, of course, was deeply interested in securing the ratifica- 
 tion of the treaty. To him he broached the plans of the 
 revolutionists, and of him solicited aid. Mr. Cromwell, 
 despite his earnest desire to see the United States secure the 
 canal route and enter upon the undertaking, was strongly 
 disinclined toward anything like a forcible revolution. He 
 told Dr. Amador frankly that he could not and would not 
 have anything to do with the scheme, and warned him that, 
 in his opinion, the United States would not countenance any- 
 thing of the sort. Nor was that the only discouragement 
 with which Dr. Amador met. A zealous Panaman friend of 
 the Bogota Government had followed him from the Isthmus 
 to America, to see what he was doing here, and, seeing him 
 enter Mr. Cromwell's office, concluded that some revolution- 
 ary conspiracy was afoot, and hastened to Washington, to 
 tell the Secretary of State what was going on, or what he 
 imagined was going on. Mr. Hay properly replied that the 
 United States Government was not concerned in it, that it 
 could not deal with private conferences but only with overt 
 acts against the neutrality laws, that it had no information 
 of any such acts, and that he could not regard it as profita- 
 ble to hear anything on the strength of mere hearsay and 
 conjecture. 
 
 Then this Panaman went to Dr. Herran, the Colombian 
 charge d'affaires, and had a protracted conference with him, 
 the character of w^hich must be left to imagination. The 
 quick sequel, however, was the sending of a long cable des 
 patch from Dr. Herran to President Marroquin, and the 
 engagement of a detective by Dr. Herran to observe and 
 report upon all Dr. Amador's doings. When, soon after, it 
 was reported that Dr. Amador had again visited Mr. Crom- 
 
DK. AMADOE'S MISSION 167 
 
 well, another despatch was sent to President Marroquin, and 
 immediately thereafter a despatch came from the Colombian 
 President to Mr. Cromwell, warning him that if he engaged 
 in any conspiracy against the Colombian Government, or 
 maintained any relations with revolutionists, the property 
 of the railroad and canal companies, for which he was 
 counsel, would under the law be subject to forfeiture. The 
 result was a discontinuance of Dr. Amador's visits to his 
 office, while Mr. Cromwell went to Paris, to look after the 
 interests of the French Canal Company there, and did not 
 return to America until the middle of November, some time 
 after the Panama revolution had become an accomplished 
 fact. 
 
 Thus disappointed, Dr. Amador was upon the verge of 
 despair, and he cabled to his friends in Panama the one 
 word ^^Desanimado'^ — "disappointed." He was still intent 
 upon organising a revolution, but to his mind a revolution, 
 of the old-fashioned kind, was impossible without material 
 aid. It would be necessary not only to organise an army, 
 but also to create a Panaman navy, by the purchase of sev- 
 eral vessels capable of service as gunboats, and to such ends 
 it would be necessary to secure funds. More for the sake of 
 consolation in sympathetic talk than in the hope of material 
 advantage, he went, immediately after his last call at Mr. 
 Cromwell's, to the office of a Panaman friend and sympa- 
 thiser, — Joshua Lindo, of the firm of Piza, Nephews & Co., in 
 New York. To him he related the failure of his errand 
 and bewailed the apparent hopelessness of the Panaman 
 cause. 
 
 "There is one man would help us, I am sure," he said, "and 
 that is Bunau-Varilla. But he is in Paris, and I cannot go 
 thither and see him in time to do anything. It would then 
 be too late." 
 
 His reference was to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the distin- 
 guished French engineer who had long been identified with 
 the canal scheme, who had been chief engineer for the French 
 Canal Company, who was a capitalist as well as an engineer, 
 
168 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 and who was devoted, with all the strength of his ardent 
 nature, to the promotion of the enterprise. (It is of agree- 
 able interest to recall, also, though it is not pertinent to 
 the present subject, that M. Bunau-Varilla had been in youth 
 a fellow-student with Alfred Dreyfus, and had later played 
 a leading part in securing justice for that much-wronged 
 man. It was he, more, perhaps, than any other one man, 
 who fixed responsibility for the forgery of the ^^hordereau" 
 upon the infamous Esterhazy, and thus led the way to the 
 vindication of Captain Dreyfus.) While the two were speak- 
 ing of him and deploring his absence from America at that 
 critical time, the telephone in the office rang. Senor Lindo 
 answered the call ; and then uttered an ejaculation of amaze- 
 ment and delight. 
 
 "Santa Maria ! Amador !" he cried, turning to his guest, 
 "it's Bunau-Yarilla, now!" 
 
 It was quite true. The French engineer had just arrived 
 in New York from Paris, and had telephoned down to the 
 office from his hotel to ask what had been happening at 
 Panama and at Washington while he was on shipboard. 
 Dr. Amador sprang to the telephone : 
 
 "Is that really you, Bunau-Varilla? For Heaven's sake, 
 wait right there until I come up !" 
 
 Within half an hour they were closeted together, and M. 
 Bunau-Varilla was committing himself to the revolutionary 
 cause — should such a step be made necessary by the Colom- 
 bian Government's rejection of the canal treaty — and was 
 pledging to it the financial support which it might need. 
 The Frenchman — he was a French citizen and not a Pana- 
 man or Colombian — gave himself zealously to the enterprise, 
 asking in return for whatever he might do only one thing 
 by way of recompense: namely, that as soon as the inde- 
 pendence of Panama was established, he should be appointed 
 its Minister to the United States just long enough to nego- 
 tiate with this country a treaty for the construction of the 
 canal. This was promised him by Dr. Amador, and, as we 
 shall see, the promise was fulfilled. 
 
THE AMEKICAN ATTITUDE 169 
 
 Raised from despair to exultant confidence by his inter- 
 view with M. Bunau-Varilla, Dr. Amador cabled to the Junta 
 at Panama the one word '^Esperanzas" — "hopes." He then 
 presently revisited Washington, and sought a conference 
 with the Secretary of State, which had been suggested by his 
 fellow conspirators at the electric light works. His aim was 
 to learn what the United States Government would do, in 
 case of a revolution on the Isthmus. Would it give the new 
 Republic aid? Would it recognise its independence? Would 
 it make with it a treaty for the construction of the canal? 
 This last point was perhaps the most important of all, for 
 the whole matter hinged upon it. There would be no use 
 in a revolution, unless the United States would then proceed 
 with the canal enterprise. There was, however, really no 
 need of asking these questions, for the policy of the United 
 States was already well established and known to the world, 
 and from its record it was quite easy to forecast the action 
 of this Government in any given circumstances. The replies 
 given by Mr. Hay were diplomatically discreet and guarded. 
 He told Dr. Amador that, however much the United States 
 might sympathise with Panaman aspirations for liberty and 
 independence, and however much it might regret or even 
 resent Colombia's rejection of the canal treaty, it would be 
 manifestly impossible for this Government to give any aid 
 to a revolutionary enterprise, or to commit itself with any 
 promises in advance. It would scrupulously fulfil its duties 
 as a neutral, and would inflexibly maintain its rights and 
 privileges under the Treaty of 1846 with New Granada. 
 Those rights and privileges included the protection of free 
 neutral transit across the Isthmus, and the guarantee of 
 the sovereignty of land against alien aggression, though, of 
 course, it did not guarantee Colombian possession of the 
 Isthmus against local and domestic revolution. But the 
 United States could give no promises to, and make no trea- 
 ties with, a government which was not yet in existence. 
 
 Dr. Amador made only a few calls at the State Depart- 
 ment. He was then told, kindly but firmly and plainly, that 
 
110 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 as he was confessedly and notoriously the would-be organiser 
 of a revolution against a power with which the United States 
 was at peace, any further visits to that office would not be 
 proper. At that, he gracefully took his leave, with the 
 proverbial "mingled emotions." He had received no direct 
 encouragement or promise of aid, but on the other hand he 
 had been assured of the benevolent neutrality of the United 
 States, and that, he thought, would be sufficient for the pur- 
 pose. It also dawned upon him that, as the United States 
 was bound by the Treaty of 1846 to guarantee the Isthmus 
 against alien attack, and as the United States was concerned 
 only with the existing local government and not with any 
 domestic revolutions or rivalries in Colombia, if Panama 
 should actually win its independence, Colombia would ipso 
 facto become an alien power, and the United States might, 
 therefore, feel itself called upon to guarantee and maintain 
 Panaman independence against Colombian attack. He also 
 felt assured that the United States would negotiate a canal 
 treaty with Panama, should the latter's independence be 
 achieved. He further realised that two things were emi- 
 nently desirable, if not absolutely necessary, for the success 
 of the revolution. One was, that the revolution should be 
 effected quickly and, if possible, without bloodshed or 
 violence, since fighting would excite unpleasant and unfa- 
 vourable sentiments in America. The other was, 'that a pro- 
 visional government should be fully organised in advance, 
 so as to become the de facto government and begin the dis- 
 charge of its administrative duties the moment the Colom- 
 bian Government on the Isthmus was overthrown. 
 
 He at once returned to Panama, to complete preparations 
 for the revolution, and to report to his associates the result 
 of his mission. (He had not been able to communicate with 
 them while in America beyond those two messages of one 
 word each, because of the strict censorship and surveillance 
 which the Colombian Government maintained over the mails 
 and telegraphs.) The other revolutionists were at first 
 inclined to be skeptical, doubting the intentions of the 
 
AMERICAN RIGHTS AND DUTIES 171 
 
 United States, and fearing this country would use them 
 merely as tools, with which to force Colombia to revivify and 
 ratify the treaty. It was not until the United States gun- 
 boat Nashville appeared off Colon, on November 2, that they 
 were sufficiently reassured to proceed with the revolution. 
 The reason for the Nashville's arrival at that time was 
 simple and sufficient. Talk of revolution was in the air. It 
 was common talk, at Panama and elsewhere, that a revolu- 
 tion had been planned and would be put into effect as soon 
 as all hope of Colombian ratification of the treaty was dead. 
 November 4 had been openly proclaimed as the day on which 
 the blow would be struck. The general public knew these 
 things, and of course the Washington Government was not 
 ignorant of them. 
 
 Moreover, experience had taught the United States that an 
 Isthmian revolution or insurrection was practically certain 
 to imperil American lives and property, and also to menace 
 that free transit across the Isthmus which the United States, 
 under the Treaty of 1846, was bound to maintain. On more 
 than one former occasion, the latest just a year before, 
 United States vessels had been sent to Colon or Panama, and 
 United States troops had been landed, to protect the railroad 
 line and the lives and property of Americans, and this had 
 been done sometimes at the request of, and sometimes against 
 the protest of, the Colombian authorities. The principle had 
 been established that the United States might thus intervene 
 at its own discretion. As soon, therefore, as it became evi- 
 dent that another revolt was impending, the Nashville was 
 ordered to the scene so that intervention could be promptly 
 effected if it should appear necessary. Indeed, in view of 
 the warnings of impending revolt which it had received, the 
 United States Government would have been neglectful of its 
 obligations under the Treaty of 1846 and of its duties 
 to its own citizens, if it had not taken precisely such a 
 precaution. 
 
 November 4 had been appointed by the revolutionists for 
 the uprising and the expulsion of the Colombian Govern- 
 
112 THE PANAMA KE VOLUTION 
 
 ment from the Isthmus. General Huertas was to command 
 the Panaman troops, and the signal for action was to be the 
 blowing of bugles by the firemen. But the crisis was precip- 
 itated a day sooner than had been expected, by the Colom- 
 bians themselves. Alarmed by reports of what the Pana- 
 mans were doing, the Bogota Government, after extraor- 
 dinary delay, sent an "army" of about 450 men to Colon. 
 This force, under command of General Tovar, reached Colon 
 on the steamer Carthagena, on the morning of November 3, 
 and was promptly landed, without any interference on the 
 part of the Nashville. General Tovar, accompanied by Gen- 
 erals Castro, Alban, and Amaya, at once took train for 
 Panama, leaving word for the soldiers to follow as soon as 
 a special train could be prepared for them, Colonel Torres 
 remaining in charge of them, and the soldiers, many of them 
 accompanied by their wives, "camping out" on the street cor- 
 ners of Colon. Colonel J. R. Shaler, the General Manager of 
 the Panama Railroad, and his deputy, H. G. Prescott, imme- 
 diately telephoned to Panama the news of the arrival and 
 landing of the troops and the coming of the oflScers to 
 Panama, and this quickly convinced Dr. Amador and his 
 associates that the blow for independence must be struck at 
 once, without waiting for the time appointed. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock when Dr. Amador received the 
 news, and the Colombian ofiicers would reach Panama by 
 eleven o'clock. If they were permitted to enter the city 
 and visit the barracks, they might secure the support of 
 some of the troops, and then some fighting might be neces- 
 sary. This prospect struck Dr. Amador and the others with 
 consternation. Some of the leaders are said to have hidden 
 themselves in fear, and to have renounced the whole project. 
 Even Dr. Amador and the most resolute of his comrades 
 were much perplexed. It was not that they doubted the out- 
 come, in case of a trial of strength. General Huertas had 
 enough loyal Panamans at his command to deal with all 
 the recreant ones and with the soldiers at Colon to boot. 
 The commanders of the three Colombian gunboats in the 
 
APPROACHING THE CRISIS 173 
 
 harbour of Panama were also supposed to have been won over 
 to the revolution, or at least to non-resistance — though that 
 supposition was ill-founded, as soon appeared. But what 
 Dr. Amador had learned in the United States had convinced 
 him that any fighting and bloodshed would seriously alienate 
 the sympathies of Americans. 
 
 For an hour there was some quick thinking done, and 
 various plans of action were proposed. One scheme, which 
 seems to have been suggested in all seriousness, though it 
 was not carried out, was to receive the officers with all 
 possible honour, and entertain them at luncheon. There 
 their wine was to be drugged with "knockout drops" so as 
 to render them insensible, when they could be locked up 
 without resistance ! Waiving this and other more fantastic 
 schemeg. Dr. Amador finally went to the military headquar- 
 ters, on the Plaza Chiriqui, to confer with General Huertas. 
 That officer had just started, with his staff, resplendent in 
 full-dress uniform, to the railroad station, to meet the com- 
 ing Generals, and Dr. Amador had no opportunity for a 
 word with him. There was nothing to do, apparently, but 
 to await the progress of events. 
 
 The train arrived at eleven o'clock, bearing the four 
 Generals and their staffs, fifteen men in all, glittering in 
 elaborate uniforms and bristling with all the arms it was 
 permissible for officers to bear. General Huertas greeted 
 them with courtesy, and escorted them to the headquarters, 
 while the leaders of the revolutionary conspiracy looked on 
 from a distance, wondering what would happen next. Arrived 
 at headquarters. General Tovar asked General Huertas to 
 conduct him and the other Colombians to the fortifications of 
 the city, and especially to the sea wall. Now from the sea 
 wall it would be easy to signal to the Colombian gunboats 
 in the harbour. Moreover, there were mounted upon that wall 
 several modern rapid-fire guns, commanding the whole city. 
 A small body of resolute men, even these fifteen, armed to 
 the teeth, might make much trouble if they got possession of 
 those guns. So the wily General Huertas determined not 
 
1V4 THE PANAMA REVOLUTION 
 
 to gratify their desire. He put them off in characteristic 
 Spanish-American fashion. He reminded them that it was 
 already the hour of the siesta, when men should rest and 
 not exert themselves. Moreover, he and they were dressed 
 in their most elaborate uniforms, hot, closely buttoned, and 
 blazing with medals. Surely, it would be wise to wait until 
 the hour of the siesta was past and the day was a little 
 cooler, and they had all had time to exchange full dress 
 for more comfortable fatigue uniforms. Then he would with 
 extreme pleasure conduct them to the sea wall, and facili- 
 tate any disposition they might desire to make of their 
 gallant soldiers, who would doubtless by that time have 
 arrived from Colon. 
 
 Thus entreated, the Colombians yielded. They were enter- 
 tained at lunch, and in one way or another their suspicions 
 were lulled and inaction was maintained until late in the 
 afternoon. Then the non-arrival of their troops alarmed 
 them, and it is said that in some way an intimation was 
 imparted to them that the troops were being detained at 
 Colon and that they themselves were in danger of falling 
 victims to a revolutionary plot. At any rate they suddenly 
 demanded that without further delay the local troops be 
 mustered and placed at their disposal, and that they be con- 
 ducted to the batteries on the sea wall. 
 
 To this General Huertas assented. On some plausible 
 pretext, however, he slipped from the room for a moment, 
 and found Dr. Amador waiting, just outside the door, all 
 anxiety and impatience. The contrast between these two 
 men was most striking. The one was advanced in years, 
 venerable and stately in aspect, and yet impetuous as youth. 
 The other was only a boy in stature and scarcely more than 
 a boy in years, yet at the time deliberate and dilatory. The 
 latter, however, quickly responded to the zealous initiative 
 of the former. 
 
 "Do it !" exhorted Dr. Amador, in an impassioned whisper. 
 "Do it now !" 
 
 The little General needed no further incitement. He 
 
ARRESTING THE GENERALS ^6 
 
 ordered out his faithful soldiers, under arms and with rifles 
 loaded, as if to escort the Colombian officers and man for 
 them the fortifications of Panama. Then, as the Colombians 
 approached, he ordered the troops to level their rifles upon 
 them, and announced to the astounded officers that they were 
 his prisoners! Appeal and protest and menace were all in 
 vain. At the muzzles of a hundred rifles the Colombians 
 yielded, and were promptly disarmed and marched off to 
 police headquarters and locked up for safe-keeping! At the 
 same moment, Commandant Antonio A. Valdez and Colonel 
 J. A. Arango J. arrested Senor Obaldia, the Governor of 
 Panama, and conducted him to prison. He was immediately 
 released, in their nominal custody, but was in fact set at 
 entire liberty. His arrest was a mere matter of form, in 
 which he acquiesced, for he was, and was well known to be, 
 in full sympathy with the revolution; but it was deemed 
 desirable to go through the form of deposing him as an 
 appointee of the Bogota Government. 
 
 A prearranged signal was now given to the three gunboats, 
 that the revolution was effected, the expectation being that 
 they would at once give their allegiance to the new govern- 
 ment. That expectation was disappointed. Two of the 
 vessels, the Padilla and Chucuito, remained silent and im- 
 passive. As for the third, the Bogota, her commander, Man 
 uel Martinez, at eight o'clock sent word to the city that if 
 the Colombian Generals were not released by ten o'clock he 
 would bombard the city. To this threat no answer was 
 made, and of course the Generals were not released. Accord- 
 ingly, at about ten o'clock, the Bogota fired three shells into 
 the city. One of them hit and killed a Chinese coolie near 
 the military barracks, and that was the only blood shed in 
 the revolution. The Bogota then steamed away toward 
 Buenaventura. 
 
 The next morning, November 4, the gunboat Padilla, also 
 known as the Twenty-First of December, steamed in to a 
 station under the guns of the sea wall, anchored, and raised 
 the Panaman flag in place of the Colombian. A report 
 
176 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 became current that the Bogota was returning, whereupon 
 the consular corps of the city, representing America, Great 
 Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Ecuador, 
 Guatemala, Salvador, Denmark, Belgium, Cuba, Mexico, 
 Brazil, Honduras, and Peru, under the lead of the American 
 Vice-Consul-General, united in a letter to her commander, 
 protesting that the bombardment of a defenceless city, with- 
 out notice to the consular corps, was contrary to the rights 
 and practices of civilised nations. This letter was not 
 delivered, however, as the Bogota did not return to the 
 harbour. 
 
 Dr. Amador had been strongly urged, when in the United 
 States, to have the Provisional Government of the revolu- 
 tionists so completely organised that it would be ready to 
 take charge of the actual work of Government and be a de 
 facto government without a moment's delay after the expul- 
 sion or deposition of the Colombian officers. This was done. 
 The Municipal Council of the City of Panama met, of its own 
 right, on November 4. There were present the President of 
 the Council, Demetrio H. Brid, and Rafael Aizpuru, Ricardo 
 M. Arango, F. Agustin Arias, Fabio Arosemena, R. Jos6 
 Maria Chiari, P. Cucalon, J. Manuel, Alcides Dominguez, 
 Samuel Lewis, Enrique Linares, Oscar M. McKay, Manuel 
 Maria Mendez, and Dario Vallarino. There was a free dis- 
 cussion of the existing crisis and of the train of historic inci- 
 dents and circumstances which had led to it, after which it 
 was unanimously voted that Panama should be declared a 
 free and independent Republic, and that pending the organ- 
 isation of a permanent government, all affairs should be 
 placed in the hands of an Executive Board of three, consist- 
 ing of Jose Agustin Arango, Federico Boyd, and Tomas 
 Arias, together with the following Ministers: Eusebio A. 
 Morales, Secretary of State; Manuel Amador, Secretary of 
 the Treasury; C. A. Mendoza, Minister of Justice; F. V. de 
 la Espriella, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and Nicanor A. 
 de Obarrio, Secretary of War and the Navy. This resolution 
 was signed by the members of the Municipal Council, and 
 
"HOLDING UP" AN AEMY 111 
 
 then, at the call of the Council, it was ratified by a mass 
 meeting of the people of Panama, held that afternoon in the 
 Cathedral Plaza. The Junta at the same time issued a for 
 mal manifesto, constituting a declaration of independence 
 and a vindication of the revolution. (See Appendix V.) 
 
 Meantime, what was happening at Colon, and where were 
 the 450 Colombian soldiers who had come to prevent the 
 revolution, and whom we left camping out upon the streets ? 
 Left in charge of the troops on the morning of November 3, 
 Colonel Torres demanded that a special train should imme- 
 diately be provided, to convey them to Panama. Certainly, 
 replied the Superintendent of the railroad ; a train would be 
 provided as soon as possible. In the meantime, he respect- 
 fully called attention to the invariable rule of the company, 
 which he had no authority to waive, that all transportation 
 of passengers must be paid for in advance. He assumed that 
 the Colonel in command would attend to that? The Colonel 
 was nonplussed. The railroad fare for 450 men would 
 amount to nearly |2,000 in gold, and to twice as much in 
 Colombian silver — depreciated stuff called in derision 
 "monkey money" and "tin money." He had no such amount 
 at command, nor any means of getting it. He at first tried 
 to insist that the soldiers must be carried free, on govern- 
 ment business, or at least on credit. But the railroad 
 officials were resolute and inflexible. No money, no trans- 
 portation; and that was all there was about it. In which 
 unhappy circumstances, Colonel Torres and his warriors 
 had no recourse but to remain bivouacked on the hospitable 
 streets of Colon. Efforts to communicate with the officers 
 who had gone on before to Panama were vain. Telegraph 
 and telephone wires refused to serve them, for reasons under- 
 stood by the revolutionists. 
 
 The next day, November 4, announcement was made that 
 the revolution had occurred at Panama, and was successful, 
 and that General Tovar and his comrades were in jail ! At 
 this some of the Colombian troops began to grow ugly and 
 threatened to begin fighting and to seize the railroad by 
 
178 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 force and go to Panama. Colonel Torres was also said to 
 have threatened to kill every American in Colon unless the 
 Generals were promptly released. It has since been denied 
 that such a threat was made. The Colombian General 
 Ospina, who afterwards accompanied General Rafael Reyes 
 to Panama on a futile mission of reunion, declared in a let- 
 ter to the New York Evening Post (January 6, 1904) that 
 he had heard a prominent Panaman statesman confess that 
 the story of that threat was invented by the Prefect of Colon, 
 and was reported to the Commander of the Nashville in 
 order to move him to intervene in aid of the revolutionists. 
 However that may be, there is no question that the Ameri- 
 cans in Colon believed the threat had been made, and it is 
 indisputable that the Colombians did threaten to seize the 
 railroad. Thereupon the railroad oflScers made appeal to 
 the captain of the Nashville, Commander John Hubbard, for 
 protection, and he promptly landed fifty bluejackets, to serve 
 as guardians of the peace. Their presence on shore effect- 
 ually restrained the martial ardour of the Colombians, and 
 no disturbance occurred. At the same time Commander 
 Hubbard wrote to the Alcalde of Colon and to the Chief of 
 Police the substance of an official order which he had 
 received from Washington, to this effect: that affairs at 
 Colon were in such a condition that the movement of the 
 Colombian troops from Colon to Panama would precipitate 
 a conflict which would interfere with that free and unin- 
 terrupted transit of the Isthmus which the United States 
 was pledged to maintain, and that, therefore, he had directed 
 the Superintendent of the Railroad not to transport the 
 troops of either party. This was in exact accord with and 
 continuation of the order already quoted, as given by the 
 Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Moody, in September, 1902, for- 
 bidding ^^any transportation of troops which might contra- 
 vene provisions of treaty." 
 
 So Colonel Torres and his men remained stranded on the 
 streets of Colon. It was impossible to march across the 
 Isthmus, the railroad would not carry them, and the ship 
 
THE AEMY SENT HOME 179 
 
 which had brought them thither, the Garthagena, steamed 
 away at full speed that very day, for home! 
 
 That same day the British consul at Colon suggested that 
 if there were need of a stronger police force, British blue- 
 jackets might be landed from the cruiser Amphion, which 
 lay at Panama. The suggestion was well meant, but was 
 not accepted. The United States saw no need of any other 
 intervention than its own, and was determined there should 
 be none. Already, on November 3, the troop-ship Dixie had 
 been ordered to join the Nashville at Colon, and the cruiser 
 Boston had been ordered to Panama, and they arrived at 
 those ports on November 5 and 7 respectively. Other vessels 
 were promptly despatched to join them, and within ten days 
 the cruiser Atlanta^ the battleship Maine, and the yacht 
 Mayflower were at Colon, and the cruiser Marhleheadf the 
 gunboat Concord, and the monitor Wyoming were by the 
 side of the Boston at Panama. Thus the United States had 
 the whole situation perfectly in hand. It was announced on 
 November 4 that the United States would allow no forces 
 hostile to Panama to land within fifty miles of Panama, or 
 anywhere on the Caribbean coast of the Isthmus, and on 
 November 6 the NasJwllle set out from Colon for a cruise 
 to Porto Bello and along the coast to prevent any such, 
 landing. 
 
 It was also desirable to get the 450 Colombian soldiers out 
 of Colon and out of the Republic of Panama, as well as to 
 keep others from getting in, and this consummation was 
 expedited and facilitated by the commander of those troops. 
 He offered to take the men away, by the first available ship, 
 and in peace, if the Panama Government would "make it 
 an object to him." Now there was at that time about $140,- 
 000 in debased Colombian currency in the Panama treasury, 
 worth about |56,000 in gold. The Panamans concluded that 
 it would be a cheap and easy way of getting rid of the 
 Colombians, to accept his offer. So they gave him |8,000 in 
 gold, and he loyally kept his word. On November 5, the men . 
 and their wives were hurried aboard the Roval Mail steam- 
 
180 THE PANAMA EE VOLUTION 
 
 ship Orinoco, and Colon knew them no more. The oflScer did 
 not, of course, mean to go back to Colombia with them. 
 That would have been inconvenient and probably dangerous 
 for him, seeing the compact he had made with the Panamans. 
 His scheme was to go to Jamaica, and enjoy his |8,000 in 
 that loveliest of the Antilles. But, alas for him! His 
 precious soldiers found out what a bargain he had made, and 
 came to the conclusion that the money belonged to them as 
 much as to him, seeing that it was the price of their depart- 
 ure from the Isthmus. So they rose against him and took it 
 from him, to the uttermost peso; and what became of him 
 thereafter, deponent saith not ! 
 
 Just as the Orinoco left Colon, the Dixie steamed into 
 the roadstead. At the same time there arrived at the Colon 
 station a special train from Panama, bearing General Tovar 
 and his comrades, who had been released on condition that 
 they would immediately leave the country, a condition they 
 were glad enough to fulfil. They were too late to go on the 
 Orinoco y so they had to wait at Colon until November 12, 
 when they got away on the Spanish steamer Leon XIII. 
 
 Thereafter there were no military operations of signifi- 
 cance. The United States authorities on November 9 for- 
 mally announced that no landing of Colombian or any other 
 alien troops would be permitted in any part of the territory 
 of Panama. Three days later Esteban Huertas was made 
 Commander in Chief of the Panaman army, but the functions 
 of himself and his miniature army were chiefly ornamental. 
 
 There arose some rumors that a naval expedition was 
 approaching Panama from Buenaventura, and the American 
 ships in the Pacific were instructed to look out for it, but 
 the rumors were baseless. Also there were tales of a great 
 Colombian army being marched to Panama by land, which 
 provoked only derision from those acquainted with the char- 
 acter of the country which such an army would have to 
 traverse — the land of the San Bias Indians, which consists, 
 as is supposed, chiefly of alternating mountains and mo- 
 rasses, but which in fact has never yet been fully surveyed 
 
NEW GOVEKNMENT ESTABLISHED 181 
 
 or explored by white meD. The object of such reports was, 
 however, obvious. It was to create the impression that 
 Colombia was sincerely and energetically striving to reduce 
 the seceding State to subjection again, and was prevented 
 from so doing only by the superior force of the United 
 States. The truth was that Colombia made no serious effort 
 in that direction, and was in no condition to make one, and 
 that she would, in all probability, have failed to reconquer 
 Panama even had the United States refrained from giving 
 the latter any protection. 
 
 In the absence of military operations, political activities 
 were abundant. The Provisional Government of Panama 
 assumed the work of actual administration so promptly, 
 energetically, and efficiently, that on November 7 it secured 
 official recognition from the United States as the de facto 
 government of the Isthmus. This recognition was conveyed 
 to the Junta by Felix Ehrman, the American Vice-Consul- 
 General at Panama. The Junta had informed him on 
 November 4 of the act of secession and the formation of the 
 Provisional Government, and he had replied on November 5 
 simply acknowledging receipt of their communication. He, 
 of course, made full reports to the government at Washing- 
 ton and in consequence presently received this note of 
 instructions: 
 
 "The people of Panama have, by apparently unanimous 
 movement, dissolved their political connection with the 
 Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence. 
 When you are satisfied that a de facto government, republi- 
 can in form and without substantial opposition from its own 
 people, has been established in the State of Panama, you will 
 enter into relations with it as the responsible government 
 of the territory, and look to it for all due action to protect 
 the persons and property of citizens of the United States, 
 and to keep open the Isthmian transit, in accordance with 
 the obligations of existing treaties governing the relations 
 of the United States to that territory.'^ 
 
 In accordance with these instructions on November 7, 
 Mr. Ehrman wrote to the Junta as follows: 
 
182 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 *'As it appears that the people of Panama have, by unani- 
 mous movement, dissolved their political connection with 
 the Republic of Colombia and Resumed their independence, 
 and as there is no opposition to the Provisional Government 
 in the State of Panama, I have to inform you that the Pro- 
 visional Government will be held responsible for the pro 
 tection of the persons and property of citizens of the United 
 States, as well as to keep the Isthmian transit free, in 
 accordance with obligations of existing treaties relative to 
 the Isthmian territory." 
 
 To this the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Senor de la 
 Espriella, replied cordially on November 8, declaring that 
 the Republic of Panama accepted fully the responsibility 
 imposed upon it, and would regard it as a sacred and pleas- 
 ant duty to fulfil all the duties required by the existing 
 treaties which had been made by Colombia relative to the 
 Isthmian territory. Meantime, on November 7, M. Bunau- 
 Varilla was appointed Minister of Panama to the United 
 States, in accordance with his request and the promise of 
 Dr. Amador, and a Commission, consisting of Dr. Amador 
 and Senors Boyd and C. C. Arosemena, was constituted to 
 cooperate with him in framing and negotiating a canal 
 treaty with the United States. The Commissioners set out 
 on November 10 for the United States, the Minister being 
 already here. Three days later M. Bunau-Varilla was for- 
 mally received by President Roosevelt, and thus the new 
 Republic was diplomatically recognised and received into 
 the community of nations. The canal treaty was speedily ne- 
 gotiated, and on November 18 was signed at Washington by 
 Secretary Hay and M. Bunau-Varilla. (See Appendix VI.) 
 
 Colombia also was busy with politics and diplomacy. The 
 Bogota Government was promptly informed of the attitude 
 and intentions of the United States through the following 
 despatch from our Government to Mr. Beaupre, who still 
 remained at the Colombian capital : 
 
 "The people of Panama having, by an apparently unani- 
 mous movement dissolved their political connection with 
 
COLOMBIAN PROTESTS 183 
 
 the Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence, 
 and having adopted a government of their own, republican 
 in form, with which the Government of the United States of 
 America has entered into relations, the President of the 
 United States, in accordance with the ties of friendship 
 which have so long and so happily existed between the 
 respective nations, most earnestly commends to the govern 
 ments of Colombia and of Panama the peaceful and equita- 
 ble settlement of all questions at issue between them. He 
 holds that he is bound not merely by treaty obligations, but 
 by the interests of civilisation, to see that the peaceful traf- 
 fic of the world across the Isthmus of Panama shall not 
 longer be disturbed by a constant succession of unnecessary 
 and wasteful civil wars." 
 
 In reply the Bogota Government on November 8 formally 
 but vainly protested against American recognition of Pan- 
 aman independence, and appointed General Rafael Reyes — 
 one of the ablest and highest-minded statesmen in that 
 Republic — a special commissioner to proceed to Panama and 
 negotiate a return of that State to its former union with 
 Colombia. Before he could get to the Isthmus, however, a 
 company of five self-appointed commissioners from the 
 Colombian state of Bolivar arrived at Colon on the Ham- 
 burg-American steamer Scotia^ on a similar errand. They 
 were not permitted to land, but were met on shipboard by a 
 Panaman commission composed of Seiiors Arias, Espinosa, 
 Morales, and Arosemena. A temperate and amicable inter- 
 view ensued, but was entirely fruitless. That was on 
 November 16. On the same day President Marroquin, of 
 Colombia, took the extraordinary and most irregular step 
 of cabling directly to the Senate of the United States an 
 elaborate and vehement protest against American recogni- 
 tion of Panama. Both the Senate and the President and 
 his Secretary of State would have been justified in resent- 
 ing this performance, which can hardly have been inadvert- 
 ent but must surely have been intended by Dr. Marroquin 
 as a deliberate slight to the American Executive, but it was 
 generously and good-naturedly decided to overlook it. Of 
 
184 THE PANAMA KE VOLUTION 
 
 course the protest had no effect whatever at Washington, 
 though it is possible it had and was intended to have some 
 effect at home in Colombia, where the Government was in 
 desperate straits to keep the states of Cauca and Antioquia 
 from following the example of Panama and seceding. 
 
 General Reyes, accompanied by Generals Ospina, Holguin, 
 and others, arrived at Colon on November 19, on the French 
 steamer Canada. Like their predecessors from Bolivar, they 
 were not permitted to go ashore, but they had a conference 
 with the Panaman commissioners on shipboard. It, too, 
 was without practical result, unless to demonstrate further 
 the irrevocable nature of the step which Panama had taken. 
 At its termination. General Reyes came on to the United 
 States, having been commissioned to do so as a special envoy 
 with extraordinary powers. He reached Washington on 
 November 28, and was received with the courtesy and con- 
 sideration to which his character and attainments, as well 
 as the nature of his errand, entitled him. He pleaded, or 
 argued, the cause of Colombia with consummate ability, and 
 with frank integrity ; and with the zeal of a double interest, 
 for he was ijot only a loyal and patriotic representative of 
 President Marroquin, but also, as he and all men then real- 
 ised, he was practically designated to be President Marro- 
 quin's successor as the Chief of the Colombian State. He 
 went so far as substantially to offer, if the United States 
 would only compel the return of Panama to Colombian 
 allegiance, to have the defunct Hay-Herran treaty resur- 
 rected, revivified, and ratified, with an amendment waiving 
 the 110,000,000 bonus and giving the United States the right 
 of way across the Isthmus gratis. It does not appear to have 
 occurred to him, though it should have done so, as it did to 
 others, that this offer was a practical confirmation of the 
 charges that the Marroquin government could have had the 
 treaty ratified if it had wished, and that it deliberately 
 strangled and killed that thing of its own creation. 
 
 This extraordinary proposition appears to have originated 
 at Bogotd and to have been considered and approved by Dr. 
 
AN AMAZING PROPOSITION 185 
 
 Marroquin, according to an authentic despatch from that 
 capital quoted as follows by President Roosevelt in his 
 annual message of December 7, 1903 : 
 
 "Knowing that revolution has already commenced in Pan- 
 ama (an eminent Colombian) says that if the government 
 of the United States will land troops to preserve Colombian 
 sovereignty, and the transit, if requested by Colombian 
 charge d'affaires, this government will declare martial law; 
 and, by virtue of vested constitutional authority, when public 
 order is disturbed, will approve by decree the ratification of 
 the canal treaty as signed; or, if the government of the 
 United States prefers, will call extra session of the Congress 
 — with new and friendly members — next May to approve the 
 treaty. (An eminent Colombian) has the perfect confidence 
 of Vice-President, he says, and if it became necessary will go 
 to the isthmus or send representative there to adjust mat- 
 ters along above lines to the satisfaction of the people 
 there." 
 
 "This despatch," said President Roosevelt in that mes- 
 sage, "is noteworthy from two standpoints. Its offer of 
 immediately guaranteeing the treaty to us is in sharp con- 
 trast with the positive and contemptuous refusal of the 
 Congress which had just closed its sessions to consider fa- 
 vourably such a treaty ; it shows that the government which 
 made the treaty really had absolute control over the situa- 
 tion, but did not choose to exercise this control. The des- 
 patch further calls on us to restore order and secure 
 Colombian supremacy in the Isthmus, from which the Colom- 
 bian Government has just by its action decided to bar us by 
 preventing the construction of the canal." 
 
 The identity of "an eminent Colombian" will, of course, 
 be obvious to the reader of the narrative. President Roose- 
 velt was by oflScial propriety and courtesy constrained thus 
 to designate him with the bracketed phrase, but there was 
 no secret and no doubt as to who he was. 
 
 The mission of General Re^es thus came to naught, and 
 the American recognition and protection of Panama were 
 properly maintained. In rapid succession many other gov- 
 
186 THE PANAMA KEVOLUTION 
 
 ernments also recognised the new Republic, until all had 
 done so save Colombia itself. The dates of official recog- 
 nition — which in most cases were delayed long after practi- 
 cal but informal recognition — were as follows : United States, 
 November 7; France, November 16; China, November 22; 
 Austria-Hungary, November 27; Germany, November 30; 
 Russia, December 7; Denmark, December 8; Belgium, 
 December 9; Peru, December 21; Sweden and Norway, 
 December 22 ; Cuba, December 23 ; Great Britain, December 
 26 ; Switzerland, Japan, and Italy, December 28 ; Costa Rica, 
 December 29 ; Nicaragua, January 1, 1904 ; Persia, January 
 11; Portugal, February 16; Corea, February 23; Mexico, 
 Brazil, and Argentina, March 3; Siam, March 4; Ecuador, 
 September 21. The long delay of Ecuador was doubtless due 
 to the close and sympathetic relations between that country 
 and Colombia. For a time Colombia refused to recognise 
 Panama in any way, even to the extent of honouring Pana- 
 man postage stamps in the mails. After the accession of 
 President Reyes at Bogota, however, a more reasonable 
 spirit began to be developed, in 1905 actual recognition of 
 postal service between the two countries was effected, and 
 the way to an ultimate establishment of amicable relations 
 was opened. 
 
 Meantime the Provisional Government took prompt steps 
 toward placing the Republic upon a permanent constitu- 
 tional basis, and on December 13 it issued a call for a gen- 
 eral election, to be held on January 15, 1904, for members of 
 a National Constitutional Convention, by which the organic 
 and fundamental law of the Republic would be formulated 
 and decreed. • 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 The policy of the American Government toward the Pan- 
 ama revolution was severely criticised in two quarters: to 
 wit, by Colombians, and by a certain class of partisan oppo- 
 nents of the administration in the United States. By the 
 world at large it was generally approved. That such 
 approval was deserved should be evident to all who regard 
 the matter impartially, logically, and with a proper his- 
 torical perspective. The major part of criticism has been 
 directed against the orders to our naval forces, which have 
 been said to have prevented, and to have been intended to 
 prevent, the Colombian Government from suppressing rebel- 
 lion. (The charge that the revolution was conceived and 
 planned in this country, "in the shadow of the Capitol at 
 Washington," with the connivance of our Government, is too 
 absurdly false to require attention. The indisputable facts 
 of the record completely disprove it, and show it to have 
 had its origin in nothing better than either ignorance or 
 malignance.) The orders in question were, however, based 
 upon long-established treaty rights and duties, and were 
 consistent with the policy and practice of our Government 
 for more than a half century before. I have already indi- 
 cated that the sending of the Nashville to Colon on November 
 2 was a mere repetition of what had been done before several 
 times, whenever there seemed to be need of protection to 
 American interests there. It was perfectly well known, not 
 only to the Government but to the general public, that a 
 revolution was imminent on the Isthmus, and that Colombian 
 troops were on their way thither to suppress it. In such a 
 case, the lives and property of Americans were sure to be 
 
 187 
 
188 AMEKICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 endangered, and free transit on the railroad to be inter- 
 rupted. Certainly it was incumbent upon the Government 
 to take prompt steps to prevent such wrongs, rather than to 
 wait until they were committed and then vainly try to 
 undo or savagely to avenge them. What was the order to 
 the commander of the Nashville? It was identical with that 
 sent on the same day, November 2, to the commanders of 
 the Boston and the Dixie, and ran as follows: 
 
 "Maintain free and uninterrupted transit. If interruption 
 threatened by armed force, occupy line of railroad. Pre- 
 vent landing of any armed force with hostile intent, either 
 Government or insurgent, either at Colon, Porto Bello, or 
 other point." 
 
 That amounted simply to an order to maintain our treaty 
 rights and to fulfil our treaty obligations, concerning transit 
 on the Isthmus, and it was directed against the Panaman 
 revolutionists as much as against the Colombians. Neither 
 party was to be permitted to interfere with the free working 
 of the railroad. Neither was to be permitted to land armed 
 forces with hostile intent at the terminals of the railroad, 
 where they would certainly convert the road into a theatre 
 of hostilities, or at any other point — such as Porto Bello — 
 from which their sole purpose would be to march against 
 the railroad and interrupt traffic. On the same day this 
 order was sent to Rear-Admiral Glass at Acapulco, directing 
 him to proceed at once to Panama with all available forces. 
 
 "Maintain free and uninterrupted transit. If interrup- 
 tion threatened by armed force, occupy line. Prevent land- 
 ing of any armed force either government or insurgent, at 
 any point within fifty miles of Panama. If doubtful as to 
 the intent of any armed force, occupy Ancon Hill strongly 
 with artillery. Government force reported approaching the 
 isthmus in vessels. Prevent their landing, if in your judg- 
 ment landing would precipitate a conflict." 
 
 As before, the object was to maintain our treaty rights 
 and fulfil our treaty obligations It is true, the order was 
 
MAINTAINING TREATY RIGHTS 180 
 
 calculated to prevent Colombia from sending troops to sup 
 press the insurrection. But if Colombia had exercised rea 
 sonable prudence, she would have sent an army thither many 
 weeks before, when the revolution was first openly threat- 
 ened. Then she would have had it on the ground, for ready 
 use. But since she did not do so, but deliberately elected 
 to wait until the revolution was an accomplished fact, the 
 United States was not required to let her violate our treaty 
 rights for the vindication of her own neglected and practi- 
 cally abandoned authority. Again, on November 4, the com- 
 mander of the Nashville was ordered to send a battery 
 across to Panama, to compel the Colombian gunboat to stop 
 bombarding that city — an order which was perfectly proper, 
 since such bombardment would have interrupted free transit 
 of the Isthmus, but which it was not necessary to execute, 
 since the Bogota did not resume the bombardment after the 
 firing of three shells the evening before. I have already 
 mentioned the order not to permit the railroad to be used 
 for military purposes. Nothing could have been more proper 
 than that, for it was obvious that if either party were per- 
 mitted to make such use of the road, the other party would 
 have a right to attack it, and the free use of the road for 
 peaceful transit, guaranteed by the United States in the 
 Treaty of 1846, would have been interrupted. On November 
 9 this order was sent to the commander of the Boston at 
 Panama : 
 
 ^^Sufficient force must be sent to watch movements closely 
 of the British steamers seized at Buenaventura, and to pre- 
 vent the landing of men with hostile intent within limits of 
 the State of Panama." 
 
 At that time the Panaman revolution had been fully 
 accomplished. The Provisional Government was at work, 
 efficiently performing its functions, and had been recognised 
 by the United States. Colombia had become a foreign power. 
 Under the Treaty of 1846 the United States was bound to 
 guarantee the Isthmus against oppression by any foreign 
 
190 AMEEICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 Power. Therefore it ordered the protection of the Isthmus 
 against Colombian invasion. It may be said — it has been 
 said — that such construction of treaty obligations was 
 strained and unreasonable, and that in forbidding Colombia 
 to attempt the reconquest of Panama this country was act- 
 ing without warrant in international law. That is not to be 
 conceded. But even if, for sake of argument, it were to be 
 conceded, what would it prove? Nations do not wait for 
 warrants in international law when their own welfare is 
 jeoparded. Self-preservation or self-defence is proverbially 
 declared to be "nature's first law." It is that, for states 
 as well as for individuals. There was no "warrant in inter- 
 national law" for our Declaration of Independence. There 
 was none for the conduct of Jay, Adams, and Franklin in 
 1783, in making a treaty in direct violation of the instruc- 
 tions under which they were commissioned. There was none 
 for Jefferson's dictum, that if France would not sell Lou- 
 isiana to us, we must take it from her by force; or for 
 Monroe's similar policy toward Spain in Florida. There was 
 none for our long-maintained policy forbidding Spain to 
 do as she pleased with Cuba. There was none for John 
 Quincy Adams's warning to the Russian Government to 
 relinquish its holdings upon this continent, or for the Mon- 
 roe Doctrine which logically followed. There was no legal 
 sanction for the conduct of the United States in warning 
 Great Britain and France to quit Hawaii and in ordering 
 France out of Mexico. It may be, of course, that the United 
 States sinned in all these things. If so, then it kept on 
 sinning in the same way in Panama. But if it did not sin 
 in them, neither did it when it pursued the same policy in 
 Panama. 
 
 The question of our Government's policy in Panama is, as 
 the term implies, a question of policy. It is not a question 
 of executive details, because there were no such details con- 
 cerning which, per se, any material question could be raised. 
 There was no waging of war. There was no slaughter. 
 There were no torturings nor imprisonments. There was no 
 
THE LAW FOE THE CANAL 191 
 
 arbitrary overthrowing of an established government. All 
 that was done was to exercise the moral influence of a 
 definite and peaceful policy. 
 
 Our policy was justified, and indeed made necessary, by 
 domestic obligations. Congress had directed the President 
 to construct a canal at Panama, rather than at any other 
 point. We need not stop to consider why Panama was 
 chosen. That was a matter of congressional enactment, not 
 of administrative policy. The question of route had been 
 discussed, with . a wealth of investigation and detail, for 
 many years. Whether wisely or not, and whether for ade- 
 quate or inadequate reasons. Congress finally declared, 
 explicitly and unequivocally, in favour of Panama. The 
 President had to obey that mandate. There was no alter- 
 native, save in case of his inability to make satisfactory 
 terms within a reasonable time. The President promptly 
 proceeded to do the work prescribed by Congress. He made 
 terms, which the Senate accepted as satisfactory, for the 
 construction and control of the canal. He was himself the 
 sole judge of what was a "reasonable time" in which to make 
 such terms. That time proved to be something less than a 
 year and a half, and it was approved as "reasonable" by 
 the Senate. Thus far, then, the President scrupulously 
 obeyed the law. 
 
 But it is said that the law directed him to make his terms 
 with the Colombian Government, and that, instead, he made 
 them with Panama. It is true that Congress mentioned the 
 Colombian Government as the one with which he was to 
 negotiate. Obviously, that was because it was at that time 
 the sovereign of Panama. But it is equally obvious that 
 Congress meant not that government, per se, but whatever 
 lawful government the President might find in possession of 
 the Isthmus. That is because (a) the Congress of the United 
 States could not guarantee that President Marroquin's or 
 any special Colombian Government would remain in power 
 at Panama, nor give the President any assurance of what 
 government he would find there when he made the treaty; 
 
192 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 and because (b) it did not say that if a change of govern- 
 ment should occur upon the Isthmus before a treaty could 
 be made, he should abandon Panama and go elsewhere. The 
 prescription had reference to the place, rather than to the 
 power. It was geographical rather than political. As the 
 President himself wrote in his annual message of December 
 7, 1903: 
 
 "When the Congress directed that we should take the 
 Panama route under treaty with Colombia, the essence of 
 the condition, of course, referred not to the government 
 which controlled that route, but to the route itself; to the 
 territory across which the route lay, not to the name which 
 for the moment the territory bore on the map. The purpose 
 of the law was to authorise the President to make a treaty 
 with the power in actual control of the Isthmus of Panama. 
 This purpose has been fulfilled." 
 
 The President then made satisfactory terms, within a 
 reasonable time, and he made them with the actual govern- 
 ment of the Isthmus of Panama. He obeyed the law of 
 Congress in letter and in spirit. So far as domestic obliga- 
 tions were concerned, his policy was just and equitable. 
 
 Our policy was also justified by our legal obligations to 
 Colombia. Our Treaty of 1846 with New Granada guaran- 
 teed to New Granada (or Colombia) "the perfect neutrality" 
 of the Isthmus of Panama, "with the view that the free 
 transit from the one to the other sea may not be inter- 
 rupted or embarrassed," and also guaranteed "the rights of 
 sovereignty and property which New Granada has and pos- 
 sesses over the said territory." It was perfectly understood, 
 and was specifically and repeatedly declared, that this guar- 
 antee was solely against alien aggression, and was not to 
 be interpreted as promising protection against domestic 
 revolution or as assuring the perpetuity of the same domes- 
 tic system of government that then existed. "The purpose 
 of the stipulation," wrote Mr. Secretary Seward on Novem- 
 ber 9, 1865, "was to guarantee the Isthmus against seizure 
 or invasion by a foreign Power only. It could not have 
 
COLOMBIAN REVOLUTIONS 193 
 
 been contemplated that we are to become a party to any 
 civil war in that country by defending the Isthmus against 
 another party." As a matter of fact, there were several 
 revolutions in Colombia after the making of that treaty, to 
 none of which w^as the United States a party, and none of 
 which in any way affected the force of the treaty. 
 
 An impressive presentment of this phase of the case was 
 made by President Roosevelt in his annual message of 
 December 7, 1903. Writing of the Panama revolution and 
 its incidents and the conduct of the United States, he said : 
 
 ^'When these events happened, fifty-seven years had 
 elapsed since the United States had entered into its treaty 
 with New Granada. During that time the governments of 
 New Granada and of its successor, Colombia, have been in 
 a constant state of flux. The following is a partial list of 
 the disturbances on the Isthmus of Panama during the 
 period in question as reported to us by our consuls. It is not 
 possible to give a complete list, and some of the reports 
 that speak of ^revolutions^ must mean unsuccessful revo- 
 lutions : 
 
 ^'May 22, 1850 — Outbreak; two Americans killed; war 
 vessel demanded to quell outbreak. 
 
 ^'October, 1850 — Revolutionary plot to bring about inde- 
 pendence of the isthmus. 
 
 "July 22, 1851 — Revolution in four southern provinces. 
 
 "November 14, 1851 — Outbreak at Chagres. Man-of-war 
 requested for Chagres. 
 
 "June 27, 1853 — Insurrection at Bogotd, and consequent 
 disturbance on isthmus. War vessel demanded. 
 
 "May 23, 1854 — Political disturbances; war vessel re- 
 quested. 
 
 "June 28, 1854 — Attempted revolution. 
 
 "October 24, 1854 — Independence of isthmus demanded by 
 provincial legislature. 
 
 "April, 1856 — Riot, and massacre of Americans. 
 
 "May 4, 1856— Riot. 
 
 "May 18, 1856— Riot. 
 
 "October 2, 1856 — Conflict between two native parties. 
 United States forces landed. 
 
 "December 18, 1858 — Attempted secession of Panama. 
 
 "April, 1859— Riots. 
 
194 AMEBIC AK POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 ^'September, 1860— Outbreak. 
 
 "October 4, 1860 — Landing of United States forces in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 "May 23, 1861— Intervention of the United States forces 
 required by Intendente. 
 
 "October 2, 1861 — Insurrection and civil war. 
 
 "April 4, 1862 — Measures to prevent rebels crossing 
 isthmus. 
 
 "June 13, 1862 — Mosquera's troops refused admittance to 
 Panama. 
 
 "March, 1865 — Revolution and United States troops 
 landed. 
 
 "August, 1865 — Riots; unsuccessful attempt to invade 
 Panama. 
 
 "March, 1866 — Unsuccessful revolution. 
 
 "April, 1867 — Attempt to overthrow the government. 
 
 "August, 1867 — Attempt at revolution. 
 
 "July 5, 1868 — Revolution; provisional government in- 
 augurated. 
 
 "August 29, 1868 — Revolution; provisional government 
 overthrown. 
 
 "April, 1871 — Revolution ; followed apparently by counter- 
 revolution. 
 
 "April, 1873 — Revolution and civil war which lasted to 
 October, 1875. 
 
 "August, 1876— Civil war which lasted until April, 1877. 
 
 "Julv, 1878— Rebellion. 
 
 "December, 1878— Revolt. 
 
 "April, 1879— Revolution. 
 
 "June, 1879 — Revolution. 
 
 "March, 1883— Riot. 
 
 "May, 1883— Riot. 
 
 "June, 1884 — Revolutionary attempt. 
 
 "December, 1884 — Revolutionary attempt. 
 
 "January, 1885 — Revolutionary disturbances. 
 
 "March, 1885— Revolution. 
 
 "April, 1887 — Disturbances on Panama Railroad. 
 
 "November, 1887 — Disturbance on line of canal. 
 
 "January, 1889— Riot. 
 
 "January, 1895 — Revolution which lasted until ApriL 
 
 "March, 1895 — Incendiarv attempt. 
 
 "October, 1899.— Revolution. 
 
 "February, 1900, to July, 1900— Revolution. 
 
 "January, 1901 — Revolution. 
 
PROTECTION OF ISTHMIAN TRANSIT 195 
 
 "July, 1901 — Revolutionary disturbances. 
 
 "September, 1901 — City of Colon taken by rebels. 
 
 "March, 1902 — Revolutionary disturbances. 
 
 "July, 1902— Revolution. 
 
 "The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, rebel- 
 lions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that have 
 occurred during the period in question; yet they number 
 fifty-three for the fifty-seven years. It will be noted that 
 one of them lasted for nearly three years before it was 
 quelled ; another for nearly a year. In short, the experience 
 of over half a century has shown Colombia to be utterly 
 incapable of keeping order on the isthmus. Only the active 
 interference of the United States has enabled her to pre- 
 serve so much as a semblance of sovereignty. Had it not 
 been for the exercise by the United States of the police 
 power in her interest, her connection with the isthmus 
 would have been sundered long ago. In 1856, in 1860, in 
 1873, in 1885, in 1901, and again in 1902, sailors and marines 
 from United States warships were forced to land in order 
 to patrol the isthmus, to protect life and property and to 
 see that the transit across the isthmus was kept open. In 
 1861, in 1862, in 1885, and in 1900 the Colombian govern- 
 ment asked that the United States Government would land 
 troops to protect its interests and maintain order on the 
 isthmus." 
 
 The United States held strictly aloof from all of these 
 proceedings, so far as politics were concerned. The Treaty 
 of 1846, however, gave this country the right to preserve 
 peace and freedom of transit across the Isthmus, and was 
 consistently interpreted and understood as giving us that 
 right, even to the extent of intervening in local Colombian 
 affairs and preventing either party in a domestic war from 
 making belligerent use of the line of transit. Thus, to quote 
 Mr. Seward again, while the United States would take no 
 interest in any internal revolution in the State of Panama, 
 it would hold itseif ready "to protect the transit trade 
 across the Isthmus against either foreign or domestic dis- 
 turbance of the peace of the State of Panama.'' Note that 
 it was not the sovereignty of the Bogota Government, but 
 "the transit trade across the Isthmus," that the United 
 
196 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 States was ready to protect against domestic disturbance; 
 leaving it to the people of Colombia and Panama to deter- 
 mine whether Panama should be governed at Panama or at 
 Bogota. 
 
 Note also that the United States was to protect that 
 transit trade "against domestic disturbance of the peace." 
 How would it have been possible to do that if either of the 
 domestic belligerents had been permitted to use the railroad 
 as a base of military operations and thus to involve it in 
 acts of war? The only effective fulfilment of the treaty was 
 in protection of the road from attack, or even belligerent 
 use, by either faction. Such protection was repeatedly given, 
 to the extent of forbidding either the Colombian Government 
 or the insurgents to use the railroad as an engine of war. 
 That was what was done in November, 1903. The President 
 protected the transit trade of the Isthmus against "domestic 
 disturbance of the peace of the State of Panama," regardless 
 of whether the menace of disturbance proceeded from Colon 
 or from Bogotd. 
 
 It cannot justly be charged that the United States, while 
 insisting upon free transit across the Isthmus for itself, 
 prevented Colombia from enjoying it. The United States 
 never but once— and that was not in November, 1903 — for- 
 bade the Colombian Government to make non-belligerent use 
 of the railroad, and it did so only through a subordinate 
 functionary, who was promptly overruled by the Washing- 
 ton Government. All that it did prohibit was such con- 
 version of the railroad into an engine of war as would inter- 
 rupt free transit across the Isthmus and subject the road 
 itself to destruction. That the intention of the Treaty of 
 1846 was to exempt the road from such belligerent use seems 
 obvious and indisputable. 
 
 Mr. Secretary Hay set forth this phase of the case with 
 epigrammatic force when he described the treaty as a cov- 
 enant which "ran with the land." The application of the 
 treaty was geographical rather than political. The United 
 States had no right to say what government there should be 
 
COLOMBIA'S LIMITED POWER 197 
 
 in Colombia, save that the domestic government should not 
 be oppressed or overthrown by a foreign power. But it had 
 the right to say that whatever government there was should 
 fulfil its treaty obligations in the maintenance of free 
 transit across the Isthmus. It had the right to say that such 
 freedom of transit should not be interrupted by rebellion 
 arising at Panama or Colon, and equally that it should not 
 be interrupted by government coercion from Bogota. It 
 had, finally, the right to say, as it did say, that after she had 
 practically relinquished Panama to the control of its own 
 people and they had restored peace and established an 
 orderly government of their own, Colombia should not rein- 
 vade that state for the purpose of waging war and inter- 
 rupting commerce. 
 
 If it be said that this barred Colombia from using her 
 sovereign power and resources for the performance of some 
 of the supreme functions of government: to wit, the sup- 
 pression of rebellion and the maintenance of national integ- 
 rity, the answer is that she should have thought of that 
 before she made the treaty. Unquestionably she did, in 
 making that treaty, to a certain extent abrogate and relin- 
 quish her sovereignty over the Isthmus of Panama. She did 
 so in return for a qiiid pro quo, which then seemed to her 
 adequate, and which, in the event, proved for many years 
 not only to be adequate, but to put the balance of advantage 
 upon her side of the account. Having thus enjoyed the 
 benefits of the treaty for half a century, it was not lawful 
 for her to evade its obligations or to repudiate its penal- 
 ties. The United States, having fulfilled its duties toward 
 her, in protecting her from alien oppression, was amply jus- 
 tified, legally, in exacting from her its full privileges. That 
 was what our Government did at the beginning of November, 
 1903. 
 
 The United States was right, of course, in rejecting the 
 Colombian proposal, that it should, in return for a canal 
 concession, suppress for Colombia the already successful 
 revolution in Panama, and restore that state to Colombian 
 
198 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 authority. The United States has never hired itself out 
 as a mercenary, either for cash or for canal concessions. 
 Equally right was it in recognising the de facto government 
 at Panama. It is always lawful, and generally imperative, 
 to recognise facts, and it was a fact that that was the only 
 existing government on the Isthmus. The Colombian Gov- 
 ernment there had ceased to exist. It had been expelled. It 
 had departed. The Colombian troops had not been driven 
 out by us. They had gone because they found themselves 
 alone and helpless amid a universally hostile population. 
 They recognised the accomplished fact. The Panama Gov- 
 ernment was in entire and undisputed authority, and was 
 ready to fulfil and was fulfilling the actual functions of 
 government. The only possible procedure for the United 
 States was to recognise that fact. 
 
 Nor is the rightfulness of our later recognition of the de 
 jure independence of Panama to be impugned. It was done 
 promi^tly a few days after the Panaman Declaration of 
 Independence. There seems, however, to be no ground for 
 the characterisation of "indecent haste" which has been 
 apijlied to it. There is no more generally accepted principle 
 in international law than that every nation is its own judge 
 of the time when it is fitting to recognise the independence 
 of another. In our own revolution, France recognised our 
 independence years before it was actually established, while 
 Russia refused to recognise it until years after it had been 
 established and had been rcognised by the very Power from 
 which we had won it. Both acted well within their legal 
 rights. The United States recognised the revolutionary 
 Republic in Brazil, in 1889, more promptly than it did the 
 Republic of Panama, although there was much less assur- 
 ance of its stability. The long delay in recognising the inde- 
 pendence of the South American republics in the early part 
 of the last century has been cited as a precedent which 
 should have been regarded in the case of Panama. There 
 was little, if any, analogy between the cases. The contrast 
 between South America then and Panama now is enormous. 
 
EQUITY TO COLOMBIA 199 
 
 Considering the difference in speed of communication, and 
 in extent and completeness of our knowledge of the coun- 
 tries concerned, it is scarcely too much to say that a day 
 gives as ample time for deliberation now as a year did three- 
 quarters of a century ago. 
 
 In recognising the independence of Panama we were law- 
 fully recognising an accomplished fact. If it be said it was 
 a fact made possible only by our own conduct and attitude, 
 the same may be said of other republics, which exist only 
 because of our protection. Colombia herself would probably 
 not have maintained her independence had it not been for 
 the policy of the United States, especially as set forth 
 and endowed with concrete force in the Treaty of 1846. In 
 the act of recognition, then, as in that of intervention, the 
 United States fully observed its legal obligations to the 
 Republic of Colombia. 
 
 Our policy was justified, moreover, on the ground of 
 equity to Colombia. We must remember, what is too often 
 overlooked, that while law is positive, equity is relative. 
 We must fulfil legal obligations strictly and impartially,, 
 even toward the least deserving and least worthy. But we 
 are privileged to consider the character, the conduct, and 
 the deserts of the applicant for equity. He who seeks 
 equity must deal equitably. The very word itself implies 
 that. It is an elementary justice, based not on legal pre- 
 scription, but upon the mutual merits of the parties to the 
 controversy. What, then, were Colombia's deserts? So far 
 as Panama was concerned, they were slight indeed. She had 
 treated Panama most inequitably. She had forcibly abro- 
 gated the Constitution of 1863, and had subverted Panama's 
 undoubted rights thereunder without Panama's consent — 
 just as though forty-four of our forty-five States should com- 
 bine to deprive the forty-fifth of its equal representation in 
 the Federal Senate without its consent. She had not only 
 done that and persisted in it, but for many years she had 
 systematically oppressed and plundered Panama, making the 
 Isthmus the "milch cow of Colombia," as it used to be said 
 
200 AMEEICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 Cuba was of Spain. Upon dispassionate and impartial 
 review of the record, it was impossible to withhold sym- 
 pathy from Panama in her controversy with the Bogota 
 Government. 
 
 If, however, we were to go by on the other side, saying 
 that such matters were none of our business, we could not 
 ignore the fact that Colombia had treated the United States 
 badly in more than one important respect. In 1880 this 
 Government found it necessary to warn Colombia against 
 making the concessions which she then proposed to make to 
 France, as — to quote Mr. Secretary Evarts, on July 31, 1880 
 — "introducing interests not compatible with the treaty 
 relations which we maintain with Colombia." Colombia 
 then proposed — I quote from President Arthur's message 
 of 1881 — "to the European powers to join in a guarantee 
 which would be in direct contravention of our obligation 
 as the sole guarantor of the integrity of Colombian terri- 
 tory." In other words, while enjoying, at her own request, 
 our protection, Colombia was intriguing against our inter- 
 ests with the very Powers against which she had sought and 
 was enjoying our protection. 
 
 We may justly complain also that she acted inequitably 
 toward us in rejecting the canal treaty which her minister 
 negotiated with us in 1902-3. Mark that she had a legal 
 right to reject it. That is indisputable. Her legal right to 
 reject it was as absolute as our right to reject other treaties 
 which our Government has negotiated, but which have not 
 met with the approval of the Senate. She had, let us say, 
 the same right to reject it that we had to negotiate it, or 
 that we had afterward to make another treaty with Panama. 
 Her rejection was legal, but it was not equitable ; or, at any 
 rate, it was no more equitable than our subsequent recog- 
 nition of, and negotiation with, Panama. If she stood upon 
 her strict legal rights in rejecting the treaty, we had as 
 good a title to stand upon our strict legal rights in recog- 
 nising Panama. 
 
 But we may go beyond that, and say that her rejection 
 
COLOMBIAN INEQUITY 201 
 
 of the treaty was positively inequitous — if I may coin that 
 useful word, to express a slightly different shade of meaning 
 from "iniquitous," though indeed "iniquitous" might serve 
 as well. Two facts of record are sufficient to prove the 
 indictment. One is the explicit and repeated offer made by 
 General Reyes in behalf of the Bogota Government, of which 
 he was the prospective next chief, to resurrect and ratify the 
 dead canal treaty, by martial law or dictatorship, in return 
 for our resubjugation of Panama to the Colombian yoke. 
 The other is the confessed, deliberate plan of the Bogota 
 Government to repudiate the concession lawfully given to 
 the French Panama Canal Company and to confiscate that 
 company's property, which it would then sell to the United 
 States for a round sum. 
 
 Now the bearing of all that upon the question of our 
 policy is simply to show upon how little ground Colombia 
 could plead for better treatment as a matter of equity. 
 Colombia, wearing the brand of a would-be spoliator, could 
 not well come into court with a complaint that she had been 
 despoiled. Upon the ground of equity she had nothing more 
 to claim. She had been treated as well as she deserved, and 
 better. Her only valid claim must be for legal justice, and 
 in the making of that claim it might be well for her to take 
 heed lest the court of civilisation should declare to her: 
 "Thou Shalt have justice, more than thou desirest." It will 
 not serve to say we would not have treated a great, strong 
 nation thus. I am not sure of that. The record of our 
 dealings with some of the greatest Powers of the world sug- 
 gests that we have been no less independent in our bearing 
 toward them than toward the lesser ones. On the other 
 hand, we might equally well ask if Colombia would have 
 acted thus toward a nation that was not rich, that was 
 not urgently desirous of building the canal, or that was a 
 little more in the habit of using the "mailed fist." We must, 
 it is said, have one law alike for all nations, great and small. 
 That is quite true. 
 
 What, then, would we have done had England recognised 
 
202 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 the independence of the Confederacy in 1862? The cases are 
 not analogous. The Confederacy was never, either phys- 
 ically or legally, in as strong a position as Panama. I say 
 that advisedly. The United States never scuttled out of the 
 Southern States and abandoned them to secession, as Co- 
 lombia did out of Panama, but from the yerj beginning 
 exerted its fullest possible power to suppress the rebellion 
 and to restore and preserve the Union. The Confederate 
 States had no such constitutional defence of secession as 
 that which Panama had in the fact of former independence 
 forcibly destroyed without her consent. The European 
 Powers did promptly recognise the Confederate States as 
 belligerents. In that they were simply recognising a fact, 
 and, however distasteful it was to us, we had no cause for 
 complaint. 
 
 There is another point which those who seek to raise this 
 argument from analogy invariably overlook. It is this: 
 that the United States had never, by treaty or otherwise, 
 recognised international interests in the Southern States as 
 Colombia had in Panama. In the Treaty of 1846, Colombia 
 specifically recognised the fact that other nations, above all 
 the United States, had natural and lawful interests in the 
 Isthmus of Panama, which might in certain contingencies be 
 paramount to Colombia's own interests there. Those inter- 
 ests were peculiar to the Isthmus, and did not extend to 
 the rest of Colombia. For it is to be remembered that the 
 provisions of that treaty, including our rights of interven- 
 tion and our duty of protection and guarantee, did not apply 
 to the whole of Colombia, but only to the State — that is, 
 the Isthmus — of Panama. "The guarantee extends only to 
 the Isthmus," wrote Mr. Bidlack, our Charge d'Affaires who 
 negotiated the treaty, to Mr. Secretary Buchanan in 1846. 
 In that circumstance the separate status of Panama, as con- 
 trasted with the rest of Colombia, was recognised, and so 
 were recognised the peculiar and even paramount interests 
 of other countries in that territory. I quote from President 
 Polk's message transmitting that treaty to the Senate for 
 
DUTIES TO OTHER NATIONS 203 
 
 ratification: "The treaty does not propose to guarantee a 
 territory to a foreign nation in which the United States 
 will have no common interest with that nation. On the 
 contrary, we are more deeply and directly interested in the 
 subject of this guarantee than New Granada herself, or any 
 other country." 
 
 Let us suppose, to make an analogy which does not now 
 exist between our Civil War and the Panama revolution, 
 that at some date prior to 1861 the United States had stipu- 
 lated by treaty with England that the cotton trade from our 
 Southern ports should never be interrupted or embarrassed, 
 and that England should have the right to intervene when- 
 ever necessary to keep that trade free and open. In such 
 case it seems to me that England w^ould have had a legal 
 and moral right to intervene in 1861-62, to break the block- 
 ade of our Southern ports and to prevent the United States 
 from reestablishing it. The United States never made such 
 a treaty. It would never have made one. But Colombia did 
 make the Treaty of 1846. There is the radical difference 
 between the two cases. 
 
 It is said that the application of the lex talionis does not 
 indicate the loftiest motives. Granted. But there were 
 other motives for our policy which were high and noble 
 enough to satisfy the most exalted doctrinaire. At the 
 present moment the argument is simply this, that neither 
 law nor equity requires a nation to go out of its way to be 
 generous to an unworthy object, even though that object 
 be a weaker nation. Weakness gives no immunity, and is 
 not a charter to license any more than strength is a charter 
 to oppression. A strong nation should use its strength 
 nobly. A weak nation should use its weakness no less 
 nobly, seeking in morals the strength it lacks in material 
 resources. 
 
 Our policy was justified, finally, under both law and equity 
 to other nations. Our Government violated no item of inter- 
 national law. It invaded no rights of other countries or of 
 their citizens. It dealt fairly, lawfully, even generously, 
 
204 AMERICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 with the French Canal Company. It patiently awaited 
 and accepted the adjudication of the French courts in what- 
 ever legal controversies arose over the transfer of the com- 
 pany's property. It showed a scrupulous regard for the 
 letter and spirit of international law, and for international 
 equities. It moreover fulfilled the implied duties which 
 rested upon it as a result of its traditional policy. Under 
 the Monroe Doctrine this country would not let other 
 nations meddle in American affairs. It thus incurred a 
 moral responsibility for those affairs. Thus it would not 
 let European Powers guarantee neutrality and peace upon 
 the Isthmus, and freedom of transit over that important 
 route. Therefore it was morally bound itself to make such a 
 guarantee, and to make it effective. It did so. It would not 
 permit any other nation to construct a canal across the 
 Isthmus. Therefore it incurred itself the moral obligation 
 to construct one. It is now proceeding to do so. The United 
 States thus shows itself to be no dog-in-the-manger, but a 
 Power that is as ready itself to do as to forbid others to do. 
 
 Nor was it a new thing for the United States to forbid, or 
 to threaten to forbid, Colombia to play the part of the dog- 
 in-the-manger. It did so long ago, in a formal declaration 
 made by Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, in 1858 : 
 
 "The progress of events has rendered the interoceanic 
 route across the narrow portion of Central America vastly 
 important to the commercial world and especially to the 
 United States. . . . While the rights of sovereignty of the 
 States occupying this region should always be respected, we 
 shall expect that these rights be exercised in a spirit befit- 
 ting the occasion and the wants and circumstances that have 
 arisen. Sovereignty has its duties as well as its rights, and 
 none of these local governments, even if administered with 
 more regard to the just demands of other nations than they 
 have been, would be permitted in a spirit of Eastern isola- 
 tion to close the gates of intercourse to the great highways 
 of the world and justify the act by the pretension that these 
 avenues of trade and travel belong to them and that they 
 choose to shut them, or, what is almost equivalent, to encum- 
 
EMINENT DOMAIN 205 
 
 ber them with such unjust relations as would prevent their 
 general use." 
 
 This principle of "international eminent domain" has been 
 adverted to many times in discussions of the Panama case. 
 It is perhaps not altogether pertinent, for the reason that 
 the United States was not compelled to resort to the appli- 
 cation of such a principle. It is not to be denied, however, 
 that such a principle exists, and that it has more than once 
 been practically applied in the history of the world. Every 
 "concert of the Powers" for the coercion of one or more 
 nations involves its application. It was under that princi- 
 ple that Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Crete and Samos, and 
 The Lebanon, were removed from unbridled Turkish rule. It 
 was upon the same principle that the joint control and the 
 international tribunals were established in Egypt. It would 
 scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the same principle 
 was involved in the opening of The Sound to free navigation. 
 There need be no hesitation in saying that if there had been 
 no other way to secure the Panama Canal, the Powers of 
 the world, or the United States alone, would have been amply 
 justified in proceeding under that principle. But the princi- 
 ple is so delicate a one, and so easily liable to perversion and 
 misuse, that there is cause for gratitude in the accomplish- 
 ment of the world's desire at Panama without resort to it. 
 If that principle, or the contemplation of it as a possibility, 
 did to any degree enter into the case in confirming the 
 United States in its policy or in affording justification for 
 that policy, then instead of condemning our Government, the 
 world must give it commendation for having to that extent 
 made use of so delicate and even perilous a principle 
 with so much discretion, and with results so invariably 
 beneficent. 
 
 For what is, after all, most clear in the whole business is 
 this, that the United States acted unselfishly and for the 
 good of the world. It acted unselfishly, because it sought no 
 self-aggrandisement, no conquests, no acquisition of terri- 
 
206 AMEEICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 tory, no extension of sovereignty. It sought, and secured, 
 nothing but the privilege and power of constructing a canal 
 which will be for the equal use and benefit of all nations. If 
 it in doing so exacted a grant of perpetual control over a 
 part of the territory of another state, it thus did only what 
 was necessary for the safeguarding of the canal. It is incon- 
 ceivable that any other nation on earth would have under- 
 taken the construction of the canal and its protection and 
 neutral maintenance on any basis of less authority. It also 
 acted for the good of the world, because it assured fulfil- 
 ment of the world's legitimate desire in the only way in 
 which it could be satisfactorily fulfilled; because it assured 
 the speedy opening of what will be one of the greatest high- 
 ways of peaceful and beneficent commerce; and because it 
 established a paramount influence for peace and justice in a 
 land that for a century had known little of either peace or 
 justice. 
 
 The sum of the matter was clearly and correctly set forth 
 by President Koosevelt, in the message of December 7, 1903, 
 from which I have already made several quotations. The 
 simple recital of facts, he said, established beyond question : 
 
 "First — That the United States has for over half a century 
 patiently and in good faith carried out its obligations under 
 the Treaty of 1846. 
 
 "Second — That when for the first time it became possible 
 for Colombia to do anything in requital of the services 
 thus repeatedly rendered to it for fifty-seven years by the 
 United States, the Colombian Government peremptorily and 
 oftensively refused to do its part, even though to do so would 
 have been to its advantage and immeasurably to the advan- 
 tage of the State of Panama, at that time under its juris- 
 diction. 
 
 "Third — That throughout this period revolutions, riots, 
 and factional disturbances of every kind have occurred one 
 after the other in almost uninterrupted succession, some of 
 them lasting for months and even for years, while the central 
 government was unable to put them down or to make peace 
 with the rebels. 
 
 "Fourth — That these disturbances, instead of showing any 
 
POLICY DICTATED BY NECESSITY 207 
 
 sign of abating, have tended to grow more numerous and 
 more serious in the immediate past. 
 
 "Fifth — That the control of Colombia over the Isthmus of 
 Panama could not be maintained without the armed inter- 
 vention and assistance of the United States. 
 
 "In other words, the government of Colombia, though 
 wholly unable to maintain order on the Isthmus, has never- 
 theless declined to ratify a treaty the conclusion of which 
 opened the only chance to secure its own stability and to 
 guarantee permanent peace on and the construction of a 
 canal across the Isthmus. 
 
 "Under such circumstances the Government of the United 
 States would have been guilty of folly and weakness 
 amounting in their sum to a crime against the nation had it 
 acted otherwise than it did when the revolution of Novem- 
 ber 3 last took place in Panama. This great enterprise of 
 building the interoceanic canal cannot be held up to gratify 
 the whims, or out of respect to the government impotence, 
 or to the even more sinister and evil political peculiarities, 
 of people, who, though they dwell afar off, yet, against the 
 wish of the actual dwellers on the Isthmus, assert an unreal 
 supremacy over the territory. The possession of a territory 
 fraught with such peculiar capacities as the Isthmus in 
 question carries with it obligations to mankind. The course 
 of events has shown that this canal cannot be built by pri- 
 vate enterprise, or by any other nation than our own, there- 
 fore it must be built by the United States. 
 
 "Every effort has been made by the Government of the 
 United States to persuade Colombia to follow a course which 
 was essentially not only to our interests and to the interests 
 of the world, but to the interests of Colombia itself. These 
 efforts have failed, and Colombia, by her persistence in 
 repulsing the advances that have been made, has forced us, 
 for the sake of our own honour, and of the interest and well- 
 being, not merely of our own people, but of the people of the 
 Isthmus of Panama and the people of the civilised countries 
 of the world, to take decisive steps to bring to an end a con- 
 dition of affairs which had become intolerable. The new 
 Republic of Panama immediately offered to negotiate a 
 treaty with us. By it our interests are better safeguarded 
 than in the treaty with Colombia, which was ratified by 
 the Senate at its last session. It is better in its terms than 
 the treaties offered to us by the republics of Nicaragua and 
 Costa Rica. At last the right to begin this great undertaking 
 
208 AMEEICAN POLICY IN PANAMA 
 
 is made available. Panama has done her part. All that 
 remains is for the American Congress to do its part, and 
 forthwith this Republic will enter upon the execution of a 
 project colossal in its size and of well-nigh incalculable 
 possibilities for the good of this country and the nations of 
 mankind." 
 
Scherer, Photo. 
 
 MANUEL AMADOR GUERRERO, 
 First President op Panama. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 Panama promptly passed from the revolutionary stage 
 into the status of a Constitutional Republic. Its Constitu- 
 tion was adopted by a National Constitutional Convention, 
 which was elected on December 28, and met in the city of 
 Panama on January 15, 1904, and practically completed its 
 labours on February 13, following. Dr. Pablo Arosemena, 
 formerly President or Governor of the State under the Co- 
 lombian Government, and first First Designate of the 
 Republic of Panama, was President of the Convention and a 
 Deputy from the Province of Panama. Other deputies were 
 Manuel Quintero V., Nicolas Victoria J., and Demetrio H. 
 Brid. The completed instrument was signed by the thirty- 
 two deputies; by the Secretary, Juan Brin; by the Provi- 
 sional Board, J. A. Arango, Federico Boyd, and Tomas 
 Arias; and by the Minister of Government, Eusebio A. Mo- 
 rales ; the Minister of Foreign Relations, F. V. de la Espri- 
 ella ; the Minister of Justice, Carlos A. Mendoza ; the Minis- 
 ter of the Treasury, Manuel E. Amador ; the Minister of War 
 and Marine, Nicanor A. de Obarrio; and the Minister of 
 Public Instruction, Julio J. Fabrega; and it was published 
 and enforced on February 15, 1904. 
 
 This Constitution is an elaborate instrument, generally 
 accordant with that of the United States and other republi- 
 can constitutions in its guarantee of personal and popular 
 rights, and its general guarantee of a free democratic gov- 
 ernment. Sofme of its provisions are exceptional if not 
 unique. Thus it is provided that (Art. 14) citizenship may 
 be suspended for habitual intoxication; that (Art. 19) there 
 shall be no slaves in Panama, but any slave who may step 
 
 209 
 
210 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 upon the territory of the Republic shall in that act become 
 free; that (Art. 23) there shall be no arrest or imprison- 
 ment for debt or other purely civil obligations; that (Art. 
 25) no one shall be compelled to testify in a criminal pro- 
 ceeding against any member of his or her family, "within 
 the fourth grade of consanguinity or the second of affinity ;" 
 that (Art. 29) any person may practise any profession or 
 trade without the necessity of belonging to an association; 
 that (Art. 37) games of chance shall not be permitted in the 
 territory of the Republic; that (Art. 68) the National 
 Assembly shall not pass votes of censure or approval relating 
 to official acts; that (Art. 83) the President cannot be 
 elected to succeed himself, nor can any relation of his within 
 the fourth grade of consanguinity or the second of affinity 
 be elected to succeed him; that (Art. 117) there can be no 
 obligatory circulation of paper money; and that (Art. 127) 
 the government alone can- import or manufacture arms or 
 implements of war. 
 
 The government of Panama is purely democratic in form, 
 and is divided into three parts, the Legislative, the Execu- 
 tive, and the Judicial. The Legislative power is exercised by 
 ^the National Assembly, consisting of a single chamber, 
 elected by popular vote for a term of four years, and meets 
 on September 1, of every second year. The session lasts 
 ninety days, but in any case of necessity it may be extended 
 thirty days more. Special sessions for special purposes may 
 be called by the President of the Republic. Deputies are 
 elected from districts at a ratio of one to every 10,000 inhab- 
 itants, or residue of not less than 5,000. The Deputies must 
 be citizens at least twenty-five years of age. The Executive 
 and the Judicial officers are ineligible for election as Depu- 
 ties during their terms of office, and for six months 
 thereafter. The Assembly has the customary legislative 
 functions, including the trial of charges against the Presi- 
 dent of the Republic, the Attorney-General, the Secretaries 
 of State, and the Justices of the Supreme Court ; the election 
 of three Designates or Vice-Presidents of the Republic for a 
 
THE EXECUTIVE 211 
 
 term of two years; the election of the Judges of the Ex- 
 chequer; and the granting of leave of absence to the Presi- 
 dent. There is also an equal number of Substitute Deputies, 
 to take the place of the Deputies on the inability of any of 
 the latter to serve. 
 
 The Executive power is exercised by the President of the 
 Republic. He must be a Panaman by birth, and thirty-five 
 years of age. He is elected by popular vote for a term of four 
 years, beginning on the first of October following his elec- 
 tion. He appoints the Secretaries of State or members of 
 his Cabinet, the Governors of the Provinces, the Attorney- 
 General, the Judges of the Supreme Court, and some other 
 officers. Every act of the President must be countersigned 
 by that Secretary of State to whose department it properly 
 appertains. In temporary or permanent absence his place is 
 filled by one of the three Designates or Vice-Presidents, 
 whose qualifications are the same as those of the President. 
 The Secretaries of State have the same qualifications as the 
 Deputies ; they are the only regular mediums of communica- 
 tion between the Executive and the Legislative body, and 
 they are permitted to propose laws and to take part in 
 debates in the National Assembly. 
 
 The Judicial power is exercised by a Supreme Court, 
 inferior courts, and justices of the peace. The Supreme 
 Court consists of five magistrates, appointed by the Presi- 
 dent for a term of four years. Five substitutes are also 
 appointed to take the place of the Justices in case of absence 
 or disability of the latter. The Justices or their substi- 
 tutes must be thirty years of age, and must have been resi- 
 dents of Panama for fifteen years, and practising lawyers for 
 ten years. The same qualifications are required of the jus- 
 tices of the inferior courts. 
 
 A law to be valid must be approved by the National 
 Assembly by an absolute majority after three debates on 
 three separate days, and must also be approved by the Presi- 
 dent of the Republic. The second debate on a law cannot be 
 closed, nor can a final vote be taken at the end of the third 
 
212 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 debate, without the attendance of an absolute majority of 
 the Assembly. The President before signing a law may con- 
 sider it for from six to fifteen days, according to the number 
 of articles it contains. If he does not within this time either 
 approve it or return it unsigned, with a statement of his 
 objections, his approval of it then becomes compulsory. 
 When he returns the measure with objections, it may be 
 passed over his objections by a two-thirds vote of a quorum, 
 whereupon he must sign it. If his objections are on the 
 ground of alleged unconstitutionality, the measure may be 
 sent by the Assembly to the Supreme Court for its decision, 
 which must be rendered within six days, and if it is favour- 
 able to the measure, it is made compulsory upon the Presi- 
 dent to sign it. 
 
 The Republic is divided into seven provinces: namely, 
 Boca del Toro, Code, Colon, Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama, 
 and Veraguas. Each province has a Governor, appointed by 
 the President of the Republic and subject to removal by 
 him. The provinces are divided into municipal districts, in 
 each of which is a Municipal Council, elected by the people. 
 There is also a Mayor appointed or elected according to law. 
 Each municipality has almost unlimited powers of local self- 
 government, but cannot contract any indebtedness without 
 the consent of the National Assembly. The administration 
 of justice is free in all parts of the Republic. Public in- 
 struction is free, and in primary grades is compulsory. 
 There iS freedom of religion, but the Roman Catholic Church 
 is recognised as that of the majority of the people and 
 therefore receives a state subsidy. All property used for 
 religious purposes is exempt from taxation, and all ministers 
 of all religious creeds are excluded from public oflQce. The 
 Constitution may be amended by the National Assembly by 
 a two-thirds vote. 
 
 Upon the completion of its work in framing the Constitu- 
 tion, the Convention resolved itself into a National Assem- 
 bly (the first regularly elected National Assembly was not 
 to be chosen until July 1906, and was not to meet until 
 
THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION 213 
 
 September, 1906), and it elected Dr. Manuel Amador Guer- 
 rero to be President of the Republic, and Pablo Arosemena, J. 
 Domingo de Obaldia, and Carlos Mendoza to be respectively 
 first, second, and third Designates. These gentlemen were 
 chosen alternately from the two political parties. Dr. 
 Amador and Senor Obaldia being Conservatives and Dr. 
 Arosemena and Senor Mendoza being Liberals. The inaugu- 
 ration of President Amador occurred on February 20, 1904, 
 and on that day a Cabinet was also appointed, consisting of 
 Tomas Arias, Minister of Foreign Affairs and of War; F. 
 V. de la Espriella, Minister of Finance; Julio Fabrega (soon 
 succeeded by Nicolas Victoria), Minister of Justice and 
 Public Instruction; and Manuel Quintero V., Minister of 
 Public Works. These Cabinet Ministers were also equally 
 divided between the two parties. The harmonious coopera- 
 tion of the two political parties was further indicated in the 
 design of the National Flag, which was made to consist of 
 four equal fields — one blue, representing the Conservatives; 
 one red, representing the Liberals; and two white, emblem- 
 atic of peace, with a blue star in one white field, and a red 
 star in the other. 
 
 Steps were promptly taken to rid Panama of the debased 
 currency of Colombia. For a time it was necessary to use 
 Colombian silver, — "tin," "monkey," or "spicketty" money, 
 as it was contemptuously called by the Panamans, — though 
 even then American coin and paper money was much pre- 
 ferred. As soon as possible several millions of Panaman 
 gold and silver were coined, and thus a currency comparable 
 with the best in the world was established. The monetary 
 standard is the Balboa, a gold coin exactly equivalent to an 
 American dollar. The silver coins are of 50, 25, 10, 5, and 2 
 1-2 cents' value, and, being exactly twice the size and weight 
 of American silver coins of the same denominations, are 
 worth their face value in gold. No paper money is used 
 by the Republic. 
 
 In one important respect the Republic of Panama began 
 its career in a unique fashion. Instead of having a national 
 
214 THE REPUBLIC OE PANAMA 
 
 debt, it had a national endowment. This latter was pro- 
 vided by the bonus of |10,000,000, which the United States 
 paid to it for the right of way for the canal and for the 
 lease of the Canal Zone. The Isthmian statesmen disposed 
 of this sum with prudence. Nearly one-third was appor- 
 tioned among the provinces for much-needed public works, , 
 as follows: to the Province of Panama, |1,000,000; to Chi- 
 riqui and Boca del Toro, |450,000 each ; to Code, Los Santos, 
 and Veraguas, |350,000 each ; and to Colon, |300,000. The 
 major part of the whole, |6,000,000, was judiciously and 
 profitably invested in real estate mortgages and similar 
 securities in New York City ; and the balance, |750,000, was 
 kept in hand as working capital. 
 
 Mention has already been made of the prompt negotiation 
 of a canal treaty between the. United States and the Repub- 
 lic of Panama. That instrument, known as the Hay-Bunau- 
 Varilla Treaty, was tersely but comprehensively summarised 
 by President Roosevelt in his message of December 7, 1903, 
 as follows: 
 
 "The United States guarantees and will maintain the 
 independence of the Republic of Panama. There is granted 
 to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and 
 control of a strip ten miles wide and extending three nauti- 
 cal miles into the sea at either terminal, with all lands lying 
 outside of the zone necessary for the construction of the 
 canal or for its auxiliary works, and with the islands in 
 the Bay of Panama. The cities of Panama and Colon are 
 not embraced in the canal zone, but the United States 
 assumes their sanitation and, in case of need, the main- 
 tenance of order therein; the United States enjoys within 
 the granted limits all the rights, power, and authority which 
 it would possess were it the sovereign of the territory to 
 the exclusion of the exercise of sovereign rights by the 
 Republic. All railway and canal property rights belonging 
 to Panama and needed for the canal pass to the United 
 States, including any property of the respective companies 
 in the cities of Panama and Colon; the works, property, and 
 personnel of the canal and railways are exempted from tax- 
 ation as well in the cities of Panama and Colon as in the 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS 215 
 
 canal zone and its dependencies. Free immigration of the 
 personnel and importation of supplies for the construction 
 and operation of the canal are granted. Provision is made 
 for the use of military force and the building of fortifica- 
 tions by the United States for the protection of the transit. 
 In other details, particularly as to the acquisition of the 
 interests of the new Panama Canal Company and the Pan- 
 ama Railway by the United States, and the condemnation of 
 private property for the uses of the canal, the stipulations of 
 the Hay-Herran treaty are closely followed, while the com- 
 pensation to be given for these enlarged grants remains the 
 same, being |1 0,000,000, payable on exchange of ratifica- 
 tions, and, beginning nine years from that date, an annual 
 payment of |250,000 during the life of the convention." 
 
 Diplomatic relations between the United States and Pan- 
 ama were fully established by the appointment of a Minister 
 from each to the other. The first Panainan Minister to the 
 United States, as already noted, was the distinguished 
 French engineer, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who was sent 
 hither by the Junta immediately after the revolution. Soon 
 after negotiating the canal treaty he retired, and was suc- 
 ceeded by J. Domingo de Obaldia, who had been Governor of 
 Panama, under the Colombian Government, at the time of 
 the revolution, and who was the Second Designate and 
 one of the most distinguished statesmen of the Isthmus. 
 The United States on its part appointed William I. Buchanan 
 as Minister to Panama, on December 12, 1903, and he was 
 received at Panama on December 25. He was succeeded in 
 March, 1904, by John Barrett, who served — as we shall see 
 presently — during a peculiarly trying period and rendered 
 some invaluable services to both the United States and Pan- 
 ama, and who was in turn succeeded, in April, 1905, by 
 Charles E. Magoon, who served until September, 1906. 
 
 The territory of the Republic of Panama lies well within 
 the area bounded by the seventh and tenth parallels of lati- 
 tude north of the equator, and the seventy-seventh and 
 eighty-fourth meridians of longitude west from Greenwich. 
 It is thus in the longitude of Virginia and North Carolina, 
 
216 THE EEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 and in the wholly tropical latitude of Sierra Leone, Ashan- 
 tee, the Bahr-el-Ghazel, Somaliland, Ceylon, Lower Siam, 
 and Mindanao. Its extreme length, from east to west, is 425 
 miles, and its width from north to south varies from 31 to 118 
 miles, the average being about 70 miles. Its area is between 
 32,000 and 33,000 square miles. At the east it abuts upon 
 Colombia, and at the west upon Costa Rica, with a frontage 
 in each case of about 175 miles, so that its total of land 
 frontiers is only about 350 miles, against a sea frontage 
 of 1,250 miles, of which 480 is on the Caribbean at the north, 
 and 770 on the Pacific at the south. It is thus about the 
 size of the State of Maine, smaller than Portugal, larger 
 than Scotland or Ireland, nearly four times as large as 
 Massachusetts, nearly three times the size of Belgium, and 
 more than twice the size of Holland or Switzerland. It is 
 sparsely settled, much of it being practically uninhabited, 
 and the total population is less than 350,000. 
 
 While it belonged to Colombia, Panama was considered 
 a part of South America. It really belongs, geographically, 
 however, to Central America, and is now thus to be reck- 
 oned. The territory is traversed from end to end, with a 
 pretty complete break between Panama and Colon, by the 
 Cordillera de Bando, which forms a connecting link between 
 the Rocky Mountains of North America and the Andes of 
 South America. This range is nowhere — in Panama — 
 Alpine in elevation, and is seldom truly mountainous. The 
 highest peaks are at the extreme west, and comprise several 
 extinct volcanoes. Among these are Cerro Picacho, 7,054 
 feet, the highest in the Republic; Pico Robaldo, 7,012 feet; 
 Volcan de Chiriqui, 6,480 feet; Cerro Santiago, 6,234 feet; 
 and Cerro Horqueta, 6,234 feet. The mountains of San 
 Bias, at the east, nowhere exceed 3,250 feet in height, and 
 average not more than 2,000. In the central regions the 
 hills are only from 500 to 1,000 feet high, and on the route 
 of the canal the extreme elevation above tidewater, at 
 Culebra, was only 290 feet, before the engineers began cut- 
 ting it down. 
 
 I 
 
5^- 
 
WATERCOUKSES 217 
 
 In this narrow territory there are no lakes worthy of 
 the name, but along the coasts there are several extensive 
 lagoons, or nearly landlocked sounds, of considerable extent. 
 The rivers are necessarily short, but they are almost in- 
 numerable, traversing every part of the Republic. Most of 
 them abound in rapids, and are not well adapted to naviga- 
 tion, the descent from the hills to the coast being sudden. 
 Moreover, they are largely subject to great and rapid changes 
 of volume, sometimes being transformed from brooks of a 
 few inches in depth to torrents of several feet, in the course 
 of a few hours, under the stress of tropical rains. The 
 largest of the rivers is the Tuyra, in the southeastern part of 
 the Republic. It is navigable by schooners and small 
 steamers for about 100 miles, and has a large and also navi- 
 gable tributary, called the Chucunaque. The famous and 
 dreaded Chagres is in the north central part of the Republic, 
 and flows into the Caribbean near Colon, after a course of 
 100 miles, more than half of which is navigable in the rainy 
 season. Of all the considerable streams, it is subject to the 
 most violent fluctuations, sometimes rising thirty feet in 
 twenty hours. The Chepo, or Bayamo, is in the south central 
 region, reaching the Pacific east of the city of Panama, and 
 is 140 miles long and navigable by small craft for more than 
 half its length. The Cocl6, Calabebora, Tarire, and Los 
 Indios rivers all flow into the Caribbean, are from 35 to 
 65 miles long, and are navigable for half their length. The 
 San Pedro, Cambuta, Golfito, Chiriqui, Santiago, Fonseca, 
 San Pablo, Santa Maria, Chiman, and Sambu, flow into the 
 Pacific, and are navigable for some distance by small craft. 
 The lack of good roads on land, and the great difficulty of 
 constructing and maintaining them through the jungles, 
 cause the rivers to be used as highways wherever possible. 
 The Rio Grande, a comparatively small stream, flowing into 
 the Pacific near Panama, is notable as the source of the 
 excellent water supply of that city. 
 
 The great extent of the coasts of Panama, proportionately 
 to the area of its territory, makes a survey of them perhaps 
 
218 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 the most instructive and essential of all conspectuses of the 
 material republic. If we begin at the northwestern corner, 
 we find Carreta Point marking the boundary between Costa 
 Rica and Panama. A little to the eastward is the Tarire 
 River, and then comes the first great feature of the littoral, 
 in Almirante Bay. This landlocked lagoon is about thirteen 
 miles in east to west extent, and almost as long from north 
 to south, but its shores are most irregular in contour, and it 
 contains a number of extensive islands, dividing it into a 
 groups of sounds and harbours rather than a single sheet of 
 water. The water is deep enough for the largest ships, and 
 in many places these can approach close to the shore, so 
 abrupt are the submerged banks. Much of the southern 
 and western or mainland shore is a table-land, from 500 to 
 700 feet in elevation, gradually sloping upward to a height 
 of from 1,500 to 2,000 feet at a distance of a couple of miles 
 from the bay. This elevation makes the adjacent country 
 agreeable for residence. Unfortunately it also makes the 
 rivers which flow into the bay too rapid for navigation. At 
 the north and east the Bay is shut in from the Caribbean by 
 two large islands, Columbus Island, formerly called Isla del 
 Drago, and Provision Island, or Isla de Bastimentos. The 
 former lies at the northwest, and is about seven miles by 
 four in extent, low and flat, and densely wooded. At the 
 west it is separated from Terraba Point, on the mainland, 
 by a strait three-fourths of a mile wide, known as Boca del 
 Drago, or the Dragon's Mouth, which forms the western- 
 most entrance into Almirante Bay. This strait is nine 
 fathoms deep, but tortuous and dangerous for navigation. 
 Cauro Point and Lime Point are the principal headlands of 
 the island on this strait, and at the latter there is a con- 
 siderable settlement. 
 
 The chief settlement on Columbus Island, however, is Boca 
 del Toro, at the southeastern extremity, fronting upon the 
 strait of the same name (literally Bull's Mouth) which sep- 
 arates Columbus Island from Provision Island and which 
 forms the central and chief entrance into Almirante Bay. 
 
BOCA DEL TOKO 219 
 
 The town of Boca del Toro has about 6,000 inhabitants, and 
 is the capital of the province of the same name. It is one 
 of the chief fruit-shipping ports of the whole coast, from 
 five to seven steamships and many sailing craft leaving it 
 daily during the fruit season. The trade is chiefly with 
 American ports. There are coal mines near at hand produc- 
 ing coal of good quality, and the possibilities of an extensive 
 and profitable trade in lumber and fish as well as in fruit are 
 enormous. The strait of Boca del Toro is about three- 
 fourths of a mile wide, and is much preferable for naviga- 
 tion to Boca del Drago. At the east and south lies Provision 
 Island, eight miles long but very irregular in shape. It 
 consists chiefly of low land, well wooded, and enormously 
 productive of tropical fruits, whence the name of the island. 
 There are several small settlements on the island, but most 
 of the commerce is conducted by way of Boca del Toro. At 
 the south of Provision Island is Crawl Cay Channel, an 
 eighth of a mile wide and dangerous for navigation, beyond 
 which lies Popa Island, six miles long, rich in timber and 
 containing some coal, and surmounted by Mount Popa, an 
 isolated peak with a rounded summit rising 1,300 feet above 
 the sea. At the southwest Popa Island is separated from 
 the mainland by a narrow channel studded with islets, thus 
 completing the chain which landlocks Almirante Bay. 
 
 Immediately south and east of Almirante Bay and sep- 
 arated from it by a long peninsula and by Popa Island, lies 
 the great and well-known Chiriqui Lagoon. This body of 
 water, its expanse quite unbroken by islands or reefs, is 
 thirty-two miles long from east to west, and twelve miles 
 in its greatest central width from north to south, and is 
 almost everywhere deep and safe for navigation. It is well 
 landlocked, mainland peninsulas embracing it at the north- 
 east and northwest, and Popa Island and Water Cay filling 
 much of the space between their extremities. Water Cay 
 is several miles in extent, low, flat, and heavily wooded. 
 Between it and Popa Island is a narrow, rock-studded chan 
 nel, difficult and dangerous for navigation, but at the east of 
 
220 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 it, between it and the mainland (Valiente Peninsula), is a 
 broad, fine channel known as Boca de Chiriqui or Tiger 
 Channel, forming the chief entrance into the lagoon. Nu- 
 merous rivers and creeks flow into the lagoon, some of which 
 are navigable by small vessels for a distance, and at their 
 mouths are villages which do a considerable trade in fruit, 
 lumber, turtles, fish, etc. Chief among these are Chirica 
 Mola and Frenchman's Creek, on streams of the same names. 
 From Frenchman's Creek a road runs overland to the city 
 of David, near the Pacific coast, on which there is much 
 travel, chiefly in connection with the trade in cattle and 
 hides. At the northeast Chiriqui Lagoon is inclosed by the 
 Valiente Peninsula, a crooked arm about twelve miles long 
 and two miles wide, with Valiente Peak, 722 feet high, as a 
 landmark near its extremity. The peninsula is largely 
 rugged and hilly, and its outer shore is fringed with islets 
 and rocks and coral reefs, making approach by sea danger- 
 ous. It has a beach of pure white sand, the only such beach 
 between Colon and Greytown (Nicaragua), all the rest of 
 the coast being lined with brown or reddish-black iron- 
 bearing sand. Although the fluctuation of the tide here is 
 only a foot, there is generally a furious surf breaking along 
 this coast, under the stress of the trade winds and "north- 
 ers." A few miles to the northeast of the peninsula lies 
 the island of Escudo de Veraguas, which is about a mile wide 
 and two and a half miles long, densely wooded. Its shores 
 consist largely of cliffs forty or fifty feet high, cut by the 
 waves into caves and archways of the most fantastic design. 
 The seaward coast of the Valiente Peninsula runs toward 
 the southeast, and that general direction is continued for 
 many miles by a coast devoid of striking features, though 
 with many river mouths and a few scattered towns. From 
 the Province of Boca del Toro we pass to that of Chiriqui, 
 and thence, at the Cana River, to that of Veraguas. From 
 the Cana River there are many miles of low, sandy shore, 
 until Buppan Bluff is reached, a promontory bearing several 
 peaks 700 or 800 feet high. A little beyond are the Pedro 
 
CHAGKES 221 
 
 and Chiriqui rivers, and a few miles beyond the latter a great 
 spur of the Cordilleras, known as Tiger's Head, nearly 4,000 
 feet high, abuts upon the coast. The mouth of the Catalina 
 River, just west of Coaita Point and at the foot of the Cata- 
 lina Hills, is the southernmost point on the Caribbean coast. 
 Thence the shore of Panama runs in almost a straight line 
 about a hundred miles east by north, to Provision Point 
 (Punta de Bastimentos) beyond Porto Bello. This stretch 
 of coast is marked with the mouths of innumerable rivers 
 and creeks. It is chiefly wooded, and much of the way is 
 lined with dark-coloured cliffs. Perhaps its most striking 
 landmark is Castle Choco, a square, flat-topped mountain, 
 rising to the height of 6,342 feet, which at times is clearly 
 visible from the Castle of San Lorenzo, at Chagres, 67 miles 
 away. Eastward from Castle Choco the mountains — the 
 Cordilleras of Veraguas — come down almost to the coast 
 for a distance of more than thirty miles. Rincon Point is 
 a rocky headland more than 500 feet high, and beyond it is 
 the Code River, overshadowed by the Code Hills, nearly 
 1,500 feet high. The small Mangalee River marks the bound- 
 ary between the provinces of Veraguas and Panama, and 
 near it is the Pilon de Miguel de la Borda, an isolated peak 
 nearly 1,700 feet high, standing fourteen miles inland but 
 clearly visible from the sea. Fourteen miles eastward from 
 the Mangalee is the Indios River, and about the same dis- 
 tance further on, the mouth of the Chagres is reached. 
 
 The Chagres enters the sea between a low, dark-coloured 
 sandy beach at the southwest side and a steep bluff and 
 table-land at the northeast, the former marked with the 
 ruins of the ancient Castle of San Lorenzo. The town of 
 Chagres is at the east, near the castle, and is a poor place 
 of about 2,500 fishermen and their families. The entrance to 
 the river is rendered difficult by a number of shifting sand- 
 bars and by some rocky ledges and reefs. The depth of 
 water is, however, not less than eleven feet even in the dry 
 season. Inside the bars there is a depth of twenty feet, with 
 good anchorage. From the Chagres the coast is steep and 
 
222 THE EEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 rocky for three miles to Brujas Point, a bold, wooded head- 
 land; thence for two miles lower and sandy to Toro Point, 
 which marks the western side of Limon Bay and which is a 
 wooded hill 400 feet high, bearing a lighthouse, the flashing 
 white light of which is visible for sixteen miles. Limon 
 Bay, also known as Colon Bay and Navy Bay, is about three 
 miles wide and three and a half miles deep from north to 
 south. It is from three to seven fathoms deep, but seems to 
 be steadily growing more shallow. This process is easily 
 explained, when we remember that it is not landlocked but 
 is an open roadstead, fully exposed to the trade winds and to 
 the furious "northers" which sweep into it with tremen- 
 dous force, doubtless driving into it a certain amount 
 of detritus from the bottom of the Caribbean, while the 
 torrential rains wash into it much matter from the shore. 
 At the east side of the bay is the low, flat Manzanillo Island, 
 a mile long and three-fourths of a mile broad, on which is 
 the city of Colon. This was formerly known as Aspinwall, 
 and was created as the Caribbean terminus of the Panama 
 Railroad. As such it supplanted the once flourishing town of 
 Chagres and reduced the latter to its present inferior estate. 
 On the northern point of the island is a lighthouse with 
 a fixed white light visible for ten miles. Colon has a popula- 
 tion of about 6,000 and is the most important shipping port 
 of the Republic, being visited by steamships from all parts 
 of the world. The entrance to the Panama Canal is just 
 west of Colon. Inland from Colon a couple of miles are the 
 Mountains of Quebrancha. Northeast of Manzanillo Island 
 is the small Bay of Manzanillo. 
 
 Thence the shore proceeds to the northeast, much broken 
 with capes and bays and river mouths, to the ancient town 
 of Porto Bello, where Columbus landed in 1502, which was 
 the scene of one of the most hideous tragedies of Morgan 
 the Buccaneer. It is one of the best harbours on the coast, 
 being partly landlocked and reasonably safe, but the hills 
 which inclose it shut off the breezes and it is hot and un- 
 healthy. Once the chief Isthmian port, it has never recov- 
 
THE SAN BLAS KEGIOH 223 
 
 ered from the injury inflicted by Morgan, and is now an 
 unimportant place of less than 3,000 inhabitants and little 
 commerce. The irregular coast thence runs on to Basti- 
 mentos Point, beyond which lies Manzanillo Island (not to 
 be confounded with Colon's island of the same name), the 
 northern extremity of which, Manzanillo Point, is the north- 
 ernmost land of Panama. Beyond this lies San Cristoval 
 Bay, into which flows the Nombre de Dios Eiver, and here 
 was the old city of Nombre de Dios, famous in the days of 
 the Spanish conquistadors, and of Francis Drake. The next 
 striking coast feature is the Point of San Bias, partly inclos- 
 ing the Gulf of San Bias, an extensive sheet of water afford- 
 ing some good harbourage. It lies, however, within the ter- 
 ritory of the San Bias Indians, who, though amiable enough 
 to well-disposed visitors, do not encourage intercourse, and 
 permit no white man to remain on shore at night. A short 
 distance off the entrance to this gulf lie the Mulatas Islands, 
 an archipelago of islets and rocks, among which there is fine 
 fishing, and where many large edible turtles are captured. 
 Escoces Point, Escoces Harbour, Caledonian Bay, and Pater- 
 son's Hill, many miles further down the coast to the south- 
 east, are reminiscent of the ill-fated attempt to plant a 
 Scotch colony on the Isthmus and thus win "the keys of 
 the universe" for Great Britain. At Cape Tiburon, a high, 
 rocky point, we reach the entrance to the Gulf of Darien, 
 and the boundary between Panama and Colombia. 
 
 Turning now to the Pacific coast, and again beginning at 
 the west, the Costa Kican boundary is marked by Burica 
 Point, a long and conspicuous cape jutting to the southward. 
 From the point of the cape, the coast runs northward and 
 then sweeps around in a third of a circle, to Boca San Pedro, 
 one of the chief entrances to the delta of the David River, 
 upon which, a few miles inland, lies the important city of 
 David. This delta comprises an extensive group of islands, 
 reaching along the coast for nearly twenty miles. The 
 southernmost of them is Parida Island, which is about four 
 miles by two in extent and is well provided with wood and 
 
224 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 fresh water. Venado Island is the easternmost of the group, 
 and thence a clean coast runs eastward and a little south- 
 ward to a similar but smaller archipelago at the mouth of 
 the Santiago River. Thence the coast trends sharply south- 
 ward, to Bahia Honda, off which lies Coiba or Quibo Island, 
 the largest of all the islands of Panama. Coiba is about 
 twelve by twenty-one miles in extent, of moderate elevation, 
 well wooded and watered, and with extensive fertile plains. 
 This island was visited by Lord Anson, in the middle of 
 the eighteenth century, and was then said to be infested 
 with flying serpents. Several smaller islands lie near Coiba, 
 the chief of them being Jicaron, four miles to the southward. 
 It is three and a half miles across, and has hills rising to 
 a height of 1,400 feet. 
 
 Twenty miles east of Bahia Honda is Brava Point, at the 
 western side of the Gulf of Montijo. This gulf is a fine, 
 almost landlocked sheet of water, nine by fourteen miles in 
 extent, with Cebaco and Gobernador Islands screening its 
 entrance. Within the gulf, near its head, is the Island of 
 Leones, three miles across. Cebaco Island, which serves as 
 a breakwater across the entrance to the gulf, is nearly four- 
 teen miles long, but only from one to two miles wide. Gober- 
 nador Island is only a mile or two in extent. The San Pablo 
 and several other considerable rivers flow into this gulf. 
 At the eastern side of the entrance is Duartis Point, and 
 thence the coast runs south and a little east, with marked 
 irregularities, nearly twenty miles, to Mariato Point, the 
 southernmost land of Panama. Thence the coast line turns 
 at a right angle, and runs, with some irregularities, little 
 north of east, twenty-seven miles to Morro Puercos, or 
 Puercos Point; thence it curves in a large bight northeast- 
 ward to Guanico Point, about seven miles, and thence in a 
 larger bight in the same direction ten miles to Raia Point. 
 Near Raia Point is the mouth of the Juera River, a stream 
 navigable for a mile or two by the largest vessels, its depth 
 being more than fifty feet. Twelve miles to the east and a 
 little north is Cape Mala, the western side of the entrance to 
 
THE BAY OF PANAMA 226 
 
 the vast Bay of Panama. Here the coast turns sharply, at 
 something less than a right angle, and runs in an almost 
 straight line northwest by north about fifty-five miles to 
 Point Lisa, at the southern side of the entrance to the Bay 
 of Parita, an indentation at the extreme west of the Bay 
 of Panama. The cities of Parita and Los Santos — in the 
 province of Los Santos — are near the shore of the Bay of 
 Parita, on rivers which are navigable for several miles. At 
 the northeast side of the bay is Anton Point, whence the 
 coast extends in an almost straight line northeast to Point 
 Chame, forty miles. At Point Chame the line curves north- 
 west and thence around to northeast in a semicircular bight 
 about seventeen miles, to Batele Point. This bight is shal- 
 low and is not readily navigable. The Chorrera River, a 
 considerable stream, enters it and is navigable for a couple 
 of miles, as far as the city of Chorrera, an important place 
 of about 6,000 inhabitants. Across the entrance to the bight 
 lies a long chain of islands, extending from north to south 
 for a distance of more than twenty miles. At the northern 
 end of the chain are Naos, Perico, Flamingo, and Culebra 
 islands, mere islets, a mile or two from the city of Panama. 
 A few miles south of them lies the beautiful Taboga Island, 
 nearly two miles in extent and rising to a height of 935 
 feet. Upon it is a large and attractive village, and the 
 island is a favourite place of residence and resort for health 
 and pleasure. Near by are the much smaller islands of 
 Taboguilla, or Little Taboga, and Urava, and a number of 
 rocky islets, all rising sheer and high above the water like 
 abrupt mountain peaks. Still further south are the islets 
 of Cham6 and Valladolid, and at the southern end of the 
 series are Otoque, Bona, and Estiva. 
 
 Passing Point Batel6 and Changarni Island, the harbour 
 of Panama is reached, the city itself being about five miles 
 north by east from Batele. Panama occupies a peninsula 
 between two bays, that at the west being formed by the 
 estuary of the Rio Grande and the little Rio San Juan, and 
 that at the east, more than a mile wide from Panama to 
 
226 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 Point Paitillo, being a mere indentation in the coast. The 
 view of Panama from the sea, as it stands upon its terraces 
 of volcanic rock, with the huge mass of Ancon Hill, 630 feet 
 high, rising as a background behind it, is one of rare and 
 memorable beauty. Just west of the city is the Pacific 
 terminal of the canal, known as La Boca, at which is a great 
 wharf for ocean steamships. The anchorage off Panama is 
 excellent, and although the harbour is open to the Pacific 
 Ocean, calm weather almost constantly prevails, so that 
 vessels are secure without any breakwater. The Bay of 
 Panama was indeed once known as the Bay of Calms, and 
 one serious disadvantage to commerce is that sailing vessels 
 often have to be towed out of port for a hundred miles before 
 they can find wind to fill their sails. There are numerous 
 focks and reefs off the Panama waterfront, and the fluctua- 
 tion of the tide is about twenty feet, so that navigation has 
 to be conducted with much care. Five miles east of Pan- 
 ama is the site of the original city of Panama, now marked 
 by nothing but a single ruined tower, visible for miles. 
 Thence the coast runs almost due east, for twenty miles, to 
 the mouth of the Bayamo or Chepo River, a large and navi- 
 gable stream, the lower twelve miles of which it was proposed 
 to use as a part of the projected canal at the San Bias 
 route. The lovely Chepillo Island lies off the mouth of this 
 river. 
 
 Thirty miles southeast from the Chepo, the mouth of the 
 Chiman River is reached, with Pelado Island near it. The 
 village of Chiman, at the mouth of the river, is the point 
 from which Pizarro sailed for Peru in 1525 for the conquest 
 of that empire. Directly southwest from the mouth of the 
 Chiman, at a distance of more than twenty miles, lie the 
 famous Pearl Islands, a large and numerous archipelago 
 thirty miles in extent from north to south and twenty miles 
 in width from east to west. These exquisite islands have 
 also been called Islands of the King, Islands of the Isthmus, 
 and Islands of Colombia. There are sixteen of them, beside a 
 score or more of mere rocks. Isla del Rey is by far the 
 
THE PEARL ISLANDS 22V 
 
 largest, being more than ten miles long, and having an area 
 greater than that of all the rest put together. It has also 
 been called the Island of St. Michael (San Miguel). San 
 Jose and Pedro Gonzalez are also considerable islands. 
 Bayoneta, Casaya, Saboga, Pacheca, and Contadora are 
 much smaller, though Saboga has a large village and per- 
 haps the best anchorage in the group. Nearly all the islands 
 are hilly, some of them rising 600 feet above the water. They 
 are well wooded and watered, and fertile, and present a 
 singularly beautiful panorama of mingled landscape and 
 seascape. 
 
 Returning to the Chiman River and going south by east 
 twenty miles, Brava Point is reached, at the northern side 
 of the entrance to the great gulf of San Miguel, or Darien del 
 Sur, Point Garachine, twelve miles south, marking the other 
 side. This gulf is very irregular in shape and is dotted with 
 small islands. It extends inland about fifteen miles, where it 
 is reached and entered by the huge estuary of the Tuyra and 
 Sabana rivers, the former the largest in the republic and a 
 part of several of the Darien canal routes. The large Sambu 
 River also flows into this gulf near its southern extremity. 
 From Point Garachine the coast runs generally about south- 
 southeast for fifty miles to the Colombian border, without 
 noteworthy features. A high mountain range rises almost 
 directly from the shore, and there are no rivers or towns 
 of importance in that region. 
 
 Of the city of Panama I shall speak in detail in another 
 place. It remains to mention briefly the other cities and 
 towns of importance. Colon, already mentioned, dates from 
 1849 only, and is essentially a modern commercial city. 
 Everything in it is subordinated to the railroad and steam- 
 ships. It is largely built of wood and sheet iron, and is 
 periodically ravaged by extensive conflagrations. Elevated 
 only a few feet above tide level, adequate sewerage is im- 
 possible. The sanitary conditions have accordingly been 
 bad, and the task of improving them is proving most diflS- 
 cult. Exposed to the trade winds, however, Colon is some- 
 
228 THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 what cooler than Panama, and has thus been regarded by 
 some as a more desirable place of residence. Such judgment 
 seems strange, to one who has contrasted the dripping, reek- 
 ing climate of swamp-girt Colon, and the turbid, yellow 
 waves of Limon Bay, with the vastly dryer climate and 
 crj^stalline air of rock-founded Panama, fronted with the 
 fathomless azure of the Pacific. There has been talk of 
 establishing the Caribbean terminus of the canal at a dis- 
 tance of some miles from Colon, and removing that city 
 to the new site. "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished." Wherever the new site, it must be better than the 
 old. 
 
 Boca del Toro, with its great fruit trade and its up-to-date 
 wireless telegraphy, I have already mentioned ; and also Porto 
 Bello, with its record of being sacked and burned five times. 
 Chagres, too, has been described, as having fallen from the 
 estate of a walled and castled city to that of a fishing vil- 
 lage of thatched huts. Agua Dulce, on the Bay of Parita, 
 provides the whole Republic with salt, and is a great centre 
 of grain and cattle growing. David, the capital of the prov- 
 ince of Chiriqui, is the largest of the inland cities, having 
 about 8,000 inhabitants, and being the chief grain and cattle 
 market of the Republic. It has also some gold mines. Its 
 trade is conducted by way of both the Pacific and the Car- 
 ibbean. Los Santos, the capital of the province of that name, 
 has 7,500 inhabitants, and is beautiful for situation. 
 Santiago, capital of the province of Veraguas, has 7,000 
 inhabitants, and is the seat of iron and steel, sugar, 
 cotton, and woollen factories, and has gold, silver, and 
 copper mines. 
 
 The visitor to the Isthmus from the United States lands, 
 of course, at Colon. In the outskirts of that city the train 
 passes the unspeakably squalid settlement of Cristobal, 
 founded by the French in 1880, and Monkey Hill, with its 
 cemetery. Beyond several miles of swamp Mindi, an insig- 
 nificant place, is reached, and beyond it is Gatun, a village 
 of 900 inhabitants, the first station of importance after leav- 
 
j£;j{fc33iAs*i»i 
 
ALONG THE EAILROAD 229 
 
 ing Colon, and about seven miles from the latter. Gatun 
 stands on the banks of the Chagres River, which is naviga- 
 ble to that point by steamers, and is the proposed site of a 
 dam for the control of that stream. Three miles further on, 
 across the swamps bordering the Quebrancha River (a tribu- 
 tary of the Chagres), the negro village of Lion Hill, or Tiger 
 Hill, is reached, a poor place, with about 200 inhabitants. 
 Five miles further, after passing the insignificant hamlets 
 of Ahorca Lagarto, Carmen Messias, and Santana, the negro 
 and Chinese village of Bohio Soldado is reached, where it 
 has been proposed to construct the gigantic Bohio Dam, to 
 transform the valley of the Chagres for miles into a lake, 
 for a high-level canal. The village has fewer than 500 
 inhabitants. A little beyond is Buena Vista, and three and 
 a half miles from Bohio is Frijoles, where the French built 
 important machine shops and storehouses. Tavernilla, with 
 200 inhabitants, is three miles further on, Mamei is five miles 
 beyond it, and two miles beyond Mamei is Gorgona, a town 
 of more than 3,000 people. Matachin, two and a half miles 
 from Gorgona, is the site of machine shops and warehouses. 
 Under the French company, in 1887, it was the scene of an 
 outbreak of yellow fever, which killed more than 2,000 
 Chinamen. Its present population is less than 1,000, chiefly 
 negroes and Chinese. Obispo, a mile beyond, is a village of 
 250 inhabitants. It is close to Gamboa, the site of another 
 proposed dam for the control of the Chagres. Las Cas- 
 cades, two miles further on, has 400 black and yellow 
 inhabitants. 
 
 The important station of Emperador, or Empire, comes 
 next, two miles beyond Las Cascades. It has more than 
 4,000 population, and is attractively situated. Just east of 
 the railroad station is a hill, 250 feet high, which was forti- 
 fied and used with effect in more than one of the Isthmian 
 wars, and is now occupied by the barracks of the United 
 States troops which guard the Canal Zone. That sightly 
 and breezy hilltop is a comfortable and most attractive place 
 of residence, commanding one of the finest panoramas to be 
 
230 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 seen on the Isthmus. A mile and a half from Empire is 
 the village of Culebra, on the "continental divide," and near 
 the great Culebra Cut, the crux of the canal construction. 
 Paraiso comes next, only eight miles from Panama, with 
 three hundred negro and Chinese inhabitants; a mile and 
 a half beyond is Pedro Miguel ; a mile beyond that is Mira- 
 flores, on the Rio Grande River, whence Panama draws its 
 water supply ; the insignificant hamlet of Rio Grande is just 
 beyond; and finally comes Corozal, on the edge of a man- 
 grove swamp, three miles outside of the city of Panama. A 
 short distance before reaching the Panama terminal of the 
 railroad, a spur branches off and runs around the city to 
 the great steamship wharf at La Boca, at the other side. 
 
 The Isthmus of Panama is the only part of the American 
 continents where there is a distinct break in and indeed 
 an abandonment of the mighty continental backbone of 
 mountains which extend from Alaska to Patagonia. There 
 that chain, known variously as the Rocky Mountains, the 
 Cordilleras, and the Andes, gives place for some miles to 
 irregular scattered hills, solitary or grouped, of no consider- 
 able height. Few rise as high as 1,500 feet, and many no 
 higher than 500 or 600 feet. Along the line chosen for the 
 canal there is no elevation as great as 300 feet, and most of 
 the route is much lower. Upon the interesting and plausible 
 theory that at one time there was a gap in the Isthmus, and 
 an open waterway between the two seas, which has been 
 filled up by volcanic action, it is not necessary here to dwell. 
 But it seems quite inconceivable that any intelligent ob- 
 server can personally inspect and examine the Panama route 
 without being quickly convinced that it is peculiarly and 
 preeminently fitted by nature for the purpose of canal con- 
 struction, and of a canal at tide level. 
 
 Beginning at the flat, swampy coast near Colon, the route 
 of the canal proceeds practically at tide level through an 
 alluvial plain, for a distance of six miles, to Gatun, where 
 the first hills are reached, and where there have been pro- 
 posals to construct a dam — provided any one is willing to 
 
THE CHAGRES VALLEY 231 
 
 go two hundred feet below sea level for a bed-rock founda- 
 tion. Passing through a gap in the hills, scarcely elevated 
 above the sea, the line follows the valley of the Chagres 
 River for nine miles more, with a scarcely perceptible ascent, 
 to Bohio. At this point the valley of the Ohagres is narrow, 
 and to the superficial observer the place seems well fitted for 
 the building of a dam, to impound the waters of the Chagres 
 in what has been called in advance "Lake Bohio" — an 
 essential feature of the high-level canal scheme. But on 
 careful examination it is found that the bed rock is nearly as 
 far below sea level as at Gatun, a circumstance which has 
 caused many engineers to regard the plan for a dam there as 
 problematic. Beyond Bohio lies the extensive Plain of 
 Tavernilla, which rises gradually and slightly toward Obis- 
 po, thirteen miles further on. The proposed dam at Bohio 
 would transform that entire plain, from Bohio to Obispo, 
 into a lake. 
 
 At Obispo the "continental divide" is reached, the ridge 
 of earth and rock which in diminutive fashion corresponds 
 with the Rocky Mountains and the Andes as the watershed 
 between the Atlantic and the Pacific. As the vast width 
 of the North American Continent is to the narrow Isthmus 
 of Panama, so are the Rocky Mountains to the little hill of 
 Culebra, south of Obispo, through which the famous and 
 dreaded Culebra cut is being made. At its extreme summit, 
 before the French engineers removed a spadeful of earth, 
 it was less than 300 feet above tide level. The length of this 
 cut, from Obispo to Pedro Miguel, is less than eight miles, 
 and, of course, it is not all as deep as at the centre. At 
 Pedro Miguel the foot of the hill is reached, and thence there 
 is a very slight descent along the valley of the Rio Grande, 
 to the Pacific Ocean, eight miles away, at La Boca, or "The 
 Mouth," just west of the city of Panama. There it will be 
 necessary to dredge a channel for the canal for three miles 
 in the Bay of Panama, out to the island of Naos. 
 
 Most of the way this route runs through a tropical wilder- 
 ness of profuse vegetation. The geology of the region is 
 
232 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 peculiar. Bed rock lies generally far below the surface, so 
 far below that it need not be touched in canal cutting, until 
 the city of Panama itself is reached, which stands upon a 
 terrace of volcanic rock. The cuttings at Culebra and else- 
 where are chiefly through red clay, a greenish marl-like 
 deposit, and various rocks abounding in quartz which when 
 dry are hard as granite but when saturated with water — 
 which they take in as does a sponge — are as easily disinte- 
 grated as so much loaf sugar. I remember that on my first 
 visit to the Culebra cut I saw innumerable masses of glit- 
 tering quartz crystal from the size of a walnut to that of a 
 barrel, apparently as strong as New England granite, and 
 reminding me of masses of Herkimer County rock crystals 
 of exaggerated size. My first thought was that it would be 
 difficult for me to break off such specimens as I might want 
 to carry away. But when I made the attempt I found that 
 my real difficulty was to keep the pieces which I gathered 
 from crumbling into atoms in my hand or in my pocket. 
 The rain of the night before had saturated the rock, and 
 had made it as friable and perishable as so much confection- 
 ery. This peculiarity of the rock, of course, greatly facili- 
 tates excavation. 
 
 A less agreeable peculiarity is possessed by the red clay 
 and other earths at Culebra : to wit, the property or tendency 
 of slipping and sliding and refusing to "stay put." These 
 earths are in horizontal or nearly horizontal strata, among 
 w^hich there is little or no cohesion. Our French predeces- 
 sors were much troubled by the frequent landslides which 
 brought the sides of the cuts tumbling and bulging in upon 
 them and filling up the space which had been excavated. 
 This trouble they themselves aggravated, as I have told in a 
 former chapter, by the ill-advised system of piling up the ex- 
 cavated material at the sides of the cuttings and thus adding 
 to the pressure upon the lower strata of the banks. Our 
 own engineers have more wisely decided to remove all 
 material to a greater distance, and also to make the cuttings 
 wider and the slope of the sides at a much lower angle. Thus 
 
EAKTHQUAKES 233 
 
 that trouble will be avoided. It may be that torrential rains 
 will wash some earth down the banks into the canal, though 
 it is probable that in a short time the banks will be so cov- 
 ered with masses of vegetation as to prevent any serious 
 erosion. If not, it may be necessary to cover the slopes 
 with rip-rap. 
 
 The volcanic character of the Isthmus has already been 
 mentioned. The region is not now altogether free from 
 slight earthquake shocks, but there are no active volcanoes, 
 and severe shocks have been unknown for centuries. Such 
 seismic disturbances as do occur must now be regarded as 
 nothing more than the results of more severe shocks in far- 
 distant places. The fact that the lofty tower of the cathe- 
 dral of Old Panama is still standing, intact, indicates that 
 there has been no destructive tremor of the earth for the 
 best part of four centuries. Careful records are made at 
 Panama, with the most sensitive and accurate seismometers 
 and seismographs, from which I noted that in the three 
 years 1901-1903, there was not one real shock, and there were 
 only eight tremors, of which probably not more than one was 
 perceptible save to the delicate instruments. In the same 
 years at San Jos6, in Costa Rica, there were about 150 
 shocks, more than thirty of them being very strong. We 
 may, therefore, dismiss all fears of city-destroying earth- 
 quakes at Panama, though, of course, there is always a pos- 
 sibility that a comparatively slight shock might gravely 
 damage the masonry locks of a high-level canal, while it 
 would do no harm to one at sea-level. 
 
 The climate of Panama is strongly affected by several cir- 
 cumstances. One is that the Isthmus lies about nine degrees 
 north of the equator, and scarcely one degree north of the 
 thermal equator. Another is that the Isthmus is so narrow 
 a strip of land between two oceans. These circumstances 
 give Panama a particularly moist climate. Another feature 
 of the climate, especially at Colon and along the northern 
 shore, is the prevalence of the Caribbean trade winds, and 
 this, with the altitude of the sun, conduces to remarkable 
 
234 THE KEPUBLIC OF PANAMA 
 
 uniformity of temperature. From April 13 to August 29 
 the sun at noon is north of the zenith, on June 21 being 
 only 75 deg. 41 min. above the northern horizon, while on 
 December 21 it is 57 deg. 24 min. above the southern hori- 
 zon. There is thus an extreme variation of 46 deg. 55 min. 
 Generally speaking, 55 per cent, of the time the wind at 
 Colon is blowing from northerly quarters : that is, from some 
 point between northeast and northwest; 35 per cent, of the 
 time it is from the corresponding southerly quarters; nine 
 per cent, of the time it is from easterly or westerly quarters ; 
 and one per cent, of the time there is a dead calm. These 
 percentages vary with the seasons, of which there are two — 
 the dry season, comprising January, February, March, and 
 April, and the wet season, including all the rest of the year. 
 During the dry season more than 90 per cent, of the wind is 
 from between north and northeast, and during the rainy 
 season more than 50 per cent, is from southerly quarters. 
 As these winds blow from the sea upon the land, the tem- 
 perature of the water is an important factor in climatic 
 problems. The temperature of the Caribbean has a yearly 
 average of 79.3 deg., Fahrenheit, ranging from 75.8 in Feb- 
 ruary to 81.9 in September. The temperature of the Pacific, 
 or of the Bay of Panama, has a yearly average of only 76.1, 
 ranging from 67.8 in February to 80.0 in October. Thus the 
 Pacific is 3.2 degrees cooler than the Caribbean, and has 
 just twice as great a range of variation as the latter. At 
 this point I may perhaps appropriately mention the tides, 
 though they have probably no bearing upon the climate. At 
 Colon the total range from low to high water is from 7.44 
 to 24.84 inches, the average being 17.208 inches. At Panama 
 the range is from 16.40 to 20.93 feet, the average being 18.75 
 feet, or more than thirteen times as great in the Pacific as in 
 the Caribbean. 
 
 The uniformity of the climate of Panama is most notable, 
 when we observe the temperature of the air and its slight 
 variations. At Panama the hottest time of the day is from 
 two to four o'clock p. m., when the average temperature 
 
TEMPERATURE 236 
 
 ranges from 81.6, Fahrenheit, in November, to 86.1 in March. 
 The coolest hour is from six to seven o'clock a. m., when 
 the average temperature ranges from 74.0 in January to 
 76.6 in June. The general average of highest temperature is 
 84.0, and of lowest, 75.1. The average daily temperature 
 ranges from 77.9 in November to 81.1 in April, the yearly 
 average being 79.6. Thus the variation of monthly averages 
 during the year is at most only 3.2 degrees. I know of no 
 other place where it is so slight, and where, therefore, the 
 temperature is so uniform. At Barbados there is a variation 
 in monthly averages of 3.5 degrees ; at San Juan, Porto Rico, 
 of 5.8 ; at Kingston, Jamaica— that land of comfort and of 
 beauty— of 6.5 ; at Havana, Cuba, of 12.1 ; at New Orleans, 
 of 29.1 ; and at Washington, D. C, of 43.7. The first four 
 of the places named have a yearly average from a fraction 
 of a degree to 4.1 degrees cooler than Panama. But King- 
 ston, San Juan, and Havana all have hotter weather as well 
 as cooler weather than Panama, and on the whole the tem- 
 perature of the Isthmus is more agreeable than theirs. It 
 Is an impressive fact that there is no record of the ther- 
 mometer's ever having risen as high as 100 deg., Fahrenheit, 
 at Panama. It has been observed at 101 at Havana and at 
 San Juan, and at 104 in Washington. 
 
 So much for the dry bulb thermometer. I am sorry to say 
 that the record concerning humidity is less f avourable • at 
 Panama than elsewhere. I do not think the Isthmians ever 
 suffer as much from excessive humidity as we do at times in 
 New York, in August, but they suffer from it for a much 
 longer time. Even in the dry season, from January to April, 
 there is an average humidity of about 80 degrees, and in 
 the rainy season this rises to about 87.7. Probably 85 deg. 
 would be a fair average for the year. That is a record which 
 speaks for itself. I shall not attempt to defend it or to 
 extenuate it. I should add, however, in passing, that up at 
 Empire and other places on the highlands, at an elevation of 
 only from 100 to 500 feet, the humidity is much less than 
 at Panama, while the range of variation. of temperature is 
 
236 THE REPUBLIC OE PANAMA 
 
 greater, the maximum of heat being higher and the minimum 
 lower than on the coast. The wind at Colon blows almost 
 incessantly, at an average velocity of from five to eight miles 
 an hour, seldom rising above twenty miles, save in the 
 destructive "northers." 
 
 The rainfall on the Isthmus is heavy, but varies much 
 according to place. At Colon it is heaviest, averaging about 
 140 inches a year. At Matachin and Empire, on the "di- 
 vide," it is from 90 to 95 inches. In the city of Panama 
 it is not more than 60 inches. The average number of rainy 
 days in a year is 246 at Bohio, 196 at Colon, and 141 at 
 Panama. At Bohio there is not nearly as much contrast 
 between the wet and dry seasons as at Panama, the four dry 
 months at Bohio having an average of twelve rainy days 
 each, while at Panama they have less than five each. At 
 Panama the rainy season is by no means a time of incessant 
 downpour. When it does rain, it rains hard, as hard as we 
 ever see it in the north in the most torrential summer thun- 
 derstorms and "cloudbursts." But at least one day in three 
 is fine, and generally one day, in two. The rainiest month 
 is October, in which there is an average of twenty rainy days 
 and eleven fine ones. In November the average is eighteen 
 rainy, in August and September seventeen each, in July 
 fifteen, in June thirteen, in May twelve, and in December 
 eleven rainy days. In the dry season the average number 
 of rainy days is seven in April, six in January, four in 
 March, and one in February. 
 
 It is not my purpose, however, to attempt a technical 
 scientific treatise upon climatic or other conditions in the 
 Isthmian Republic, but to give the general impression which 
 the country makes upon the observant layman who visits it, 
 not in quest of special facts to bolster up some long- 
 cherished prejudice, but with an open mind in quest of truth. 
 To such, Panama must seem a land where tropical conditions 
 present their best phases, and where their evil phases are 
 minimised. It is a land which is not only tolerable but even 
 comfortable and enjoyable to those who have been accus- 
 
GENEEAL CHAEACTEKISTICS 237 
 
 tomed to the capricious, uncertain, and intemperate regions 
 which we contradictorily call temperate, and it is one whose 
 political constitution, whose geographical position, and 
 whose topography, geology, meteorology, and all other 
 natural conditions, not only permit but favour and facilitate 
 the development of a high civilisation and great prosperity 
 for a numerous population of the Caucasian race. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AN ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY EPISODE 
 
 The Republic of Panama was scarcely a year old when 
 it was first called upon to determine the fundamental ques- 
 tion whether it should have a stable and constitutional civil 
 government, or should, after the fashion of some neighbour- 
 ing states, be subject to military revolutions. At the begin- 
 ning of the Republic's life the former choice was made. 
 Instead of forming a military government, a government of 
 civilians was organised. For President was chosen not a 
 general of the army, but the leading physician of Panama; 
 for First Designate the foremost lawyer and jurist; and so 
 on all through the Cabinet. It was, in a measure, a coalition 
 government, comprising men of all parties. But in time, as 
 already related, party antagonisms were developed, both in 
 and out of the government. The Liberals believed themselves 
 to be in the majority in the country at large, but were in 
 the minority in the government. Agitation therefore arose, 
 in public prints and speeches and in addresses to the Presi- 
 dent, for a reorganisation of the government, and especially 
 for the removal from the Cabinet of Tomas Arias, the Minis- 
 ter of Foreign Affairs and War, and of Nicolas Victoria, the 
 Minister of Public Instruction and Justice. At last, failing 
 to effect their end by other means, the opposition leaders — 
 largely the friends and partisans of Belisario Porras, of 
 whom I shall speak more at length, in another chapter — 
 sought and secured the cooperation of Esteban Huertas, the 
 commander-in-chief of the army. Now, General Huertas 
 was the idol of the army. He was highly esteemed by the 
 general public for his very important services in the revolu- 
 tion of November 3, 1903. He was, moreover, a man of 
 decided ability, and of peculiarly attractive and engaging 
 
 238 
 
ESTEBAN HUERTAS 239 
 
 personality. I trust I shall not offend, however, in saying 
 that he was too much flattered by not altogether disinter- 
 ested friends. It is not good to tell a man, and especially 
 a young man, that henceforth Washington and Napoleon 
 must be ranked second to him. 
 
 Matters approached a crisis on October 29, when, under 
 date of the preceding day. General Huertas sent to President 
 i^mador a letter couched in the most extraordinary terms, 
 commingling almost inconceivable egotism, extravagant 
 affection for the President whom he was trying to bully, and 
 bitter hatred of the two Ministers already mentioned. As 
 a curiosity of correspondence I must quote the letter in full, 
 with a few italicised passages of my own marking. Here 
 it is: 
 
 "Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero, 
 (Confidential.) 
 
 Esteemed Companion and Friend: — 
 
 I have thought much and deeply before sending you 
 the present lines. They do not, then, embody an accusation, 
 but an explanation and a sane statement of what it has 
 become necessary to carry into effect if we do not wish that 
 History should set a stigma upon our acts and on our names. 
 
 You and I, joined by indissoluble bonds of honest methods, 
 together formed the Isthmian Fatherland. Now it remains 
 for us to maintain and improve it. Even at the risk of our 
 lives must we uphold it. Do not let us separate, Doctor; 
 let us continue united in the same work which we have taken 
 up. My acts may be separate from all your civil authority, 
 but your civil authority will be always upheld by the un- 
 questionable loyalty of the Army. We are in truth the 
 fathers of the Isthmian people. Let us show by our acts 
 our wisdom and probity. Let us give heed to the errors 
 which are pointed out to us by the opposition; correct the 
 vices and support the Administrative Edifice with an hon- 
 ourable personnel, which will shed lustre upon the country, 
 which notwithstanding its youth, suffers tortures already 
 from a choking iron collar. 
 
 Neither you nor I are disliked by the people. I have 
 sounded all hearts, and I can assure you that none contains 
 rancour; that which they hold is sentiment and the desire to 
 
240 AN ANTI-EEVOLUTIONAKY EPISODE 
 
 see affairs move forward in a clear way. And this is most 
 natural. A great portion of the people, among whom exist 
 brave elements which can apportion splendour and wealth 
 to this beloved Fatherland, because it possesses vast re- 
 sources, find themselves removed from the direction of Pub- 
 lic Affairs in order that rapacious spirits, which gobble up 
 everything, may be sustained in office to the disgrace of the 
 National dignity and to your disgrace as Chief Magistrate 
 and to my disgrace as faithful Executor of the Divine Will 
 cooperating with you in the formation of our Nation. We 
 must find sane elements, Doctor, we must not surround our- 
 selves with enemies. We must consider that the interests 
 of all are more precious than the interests of those favoured 
 ones who, fully counted, do not number Three. 
 
 It matters not what those two may suffer so that the 
 Nation may save itself from the sorrowful road upon which 
 it moves. 
 
 Let us mutually work together to restore order, dignity, 
 and honour in all that relates to our nation and to our life. 
 Let us make a holocaust if possible of all that is most 
 precious to us, in order to make sure, when God wills, the 
 happiness of this land for its children. Let us cast away 
 from us the impure rubbish which surrounds us. May our 
 acts of morality shine with splendour from our period of life 
 and power. In fact. Doctor, I am resolved that when His- 
 tory analyses my deeds, it will be said without circumlocu- 
 tion or illusion, that notwithstanding my immense sum of 
 power I was a Good man and that I worked tenaciously to 
 gain such a name. In the name, then, of these sentiments, 
 springing from the bottom of my heart, I beg of you, my 
 friend, to be good, as I intend to be. 
 
 Observe, Doctor, that all delay in excusing the evil which 
 to-day affects the country will only diminish our honour and 
 affect above all the moral and material honour with which 
 God and man have invested us. 
 
 You are, I judge, an honourable man, and, with a well- 
 founded reputation as a great reasoner, I am confident that 
 you will stand by me to make great the Nation which we 
 have formed, so I infer that you will not wish that I alone, 
 with my weak soldiers, shall take up the labour alone. But, 
 if it 'be necessary that the step shall fee taken hy my deficient 
 force, I shall do so without hesitation^ or die in the attempt. 
 
 So, then. Companion and Friend, let us work together, let 
 us clear the way of all obstruction and confide in God and 
 
AN AMAZING LETTER 241 
 
 in this people, who, with reason, show themselves cold ; with 
 our firm propositions of grandeur and prosperity let us offer 
 them our help. 
 
 In virtue of the above I reiterate to you, that which I 
 said at night, viva voce, and that which I said in the confer- 
 ence we had to-day. 
 
 In order that you may better meditate upon it I have 
 written these lines, a genuine exposition of my way of think- 
 ing, so that if the necessity which they set forth arises, you 
 can judge me impartially. 
 
 I possess copious testimony which I do not care to publish, 
 of what has been plotted against me during my absence; 
 but as it concerns me, only, personally, I cross my arms and 
 let them do what they wish, when they wish. 
 
 To-day it is different ; the future of our country is involved 
 and I cannot see, with indifference, its ruin without raising 
 a preventing hand. Therefore I recommend and I demand 
 the removal of Don Tomas Arias and Don Nicolas Victofia 
 J., who by their methods are affecting the country's inter- 
 ests; lessening your authority and mine, and accumulating 
 the hate of the people upon us, with grave detriment to our 
 National and personal dignity. 
 
 By right, by reason, and in justice, all cannot be sacri- 
 ficed to a part. Let it be, then, that the guidance of the Ship 
 of State be intrusted to those who will direct its course 
 along a true course of light, of progress, and of civilisa- 
 tion; indispensable factors to a safe arrival at the Port of 
 Safety. 
 
 From to-day forward, all my forces and abilities shall be 
 devoted to this end. 
 
 In the name, then, of the friendship which unites us, of 
 the Morals and the Future of this country, it is demanded, 
 Doctor, that the reorganisation of existing conditions shall 
 be undertaken. 
 
 Where can there be happiness for us if the country is not 
 happy? 
 
 I have a soul. Doctor, which knows how to feel, and there- 
 fore I preoccupy myself with the conditions of others. 
 
 It is not enough for me to live well, knowing that those 
 whom we have liberated are longing for the benefits not 
 accorded them. 
 
 The ambition of my soul will be fulfilled if only, with your 
 consent, there is brought into existence a relative happy 
 selection of your Associates, and this is not possible, while 
 
242 AN ANTI-EEVOLUTIONAEY EPISODE 
 
 certain posts are occupied by individuals of the moral com- 
 plexion of Arias and Victoria. 
 
 My heart embraces you because I want you. 
 
 Your affectionate friend and companion, 
 
 E. HUERTAS." 
 
 Nothing could have been more insubordinate than the 
 sentence, "I demand the removal of Don Tomas Arias and 
 Don Nicolas Victoria J." The significance of this demand 
 was made clear by the additional intimation that if the 
 President did not comply with it General Huertas would 
 undertake the enforcement of it with his army : "I infer that 
 you will not wish that I, with my weak soldiers, shall take 
 up the labour alone. But, if it be necessary that the step 
 shall be taken by my deficient force, I shall do so without 
 hesitation, or die in the attempt." That was a plain threat 
 of insurrection. President Amador made known the con- 
 tents of this letter to his colleagues, whereupon the two 
 Ministers named, desiring to free him from all embarrass- 
 ment, offered their resignations. In addition, the President 
 conferred promptly with Joseph Lee, the Secretary of the 
 American Legation and Charge d' Affaires in the absence of 
 the Minister. 
 
 Mr. Lee, with admirable discretion, reminded him of his 
 proper authority as President, and pointed out that it would 
 be deplorable — indeed, disastrous to the good name of Pan- 
 ama — to have the approaching first anniversary of the 
 Republic, on November 3, marred with a revolution, marking 
 the lapse of the young Republic into the evil conditions from 
 which it had freed itself and from which the world hoped 
 it would remain free. President Amador thereupon bent his 
 energies toward keeping the peace until the national festival 
 should have been celebrated, and two days later two of the 
 foremost Liberal leaders — one of them was Belisario Porras 
 — called upon Mr. Lee with the assurance that there would 
 be no disturbance or untoward demonstration during the 
 celebrations of November 3; adding, however, that Presi- 
 dent Amador would be expected to accept the resignations 
 
Scherer, Photo. 
 JOSEPH LEE, 
 Secretary of American Legation. Panama, in 1904-5. 
 
AMERICAN WARNINGS 243 
 
 of the two Ministers as soon as the anniversary was 
 past. 
 
 The American Charge d' Affaires received this information 
 discreetly, but plainly perceived that their real purpose in 
 visiting him was to ascertain if possible, without asking 
 him directly, what would be the attitude and action of the 
 United States in case of a forcible attempt at revolution. 
 He, therefore, took occasion in the course of the ensuing con- 
 versation to point out very clearly the bearing of Article 136 
 of the Panaman Constitution upon the matter. That article 
 provides that "the government of the United States of Amer- 
 ica can intervene in any part of the Republic of Panama for 
 the purpose of establishing the public peace and constitu- 
 tional order in event of the same having been disturbed." It 
 was also brought to mind that Article 7 of the American 
 treaty with Panama declares that "in case the government 
 of Panama is unable or fails in its duty to enforce com- 
 pliance by the cities of Panama and Colon with the sanitary 
 ordinances of the United States, the Republic of Panama 
 grants to the United States the right and authority to 
 enforce the same. The same right and authority are granted 
 to the United States for the maintenance of public order in 
 the cities of Panama and Colon and the territories and har- 
 bours adjacent thereto, in case the Republic of Panama should 
 not be, in the judgment of the United States, able to main- 
 tain such order." This reminder produced a profound im- 
 pression upon the Panaman Liberal leaders, and doubtless 
 had much to do toward determining the subsequent progress 
 of affairs. 
 
 That was on October 31. The next day Santiago de la 
 Guardia was named as the successor of Senor Arias as For- 
 eign Minister. Senor Guardia was at that time in Costa 
 Rica, where he was Panaman Minister. Although a native 
 of Panama, he had spent most of his life in Costa Rica, and 
 had at one time been a member of the Cabinet of that coun- 
 try. In Panaman politics he was a Conservative, and his 
 high character, great ability, and wide experience added 
 
244 AN ANTI-KEVOLUTIONARY EPISODE 
 
 materially to the strength of the Panaman Government. 
 Two days later the festival of Panaman independence began, 
 and lasted four days. The whole city was given up to 
 rejoicings and merrymaking, and the utmost good-feeling 
 seemed to prevail on all hands. On November 3 there was a 
 solemn Te Deum in the great cathedral, attended by Presi- 
 dent Amador and his Cabinet, the diplomatic and consular 
 corps, the Governor of the Canal Zone, and the commander- 
 in-chief of the army. General Huertas, and his staff. On 
 that day also General Huertas issued "to the Isthmian army 
 and people" a most flamboyant proclamation, in the form of 
 an "Order of the Day," which is worthy of reproduction in 
 full, as a sequel to the letter to President Amador, already 
 quoted. The italics are mine : 
 
 "Official Order: 
 
 by General Estebaa Huertas, Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Army of the Republic of Panama to the Isthmian Army and 
 people on the Great Day of the Fatherland; 
 
 Compatriots : 
 
 To-day is the first Anniversary of our glorious Emancipa- 
 tion ! The Fatherland figures with refulgent brightness on 
 the Roll of free and civilised Nations. The ominous yoke, 
 which oppressed our rights with its heavy weight, was cast 
 off in a second by the sovereign grandeur of the Isthmian 
 people, impelled to proclaim their liberty! 
 
 The Isthmian Ship of State, well-nigh wrecked in a bitter 
 sea of trouble, required the hand of an expert Pilot in order 
 that she should not be swallowed up in the frightful waves 
 eager to devour her! 
 
 Where was such a one to be found? 
 
 Bolivar exists no more; no more does Washington live. 
 The memories of these men of genius is implanted in the 
 hearts of their fellow citizens. The Ship of State then 
 seemed bound to certain disaster and with her ruin would 
 go our last hope of salvation. But God was with us and 
 those who are true to Him enjoy His infinite Mercy! 
 
 Behold the key of all great success! 
 
 The tablet of Fame is inscribed with all the most notable 
 deeds of History, but it is not enough to be wise nor to be 
 
HUERTAS'S ORDER OF THE DAY 245 
 
 powerful, it is always necessary to count upon the protec- 
 tion of God. 
 
 And it was the protection of God which spread snowy 
 wings over the Isthmus and gave it life and being and the 
 greatness which clothes it to-day, and the just praises which 
 are heard in its honour. 
 
 All this without lamentable sacrifice and cruel disgraces! 
 The high designs of Providence are inscrutable. The mathe- 
 matical precision with which they are fulfilled, as well as 
 the greatness of their accomplishment, are the unquestion- 
 able signs of His omnipotence, either to reward us or to 
 punish us according to our merits or faults. 
 
 Hence the admirable portents which cause admiration 
 and are the foundation of mundane results. 
 
 Hence it was, that I, a tvcak bit of chaff in the desert of 
 life, possessed, at the moment of our emancipation, the 
 efficiency indispensable to the solution of the great problem 
 so necessary to the Isthmian Family ! 
 
 Completely in ignorance of the high mission which I 
 should have to fulfil, I occupied myself solely with the dis- 
 charge of my duties, which has been, from my tenderest 
 infancy, the unique ambition of my whole life. Indefatigable 
 in the fulfilment of my obligations, I devoted myself to them 
 alone; all else that went on around me appeared to me to 
 be foreign and apart. 
 
 80y step by step, confident ever of the goodness of the 
 Supreme Being, I have risen in the glorious career of Arms, 
 hy a rigorous path, until my career is crowned with the 
 grade of General after so many fatigues and setbacks. 
 
 What merits I possessed in the eyes of God in order to 
 be chosen to bring about the wished for fruition and to 
 be the instrument of the Most High to redeem a people, I 
 cannot and do not want to know. 
 
 It is enough for me to know that the mission fulfilled by 
 me was in obedience to the Divine Impulse of the Omnipo- 
 tent Will. 
 
 But if neither my right nor my illustriousness is enough 
 to explain to me the portentous result achieved by me and 
 the Army with the decisive consent of the Isthmian people, 
 however, I succeeded in comprehending the high moral and 
 material responsibility which has fallen to my lot, so as to 
 know how to preserve that which the Maker has given to us, 
 and to that end were directed all my forces, in the hope that 
 those who collaborated in the beginning would know how to 
 
246 AN ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY EPISODE 
 
 sacrifice themselves upon the altars of the most exalted 
 Patriotism in order that our beloved Country should never 
 run the risk of being involved in the indignity of bastard 
 ambitions nor vile and ruinous methods. 
 
 And as the formation of our Republic owes itself to the 
 concord and amity between the people and the Army, for- 
 getting misunderstandings and resentments, which to-day 
 seem to have disappeared, I exhort All on the solemn day of 
 the first Anniversary of our Republican existence, that 
 everything may be in harmony with this great day, and 
 let us all rejoice together in the celebration of this glorious 
 event. 
 
 Let us not forget that we have worked together and have 
 crowned our efforts with success, and that we should still 
 work together to the end that no parties may be established 
 in the Isthmian Family to the detriment of some and the 
 benefit of others. 
 
 May it be, however, for the present generation, entirely 
 sacred how much and how firmly is established the love of 
 country, and united together let us raise our voices in Unison 
 in the magnificent cry of: 
 
 Viva the Republic of Panama, 
 
 Viva the 3d of November, 1903. 
 
 Viva Isthmian Brotherhood, 
 
 Viva the Army and the valiant Isthmian people ! 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief, 
 
 ESTEBAN HUERTAS.^^ 
 
 Such expressions might more easily be pardoned on the 
 ground of temperament, were it not that they indicated an 
 exaggerated estimate of the importance of the military 
 power and an inclination to make it paramount to the civil 
 authority. Precisely that mistake was made a few years 
 ago in France, in connection with the Dreyfus case, when 
 army officers of undoubted patriotism were inclined to exalt 
 the army above the state. Such a misconception would, of 
 course, have been all the more dangerous in Panama, because 
 of the inclination of South and Central American states 
 toward military despotisms. Granted, for sake of argument, 
 that a change of Ministry was desirable, it would have been 
 deplorable to have it effected by means of military pressure. 
 
KEEPING THE PEACE 247 
 
 It was, moreover, an obvious impropriety, if nothing more, 
 for the commanding general to address an order of the day 
 not merely to the army but to the whole nation, as if he 
 were dictator and superior to the civil government. 
 
 Happily, thanks to President Amador's tactful disposi- 
 tion and to Mr. Lee's judicious warning that a revolution 
 would not be countenanced by the United States, trouble 
 was averted at that time. Nearly all the army remained 
 within the barracks during the four days' fiesta, and the 
 peace of Panama remained unbroken. A few days later 
 came the news of President Roosevelt's reelection in the 
 United States, which caused general rejoicing in Panama, 
 and which also strengthened the hands of the Isthmian Gov- 
 ernment by assuring it of a continuance of the policy which 
 Mr. Lee had indicated through his reasonable interpreta- 
 tion of the Panaman Constitution and the canal treaty. The 
 announcement that Secretary Taft was about to visit the 
 Isthmus also had a salutary effect. 
 
 But the roused spirit of military revolution would not 
 down. The fiesta closed on November 6 with the promise of 
 peace unbroken. Just a week later, however, General Huer- 
 tas addressed another letter to President Amador, more 
 amazing in terms than that which I have already quoted. 
 He was not satisfied with the appointment of Seiior Guardia, 
 a Conservative, to succeed Seuor Arias. Still more was he 
 displeased that Senor Victoria's resignation had not been 
 accepted. In this second letter he literally railed against 
 Senor Victoria, whom he denounced as "a stranger to all 
 dignity and honour ; a stranger to gratefulness and decency 
 . . . Senor Victoria is a fraud. Hypocrisy and perfidy can 
 be clearly seen in his jaundiced features." Astounding 
 language, surely, to be addressed by the commanding general 
 of the army to the President of the Republic concerning a 
 member of the latter's Cabinet ! We need not wonder that 
 a few hours after its utterance there was disclosed a plot, 
 led by General Huertas, forcibly to seize President Amador 
 and Secretary Guardia when they should attend the military 
 
248 AN ANTI-KEVOLUTIONAKY EPISODE 
 
 review in honour of Senor Guardia early the next morning; 
 at which review, by the way, General Huertas in his letter 
 peremptorily demanded President Amador should be pres- 
 ent. Naturally, President Amador turned again to the 
 American Charge d' Affaires for counsel. At midnight Mr. 
 Lee was visited by the Alcalde of Panama and Raoul A. 
 Amador, son of the President, who told him of the plot 
 organised by General Huertas and Belisario Porras. Mr. 
 Lee advised that President Amador should ignore the sum- 
 mons of General Huertas, and should not attend the review. 
 This counsel was accepted and acted upon, though with 
 some misgivings lest General Huertas should send and seize 
 the President by force. At five o'clock in the morning Mr. 
 Lee was again approached by the President's private secre- 
 tary, with a request that he would summon a force of United 
 States marines from the camp at Empire. This request Mr. 
 Lee refused, but he sent a very plain warning to General 
 Huertas, or his partisans, that the United States was ready 
 to enforce Article 136 of the Constitution and Article 7 of 
 the treaty, and that it was high time for all revolutionary 
 tactics to cease. So the review of the troops that morning 
 passed off quietly. Secretary Guardia attending it alone and 
 without molestation, and that day the American warships 
 'New York, Boston, and Bennington, commanded by Rear- 
 Admiral Goodrich, arrived in the Bay of Panama, an inci- 
 dent of salutary moral effect. 
 
 Two days later the American Minister, John Barrett, 
 arrived in Panama, and learned what had happened and was 
 happening. He at once went to the Government House to 
 pay his respects to President Amador, and naturally the 
 existing crisis in Panaman affairs formed the topic of some 
 conversation. It was evident to both Dr. Amador and Mr. 
 Barrett that if the Panaman Government was to be main- 
 tained and was to vindicate its authority. General Huertas 
 must be got rid of by resignation or retirement, and it 
 seemed advisable that the army, or the bulk of it, should also 
 be disposed of. In the end, President Amador and his Cab- 
 
Chandler, Photo. 
 JOHN BARRETT, 
 American Minister to Panama in 1904-5. 
 
KESIGNATION OF HUEETAS 249 
 
 inet decided to require the resignation of General Huertas 
 and the disbandment and abolition of the army, excepting 
 a handful of officers and men just sufficient to meet the 
 statutory requirements of a standing army. The army con- 
 sisted of only 250 men, anyway ; just enough to cause trouble 
 but not enough to do any real good. It was felt that the 
 police force and the American marines at Empire would be 
 sufficient for the maintenance of order and the protection of 
 the Republic. An earnest request was also made that at least 
 one of the American warships should remain in the harbour 
 until the crisis was past. 
 
 Accordingly, the next day, November 17, President Ama- 
 dor called for General Huertas's resignation, warning him 
 that if he refused to give it or resisted the civil authority, 
 the American marines would support the government. In 
 this course President Amador was encouraged by Mr. Bar- 
 rett and Rear-Admiral Goodrich, who called upon him and 
 assured him that at least one American ship would stay 
 there as long as he considered it desirable, and that the 
 marines from Empire would be ready for service if needed. 
 Under Rear-Admiral Goodrich's order. Major Le Jeune 
 brought one company of marines down from Empire to 
 Ancon Hill, just outside the city of Panama. 
 
 That afternoon General Huertas called upon the Presi- 
 dent, protested against the demand for his resignation and 
 the impending disbandment of the army, "my poor soldiers," 
 but promised to obey the mandate. A further hint from Mr. 
 Barrett to General Huertas, through the medium of a 
 mutual friend, Seiior Obarrio, that the American Govern- 
 ment hoped no indiscretion would be committed, but that 
 the Constitution of Panama would be respected, doubtless 
 went far toward assuring the fulfilment of this promise. 
 That night some of his friends tried to persuade General 
 Huertas not to resign, but to fight the matter out, but the gen- 
 eral's own better judgment prevailed. He had been too deeply 
 impressed by the hint conveyed from Mr. Barrett by Senor 
 Obarrio. The next day he resigned, in a long letter addressed 
 
250 AN ANTI-REVOLUTIONAKY EPISODE 
 
 to President Amador. This letter was entitled "Irrevocable 
 Resignation/' and was written in the flamboyant style of 
 his former utterances. After denouncing the government's 
 action as dictated by "foreign and interested designs," and 
 declaring his own ability and natural inclination to oppose 
 it with force, he said he would abstain from such procedure, 
 and would bow to the government's will, for two reasons : 
 
 "First, because as I have not learned to be dazed by 
 exaltation, preserving at all times my inherent modesty or 
 humility; neither do I, in misfortune, desire to sound the 
 discordant or comic note which will dash to pieces in a 
 moment all that honest endeavour on my part has created; 
 and second, my goodness of heart forbids me to sacrifice the 
 lives of my poor soldiers, true republican soldiers, after by 
 their efforts, and those of this noble people, we obtained our 
 independence; for they suffer fully enough, and will con- 
 tinue to suffer in the destitution in which they will be left, 
 notwithstanding that the allowance of one additional 
 month's salary will alleviate their necessities for a few days. 
 
 "It, therefore, being impossible, from what I have stated, 
 that myself, my chiefs, officers, and soldiers should remain at 
 the front of a Government whose want of confidence in us is 
 notoriously visible, I present to you in my own name, and 
 in that of the entire army, the irrevocable resignation of our 
 positions, in the certainty that not a single member desires 
 to tarnish his glorious career as a warrior by accepting the 
 same position that through and for them, and for compan- 
 ionship, their commander-in-chief resigns, considering him- 
 self offended. 
 
 "I swear before God and to History, that all my actions 
 have been governed by patriotism, that my love for this soil, 
 and respect for the legitimate government, have always been 
 sincere; and that this step has been caused by this same 
 patriotism, which no one nor anything can belittle." 
 
 The resignation, thus tendered in terms at once amazing 
 and amusing, w^as accepted and publicly announced in a 
 government decree, and General Huertas was placed upon 
 the retired list of the army, on a salary, or pension, of five 
 hundred dollars a month. At the same time President Ama- 
 dor wrote him a cordial personal letter, saying: 
 
DECLINING A SALARY 251 
 
 "I was informed by a friend that on resigning the position 
 of commander-in-chief your only wish was that your honour 
 should remain unharmed. I have not entertained any inten- 
 tions to the contrary, and as a proof of this, you can see that 
 the decree accepting your resignation could not be more 
 honorary. This letter is further testimony of what you 
 desire; but you must comprehend that, notwithstanding the 
 affection which I have for you, of which I have given and 
 shall give you proofs, your retirement is indispensable so 
 that my Government may exist with all the independence 
 that the Constitution and the Law concede it, and that it 
 cannot be subject to the control of the military hierarchy, 
 no matter how much I may esteem and like you personally." 
 
 The decree granting him a salary, in retirement, of |500 a 
 month, provoked from General Huertas another character- 
 istic outburst, in the guise of a very formal letter to the 
 new Secretary of War, in which he scornfully declined the 
 pension, and insisted that his resignation involved also 
 the resignation of the entire army ; adding a threat of a vio- 
 lent demonstration if it was not thus accepted. He wrote: 
 
 "Deeply grateful for the liberality of His Excellency the 
 President of the Republic and for the great honour done to 
 me by assigning a salary of five hundred dollars monthly as 
 a recompense for the services lent by me to the cause of 
 independence, I beg to decline such distinguished honour, not 
 accepting same, as the enormous weight which would rest 
 on my dignity would be an indelible stigma. My profound 
 patriotism, and my love for this country, contributed to the 
 glorious event of the Third of November, 1903. I cannot 
 accept a salary which I do not earn; my honour scorns it. 
 When I earned it, I had a right to it ; to-day when I do not, 
 I have not. 
 
 "In conclusion, I beg to state to His Excellency, the Presi- 
 dent of the Republic, through the worthy conduct of Your 
 Excellency, that my resignation is solidary with that of the 
 Army, which fact should have been taken into consideration, 
 not supposing that I take upon myself unwarranted facul- 
 ties; because in this case, and as a proof of my assertion, if 
 it be desired, I shall go in conjunction with my army to 
 solicit same, with the object of leaving no doubt." 
 
262 AN ANTI-EEVOLUTIONAKY EPISODE 
 
 The Secretary of War, Senor Guardia, fortunately was 
 quite competent to deal with so extraordinary a communica- 
 tion. He was now commander-in-chief of the army, having 
 been made so by the same decree which accepted General 
 Huertas's resignation. He accordingly wrote to General 
 Huertas on that same day, November 18, as follows: 
 
 "The Government, at present, does not intend to disband 
 the army. The chiefs and officers that may not be satisfied 
 with the new state of affairs may retire through the chan- 
 nels indicated by the law, but under no circumstances by 
 insubordination, nor by conjointly making any demonstra- 
 tions, and much less under your orders, as you are no longer 
 their commanding officer. 
 
 "The troops have no voice in their resignation, and you 
 should be aware of this better than anybody else, since you 
 are a veteran military man and a man of honour. 
 
 "With regard to your salary, you have wrongly interpreted 
 an act of justice and magnanimity on the part of the Gov- 
 ernment. The decree continues in force in all its parts." 
 
 To this the retired commander made no reply. He quietly 
 accepted the salary which he had declined, and retired to 
 his hacienda at Agua Dulce, on the western part of the 
 Pacific coast of the republic, remote from the capital, there 
 ostensibly to devote his attention entirely to cattle-raising. 
 There were those, however, who doubted that he would per- 
 manently refrain from further revolutionary efforts, and 
 some who even questioned whether he had ever really left 
 the city of Panama. In fact he did go to Agua Dulce, but 
 there is reason to suspect that he kept in close touch with 
 some dissatisfied politicians at the capital. In the follow- 
 ing spring, of 1905, there were threats of a mutiny among 
 the Panama police, which happily came to nothing. Gen- 
 eral Huertas was believed to be responsible for the attempt 
 at revolution, however, and it was doubtless on that account 
 that the Panaman Secretary of War made a visit to Agua 
 Dulce at that time. On that occasion the United States 
 marines were moved from their usual camp at Empire down 
 to Ancon, just outside the city of Panama, and a guard for 
 
DISMISSING THE ABMY 263 
 
 the Canal Commission's oflQces was taken into the city ; with 
 most salutary effect. 
 
 To return, however, to the incidents of November, 1904. 
 There was the army to be disposed of. General Huertas had 
 written to the President that the soldiers were unwilling to 
 serve after his retirement, and Dr. Amador naturally wel- 
 comed the statement as suggesting a good opportunity for 
 getting rid of the army. He, therefore, announced that the 
 army would be disbanded, the soldiers receiving sixty days' 
 pay as a bonus. This would be paid to them — I think on 
 Mr. Barrett's very judicious suggestion — one half down upon 
 disbandment and the remainder at the end of a week. This 
 was to insure their good behaviour, and, with the same end 
 in view, it was ordered that all barrooms be closed for the 
 three days after their disbandment. To fulfil this plan the 
 army was ordered to assemble at the Government House, at 
 one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, November 19, to be mus- 
 tered out and paid off. Now, one o'clock is the hour of the 
 siesta, when even revolutionists must rest! So at that time 
 not a soldier appeared. Two o'clock came, and not one 
 arrived. President Amador was uneasy, fearing the army 
 had decided to resist his order, but after a conference with 
 Mr. Barrett he determined to wait a little longer. (Imagine 
 a "hustling" Yankee advising a Panaman to wait!) At 2.30 
 o'clock, just as Seiior Guardia and Mr. Lee were on the point 
 of going to the barracks to see what the delay was about, 
 fifty soldiers came to the scratch, followed by a great mass 
 of the populace. They had left their weapons at the bar- 
 racks, but they sent in word to the President that they 
 wanted their whole sixty days' pay in a lump, at once. Pres- 
 ident Amador, conferring with the American Minister, 
 refused their demand. It is probable that, mindful of the 
 slipshod methods of the old Colombian Government, they 
 doubted whether they would ever get the deferred half of 
 the bonus if they agreed to the postponement, and held with 
 the Texas philosopher that "a bird in the hand is the noblest 
 work of God." 
 
264 AK ANTI-KEVOLUTIONARY EPISODE 
 
 The deadlock was ended, however, when Mr. Barrett, 
 accompanied by Secretary Guardia as his interpreter, went 
 down to the sidewalk, addressed the soldiers, assured them 
 that they would be fully paid, and warned them that 
 the American Government would fully sustain President 
 Amador, and that if they were insubordinate they would be 
 dealt with sternly by the American marines. Upon this 
 the soldiers promptly agreed to the government's terms. 
 Within two hours the entire army presented itself at the 
 Government House, received thirty days' pay and was dis- 
 banded, all excepting three men and twenty officers, who 
 were entirely loyal to the civil government, and who were 
 retained as a nominal force to meet the technical require- 
 ments of the Constitution. That night there were some slight 
 popular demonstrations of sympathy with the soldiers, but 
 these amounted to little. A week later the second thirty 
 days' pay was given to the soldiers in full, as promised, and 
 thus the episode was ended. 
 
 There were other details of the affair, more picturesque 
 than important. The gist of it was this: That it was a 
 struggle to determine whether changes of administration 
 should be effected only by peaceful and constitutional means 
 or by military force; that it was decided in favour of the 
 former, very largely through and because of the benevolent 
 offices of the United States, exercised or at least offered in 
 strict accordance with the Panaman Constitution and the 
 Panaman-American treaty ; and that it was thus decided not 
 only for the time being but, as there is ground for belief, for 
 a long time, if not for all time. It may be that some fea- 
 tures of the case will cause amusement — the small size of the 
 Panaman army as it was, and the practical absence of any 
 army at all at the present time. It will not be well, however, 
 to scoff at our sister republic on such grounds. There are 
 sovereign states in Europe which are smaller than Panama 
 and as destitute of military force; yet their independence is 
 respected, and any attempt to override it might provoke a 
 Continental war. Neither is the attitude of the United 
 
A PROTECTED STATE 255 
 
 States, as a practical protector of Panama, to be unfavour- 
 ably criticised. There is more than one ^^guaranteed" state 
 in Europe. Moreover, such guarantees in Europe are largely 
 for selfish purposes and for the maintenance of a "balance of 
 power," while ours over Panama is made with the disinter- 
 ested design of maintaining peace and order and of facil- 
 itating the commerce of the world. If, in the episode I have 
 described, the United States exercised a strong, perhaps a 
 paramount, influence in the affairs of another sovereign 
 state, at least it did so with the fullest regard for the liber- 
 ties and the susceptibilities of the people of that country, 
 and for the rights and interests of all nations. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A MISSION OP READJUSTMENT 
 
 Close upon the heels of General Huertas's vain attempt 
 at revolution came another important episode. This was the 
 visit of the Secretary of War of the United States, William 
 H. Taft, to Panama, upon what may be called a mission of 
 readjustment. Dissatisfaction had arisen in Panama, not 
 with the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty but with some features 
 of the American construction and application of it, espe- 
 cially concerning the tariff and the postal service. For such 
 dissatisfaction there was ample ground. In response to an 
 unthinking demand in the United States, the full tariff rates 
 of the United States were by executive order (see Appendix 
 VIII.) on June 24, 1904, applied to the Canal Zone, not only 
 against all foreign countries but also against Panama itself, 
 and two collection districts were established. A Canal Zone 
 port was also established at Ancon, adjoining the city of 
 Panama. This resulted in little or no gain to the United 
 States, but in a great hardship to Panama, depriving it of 
 an all but indispensable market and also of a large part of 
 its import trade. Again, the domestic postal rate of two 
 cents was established between the Canal Zone and the 
 United States, and nine United States post offices were 
 opened in the Zone, while the old five-cent rate was main- 
 tained between Panama and the United States. The result 
 was that the business men of Panama carried all their mail 
 over into the Zone and deposited it in the American post 
 office there, thus depriving the Panama post office of the bulk 
 of its business. In doing this they not only got the sixty per 
 cent, lower rates of postage, but also got far more trust- 
 worthy service. For the Panama post office had not yet been 
 redeemed from the old Colombian methods, under which it 
 
 256 
 
SECRETARY TAFT'S PARTY 25V 
 
 was necessary to mail a letter two or three days in advance 
 to make sure of its being despatched by a certain steamer, and 
 even then there was no assurance that the postmaster would 
 not tear off the stamp, to resell to some one else, and throw 
 the letter into the waste-paper basket. It used to be notori- 
 ous that there was no use in inquiring for letters at a post 
 office if you found the postmaster sitting down, for he would 
 not get up to see if there were any for you, but would declare 
 there were none, and remain seated ! 
 
 In order to adjust these and some other minor matters, 
 which had been for some time the subject of diplomatic cor- 
 respondence (see Appendix IX), President Roosevelt de- 
 cided to send Secretary Taft to Panama, as his personal 
 representative. This mission set out from the ancient port 
 of Pensacola, Florida, on November 22, 1904, for Colon. It 
 was conveyed in impressive state by the two cruisers Colum- 
 Ma and Dolphin^ of the United States Navy, and its mem- 
 bers and their companions included Secretary Taft and Mrs. 
 Taft; Rear-Admiral Walker, U. S. N., the chairman of the 
 Canal Commission ; Charles E. Magoon, the legal adviser of 
 the Commission; William Nelson Cromwell, the legal ad- 
 viser of the old Canal Company and railroad company, and 
 of the Panama Government; and Domingo de Obaldia, the 
 Panaman Minister to the United States. 
 
 Pensacola was an appropriate starting point for the mis- 
 sion. It would have been such had the errand been one 
 of war, of aggresion, of militant expansion. Above all places 
 in the United States that quaint old Spanish city, the very 
 names of its streets still echoing the voices of Leon and Cas- 
 tile, is reminiscent of the strenuous forward movement of the 
 American nation. It was there that an American army first 
 invaded alien soil. From the Perdido to the Escambia is a 
 short distance, but in marching it, ninety-odd years ago, a 
 distinguished Democratic expansionist set for all time a 
 most important precedent. In maintaining ^'the immutable 
 principle of self-defence" — the self-defence of the republic — 
 Jackson marched an American army for warlike purposes 
 
268 A MISSION OF KEADJUSTMENT 
 
 into the territory of a foreign Power with which America 
 was at peace. Approved at the time by the "fathers of the 
 Constitution," and confirmed by the experience and practice 
 of four score and ten succeeding years, that epoch-marking 
 precedent returns vividly to mind to-day, as the sanctioning 
 authority of more than one subsequent act which the forget- 
 ful have in late years all too heedlessly challenged. 
 
 Not now, however, was it necessary to follow that prece- 
 dent, with force and arms. Though led by the Secretary of 
 War, and transported in ships of war, this errand to and 
 from Pensacola was one of peace. It was, no less than Jack- 
 son's, meant for the self-defence of the Republic ; but it sought 
 that end by means of conciliation and good will. It was to 
 maintain "the immutable principle of self-defence," not only 
 against foreign intrigues and whatever might to any extent 
 menace the achievement of the great work of "an American 
 canal under American control," but also against the insidi- 
 ous peril of misunderstandings between the United States 
 and a sister republic, and against the possibility of reproach 
 for having dealt ungenerously with a weaker and half- 
 dependent nation. Nor was the port of departure less fitting 
 in that view of the case. Peace and good will mean social 
 and commercial intercourse ; and the superb harbour of Pen- 
 sacola may well become the great gateway of the Eastern 
 Gulf and South Atlantic States opening upon the Gulf and 
 Caribbean Sea, and leading to that world's gateway of com- 
 merce and travel at Panama. It was auspicious and appro- 
 priate, too, that the departure of the mission should have 
 been effected under a sunny sky and upon a smooth sea, 
 and that similar conditions, to an extent seldom experienced 
 in these capricious regions, should have accompanied it all 
 the way. The "stormy Caribbean" was, to the Columbia and 
 the Dolphin, as calm and placid as the devotions of a uni- 
 versal peace congress. 
 
 The reception of Secretary Taft and his party at Panama 
 by the Panaman Government and people was unmistakably 
 marked with cordiality and friendly expectation. There 
 
PANAMAN EXPECTATIONS 259 
 
 seemed to be none of the extravagant illusion which had been 
 cherished ; or which the Panamans had been reported to cher- 
 ish. The Panamans were not looking for any radical 
 reversal of American policy. Indeed, some things had re- 
 cently happened which were well calculated to dispel such 
 visions, if they had ever been cherished. General Huertas 
 had made, only a short time before, his fatuous attempt at 
 what would have been a revolution, and had been effectively 
 suppressed through the good offices of the United States ; and 
 that episode had given much food for thought for all thought- 
 ful men in Panama. More than anything else, since the 
 revolution of a year before, it revealed with convincing 
 emphasis the purpose of the United States to stand firm for 
 both its rights and its duties under the existing treaty, to 
 respect and to maintain the independence of the Isthmian 
 republic, but equally to maintain, whenever necessary, the 
 constitutional order of that country. The conduct of the 
 United States in that crisis had, on the one hand, reassured 
 the Panaman Government and had inspired it with feelings 
 of confidence and gratitude, and had, on the other hand, 
 given a stern but salutary and effective lesson of warning 
 to whatever discordant and revolutionary elements there 
 might be in the community. From such point of view we 
 might almost say it was a good thing that the abortive con- 
 spiracy had occurred. There can be no doubt that because 
 of it and its firm suppression the fulfilment of Secretary 
 Taft's mission was materially facilitated through the for- 
 mation in the minds of the Panamans of a more just and 
 accurate appreciation of the United States and of its rela- 
 tions to Isthmian affairs. 
 
 Secretary Taft did not delay to sound what we may call 
 the dual keynote of his mission : to wit, that justice should 
 be done to Panama, and that, in return, justice, order, and 
 stability would be required of Panama. It was at noon of 
 Sunday, November 27, that he reached the city of Panama, 
 and an hour or two later he was received by President Ama- 
 dor at the Government House. In his address to the Presi- 
 
260 A MISSION OF EEADJUSTMENT 
 
 dent, the Secretary congratulated him and the Republic of 
 Panama upon the auspicious beginning of a long and pros- 
 perous life, and — most significantly — upon the fact that 
 "this life is to be a peaceable life, to be a life of government 
 that shall know no changes, except those according to the 
 rules of law and the Constitution." There should have been 
 no uncertainty or mistake as to the purport of those words. 
 There was none. They were received in the spirit in which 
 they were uttered, and no less graciously and gratefully 
 than was the further declaration of the speaker, that the 
 United States "has no intention, in being on this Isthmus, 
 to do other than to build a canal, and no desire to exercise 
 any power except that which it deems necessary under the 
 treaty to insure the building, maintenance, and protection of 
 the canal." That brief but pregnant speech was applauded 
 with equal vigor and sincerity by Americans and Pana- 
 mans, and was a happy prelude to the diplomatic negotia- 
 tions which began the next day and which were continued 
 until the end of the week. 
 
 The conferences were held in private, as was fitting. Town- 
 meeting diplomacy is never admirable. Least of all would 
 it have been well to attempt it between two nations — such as 
 these — of widely different temperaments. Each of them was 
 proud and sensitive in its own peculiar way, and when, 
 as in this case, the susceptibilities of each were directly and 
 deeply involved, it was essential that the negotiations should 
 not, during their progress, be the theme of common knowl- 
 edge and of more or less passionate popular discussion. The 
 public was ignorant of what was going on, lacking even 
 those newspaper surmises and rumours which would have 
 been an inevitable accompaniment of such conferences in 
 the United States. There was also a marked absence of 
 popular speculation upon the result. That was not, how- 
 ever, because of any lack of interest, but rather because of 
 a serene confidence in the wisdom and justice of the confer- 
 rees and an assurance that in the end a satisfactory arrange- 
 ment would be reached. As day after day passed without 
 
A VEKY FKANK TALK 261 
 
 announcement of such a conclusion there was no anxiety nor 
 impatience manifested. Panamans are not given to worry- 
 ing or hurrying. The end might come on the morrow, or 
 not until the next week. What did that matter? It was 
 sure to come and to be good when it did come. 
 
 The first certain intimation that it was near at hand came 
 from Secretary Taft himself. It was made in his speech at a 
 great banquet given to him and his party by the Panaman 
 Government at the Grand Central Hotel, on Thursday even- 
 ing, December 1 — a banquet, by the way, which, in its 
 appointments and general conduct, was highly enjoyable, 
 and would have been creditable to a city of greater size 
 and more opulent resources than Panama. There was much 
 applause when, at the very beginning of his speech, he said 
 that justice had not been done to the people and to the 
 country of Panama, and again when he referred directly to 
 the negotiations as having led to a point at which there was 
 every reason to expect a solution of all difficulties which 
 would be honourable to both countries alike. There was no 
 hint of any retrocession, or even of consideration of retro- 
 cession, from the existing treaty. But the Panamans greeted 
 his declaration with applause which bore no resemblance 
 to mere perfunctoriness. Nor was that all. Again the Sec- 
 retary referred, in even stronger terms than before, to the 
 imperative necessity of ordered and stable government and 
 to cessation from revolutionary movements. ^'Stability of 
 government," he said, ''is absolutely impossible unless there 
 is implanted in the breasts of all your people who take part 
 in the government as voters a profound respect for the laws 
 and constitution which you yourselves have founded." At 
 that there was again applause. The Secretary continued : 
 
 "You must have a government in which the minority shall 
 enjoy equal rights with the majority. A government in 
 which the minority, upon the election by the majority, re- 
 tires from the borders of the country in exile, only to await 
 the result of the next successful revolution, is not a govern- 
 ment at all. It is a tyranny. You can have a despotism as 
 
262 A MISSION OF READJUSTMENT 
 
 complete by a majority of the people as by one man, and 
 unless you respect the rights of each individual in your com- 
 munity you will have no government v^orth the supporting." 
 
 That was plain talk. I do no injustice to Panama when I 
 say — in view of the experience of neighbouring South and 
 Central American states, and in view of the then recent 
 incident in Panama itself — that it was salutary talk. Best 
 of all, it was not unwelcome talk, but it was applauded and 
 cheered three times in the last four sentences which I have 
 quoted, with as much spontaneity and manifest earnestness 
 of approval as were shown for the vehement and torrential 
 eloquence of the First Designate, Pablo Arosemena, which 
 preceded it, or to the rhetorical periods of Belisario Porras, 
 the opposition leader, which followed it. Additional and 
 very practical emphasis was given to this same point by 
 William Nelson Cromwell — of all men persona gratissima in 
 Panama — when in his tactful speech at the same banquet he 
 referred to the perfect security which New York afforded to 
 the 16,000,000 which Panama had invested there, and then 
 demanded that in return Panama should give equal security 
 to the 1300,000,000 which the United States proposed to 
 Invest in the Isthmian canal. 
 
 It will be worth while to recall, as a matter of record and 
 as an indication of the spirit of the Panamans, a part of the 
 speech of Dr. Arosemena, already referred to; bearing in 
 mind that while he was First Designate of the Republic he 
 was also one of the foremost leaders of the Liberal party, 
 in opposition to the government of President Amador. He 
 said: 
 
 "In the speech delivered by our distinguished guest when 
 he was received by the President of the Republic in solemn 
 audience, he stated that our National Life had to be pacific ; 
 the life of a government in which only the anticipated 
 changes in the Constitution will occur; he affirmed that in 
 said existence we should have the aid of the United States 
 and that the Government of those States only desired to 
 construct an interoceanic canal for the benefit of the uni- 
 
PANAMAN GOOD INTENTIONS 263 
 
 verse; that it would only exercise on the Isthmus the 
 authority necessary to carry the work to an end, maintain, 
 and protect it. In conclusion he manifested that he, within 
 a short time, would hold conferences with the President 
 regarding these affairs, and hoped to arrive at honourable 
 and equitable conclusions. I think it superfluous to say that 
 the declarations of the Secretary of War — frank and true — 
 have given us consummate satisfaction. He is an ambassa- 
 dor who brings in the folds of his mantle conciliation with 
 honour and equity. 
 
 ^'Referring to those declarations, I affirm, with the cer- 
 tainty of being the true echo of the Isthmian people, that 
 in the Republic of Panama only those changes that are 
 determined by the natural course of events shall occur. We 
 have definitely closed the period of blood — so prolonged and 
 so distressing — and opened the era of peace that requires 
 the consolidation and prosperity of the Republic. 
 
 "We must justify the achievement of independence — so 
 grave and transcendental — and that end can only be reached 
 by basing peace on law, which is justice, and preserving 
 order, which is liberty and civilisation. We will discuss, 
 but let us not quarrel. The recourse to arms so costly and 
 fruitless shall not be made by either party of the young 
 nation which came into existence the Third of November of 
 1903. Instead of the weapon that kills, we shall employ the 
 word that enlivens; instead of the sword, the press, the 
 tribune, and suffrage. We shall render to reason the efforts 
 that we have given to force, and we shall strive to win, not 
 the victories of the bloody battle, but the triumphs of peace, 
 legitimate and fruitful, that do not leave in our conscience 
 the thorn of remorse. 
 
 "We have not, it is true, the means of being on the morrow 
 rich and powerful ; but we have of being sound and honest, 
 and of meriting the respect and esteem of other peoples, 
 practising without vacillations the policy of honesty, which 
 is the best policy. That policy is condensed in these words : 
 — in the interior, the Constitution; and in the exterior, 
 religious respect for international agreements." 
 
 It was thus made known at this memorable banquet that 
 the agreement was in sight and was practically assured, and 
 that it was an honourable, just, and mutually satisfactory 
 agreement. On Saturday evening, at the smaller dinner 
 given to Secretary Taft at the American Legation, it was 
 
264 A MISSION OF EEADJUSTMENT 
 
 known that the agreement had actually been concluded and 
 that an executive order putting it into effect had been issued. 
 A delightful interlude occurred on Sunday, in the form of 
 an excursion to the Pearl Islands, given by the Panaman 
 Government to the American visitors and two or three hun- 
 dred representative Panamans, upon which there was little 
 talk of anything so serious as politics or diplomacy, though 
 it became generally known that the business of the mission 
 was, in Yankee parlance, "all over except the shouting." 
 
 We returned from the Pearl Islands on Sunday evening to 
 find a newspaper "extra" had been printed for gratuitous 
 distribution, giving the full text of the executive order. ( See 
 Appendix X.) And then on Monday night, December 5, 
 came the shouting! By word of mouth and by placards 
 posted all over the city the people of Panama were sum- 
 moned to the Cathedral Plaza to pay a tribute of respect to 
 Secretary Taft. They came. Estimates of their number 
 vary. But they filled nearly all the space from the Canal 
 Building, at the one end, to the Bishop's palace, at the 
 other, and from the Grand Central Hotel, on the one side, to 
 the Cathedral, on the other. The aristocracy and the rabble, 
 rich and poor, white and black, Conservative and Liberal, 
 were all there. Upon the decorated and illuminated balcony 
 of the hotel were the President and other high officials of 
 the Republic, Secretary Taft and his party, and various repre- 
 sentative men and women of Panama. A brief introduction 
 was given by the popular Alcalde, who had held office ten 
 years and was a candidate for ten years more, and seemed 
 likely to get them. Then Dr. Pablo Arosemena roused the 
 enthusiasm of the throng with another of his passionate 
 orations, in which the words flowed so swiftly that even the 
 trained Panaman ear was taxed to catch them all. 
 
 Finally Secretary Taft arose, his stalwart figure dominat- 
 ing the whole scene and his resonant voice reaching to the 
 farthest confines of the square. It was his last speech to 
 the people of Panama, and his best. Particularly was it the 
 most forcible of all upon the point to which I have most 
 
THE END OF THE EPISODE 265 
 
 referred, the necessity for orderly, constitutional govern- 
 ment in the new Republic. Speaking in the very place in 
 which the revolutionary junta of thirteen months before had 
 been organised, he began his address by congratulating the 
 people upon the facts that that junta did not establish a dic- 
 tatorship, but opened the way to a constitutional government, 
 elected by the people, and that in electing that government 
 the people chose not soldiers but civilians as its members. 
 "In a republic, and in a peaceful republic," he said, "the 
 army must always be the instrument of the civil power. 
 . . . and you have, therefore, indicated that you do not 
 propose that this community shall be governed by the sword, 
 but by reason and by law." 
 
 I know not whether that was meant to be, what to many 
 it seemed, a bold reference to the Huertas episode. I have 
 little doubt that many, if not all, of the Panamans regarded 
 it as such, and there had been rumours earlier in the day 
 that the friends of General Huertas meant to disturb the 
 meeting with a hostile counter-demonstration. What I 
 know is that not a hand nor a voice was raised in hostile 
 demonstration, but the words I have quoted were acclaimed 
 with a universal frenzy of enthusiasm, until the fronds of 
 the towering palms and the gray facade of. the old Cathedral 
 seemed to vibrate together with its tumultuous stress. There 
 was a like outburst of applause at the straightforward and 
 manly acknowledgment that a mistake had been made — 
 which had now been rectified — in the executive order apply- 
 ing the Dingley tariff to the Canal Zone against the rest of 
 the territory of Panama, a mistake for which the speaker did 
 not hesitate to assume responsibility. And, finally, for the 
 third time, "the cheering rose with a mighty swell" to a 
 supreme climax of enthusiasm when the Secretary ended 
 his speech with the vibrant cry of '^Yiva la Republica de 
 Panama r 
 
 That was the end. The business was done, and even the 
 shouting was over. If it be asked what had been accom- 
 plished, the answer is, much. The new agreement was not 
 
266 A MISSION OF KEAD J USTMENT 
 
 a treaty, nor a revision or modification of the Hay-Bunau- 
 Varilla Treaty, which remained intact. It was an agreement 
 relating to some details of interpretation of the treaty, 
 chiefly concerning customs and postal service, put into 
 effect by an executive order of the American Government. 
 But there was something more important than even that 
 executive order; that was, the impression produced upon 
 the government and people of Panama and the sentiments 
 and relations established between the two countries. I have 
 said Secretary Taft and his party were received with cordial- 
 ity and with confidence, and that is quite true. It is equally 
 true that before he was commissioned to go thither there 
 were widespread feelings of suspicion of American motives 
 and purposes and a discontent with American relations. 
 Those feelings were doubtless unfounded, or were founded 
 upon misapprehension, misunderstanding, and misrepresen- 
 tation; the last, I am afraid, too often wilful: Men in the 
 United States, as well as in Panama, for factional, sordid, 
 or other unworthy motives, had maligned the American Gov- 
 ernment and had represented it as seeking not merely to 
 construct a canal but to plant a colony and to achieve a 
 forcible conquest. Those tales were false, but how were the 
 Panamans to be assured of the truth? 
 
 There was only one way, and it was wisely and oppor- 
 tunely adopted by President Roosevelt in sending Secretary 
 Taft upon this mission of explanation and reassurance. The 
 mere announcement of that appointment effected a marked 
 change. The Panamans were quickly convinced that the 
 policy of the United States was one of reason and justice, 
 and not of arrogance and force. This conviction was 
 strengthened by the attitude of the American authorities 
 in the Huertas episode, for, while there were those who 
 wildly declared that the retirement of General Huertas and 
 the disbanding of the Panaman army would be quickly fol- 
 lowed by American conquest and annexation, and that the 
 American Government was intriguing to that end, most 
 men of thought and discretion realised the absurdity of such 
 
PANAMAN SENTIMENTS 267 
 
 views. They saw that if the United States were bent upon 
 the conquest of Panama, General Huertas and his 250 sol- 
 diers would be scarcely so much as a straw in the way. More 
 than that, however, they saw that the United States was 
 aiming at the support, and not the suppression, of Panaman 
 independence, and they presently testified, as did President 
 Amador himself, that American intervention, or the promise 
 of it, was not the spoliation but the strengthening, not the 
 destruction but the salvation, of the young Republic. 
 
 There were, I remember, some reports extant in the 
 United States that the news of President Roosevelt's 
 reelection had not produced a favourable impression in Pan- 
 ama. They were entirely untrue. The fact is that the news 
 of the result of the election was received there — not only by 
 Americans but by the Panamans — with enthusiastic and 
 practically universal rejoicing. The American Legation was 
 literally overwhelmed by the multitude who thronged thither 
 to express in person their congratulations and their joy, 
 while the city was given up to music, fireworks, parades, and 
 speechmaking. This was the more significant, coming, as it 
 did, upon the very heels of the Huertas incident. Panamans 
 saw that the Roosevelt administration had saved their repub- 
 lic from revolution and was sending a distinguished mission 
 to assure it of justice. Why should they not exult in the 
 retention of that administration in power? Thus favourably 
 disposed were the Panamans toward Secretary Taft upon his 
 arrival. His every word and act during his stay confirmed 
 them in that disposition. Finally, the terms of the execu- 
 tive order issued by him as the result of the conferences 
 between him and President Amador vindicated their confi- 
 dence and satisfied their expectations. Before he came and 
 before that order was issued they did not know how the 
 United States would execute the canal treaty. After that, 
 they did know, and they were well pleased. It is not too 
 much to say that 90 per cent, of the intelligent people of 
 Panama were not only satisfied, but profoundly gratified 
 with the result of Secretary Taft's mission. 
 
268 A MISSION OF KEADJUSTMENT 
 
 Thus the differences between the United States and Pan- 
 ama were settled. Will they remain settled? Prophecies are 
 rash. We must remember the temptations and the oppor- 
 tunities of party politics. In the United States we have, in 
 all ages of the Kepublic, seen men unworthily ready and eager 
 to compromise oyr foreign relations for the sake of factional 
 advantages in domestic affairs. We cannot expect Panamans 
 to be better in that respect than we. The relations of the 
 Isthmian republic with the United States afford an easy 
 issue of factional dissension, and it is possible that they will 
 be thus used. Time, however, is on our side, and on the 
 side of the existing status. Every month that passes will 
 reveal more clearly to the Panamans the hollowness of their 
 fears and suspicions and the substantial reality of the ben- 
 efits arising from their connections with the United States. 
 It has been said of some communities that they did not care 
 for and did not appreciate the sanitary and other improve- 
 ments introduced by American administrators. That must 
 not be said of Panama. The people realised their need of a 
 water-supply, of a sewer system, of better paved and cleaner 
 streets, and of the other works which American administra- 
 tors have now performed or upon which they are now en- 
 gaged. They wanted these things. They appreciate them, 
 and their enjoyment of them will confirm their approval of 
 and adherence to the compact under which they have been 
 provided. If to these things we add the consideration and 
 the sympathy which are the due of each nation to and from 
 each other, if we keep it continually clear to the Panaman 
 mind that we are building a canal and not a colony, a high- 
 way of commerce and not a wall of exclusion, it will not be 
 difficult to maintain the relations of mutual confidence and 
 mutual benefit which so happily were established. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 Although auspiciously begun, the career of the Isthmian 
 republic was not destined to be one of unmarred harmony. 
 Within its first year there arose the two serious crises in 
 its affairs which I have already described; one of them an 
 attempt at military revolution and the other a controversy 
 with the United States. There also came a deplorable rise 
 or revival of partisanship and factional animosities in the 
 Republic. At first these were held in abeyance, and were 
 vainly supposed by some to have been extinguished. The 
 stress of the revolution and the fervour of patriotic enthu- 
 siasm moved men to sink all party differences, and, as I have 
 said, the composition of the government and the design of 
 the flag indicated a union of hearts and minds. That era of 
 harmony did not long endure, however; nor was it reasona- 
 bly to be supposed it would. ^'Coelum, non animum, mutant, 
 qui trans mare curruntJ' How little do they change their 
 minds, then, who do not even cross the sea and change their 
 scene, but merely pull down one flag and raise another in 
 its place! The people of Panama had for years been sub- 
 ject to the partisan passions which were so marked a fea- 
 ture of Colombian political life. It was simply impossible 
 that they should be intellectually, morally, and spiritually 
 transformed by the act of establishing their independence. 
 A revolution could be effected in a day. Complete conver- 
 sion of national character would be a matter of years or 
 generations, if, indeed, it were ever effected. Nor should 
 we, the proud, impute to them the fault. Note our own 
 experience. Even in the throes of our Revolution, partisan 
 rivalries and animosities were implacable, savage, and mis- 
 chievous, and with the return of peace and the complete 
 
270 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 establishment of independence they rose and raged with a 
 fury unsurpassed in the history of hatreds. 
 
 Special reasons for this were not lacking in Panama. 
 There was, for one, the customary ambition of political 
 leaders, and especially of those who at first had made the 
 mistake of taking the wrong side. Let me mention a single 
 example, perhaps the most conspicuous. Dr. Belisario Por- 
 ras, of whom I have already spoken, was a native of the. 
 Isthmus, and a lawj^er of ability and standing, who had long 
 been ambitious of political distinction and had been identi- 
 fied with several revolutionary movements. In July, 1900, 
 he was one of the three Liberals who, under General Herrera, 
 led the revolutionary forces to Panama, besieged that city 
 for a time, and inflicted heavy losses upon its defenders. 
 Soon after that incident, however, the Liberal cause col- 
 lapsed, and Dr. Porras thereafter spent much of his time out 
 of the country. At the occurrence of the final revolution of 
 1903 he was in Central America, and though notified of what 
 was going on, and strongly urged to return home and aid 
 in the establishment of Panaman independence, he refused 
 to do so. On the contrary, he opposed the revolution, and 
 denounced the separation from Colombia as a violation of 
 ''sacred patriotism." He wrote a number of letters to the 
 press to that effect, and especially showed distrust of and 
 animosity against the United States. It is not improbable, 
 indeed, that his opposition to the revolution was based, half 
 upon the fact that the new republic was to enter into close 
 relations with the United States, and half upon the prom- 
 inence which Dr. Amador and other Conservatives had in 
 the movement. 
 
 In time, however. Dr. Porras perceived that despite his 
 opposition the revolution had been successfully effected. 
 Thereupon he accepted the accomplished fact, returned to 
 Panama, and became one of the chief leaders of the Liberal 
 party. In that capacity he showed more hostility toward 
 the administration of President Amador than did any of 
 his colleagues, and was regarded as the most strenuous spirit 
 
DR. BELISAEIO PORRAS 271 
 
 in the whole Opposition — for despite the fact that the gov- 
 ernment was formed by a coalition of Conservatives and 
 Liberals, the more extreme Liberals soon formed themselves 
 into what was virtually an opposition party. The govern- 
 ment seems to have done its utmost to placate Dr. Porras. 
 It made him a member of its Law Committee, and sanctioned 
 his election as President of the Municipal Council of Pan- 
 ama. He was, however, implacable in his opposition to 
 Conservative policies, and thus became more and more 
 persona non grata to the government. Finally, in 1905, his 
 citizenship was impeached. It was pointed out that under 
 Article 7 of the Constitution citizenship in Panama was 
 forfeited by "being born a Panaman and not accepting the 
 movement for independence of the Nation," and it was 
 argued that by his opposition to the revolution he had in- 
 curred this penalty. True, he had afterward repented of 
 his opposition and had accepted the new order of affairs, and 
 so the penalty might properly be remitted. But the same 
 article of the Constitution also provided that "nationality 
 can only be regained by an Act of the National Assembly." 
 Therefore, it was argued, he was not and could not be a citi- 
 zen until his citizenship had been restored to him by legisla- 
 tive enactment, and that, of course, could not be done until 
 the National Assembly should be elected in July, 1906, and 
 should meet in September of that year. 
 
 All this was vigorously contested by Dr. Porras and his 
 friends, and the point was raised with some logical force 
 that by accepting him as a member of its Law Committee 
 and as President of the Municipal Council of Panama, the 
 government had virtually recognised him as a citizen. The 
 case was finally submitted to the Supreme Court of the 
 Republic, and it, on November 15, 1905, rendered its decision 
 against Dr. Porras, the conclusion of its detailed review of 
 the case being as follows: 
 
 "In view of all hereinbefore expressed and adjudicated, 
 the Court, administering justice in the name of the Republic 
 
272 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 of Panama and by authority of the law, decides: That Doc- 
 tor Belisario Porras has forfeited the right to be a Pan- 
 amanian citizen which is conceded by Article 6 of the Con- 
 stitution, in virtue of the provision made in paragraph three 
 of Article 7 of the same document, a right which he has 
 not recovered by not having solicited rehabilitation through 
 the National Assembly." 
 
 This decision was fiercely resented by Dr. Porras and his 
 friends, and some deplorable utterances were made in the 
 press and at public meetings. Not only was the action 
 against him described as "malicious persecution," but the 
 Courtis decision was denounced in savage terms. Thus the 
 Diario de Panama — the organ of the Liberal party, con- 
 trolled by Dr. Arosemena, First Designate of the Republic, 
 said: 
 
 "To the lasting disgrace and eternal shame of this new 
 Republic, and the absolute discredit of its institutions, the 
 Supreme Court of Justice, composed of Judges Fabrega, 
 Guardia, Lombardi, and Villareal — the fifth judge, Benites, 
 withholding his vote — has finally handed down the infamous 
 decision, steeped in political rancour and inspired by per- 
 sonal hatred, which declares Dr. Belisario Porras an alien to 
 his native soil." 
 
 A great mass meeting of the Liberal party was held in 
 Santa Anna Park, in Panama, to express disapproval of 
 the court's decision and sympathy with Dr. Porras, at which 
 impassioned addresses were made by Dr. Arosemena and Dr. 
 Mendoza, the First and Third Designates of the Republic, 
 condemning the decision of the court and the action of the 
 government in pressing the case against Dr. Porras. 
 
 The reply of the government party was, logically, that the 
 decision of the Court ought to be respected, and that relief 
 should be sought through appeal to the National Assembly to 
 restore Dr. Porras to citizenship as provided by the Con- 
 stitution. The Liberal retort was to express lack of confi- 
 dence in the National Assembly as it was to be constituted, 
 on the ground that the government was preparing to carry 
 
APPEAL TO THE UNITED STATES 2V3 
 
 the elections, which would occur in July, 1906, by force or 
 fraud. So strenuous were they in this contention that they 
 actually made appeal to the United States Government con- 
 cerning it, asking whether it proposed to countenance gov- 
 ernment control of the elections. This appeal was addressed 
 to William H. Taft, the United States Secretary of War, on 
 November 7, 1905, at which time he was visiting the Isthmus. 
 On that day Secretary Taft was visited by Dr. Arosemena, 
 First Designate of the Republic ; Belisario Porras, President 
 of the Municipal Council of the city of Panama; General 
 Domingo Diaz, Eusebio A. Morales, and F. Filos, compos- 
 ing the National Directorate of the Liberal party of Panama. 
 They laid before him an elaborate document signed by them- 
 selves, which reviewed the relations of the United States to 
 Panama and the protectorate of the former over the latter; 
 arraigned the Panaman Government for all manner of force 
 and fraud, both past and prospective ; and then demanded to 
 know what the United States proposed to do about it. Their 
 memorial ran in part as follows : 
 
 "The Diplomatic correspondence which, toward the end of 
 1903, was exchanged in Washington between Secretary Hay 
 and General Rafael Reyes, Envoy Extraordinary of Colom- 
 bia, on account of the attitude assumed by the Government 
 of the United States with regard to the separation of the 
 Department of Panama and its transformation into an inde- 
 pendent republic, demonstrates that the American Govern- 
 ment considered itself bound to maintain the established 
 order of things and to prevent that interoceanic traffic 
 should be suspended or impeded by military operations, 
 which might convert the territory of the Isthmus into a 
 battlefield. . . . 
 
 "The treaty, celebrated on November 18 of that year 
 [1903], contains the above doctrine, although in a more con- 
 crete form. The United States thereby guarantee the sover- 
 eignty and independence of Panama. This treaty, whose 
 principal object is to facilitate the construction of a canal 
 across the Isthmus, was also bound to make provision for 
 the preservation of public order, so that the universal traffic 
 might not suffer disturbances; and, in fact, this faculty was 
 
274 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 not allotted to the United States, as shown in the latter 
 part of Article 7 of said treaty. . . . 
 
 ^'Public order in a country is the harmonious working of 
 its institutions; it is the normal state which results from 
 the respect shown by the government to the individual rights 
 of the people and from the submission of the latter to the 
 existing laws. A government which violates the constitution 
 or the laws, which attacks or ignores the rights of the citi- 
 zens, or which, in any manner, directly or indirectly, favours 
 or tolerates such violation on the part of unscrupulous 
 underlings, is not within the bounds of constitutional order. 
 If, therefore, to-morrow, it should happen that a government 
 should violate in a flagrant manner the free suffrage, is this, 
 or is it not, an act which constitutes an infraction against 
 lawful and constitutional order? Should, in the opinion of 
 the illustrious Government of the United States, the viola- 
 tion of free suffrage on the part of the Panama Government 
 not be considered an attempt against constitutional order, 
 what remedy remains there for the people of the Isthmus to 
 protect their rights and to prevent usurpation of their 
 sovereignty? 
 
 ''The present government of the country was formed most 
 auspiciously, with a Cabinet composed of members of both 
 political parties, but since then the Liberal members of the 
 Cabinet have joined the ranks of the other party, so that 
 the government to-day is solely in the hands of the Conserva- 
 tives. Following Colombian customs, the government is get- 
 ting itself in readiness to take a hand in the coming elections 
 for Congressmen, and through agents and its own employees 
 it is circulating in the towns of the interior the threat that 
 it will stop at nothing and spare no means in order to gain 
 the elections; that it has the support of the United States; 
 and that it will, if necessary, use high-handed means and 
 force in order to attain its ends. On the other hand, it has 
 also given notice that if the people of Panama should resist 
 this usurpation, American troops will come to maintain 
 order and to shoot them down without mercy. 
 
 "Thus the government wants to place the people of Pan- 
 ama before an alternative: Either they permit the coming 
 elections to be a farce, or they offer resistance and thus pro- 
 voke the intervention of the United States to maintain order. 
 
 "We represent the Liberal party, which has an overwhelm- 
 ing majority all through the country, and as its leaders, 
 we deem the time opportune to state to the Government 
 
INFOKMATION DESIKED 275 
 
 which your excellency represents that we do not approve of 
 the recourse to arms as a remedy for political wrongs; but 
 still less do we approve of that system of violation of free 
 suffrage which it is intended to impose upon us, invoking 
 the support of the great American nation for this purpose. 
 
 ^^Already in the last elections, held on December 16, last, 
 which were only of minor importance, we realised to what 
 lengths the agents of the government would go. There are 
 fifty-five precincts in the republic. In some of them no vote 
 was cast because the mayors (alcaldes) prevented the 
 notices of the appointment of election judges from reaching 
 their destination; in others the Liberals were attacked, and 
 shot at to prevent them from casting their ballots ; in others 
 the lists of voters were altered on the night preceding the 
 elections, and the names of the Liberals were stricken out 
 therefrom; in others, the people of the rural districts were 
 intimidated by the police and forced to cast a vote contrary 
 to their convictions. . . . 
 
 "If the agents of the government made use of all kinds 
 of artifices, deceits, violence, and frauds in order to triumph 
 or to undo our triumph in municipal elections in which only 
 minor interests were at stake, what would they not be capa- 
 ble of doing when it comes to the election of Congressmen 
 to the National Assembly — the only body that has the power 
 to pass upon the acts of the ruling government? . . . 
 
 "The several questions which we hereby present to your 
 excellency may be summarised as follows: 
 
 "First — Does the American Government guarantee public 
 order and constitutional succession in office in this republic? 
 
 "Second — Is a government which violates constitution and 
 laws, and attacks the first right of the citizen — the right 
 of free suffrage — within the pale of such a protection? 
 
 "Third — Granted the possibility, and to us it is an abso- 
 lute certainty, that in the coming elections all manner of 
 outrages will be committed against the people, will the gov- 
 ernment of the United States look on with indifference at 
 the spectacle of a defenceless people being cast on the 
 mercy of those who trample on their rights? 
 
 "Fourth — Will it not be preferable for the United States 
 to adopt, in time, such a course as would prevent their 
 appearing before the eyes of the world as the champions of 
 abuse and oppression? 
 
 "The directorate of the Liberal party request your excel- 
 lency to favour them with a frank answer to these questions, 
 
276 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 and beg respectfully to point out that a reply expressing 
 the repugnance of the United States to meddle in the inter- 
 nal affairs of a friendly nation could not be considered by 
 us in the light of an answer, since our Constitution confers 
 upon your government the right to intervene for purposes of 
 maintaining constitutional order, and if such faculty is 
 given to avoid the evils of war it is natural that it also 
 should be used to suppress the causes which, even contrary 
 to our wishes, might produce them." 
 
 The casual reader of this manifesto might think matters 
 in Panama were in a desperate plight. But much allowance 
 must be made for two things. One is, the heat of partisan 
 passions, which, as we well know, even in the United States 
 often leads, in political "campaign documents," to gross ex- 
 aggerations. To "point with pride" to their own party, and 
 to "view with alarm" the doings of the other party, are the 
 stock-in-trade of political "spellbinders" and platform-mak- 
 ers, and their vision is often monstrously distorted, and is 
 had through glasses of couleur de rose or of jaundiced yel- 
 low. There is no reason to suppose the politicians of Pan- 
 ama were or are exceptions to this rule. The other thing to 
 be remembered is, that the Latin races everywhere, and most 
 of all in the tropics, are given to a vivacity of imagination 
 and to a florid exuberance of speech to which the Anglo-Sax- 
 ons and Teutons of the north are strangers. The extremes of 
 speech in this memorial must, therefore, be largely dis- 
 counted. When a Spaniard tells you that his house and all 
 it contains are yours, he means no more than an American 
 does when he invites you to come in and make yourself at 
 home. So this memorial really indicated nothing more than 
 many a party platform in the United States has meant, and 
 portrayed a situation no more alarming. 
 
 Concerning the complaint made by the Liberals, that the 
 Government, originally representative of both parties, had 
 become exclusively Conservative, the following reply was 
 made by F. V. de la Espriella, a member of the Cabinet of 
 President Amador: 
 
A GOVEKNMENT REJOINDEK 277 
 
 "The waters of Lethe have, without doubt, bathed the brow 
 of Dr. Arosemena, when he fails to recall the fact, that the 
 President of the Republic tendered him a Legation of the 
 first-class in Europe, which he did not accept; and that, 
 later, he was offered an elevated position as Attorney- 
 General in the Government, which he also refused; that. 
 Doctors Patinq and Morales were offered cabinet positions 
 and both declined them, and that, later, Morales was made a 
 member of the Fiscal Commission sent to the United States 
 to place the |6,000,000 gold invested by Panama in different 
 American securities, where he was occupied several months, 
 being also employed, under additional salary, as Legal 
 Adviser of the Panama Legation at Washington ; and, that, 
 upon his return here, he was named Attorney-General — a 
 position which he decorously resigned two or three days 
 after he had accepted it, on account of the appearance in a 
 local paper of an article by him attacking the Judiciary. 
 Also, that when Dr. Porras returned to the Isthmus, he was 
 courteously and benevolently received in official circles and 
 tendered an appointment to codify the laws of the Republic, 
 at a salary then exceeding that received by members of the 
 Cabinet, and which he afterwards declined for reasons until 
 now unknown to me. As to General Domingo Diaz, the 
 President assures me that, when assuming office, he offered 
 to leave him in the same place that he held at that time; 
 but Diaz declined, stating that while Mr. Tomas Arias was 
 Secretary of Government he could accept nothing from the 
 Administration. Thus, all persons prominent in the Liberal 
 Directorate have been requested to cooperate in the Govern- 
 ment. If they have refused to do so, it is not the fault of 
 the Government. Indeed, even the Secretary of the Director- 
 ate, who will probably, we believe, hesitate to abandon his 
 law office for an official post of any kind, was distinguished 
 by an appointment as Second Judge-Advocate-General of 
 the Republic. I do not recall at this moment whether, 
 besides the gentlemen aforementioned, there exists in the 
 opposition Liberal Party another personage of the prom- 
 inence of Dr. Carlos A. Mendoza, who was appointed a 
 Magistrate of the Supreme Court, but declined to serve. 
 The foregoing statement, to which I now give publicity, 
 brings out absolute facts — truths that cannot be questioned 
 or denied. 
 
 "The Government has no other means within its reach by 
 which to demonstrate its impartial character and concilia- 
 
278 ISTHMIAN POLITICS 
 
 tory spirit than to tender positions to gentlemen of the oppo- 
 sition party. If these reject its overtures for concord why, 
 then, complain?" 
 
 Secretary Taft received the Liberals' memorial with his 
 accustomed suavity and discretion, and according to request, 
 communicated it to President Amador and, on his return to 
 Washington, to President Eoosevelt. It called for no spe- 
 cific action by our Government, and was followed by none; 
 though perhaps it led to an added manifestation of the 
 desire and determination of the United States that the Isth- 
 mian Government shall be conducted in a just and orderly 
 manner. 
 
 Still another effort was made by the Liberal leaders to 
 secure the intervention of the United States in the Panaman 
 election. Early in June, 1906, four of them visited Wash- 
 ington for the purpose of laying their case before the Presi- 
 dent in person. These were Dr. Pablo Arosemena, Dr. 
 Belisario Porras, General Domingo Diaz, and Senor Euse- 
 bio A. Morales. They were courteously received, and they 
 discussed the Isthmian situation fully with Secretary Taft 
 and Secretary Root. Their first proposition was that the 
 United States should send agents to supervise the Panaman 
 elections. This, it was pointed out to them, the United 
 States had no right to do, unless at the formal request of 
 the Panaman Government. As an alternative, they then 
 suggested that a confidential agent should be sent, who 
 should carefully observe the electoral practices of the Isth- 
 mian Government and report upon them to Washington. 
 To this the Secretary of State, Mr. Root, made the adroit 
 and conclusive reply, that the United States already had a 
 particularly competent and observant confidential agent at 
 Panama, in the person of the American Minister, Mr. Ma- 
 goon, to whose reports upon the election, as well as upon all 
 matters, it would pay attention, and who would, if a fitting 
 opportunity arose, make such representations to the Pana- 
 man Government as would comport with diplomatic usage. 
 
KEEPING THE PEACE 279 
 
 That was the American Government's last word upon the 
 subject. Mr. Magoon at Panama, however, continued to 
 exert his very considerable personal influence in favour of 
 justice and order at the elections, with gratifying results. 
 On June 24 municipal elections were held in the cities, and 
 save for one or two drunken brawls, in which two lives were 
 lost and several men were injured, order prevailed. A week 
 later, on July 1, the elections for members of the National 
 Assembly were held. In order to avoid any repetition of the 
 affrays of the week before, the government forbade the sale 
 of intoxicants on that day. Consequently, profound peace 
 prevailed. Moreover, Mr. Magoon persuaded the two rival 
 parties to unite in the province of Panama, on a coalition 
 ticket. The government party was generally successful, 
 though Pablo Arosemena and Eusebio A. Morales were 
 elected on the coalition ticket, and the result was accepted 
 as honestly attained. The first National Assembly, elected 
 on July 1, met on September 1, as provided in the Constitu- 
 tion, and elected Domingo de Obaldia, Federico Boyd, and 
 Domingo Diaz, to be respectively First, Second, and Third 
 Designates. Thus the menaces of disorder were dispelled, 
 and the Isthmian republic demonstrated its disposition to 
 conduct its elections in a manner befitting a free and en- 
 lightened people. 
 
CHAPTER XYI 
 BEGINNING THE WORK 
 
 The canal, after all, is the thing. The ancient history, the 
 diplomacy, the politics, and what not of the Isthmus, are not 
 void of interest, but interest in the canal is paramount. It 
 was for a canal that we first went to the Isthmus, genera- 
 tions ago, and it is for the canal that we are there at the 
 present time. It is to the canal that the American mind 
 instinctively turns at mention of Panama. What of the 
 canal? Are we really to have one at last? What kind of a 
 canal is it to be? What hope have we of succeeding where 
 De Lesseps so disastrously failed? What is actually being 
 done upon the great work at the present time ? These and a 
 host of other questions naturally arise. There are many 
 which time alone can answer. But there are some funda- 
 mental facts concerning the canal which may now be stated 
 with confidence, and which those who have personally gone 
 over the line and investigated all its conditions at first hand 
 and at close range see in a far different light from that of 
 those who look upon the work from afar, through a mist of 
 prejudice and more or less fantastic legends. 
 
 We are, then, to have a canal. That is assured to us, and 
 in the near future, as much as any great human achievement 
 can be assured. So far as diplomacy and legislation are 
 concerned, it is well known to the world that complete 
 arrangements have been made for the canal. The statesman- 
 ship of Theodore Roosevelt and John Hay has compassed the 
 end which Columbus and Cortez vainly sought. It may be 
 added that upon the engineering and material side the canal 
 is no less assured to us. The skill and energy of American 
 engineers are moving toward success where Ferdinand de 
 
 280 
 
THE "MOUNTAIN WALL" MYTH 281 
 
 Lesseps met with egregious failure. It would be difficult 
 for any one to visit Panama and see what has been done, 
 what is being done, and what can be done, without being 
 converted to the belief that it is, of all places, the place for 
 a gateway between the oceans. We used to hear much about 
 the great Cordillera, the ^'mighty mountain wall of the 
 Andes," the "backbone of the continent," which must be 
 broken through or passed over. De Lesseps once talked of 
 a ship tunnel through the mountain as a feature of his 
 proposed sea-level canal, and I remember seeing seriously 
 meant sketches of a tall-masted ship entering a huge bore, 
 with a cloudcapped Andean peak towering far above. Now, 
 the fact is, that if a tunnel were made, its roof would be 
 so thin that we should have to put in rafters to hold it up ! 
 I went one day to the top of the highest peak on the whole 
 line of the canal, climbing thither upon the back of one 
 of Uncle Samuel's little army ponies. It was worth while. 
 The outlook was extended and inspiring; a vast amphithea- 
 tre of mountains sweeping almost around the horizon. Some 
 one in the party murmured a reminiscence of Church's 
 "Heart of the Andes," which was not altogether inappro- 
 priate, considering the vast expanse of wilderness before us, 
 and imagining the ever-present vultures on their untiring 
 wings to be their greater cousins, the condors. But if truth 
 must be confessed, the Andean peak upon which we stood, 
 the loftiest elevation between the Caribbean and the Pacific, 
 was little more than three hundred feet above sea level! I f 
 do not suppose that was the very "peak in Darien" upon ^J^^nr ^ 
 which stout Cortez — or Balboa — stood, when his men 
 "looked at each other with a wild surmise." It could not 
 have been, for Balboa crossed at St. Michael's Gulf. But 
 I doubt if their amazement could have been more marked and 
 grateful than that of those who, after those fairy tales of 
 mountain walls, realised that this was all there was of it, 
 and that a ridge of soft earth and friable rock, nowhere as 
 much as three hundred feet high, was the only barrier to a 
 sea-level canal between the oceans! To say that such a 
 
282 BEGINNING THE WORK 
 
 barrier is insuperable would be to discredit engineering 
 science. 
 
 The French companies failed, it is true. Why they failed 
 I have already tried to make clear. But they did not labour 
 in vain. They did a great deal of work, and provided a great 
 deal of material which can now be used in our completion of 
 the canal. Practically all their excavation work can thus 
 be utilised, whether in the great cut at Culebra or on the 
 tidal flats where the canal is already navigable. No less 
 to the purpose is it to observe that much of the machinery 
 taken thither by them, even by the original De Lesseps com- 
 pany, was found by our engineers, on taking possession, still 
 - in serviceable condition. There wer§j of^course, some things 
 \ which could not be used. I doubt if it would have been worth 
 while to furbish up the sectional steamboats which were 
 lying around on the hilltops, and I am quite sure that the 
 consignments of snow-shovels which were received there in 
 the days of De Lesseps will never be needed. But in pur- 
 chasing the title and plant of the French company we 
 secured something far more than the proverbial '^right of 
 ^ way and two streaks of rust." T\^e_secured millions of^ol- 
 . lars' worth of useful machinery andjm ateri als and of work 
 ' well doneT" ^ 
 
 Under the authority of the Spooner bill, as the law for 
 the construction of the canal was termed, the President 
 went forward with promptness and energy. He waited for 
 nothing but for the canal treaty with Panama to be ratified 
 by our deliberate Senate. He submitted that convention 
 to the Senate on December 7, 1903. It was not ratified until 
 February 23, 1904. Six days later, on February 29, 1904, he 
 appointed an Isthmian Canal Commission of seven members, 
 who were duly confirmed by the Senate on March 3. The 
 Commissioners were John G. Walker, a Rear-Admiral of 
 the United States Navy, on the retired list, who had been at 
 the head of former canal commissions for the purpose of 
 investigation and report ; George W. Davis, a Major-General 
 of the United States Army, on the retired list; William B. 
 
THE CANAL COMMISSION 283 
 
 Parsons, an eminent civil engineer, of New York; William 
 H. Burr, Professor of Civil Engineering in Columbia Uni- 
 versity, New York ; Benjamin M. Harrod, formerly City and 
 State Civil Engineer, of New Orleans, Louisiana; Carl E. 
 Grunsky, civil engineer, of San Francisco, California; and 
 Frank T. Hecker, a civil engineer, of Detroit, Michigan. 
 Rear- Admiral Walker was made Chairman of the Commis- 
 sion and General Davis was appointed Governor of the 
 Canal Zone. Dominic I. Murphy, of Washington, D. C, was 
 engaged as Secretary to the Commission, and Charles E. 
 Magoon, an eminent jurist, of Lincoln, Nebraska, as General 
 Counsel. 
 
 On May 9, 1904, the President issued these instructions to 
 the Commission: 
 
 "Subject to the limitations of law and the conditions 
 herein contained, the Isthmian Canal Commission are 
 authorised and directed: First — To make all needful rules 
 and regulations for the government of the Zone and for the 
 correct administration of the military, civil, and judicial 
 affairs of its possessions until the close of the LVIIIth ses- 
 sion of Congress. Second — To establish a civil service for 
 the government of the strip and construction of the canal, 
 appointments to which shall be secured as nearly as prac- 
 ticable by a merit system. Third — To make, or cause to be 
 made, all needful surveys, borings, designs, plans, and speci- 
 fications of the engineering, hydraulic, and sanitary works 
 required, and to supervise the execution of the same. Fourth 
 — To make, and cause to be executed after due advertise- 
 ment, all necessary contracts for any and all kinds of 
 engineering and construction works. Fifth — To acquire by 
 purchase or through proper and uniform expropriation pro- 
 ceedings, to be prescribed by the Commission, any private 
 lands or other real property whose ownership by the United 
 States is essential to the excavation and completion of the 
 canal. Sixth — To make all needful rules and regulations 
 respecting an economical and correct disbursement and an 
 accounting for all funds that may be appropriated by Con- 
 gress for the construction of the canal, its auxiliary works, 
 and the government of the Canal Zone; and to establish a 
 proper and comprehensive system of bookkeeping showing 
 
284 BEGINNING THE WORK 
 
 the state of the work, the expenditures by classes, and the 
 amounts still available. Seventh — To make requisition 
 on the Secretary of War for funds needed from time to 
 time in the proper prosecution of the work, and to desig- 
 nate the disbursing officers authorised to receipt for the 
 same. 
 
 "The inhabitants of the Isthmian Canal Zone are entitled 
 to security in their persons, property, and religion, and in all 
 their private rights and relations. They should be so in- 
 formed by public announcement. The people should be dis- 
 turbed as little as possible in their customs and avocations 
 that are in harmony with principles of well ordered and 
 decent living. 
 
 "The municipal laws of the Canal Zone are to be adminis- 
 tered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were 
 before the change. Police magistrates and justices of the 
 peace and other officers discharging duties usually devolving 
 upon these officers of the law will be continued in office if 
 they are suitable persons. The Governor of the Zone, sub- 
 ject to the approval of the Commission, is authorised to 
 appoint temporarily a judge for the Canal Zone, who shall 
 have the authority equivalent to that usually exercised in 
 Latin countries by a judge of a court of first instance; but 
 the Isthmian Canal Commission shall fix his salary and may 
 legislate respecting his powers and authority, increasing or 
 diminishing them in their discretion, and also making pro- 
 vision for additional or appellate judges, should the public 
 interest require. 
 
 "The laws of the land with which the inhabitants are 
 familiar and which were in force on February 26, 1904, will 
 continue in force in the Canal Zone and in other places on 
 the Isthmus over which the United States has jurisdiction, 
 until altered or annulled by the Commission; but there are 
 certain great principles of government which have been made 
 the basis of our existence as a nation which we deem es- 
 sential to the rule of law and the maintenance of order, and 
 which shall have force in said Zone. 
 
 "The Commission may legislate on all rightful subjects of 
 legislation not inconsistent with the laws and treaties of the 
 United States so far as they apply to said zone and other 
 places; and the said power shall include the enactment of 
 sanitary ordinances of a preventive or curative character 
 to be enforced in the cities of Colon and Panama. Such 
 legislative power shall also include the power to raise and 
 
OKGANISATION 285 
 
 appropriate revenues. All taxes, judicial fines, custom 
 duties, and other revenues levied and collected in said zone 
 by, or under the authority of the Commission, shall be 
 retained, accounted for, and disbursed by the Commission 
 for its proper purposes. All laws, rules, and regulations of 
 a governmental character enacted by the Commission are to 
 be submitted to the Secretary of War for approval. Gam- 
 bling is prohibited in the canal strip." 
 
 The Commissioners promptly proceeded to organise the 
 great enterprise which had been committed to them. Gen- 
 eral Davis reached Panama on May 17th to assume the duties 
 of the Governorship, and two days later was formally re- 
 ceived by President Amador with much ceremony. He made 
 on that day an inaugural proclamation to the inhabitants of 
 the Canal Zone (see Appendix VII.), announcing that the 
 United States had taken possession of it and outlining, 
 according to the President's instructions to the Commis- 
 sion, the governmental and administrative policy which 
 would be pursued. Announcement was also made of the 
 appointment of the following officers: Secretary, Ernest 
 Lagarde, Jr.; Treasurer, E. C. Tobey, a Paymaster of the 
 United States Navy ; Captain of Police, G. R. Shanton ; San- 
 itary Officer, Dr. L. W. Sprattling, U. S. N. The last named 
 was presently succeeded by Dr. W. C. Gorgas, a Colonel of 
 the United States Army. The work of delimiting the Zone, 
 preparing maps, etc., was pushed to completion by June 16, 
 while the actual transfer of the archives and authority of 
 the Zone was made on June 1. 
 
 Four engineering parties were organised, to begin work on 
 the canal. One, under the lead of Charles List, was to sur- 
 vey and study the harbour of Colon, or the roadstead where 
 a harbour was to be created, and the route of the canal as 
 far as Gatun, where the first hills were reached and where 
 it was proposed to construct a dam and locks. The second, 
 under A. B. Nichols, was to give its attention to Gatun and 
 investigate the practicability of constructing the dam. The 
 third, under H. F. Dos6, was to investigate the proposed 
 
286 BEGINNING THE WOEK 
 
 dam site at Bohio. The fourth, under Boyd Ehle, was com- 
 missioned to examine and report upon the proposed dam 
 sites at Gamboa and Alhajuela. From this it will be per- 
 ceived that the Commission at that time took it for granted 
 that a high-level canal, with locks, was to be constructed. 
 Major W. M. Black, U. S. A., was put in temporary charge 
 of actual excavation work, and with Lieutenant Brooke, U. 
 S. A., and A. C. Harper, maintained a small showing of 
 activity in the Culebra cut, where such excavation would 
 need to be done, no matter what type of canal was finally 
 adopted. 
 
 These various companies were scarcely at work, however, 
 before an important change occurred in the direction of 
 affairs. On June 1, John F. Wallace, an eminent civil 
 engineer of Chicago, Illinois, was appointed Chief Engineer 
 of the whole enterprise. He arrived at Panama on June 28, 
 and soon suggested to the Commission a new programme of 
 work, which it adopted. He did not accept the high-level 
 plan as a foregone conclusion. On the contrary, he was 
 decidedly in favour of a sea-level canal, if it were found 
 possible to make one. In any event, the first thing to do, 
 in his mind, was to survey carefully the whole route, wifh 
 a view to securing perfectly trustworthy data from which 
 the practicability and comparative desirability of the various 
 plans of construction could be determined. At the same 
 time he proposed to proceed with the work of actual con- 
 struction experimentally at Culebra; with the work of 
 rehabilitating the existing machinery, supplies, and build- 
 ings, and of securing such new machinery as would be 
 needed ; and with the sanitation of the Canal Zone. 
 
 How much need there was of such work and how untrust- 
 worthy former surveys were may be seen from my promised 
 recurrence to the Bohio-Obispo section of the canal. In most 
 discussions of the high-level canal plan the great Bohio dam 
 has figured as the crux of the whole situation. In surveying 
 for that dam the French engineers chose the narrowest part 
 of the valley, where there would be the smallest amount of 
 
ENGINEERING PLANS ^Sl 
 
 dam to build above the surface of the ground. The early 
 American surveyors — before our purchase of the unfinished 
 canal — chose another place, where the valley was wider but 
 where, as they thought, the bed rock was nearest to the sur- 
 face of the ground and there would thus have to be the least 
 excavations for the foundations. Both parties did their 
 work very imperfectly. They had, as I have said before, no 
 diamond drills, and such drills as they had were put down 
 at too great and irregular intervals. They would strike a 
 bowlder as big as a barrel, and exclaim with joy, "Voilk I le 
 bed rock !" Now our later engineers, after our purchase of 
 the property, sent down diamond drills which did not stop 
 at bowlders, and they sent them down fifty feet apart all 
 the way across the valley. The result was that the bed rock 
 was found to be thirty-five feet or more below the former 
 measurements and to have a very irregular contour. This 
 one example indicates the imperative necessity of doing just 
 what was done as soon as we got possession of the canal 
 route: namely, making a complete and accurate survey of 
 the whole course of the canal. An inch on the end of a 
 man's nose, we are told, makes a great difference. So does an 
 increase of thirty-five feet in excavating for the foundations 
 of a dam, especially when you are a hundred and sixty-five 
 feet below sea level. 
 
 In the pursuance of his admirable plans, Mr. Wallace 
 reorganised the enterprise on a more elaborate and compre- 
 hensive scale. He divided it into seven bureaus: to wit, 
 Supplies ; Personnel, and Quarters ; Buildings and Architec- 
 ture; Machinery; Maps, Printing, and Lithography; Cli- 
 matic Conditions and River Hydraulics; and Communica- 
 tions. The titles of these departments indicate sufiSciently 
 the character of the work committed to each. Each was 
 essential to the satisfactory and successful conduct of so 
 vast and varied an undertaking. The work of the four engi- 
 neering parties previously mentioned was continued, with A. 
 C. Harper in charge of excavation at Culebra ; W. E. Dauchy 
 succeeding him as resident engineer there in November, 1904. 
 
288 BEGINNING THE WOKK 
 
 C. F. Bertoncini, formerly an employee of the French Com- 
 pany, was put in charge of engineering records and drafting. 
 E. C. Tobey, already named as Treasurer of the Zone, 
 became the head of the department of accounting and of 
 materials and supplies. Charles J. Strom, a mechanical 
 engineer, was charged with the task of examining and reha- 
 bilitating the machinery and supplies left by the French. 
 M. O. Johnson became supervising architect. Carleton E. 
 Davis was chosen to direct the work of providing the cities 
 with water and sewers. All told, there were about 1,000 
 men at work under the Commission in various capacities, 
 on July 1, 1904. 
 
 Mr. Wallace was at the very outset, however, confronted 
 with a diflSculty, or with a dilemma, which proved serious 
 and embarrassing. The first necessities of the situation were 
 to ascertain the best way of doing the work and to make 
 the Zone fit for men to live in while doing the work — in 
 brief, surveys and sanitation. But the Government and 
 people of the United States were in a hurry to "see the dirt 
 fly" in the construction of the canal itself. It was evident 
 that if work was begun on the canal on a great scale at 
 once, before proper preparations were made, disaster would 
 result. Yet, if at least a great showing of work were not 
 made, there would be discontent and grumblings at the 
 slowness of the Commission and its Chief Engineer. Con- 
 fronted with this dilemma, Mr. Wallace did what seemed to 
 him the best. He set a host of men at work at the Culebra 
 cut, and ordered a number of huge steam shovels, so as to 
 be able to report much actual excavation, and at the same 
 time he essayed the work of sanitation. 
 
 Colonel Gorgas went to Panama with Mr. Wallace, and 
 assumed charge as chief sanitary officer, with headquarters 
 in the fine hospital built by the French at Ancon, just out 
 of Panama, and began, against some local prejudice and 
 opposition, and with a melancholy meagreness and slowness 
 of support from the Commission, the tremendous task of 
 extirpating yellow fever and at least of keeping malaria in 
 
THE PANAMA WATER WORKS 289 
 
 check. The construction of water supply and sewer systems 
 for Panama and Colon was also begun, but the work was 
 much delayed. Water was to be provided for Panama by 
 damming the Rio Grande to form a reservoir, 235 feet above 
 sea level. Thence a sixteen-inch iron conduit was to convey 
 the water to a high-level distributing reservoir at Ancon, 
 from which, at an elevation of 200 feet, giving ample pres- 
 sure, mains would conduct it to all parts of the city. The 
 system was designed to give a supply of 2,000,000 gallons a 
 day, or more than 66 gallons per capita of the population. 
 The plans for this indispensable and most urgent work were 
 submitted by Mr. Wallace to the Commission on August 9, 
 
 1904, and were in due time approved. Much energy was 
 displayed in building the dam across the Rio Grande, and 
 in preparing the route of the conduit and in building the 
 reservoir at Ancon. But there was painful and apparently 
 inexcusable delay in shipping the iron pipes from the United 
 States. The last lot of them was not sent until May, 1905, 
 eight months after they had been asked for! Despite this 
 delay, however, water was turned into the mains and was 
 drawn from some hydrants in the city of Panama on July 
 4, 1905. Work on the sewers was begun in the fall of 1904, 
 and the system was nearly completed in a year. The repav- 
 ing of the streets could not, of course, be begun until the 
 water mains and sewers were laid, and so had to be post- 
 poned until late in 1905, when it was pushed with much 
 energy, the streets in the heart of the city being paved with 
 vitrified brick, and those in the outskirts with stone mac- 
 adam. In February, 1905, authority was granted to Mr. 
 Wallace for the construction of eight new hotels, and by 
 June 1, two of them, at Culebra and at Corozal, were finished 
 and occupied, though the supervising architect, M. O. John- 
 son, died of yellow fever in April of that year. By July 1, 
 
 1905, Mr. Wallace had increased the working force tenfold, 
 to a total of 10,000 men. In a subsequent chapter we shall 
 see what a penalty was paid for the delay in sanitation, and 
 how much better it would have been had the demand to 
 
290 BEGINNING THE WOKK 
 
 "make the dirt fly" been held in abeyance until the Isthmus 
 had been redeemed from pestilence. 
 
 For the present, let us turn back to the engineering and 
 surveying work which Mr. Wallace so elaborately organised. 
 The investigations at Gatun showed conclusively that a dam 
 there would be extremely difficult if not impossible to con- 
 struct. For a dam of such dimensions, a foundation of bed 
 rock was regarded as necessary, and that was not to be found 
 nearer the surface than two hundred feet below sea level. 
 It was thereupon assumed by the engineers that a dam at 
 that point was outside the limits of practical consideration. 
 At Bohio another gigantic dam had been proposed, such as 
 would need a bed-rock foundation. But that was nowhere 
 found in that region at a less depth than 167 feet below the 
 sea, which was also regarded by many engineers as too deep. 
 At Gamboa, on the other hand, undoubted bed rock was 
 found at about sea level, and therefore, in Mr. Wallace's 
 opinion, that was decidedly the best point for a dam. The 
 Gamboa dam would not be needed if the highest level plan, 
 90 feet, were adopted, but it would form an essential feature 
 of any lower level, or of the sea-level plan. If the last named 
 were adopted, the Gamboa dam would shut the waters of 
 the Chagres from the canal altogether, and would divert 
 them, through a tunnel and the San Juan River, to the 
 Pacific Ocean, or, perhaps preferably, through an open cut- 
 ting to the Caribbean. 
 
 Work in the great Culebra cut was, as I have said, neces- 
 sary no matter what plan of canal was adopted. Mr. Wal- 
 lace conducted it largely, however, in experimental fashion, 
 and for the sake of determining the best method of doing it 
 and the lowest cost at which it could be done. He began 
 with the old-fashioned machinery left by the French, but 
 in November, 1904, began the use of enormous steam shovels 
 of American design and make, of which he secured and 
 introduced more than a dozen. Each of these machines, 
 manned — with its appurtenant trains of cars for carting 
 away the dirt — by fifty men, did the work of 500 men under 
 
FOUR CANAL PLANS 291 
 
 the old system. Mr. Wallace was thus enabled to reduce 
 the cost of excavation much below the eighty cents a cubic 
 yard estimated by the former Canal Commission and used 
 by it as the basis of computation of the cost of the canal. 
 From May 4, 1904, to January 1, 1905, largely under the 
 old methods, there were excavated 243,472 cubic yards, at 
 an average cost of 55 cents a yard. From January 1 to April 
 1, 1905, under Mr. Wallace's direction and largely with im- 
 proved methods, there were excavated 278,680 cubic yards, 
 at an average cost of 45 cents. Seeing that there were from 
 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 cubic yards to be excavated, 
 according to the plan adopted, a saving of from 25 to 35 
 cents a yard meant, Mr. Wallace held, a considerable reduc- 
 tion of cost from the estimates of the former Commission. 
 Moreover, he believed that with the further introduction of 
 improved machinery, and with the provision of better cars 
 and engines for hauling away the excavated matter, the cost 
 could be still further reduced. On the other hand, it is 
 only fair to state, other engineers insisted that Mr. Wallace 
 was doing the very easiest and cheapest of the work, and 
 that the cost thus incurred by him was no criterion by which 
 to judge the whole job. 
 
 Four plans of canal construction were, in general, con- 
 sidered by Mr. Wallace, in his surveys and investigations. 
 These were as follows : 
 
 1. The high-level plan of the former Canal Commission, 
 involving an enormous dam at Bohio and a number of locks, 
 the level of the lake at the summit of the canal being ninety 
 feet above the sea. Under this plan there would be no dam 
 at Gamboa to divert the waters of the Chagres, but the entire 
 flow of that stream would enter the lake which would form 
 the central part of the canal. The former Commission had 
 estimated the canal could thus be opened for use in eight 
 years and finished in ten years, at a cost of $200,000,000 
 (including the purchase price from the French Company). 
 Mr. Wallace, on the basis of his reduced cost of excavation, 
 was inclined to reduce the estimate of cost to $145,000,000. 
 
292 BEGINNING THE WORK 
 
 2. The sixty-foot level plan, comprising a dam and two 
 locks at Bohio or Gatun, and a dam at Gamboa to divert so 
 much of the Chagres water as was needed to fill the canal ; 
 the summit of the canal to be 60 feet above tide-level. This, 
 according to the Commission's figures, would take ten years 
 to open and twelve to finish, and would cost |225,000,000 ; 
 which latter figures Mr. Wallace thought might be reduced to 
 1178,000,000. 
 
 3. The thirty-foot level plan, involving a dam and a single 
 lock at Bohio, and another lock at Miraflores on the Pacific 
 slope, with a dam at Gamboa as in the preceding plan. The 
 Commission's estimate was that such a canal could be opened 
 for use in twelve years and finished in fifteen, at a cost of 
 1250,000,000. Mr. Wallace put the cost at $195,000,000. 
 
 4. The sea-level plan, originally proposed by Ferdinand de 
 Lesseps, with no locks whatever, but a dam at Gamboa to 
 divert all the waters of the Chagres into some other channel 
 and rid the canal of that troublesome stream. Some have 
 held, and still hold, that in such a canal a "tidal lock" at 
 Miraflores would be necessary, to control the flow of the 
 tides, seeing that the Pacific rises and falls ten feet above 
 and below the mean, against only as many inches in the 
 Caribbean. This argument does not seem convincing. With 
 the Pacific ten feet above or below the Caribbean, there 
 would be a fall in the canal of only ten feet in forty-seven 
 miles, or a trifle more than two and one-half inches to the 
 mile. That is the fall of a slow-flowing river, and would 
 cause nothing more than a gentle current through the canal, 
 half the time in one direction and half the time in the other, 
 which would do no harm and would serve the excellent pur- 
 pose of flushing the canal and keeping its water pure. Of 
 course, it would be necessary to cut the canal at the Pacific 
 end ten feet deeper than would be necessary with a tidal 
 lock, so as to keep it navigable at low tide, but that would 
 be preferable to the lock. According to the Commission's 
 data, such a canal would require fifteen years to open, and 
 twenty years to finish, and would cost $300,000,000. Mr. 
 
THE SEA-LEVEL PLAN 293 
 
 Wallace was disposed to reduce that estimate of cost to 
 about 1230,000,000. He thought the time estimates of this 
 plan, as well as of the other plans, might also be correspond- 
 ingly reduced. 
 
 As a result of these investigations and computations, Mr. 
 Wallace was strongly inclined toward a sea-level canal. For 
 such preference there were and are, indeed, strong reasons. 
 Even the most of those who for one cause or another favour 
 a lock canal at some elevation concede that in time we must 
 cut down to sea level. Well, if that is ultimately to be done, 
 it would seem to be the part of wisdom to do it at the outset. 
 That is partly because it would probably be cheaper, quicker, 
 and easier to do it at once than to postpone it. Alterations 
 of completed works are usually costly and troublesome, mak- 
 ing the works in the end much more expensive than they 
 would have been had the final plan been executed at the 
 beginning. Also, there is a grave question whether it would 
 be possible to cut a high-level canal down to tide level with- 
 out for the time suspending navigation through it. I believe 
 Mr. Wallace was pretty strongly of opinion that while such 
 cutting down without interruption of traffic might be possi- 
 ble on a twenty or thirty-foot level canal, it was impractica- 
 ble on one at ninety feet elevation. Obviously, it would be a 
 very bad thing to be compelled to suspend traffic on the 
 canal for a term of years, some years after it had been opened 
 and lines of commerce and travel had been adapted to its 
 use. 
 
 Before leaving this phase of the subject, however, I must 
 add that at least one eminent and authoritative engineer 
 has unequivocally and aggressively committed himself to a 
 view exactly contrary to that which I have just described. 
 That is M. Bunau-Yarilla, of whose distinguished career 
 something has already been said — sufficient to indicate that 
 his opinions upon any matter connected with Panama and 
 the canal are to be regarded with respectful consideration. I 
 shall not here attempt to give even a synopsis of his plans 
 of canal construction, which he has himself publicly set forth 
 
294 BEGINNING THE WORK 
 
 in a most lucid manner. It will suffice, without entering 
 into technical details, to say that he is strongly in favour of 
 a sea-level canal. Indeed, he would make it and call it not 
 a canal but the "Straits of Panama." He holds, however, 
 that the easiest, quickest, and cheapest way of constructing 
 such a seaway is first to make and put into use a lock canal 
 at high level, and then cut it down to tide level. This, he is 
 sure, could be done without interruption of traffic, and he 
 shrewdly argues that it is more economical of time, labour, 
 and money to dredge or pump out mud than to dig and haul 
 dry earth. 
 
 Two other plans should also be noted in passing, for full 
 accounts of which, however, I must refer the reader to the 
 publications of them made by their respective authors. Lin- 
 don W. Bates, an engineer of distinguished attainments and 
 achievements, proposed in 1905 what has been called a "lake 
 canal." Instead of merely damming the Chagres River at Ga- 
 tun or Bohio, he would construct an extended barrage, or 
 huge dyke, along the sea front at and west of Colon, and an- 
 other at the Pacific side of the Isthmus, so as to form a broad 
 lake, reaching nearly or quite across the Isthmus, at a mod- 
 erate elevation above sea level. In such a body of water, 
 he cogently argues, navigation would be much more rapid 
 and safer than in a narrow canal with some pretty sharp 
 curves. Major Cassius E. Gillette, of the United States 
 Army, also an engineer of distinction and authority, pro- 
 posed a canal with locks, and urged that the difficulty of 
 dam building at Bohio, Gatun, or elsewhere should be over- 
 come by constructing not a masonry dam resting on bed 
 rock, but one of sheet steel piling, driven down to the 
 required depth, backed with concrete forced into place under 
 hydraulic pressure. His plan, as did that of Mr. Bates, 
 received careful consideration and was highly appreciated 
 for the valuable suggestions which it gave to those engaged 
 in the laborious and responsible task of determining what 
 plan should be officially adopted. 
 
 If anything which has been said above appears to indicate 
 
SEA LEVEL OK HIGH LEVEL? 295 
 
 a preference on the part of the present writer for a sea-level 
 canal, it is by no means misleading. A sea-level canal is 
 surely the ideal highway between the two oceans. It is the 
 only one that would be secure, or reasonably secure, against 
 damage by earthquake shocks; and we must remember that 
 Panama is a volcanic region, where seismic disturbances 
 have at times been severe and where they are now by no 
 means things of the past. Granted that, as I have elsewhere 
 pointed out, they have long been so slight as to do no mate- 
 rial harm, I know of no guarantee that science can give 
 against the recurrence of destructive tremblings. A compar- 
 atively slight shock might wreck the masonry and machinery 
 of a costly lock to such an extent that it would take months 
 of time and cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of 
 dollars to repair it; all use of the canal being for the time 
 suspended. It would take an almost unprecedentedly severe 
 shock to do real damage to a tide-level canal. Again, there 
 is the Chagres River. In any high-level plan that capricious 
 and formidable stream must be depended upon to supply 
 the canal with water and not to overflood it or to wash away 
 its banks. Perhaps it would be possible to control it, so as 
 to make it as useful a servant as it has been destructive, 
 obstructive, and generally undesirable; though those who 
 have seen its antics under the stress of a characteristic Isth- 
 mian rain must be pardoned if they regard the harnessing of 
 the Chagres to the canal as something much like the harness- 
 ing of a mad elephant to a family carriage. Better far to 
 put a barrier between that raging monster and the canal, 
 make an opening for it at the other side, and bid it rush as 
 madly as it pleases to the sea, but to keep away from the 
 canal. 
 
 There is the question of cost, too, in both money and time. 
 Beyond doubt, the sea-level canal would cost more than any 
 other, at the beginning. But that is a partial and most 
 inadequate and misleading basis of judgment. The first cost 
 of a canal, the cost of construction, is not the whole cost. 
 It is only one, and not the most important, of four items, 
 
296 BEGINNING THE WOKK 
 
 the sum of all which must be considered in estimating the 
 cost of the work. The second item is the cost of mainte- 
 nance. The third is the cost of operation. The fourth is 
 the cost of transit, determined by the value of a ship's time 
 consumed in passing through. That canal will be cheapest 
 which costs the least not for any one of these items, but for 
 all four of them added together. Now, the first item is a 
 temporary one. It must be paid once for all. But the others 
 are continuing and perpetual. They will be charges against 
 the canal as long as it exists. If we were going to build a 
 canal for temporary use or for a few years only, we might 
 do well to select the plan that would cost least for original 
 construction. But this is to be a' canal for all time, and 
 we must have regard for the fixed charges against it, which 
 will continue for all time. It would be poor economy to 
 build a canal for |200,000,000 which would cost |5,000,000 
 a year for maintenance and operation, when we could build 
 one for |300,000,000 which would cost only |1,000,000 a year. 
 The canal which at the beginning cost |100,000,000 the less 
 would at the end of fifty years have cost |100,000,000 the 
 more. (Of course, I do not mention these sums as even 
 approximate estimates of yearly cost, but merely as illus- 
 trations.) We must, as Cartier said, "regard the future." 
 We and the world have already waited long for this canal, 
 but that is no reason why we should now hurry ourselves 
 into adopting an inferior and unsatisfactory plan. Better 
 take a little more time and have the best possible plan for 
 all time to come. 
 
CHAPTER XYII 
 
 REORGANISATION 
 
 The work thus begun was not destined long to continue 
 under the same direction. As early as the summer of 1904, 
 complaints arose of delay on the part of the Canal Commis- 
 sion in supplying urgent needs of the men on the Isthmus, of 
 an excess of red tape, and of a general lack of flexibility, 
 adaptiveness, and responsiveness. The members of the Com- 
 mission spent little time at Panama. Their oflSce was in 
 Washington, and there they transacted their business. 
 Requisitions for supplies, even for things urgently needed in 
 the hospitals and by the sanitary squad, in cases where every 
 hour was precious, had to be sent to Washington, deliberated 
 upon by the Commissioners, approved or rejected with little 
 or no knowledge of the circumstances, and then, if approved, 
 advertised, awarded, and finally filled weeks or months after 
 date. In such fashion it took several months to get an X-ray 
 apparatus for the Ancon hospital. It took many weeks to 
 get mosquito-netting for the windows of the canal office 
 building, and then not enough was supplied; and in the 
 mean time some of the most valuable men of the staff were 
 prostrated by the bites of malarial mosquitoes. The chief 
 sanitary officer wanted netting for all the official buildings 
 in the Canal Zone. This request was refused as extravagant 
 and unnecessary. Then he asked for at least enough to 
 inclose the verandas of the hospitals. This, too, was 
 refused, and he was told that there was no need of inclosing 
 more than half the verandas, and that even then a part of 
 the space should be solidly boarded up instead of screened ! 
 In June, 1904, Colonel Gorgas, Mr. Wallace, and others 
 urged the immediate assumption of sanitary control over 
 the cities of Panama and Colon, in order to prevent an out- 
 
 297 
 
298 KEOKGANISATION 
 
 break of yellow fever, but the Commission would not permit 
 this until some months thereafter, when the dreaded disease 
 had appeared and was threatening to become epidemic. The 
 need of a proper water supply for Panama was urgent. Mr. 
 Wallace pushed the work of constructing a reservoir and dig- 
 ging ditches for the iron conduit pipe, and expected and 
 promised to have the water turned on in the city by the end 
 of 1904. This promise he could and would have fulfilled had 
 his requisition for iron piping been promptly granted. 
 But it was not. Months passed, and no pipe came. Mr. 
 Wallace cabled to Washington, urging that it be sent, and 
 the only answer was a reminder that "cabling cost money" 
 — practically a reprimand for wasting money on cable tolls ! 
 Finally, in February, 1905, small quantities of pipe began 
 to reach the Isthmus, and the water was turned on in Pan- 
 ama on July 4, six months later than it should have been. 
 It was also complained, and truly, that the workmen on the 
 canal were ill-housed, and ill-fed, at extortionate prices. 
 
 The effect of such a policy, partly exasperating and partly 
 discouraging upon the men at the front, who were waging a 
 life-and-death war with pestilences, may be imagined. There 
 was, no doubt, an explanation of it, if not an excuse or a 
 justification. The Commissioners were mindful of the prof- 
 ligacy and corruption which had run riot in De Lesseps's 
 time, and they were determined to avoid all possibility of a 
 repetition of it. But in fulfilling that praiseworthy resolu- 
 tion they ran into the opposite extreme. It became evident, 
 therefore, that a radical reorganisation of affairs must be 
 made. The Commissioners must either spend most of their 
 time on the Isthmus, where they would be constantly in 
 touch with the work and would appreciate its needs, or they 
 must give place to others who would do so. The President 
 became convinced of this necessity soon after Secretary 
 Taft's return to Washington from Panama in December, 
 1904, and asked Congress to enact legislation to that end. 
 In a message on January 13, transmitting to Congress a let- 
 ter of Secretary Taft's upon the subject, he suggested that 
 
CHANGES IN THE COMMISSION 299 
 
 authority should be given to him to form a new Commission 
 of five, or, better still, of only three members. The desirabil- 
 ity of such a change was widely recognised. There was no 
 disposition to condemn the existing Commission, or to be- 
 little its achievements. It had done a most valuable and 
 important work. But now its work was done. The whole 
 enterprise was entering a new stage. Diplomacy, and the 
 preliminary negotiations and tentative explorations, were to 
 be laid aside for the most intense and active execution. The 
 Commissioners had been well adapted to the former tasks. 
 They were, most of them, not suited to the latter. The old 
 system of organisation and procedure had served the old 
 purposes well — with such exceptions as I have noted. They 
 would not and could not serve the new purposes. There 
 must be a less complicated, more flexible, and more direct 
 administration. 
 
 Already, indeed, a week before this message of the Presi- 
 dent's, acting upon knowledge of what the President and the 
 Secretary of War had in mind, proposals of reorganisation 
 had been made in Congress. One was for the abolition of 
 the existing Commission and the substitution of a new one 
 consisting of only three members, all engineers — not a desir- 
 able thing, for some other than purely engineering ability 
 was needed. Another was for the simple abolition of the 
 Commission ; and the bestowal upon the President of power 
 to replace it in any manner he saw fit. These proposals were 
 made in the House of Representatives, and after some debate 
 that body enacted a bill in accord with the President's views. 
 The Senate, however, failed to pass it. Then the President 
 decided to take matters into his own hands. He could not 
 change the Commission from one of seven members to one of 
 only three, as he wished, but he could practically compel the 
 existing Commissioners to resign, and he could fill their 
 places with new men, and organise the new Commission on a 
 new plan. This was what he did. 
 
 Already one of the Commissioners, Colonel Hecker, had 
 resigned, on November 18, 1904. In March, 1905, the other 
 
300 KEORGANISATION 
 
 Commissioners also resigned, and on April 1 a new Com 
 mission was appointed, consisting of Theodore P. Shonts, 
 of Illinois, a civil engineer and railroad president; Charles 
 E. Magoon, of Nebraska, a distinguished jurist, who had 
 been general legal counsel to the old Commission and, before 
 that, law officer of the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War 
 Department ; John F. Wallace, a civil engineer, who had been 
 Chief Engineer under the old Commission, and who had had 
 much experience in railroad and canal work; Mordecai T. 
 Endicott, a Rear-Admiral of the United States Navy on the 
 retired list, who had been Chief of the Bureau of Yards and 
 Docks in the Navy Department, and had been a civil engi- 
 neer before entering the Navy ; Peter C. Hains, a Brigadier- 
 General of the United States Army on the retired list, who 
 had been educated at West Point, had served with distinction 
 in the Civil War, and had been identified with many impor- 
 tant harbour works and other engineering undertakings of 
 the Government; Oswald H. Ernst, a Colonel in the United 
 States Army, who had been educated at West Point and had 
 served with distinction in the Engineering Corps; and Ben- 
 jamin M. Harrod, of Louisiana, an accomplished civil engi- 
 neer, who had been a member of the former Canal Commis- 
 sion. Thus all the members of the new Commission were 
 engineers save one, Judge Magoon, and he was meant for 
 administrative and diplomatic work as Governor of the 
 Canal Zone and also as United States Minister to Panama. 
 Mr. Shonts was made Chairman of the Commission, with 
 headquarters in Washington, and Mr. Magoon was made 
 Governor of the Zone, and Mr. Wallace was made Chief 
 Engineer, with their offices at Panama. These three formed 
 an Executive Committee, with general charge of the work; 
 the other members of the Commission acting chiefly in an 
 advisory capacity. The President embodied the suggestions 
 of Secretary Taft in a detailed bill of instructions and rules 
 for the guidance of the Commission, and the new Commis- 
 sioners promptly entered upon their duties. 
 The President ordered that the Commission should meet at 
 
EULES FOR THE COMMISSION 301 
 
 Panama quarterly, four members constituting a quorum for 
 all purposes; and that meetings of the Executive Committee, 
 two being a quorum, should be held at Panama on Monday 
 and Wednesday of every week. The rules continued : 
 
 "For the convenience of executing the work to be done, 
 there shall be constituted three executive departments. 
 
 "(a) The head of the first department shall be the chair- 
 man of the commission, who shall have direct and imme- 
 diate charge of — 
 
 "First — The fiscal affairs of the commission. 
 
 "Second — The purchase and delivery of all materials and 
 supplies. 
 
 "Third — The accounts, bookkeeping, and audits. 
 
 "Fourth — The commercial operations in the United States 
 of the Panama railroad and steamship lines. 
 
 "Fifth — He shall have charge of the general concerns of 
 the commission, subject to the supervision and direction 
 of the Secretary of War, and shall perform such other duties 
 as may be placed upon him from time to time by the Secre- 
 tary of War. 
 
 "The head of the second department shall be the Governor 
 of the Zone, with the duties and powers indicated in the 
 executive order of May 9, 1904, which includes in general — 
 
 "First — The administration and enforcement of law in 
 the Zone. 
 
 "Second — All matters of sanitation within the Canal 
 Zone, and also in the cities of Panama and Colon, and the 
 harbours, etc., so far as authorised by the treaty, the execu- 
 tive orders and decrees of December 3, 1904, between the 
 United States and the Republic of Panama relating thereto. 
 
 "Third — The custody of all supplies needed for sanitary 
 purposes and such construction necessary for sanitary pur- 
 poses as may be assigned to this department by the com- 
 mission. 
 
 "Fourth — Such other duties as he may be charged with 
 from time to time by the Secretary of War. 
 
 "Fifth — He shall reside on the Isthmus and devote his 
 entire time to the service, except when granted leave of 
 absence by the Secretary of War. 
 
 "The head of the third department shall be the chief engi- 
 neer. He shall have full charge on the Isthmus — 
 
 "First — Of all the actual work of construction carried on 
 by the commission on the Isthmus. 
 
302 REORGANISATION 
 
 "Second — The custody of all the supplies and plant of the 
 commission upon the Isthmus. 
 
 "Third — The practical operation of the railroad on the 
 Isthmus with the special view to its utilisation in canal con- 
 struction work. 
 
 "Fourth — He shall reside on the Isthmus and devote his 
 entire time to the service, except when granted leave of 
 absence by the Secretary of War. 
 
 "All officers and emploj^es shall be appointed and their 
 salaries shall be fixed by the head of the department in which 
 they are engaged. Their appointment and salary shall be 
 subject to the approval either of the commission or, if the 
 commission is not in session, of the executive committee. 
 The employment of labourers where the contract of employ- 
 ment is made in the United States or outside of the Isthmus, 
 shall be negotiated and concluded by the chairman of the 
 commission, subject to the approval of the executive com- 
 mittee. Where the employment of labourers is effected upon 
 the Isthmus, it shall be conducted under the supervision of 
 the chief engineer, subject to the approval of the executive 
 committee. 
 
 "Contracts for the purchase of supplies or for construc- 
 tion involving an estimated expenditure exceeding $10,000, 
 shall only be made after due public advertisement in news- 
 papers of general circulation, and shall be awarded to the 
 lowest responsible bidder, except in case of emergency, 
 when, with the approval of the Secretary of W^ar, advertis- 
 ing may be dispensed with. In the making of contracts for 
 supplies or construction involving an estimated expenditure 
 of more than |1,000 and less than $10,000, competitive bids 
 should be secured by invitation or advertisement whenever 
 practicable. 
 
 "The commission under the supervision and direction of 
 the Secretary of War, and subject to the approval of the 
 President, is charged with the general duty of the adoption 
 of the plans for the construction and maintenance of the 
 canal and with the execution of the work of the same; with 
 the purchase and delivery of supplies, machinery and neces- 
 sary plant, the employment of the necessary officers, employ- 
 ees, and labourers, and with the fixing their salaries and 
 wages; with the commercial operation of the Panama Rail- 
 road Company and its steamship lines, as common carriers; 
 with the utilisation of the railroad as a means of construct- 
 ing the canal ; with the making of contracts for construction 
 
PUKCHASE OF SUPPLIES ' 303 
 
 and excavation, and with all other matters incident and 
 necessary to the building of a waterway across the Isthmus 
 of Panama, as provided by the act of Congress of June 28, 
 1902." 
 
 If this was not in all respects an ideal administration for 
 the canal, it was at least a great improvement upon the 
 former one, and it was probably the best the President could 
 do in the absence of the new legislation which Congress had 
 declined to grant. The constitution of the Executive Com- 
 mittee, whose members would be at Panama practically all 
 the time, was regarded as a most auspicious thing. Mr. 
 Shonts was known as a competent executive in important 
 undertakings. Mr. Magoon was admirably qualified by 
 training, by temperament, and by ingratiation with the peo- 
 ple of Panama, to fill the two offices of Governor and Minis- 
 ter — a union of functions which had been recommended to 
 the President by his predecessor in the Ministry to Panama, 
 John Barrett. Mr. Wallace's appointment as a member of 
 the Commission was universally recognised as most appro- 
 priate. It was believed that through such organisation the 
 evils complained of under the former Commission would be 
 avoided, and such proved to be the case. 
 
 Another important and commendable step was taken on 
 May 15, 1905, when Secretary Taft approved a decision of 
 the Executive Committee to the effect that supplies for the 
 canal should be purchased not necessarily in the United 
 States but wherever they could be most advantageously 
 secured. Lowness of price, promptness of delivery, and all 
 other essential details, were to be taken into account. This 
 was no sudden nor unexpected decision. Months before, at 
 the beginning of December, 1904, in his annual report. Sec- 
 retary Taft had suggested such a policy, and had asked the 
 will of Congress in the matter. He had at that time said : 
 
 "An important question of policy is yet to be determined. 
 If the Isthmian Canal Commission are not bound by any 
 restriction of Congress as to where they shall purchase 
 
304 KEOEGANISATION 
 
 machinery, material, and supplies, then it would seem to be 
 their duty to construct the canal as cheaply as possible, and 
 so to buy what they need where they can get it cheapest. 
 This, however, is certain to produce, every time that a large 
 contract is awarded to a foreign manufacturer or dealer, an 
 outcry on the part of the American unsuccessful competi- 
 tors. If Congress approves the policy of favouring Ameri- 
 can manufacturers and dealers, even if it increases the cost 
 of the construction of the canal, then it seems to me only 
 just that it should declare this policy by law and lay down 
 a rule which the commission can exactly follow." 
 
 Congress having, from December to May, declined or 
 failed to take any action upon the matter, but having left it 
 entirely to the discretion of the President, the Secretary of 
 War, and the Canal Commission, it was proper and indeed 
 necessary that a decision should be made, which should 
 remain in force until Congress, at some future time, might 
 otherwise enact. Mr. Shonts, the Chairman of the Commis- 
 sion, truly said, in vindication of the action : 
 
 "As sworn officers of this Government and of the Isthmian 
 Canal Commission, it is our bounden duty to purchase 
 machinery and supplies necessary for the construction of 
 the canal wherever they can be most advantageously ob- 
 tained, whether in foreign or domestic markets. I do not 
 mean to say that it necessarily follows that these supplies 
 must be purchased where they can be obtained the cheapest, 
 but where they can be obtained most advantageously, all 
 matters being considered." 
 
 The propriety, economy, necessity, and wisdom of the 
 order were widely recognised, although bitter attacks were 
 instantly made upon it by the representatives of some pro- 
 tected monopolies, and by those so-called "stand-patters" in 
 Congress who were opposed to anything even remotely look- 
 ing to a revision of the tariff. Such attacks upon it were 
 illogical and ill-founded. The principle of the protective 
 tariff was not and is not to be effectively invoked against 
 the order, for the reason that protection is intended to pre- 
 serve the home market for the home producer, and the Pan- 
 
QUESTIONS OF ECONOMY 305 
 
 ama Canal is not a home market. The Canal Zone is not a 
 part of the United States, and the canal which we are con- 
 structing there is not to be a domestic institution, such as, 
 let us say, the Erie Canal or one of the Pacific railroads. 
 The canal will be owned by this country, and will be oper- 
 ated and controlled by this country. Perhaps in time it 
 will also be used by this country more than by any other. 
 But, nevertheless, it will be in a foreign land, and it will 
 be, by the most sacred guarantees, open impartially for inter- 
 national and universal use. It does not appear, then, that 
 it is properly to be regarded as under the rule of the pro- 
 tective system. There are, on the other hand, strong argu- 
 ments in favour of precisely such a system as that which 
 was adopted by the Commission. It is on all hands agreed 
 that — provided, in the first place, that it be the best possible 
 canal in plan and workmanship — it is eminently desirable 
 that the canal shall be constructed as quickly and as cheaply 
 as possible. There is reason to believe that much time, per- 
 haps a year or two, and much money, amounting perhaps to 
 tens of millions of dollars, could be saved through the policy 
 adopted by the Commission. 
 
 In at least two important particulars the Government had 
 long been committed to this very policy. In purchasing the 
 unfinished canal from the French company it purchased mil- 
 lions of dollars' worth of foreign machinery and other sup- 
 plies. Having done that at the beginning, it would seem to 
 be logical for it to continue so doing whenever it is to its 
 material advantage to do so. Again, the principle of employ- 
 ing alien labour has been well established. Natives of 
 Panama, imported workmen from Jamaica, and other non- 
 Americans are employed and are to be employed. This is 
 necessary, since it would probably be impossible to get 
 labour in this country to do the work. If, then, we are to 
 employ foreign workmen, there would seem to be no reason 
 why they should not use foreign machinery. 
 
 There was no real expectation, however, that under this 
 order many supplies would be purchased abroad. That was 
 
306 EEOEGANISATION 
 
 not the purpose of the order, and it was realised, by even 
 the "stand-patters," that it would not be its effect. It would 
 simply compel American manufacturers to sell to their own 
 government as cheaply as to foreign customers, and to con- 
 tinue selling at Panama at such prices as they had hitherto 
 been glad to get. Before the United States acquired the 
 Canal Zone, American manufacturers and merchants had 
 enjoyed almost a monopoly of the hardware, machinery, and 
 other trades at Panama, and had found them highly profita- 
 ble, although they had no tariff protection but were com- 
 pelled to compete in open market with their rivals of 
 England and Germany. Secretary Taft rightly held, there- 
 fore, that they should continue to do business in that same 
 way under American control of the Canal Zone, and should 
 not be permitted under the shelter of the American tariff to 
 raise their prices far above what they had thitherto been 
 glad to get. It is true there were threats that as soon as 
 Congress met in the fall the order would be annulled by it, 
 and the Commission would be compelled by law to purchase 
 all supplies in the American market, at no matter how high 
 a price. So strenuous was the opposition to the order, 
 indeed, that it seemed for a time doubtful whether it would 
 be executed. But it was put into effect, and when Congress 
 met the next fall it was not rescinded. Not until June, 1906, 
 did Congress take any action whatever upon it, and then it 
 adopted a shifty and unworthy resolution which did not 
 deal decisively with the matter, but merely directed that 
 supplies for the canal should be purchased in the American 
 market unless, in the President's opinion, the prices de- 
 manded here were unreasonable or extortionate. Even with 
 this unsatisfactory action of Congress, the incident will 
 doubtless prove to have a salutary effect, in keeping down 
 the cost of the canal to within reasonable limits. 
 
 Another step of reorganisation was taken in January, 
 1905, when Secretary Taft recommended the acquisition by 
 the United States of the few shares of Panama Railroad 
 stock which were held by individuals. The great majority 
 
THE PANAMA KAILEOAD 307 
 
 of the stock had been purchased by the United States along 
 with the unfinished canal, but a small minority of it was 
 still in private hands. This recommendation was approved 
 and executed, and the United States thus became the sole 
 owner of the Isthmian railroad and of its steamship line 
 from Colon to New York. The result of that transaction 
 was — in time — a breaking of the monopoly which the Pacific 
 Mail Steamship Company had enjoyed by virtue of a com- 
 pact with the old Panama Railroad Company, and a conse- 
 quent great improvement of traffic conditions. Concerning 
 this matter an important report was made in July, 1905, to 
 the Secretary of War, by Joseph L. Bristow, who had been 
 specially commissioned for the purpose, and who, as the 
 result of exhaustive investigations, recommended : 
 
 ^'That the Panama Railway be double tracked and pro- 
 vided with all possible facilities for handling business, such 
 as increased wharves, etc. ; that it charge a rate for transpor- 
 tation based on improved facilities for handling traffic, plus 
 a moderate amount with which to pay dividends; that the 
 policy of charging a per cent, of the rates on through busi- 
 ness, subject to certain minima, be adhered to; that the 
 steamship line between New York and Colon be retained; 
 that contracts with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company 
 and with South American lines be cancelled, and the traf- 
 fic be thrown open to all steamship lines on equal terms; 
 that, unless a private steamship line be established between 
 Colon and the Gulf ports of the United States within a 
 reasonable time, the Panama Railway establish such line; 
 that if the Pacific Mail Steamship Company withdraws its 
 present service, some other company be induced to estab- 
 lish a line between Panama and all important Pacific ports 
 of the United States, and that if this cannot be done the 
 Panama Railway itself establish such line ; and, finally, that 
 American vessels be favoured where that can be done without 
 violating the treaty obligations of the United States.'' 
 
 Now came one of the most unexpected and most unpleas- 
 ant incidents in th^ history of the American canal enter- 
 prise at Panama. This was the resignation or dismissal of 
 Mr. Wallace from his place as a member of the Commission 
 
308 REOKGANISATION 
 
 and as Chief Engineer of the canal. There was no doubt 
 that he had been much dissatisfied with the conduct of the 
 former Commission, but he was supposed to be not only con- 
 tent but highly gratified with the new order of things. He 
 was receiving a salary of |25,000 a year, and was living in 
 the finest house in Panama. Under the reorganisation of 
 the Commission he would have almost absolute authority 
 over the engineering features of the work. The enterprise 
 was one, to be identified with the successful completion of 
 which might well satisfy the ambition of any man. It was, 
 therefore, assumed that he would remain in his place to 
 the end. When in June, 1905, rumours arose that he was 
 coming home to resign his place and to engage in some busi- 
 ness enterprise in the United States at a higher salary, they 
 were regarded with incredulity; and when he actually did 
 come, it was confidently assumed that he would speedily 
 return to the Isthmus. 
 
 Immediately upon his arrival, however, on Sunday, June 
 26, Messrs. Taft, Wallace, and Cromwell had a more or less 
 stormy conference in New York. The details of it were not 
 at once revealed, but it was made known that Mr. Wallace's 
 connection with the canal was terminated, either by his res- 
 ignation or his dismissal. A few days later. Secretary Taft 
 made public what had occurred. He quoted Mr. Wallace's 
 letters of December 20, 1904, and March 15, 1905, asking that 
 he be appointed a commissioner, and suggesting the new 
 organisation of the Commission, including the appointment 
 of an executive committee of three members. He said that 
 Mr. Wallace's suggestions were followed out, and quoted Mr. 
 Wallace as expressing unequivocal approval of all that had 
 been done under a date as late as May 26, 1905, two days 
 before the chief engineer last reached the Isthmus and twelve 
 days before he determined to resign. The Secretary's report 
 of the conference of June 26 was, in brief, as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Wallace said that a few days before he sent his 
 cable to the Secretary he had received a cable from prom- 
 
ME. WALLACE'S KETIREMENT 309 
 
 inent business men in New York, asking if he would con- 
 sider an offer to accept an important position in New York, 
 and that he had cabled in reply that it was simply a ques- 
 tion of terms and conditions, and that he had requested 
 particulars; that the particulars came, and it proved to be 
 a definite offer of a position as president of a large holding 
 company, controlling several other corporations, with cer- 
 tain stock benefits and other advantages to himself, which, 
 with the salary, made it equivalent to |50,000 a year; that 
 he did not at once accept the offer, but delayed it for a few 
 days in order to cable the Secretary of War, during 
 which the parties increased their proposals between $10,000 
 and 115,000 a year, making it equivalent to |60,000 or 
 165,000. 
 
 "Mr. Wallace stated that the position was an especially 
 attractive one; that the duties of the new position were 
 especially agreeable and afforded opportunities to make 
 money through investments, etc.; further, that the position 
 was such a good on^ that he did not consider that he could 
 decline it. Concluding, he stated that while he was severing 
 his connection with the canal work, he was willing to make 
 up his annual report, and he would, if desired by the Gov- 
 ernment, continue to serve as a commissioner, but not as 
 chief engineer in charge of the construction work on the 
 Isthmus." 
 
 At this. Secretary Taft's usually equable temperament 
 was much disturbed, and he expressed his indignation in no 
 uncertain tones. Addressing Mr. Wallace, he said: 
 
 "I am inexpressibly disappointed, not only because you 
 have taken this step, but because you seem so utterly insen- 
 sible of the significance of your conduct. You come with the 
 bald announcement that you quit your task at a critical 
 moment, on the eve of important work and in the midst of 
 reorganisation plans under which you accepted your posi- 
 tion, with your department unperfected in organisation. 
 . . . When the President found it necessary to make a re- 
 organisation of the former Commission, you were consulted 
 in the frankest manner about every feature of the reorgan- 
 isation and were encouraged freely to express your opinions. 
 Indeed, your voluntary suggestions from the Isthmus em- 
 braced the proposal that you yourself be made a member of 
 
3 10 KEOKG ANI S ATION 
 
 the Commission and Chief Engineer on the Isthmus. The 
 substance of the plan of reorganisation, as afterward em- 
 bodied in the President's executive order of April 1, was 
 cabled to you by me, and you cabled me your fullest approval 
 of it, and your thanks; for it included the appointment of 
 yourself as a Commissioner, as you had solicited, and a 
 member of the Executive Committee. 
 
 "The new plan of organisation was warmly accepted and 
 indorsed by you when you arrived in Washington, and you 
 expressed your hearty approval of it in the most unequivocal 
 manner, not only to the President and myself, but to the 
 members of the Commission and its counsel, and just before 
 sailing for the Isthmus you called upon us and voluntarily 
 thanked me in the warmest terms for what had been done in 
 the reorganisation of the canal work and in the positions 
 which had been given you. . . . 
 
 "Now, within twelve days after your arrival upon the 
 Isthmus, you send me a cable which, read in the light of 
 what you say to-day, signifies your practical acceptance of 
 an offer of another position inconsistent with the perform- 
 ance of your duties on the Isthmus. I am astonished that 
 you should be so disregardful of the splendid opportunities 
 of the position which would have made you famous the world 
 over by the honourable performance of your duties of chief 
 engineer. For mere lucre you change your position over 
 night, without thought of the embarrassing position in which 
 you place jour Government by this action, when the engi- 
 neering forces on the Isthmus are left without a real head 
 and your department is not perfected in organisation, when 
 the Advisory Board of Engineers is to assemble under call 
 of the President within two months, and when I am depart- 
 ing for the Philippines on public duty. I consider that by 
 every principle of honour and duty you were bound to treat 
 the subject differently. You have permitted the President 
 and all of us to proceed in full confidence that you would per- 
 form the functions of Chief Engineer, and now in an hour 
 you drop your great duties and throw them back upon us 
 as if it were a matter of no consequence, and all this for 
 your personal advantage solely. . . . 
 
 "Under the circumstances, Mr. Wallace, and with great 
 personal pain and disappointment, I am bound to say that 
 I consider the public interests require that you tender your 
 resignation at this moment and turn over the records of your 
 office to the chairman of the Commission." 
 
MR WALLACE'S OWN STATEMENT 311 
 
 Mr. Wallace thereupon tendered his resignation, both as 
 Commissioner and as Chief Engineer, and it was, on June 
 28, accepted by the President, to take effect immediately. 
 On June 30, Mr. Wallace made a public statement in reply to 
 Secretary Taft's strictures upon him, in which he said : 
 
 "The primary causes which led me to tender my resigna- 
 tion as Chief Engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission 
 were underlying and fundamental, and I must emphatically 
 resent the charge that my motive in leaving the work was a 
 financial one. A careful consideration of the entire subject 
 had brought me to the decision that I should disconnect my- 
 self with the work at the earliest possible date that it could 
 be done without embarrassment to the administration or 
 injury to the work. It is unnecessary to state the reasons 
 for this decision, except that in fairness I should say that 
 they involve no criticism of any act of the President or the 
 Secretary of War. My final decision was arrived at as the 
 result of the six days' uninterrupted thought which I was 
 able to give the subject in all its bearings during my voyage 
 from New York to Colon, in May. Furthermore, I had 
 pledged myself to my family to give the matter of my resig- 
 nation as Chief Engineer, or of any position which would 
 require my continuous residence on the Isthmus, serious 
 consideration. 
 
 "It was at this psychological moment that I received a 
 cable message from New York offering me a business oppor- 
 tunity which I was bound to consider. I, therefore, imme- 
 diately cabled the Secretary of War requesting a conference 
 and arrived in New York for that purpose on Thursday, 
 June 22. In the meantime I had addressed a letter to the 
 Secretary, in which I confirmed the request for an inter- 
 view, and also requested my annual leave of absence, which 
 was part of my original understanding with the Isthmian 
 Canal Commission, and which I had requested from Admiral 
 Walker in March, to take effect at our mutual convenience 
 some time later in the season, which request, however, was 
 not complied with or answered, owing, probably, to a sudden 
 change made in the Commission on April 1. 
 
 "On my arrival in New l^ork I was met by Mr. William 
 Nelson Cromwell, who stated that he was delegated by the 
 Secretary to arrange for a personal interview with me, and 
 asked me if I would meet him at the Manhattan Hotel at 
 
3 1 2 EEOEGANIS ATION 
 
 10 a. m., Sunday, June 25. While Mr. Cromwell treated me 
 with the suavity and courtesy for which he is noted, he 
 endeavoured to draw from me my reasons for desiring to 
 see the Secretary. I told him frankly that 1 did not con- 
 sider it would be proper for me to discuss the matter in 
 advance of my interview, and I also requested him to 
 arrange for me with the Secretary that the interview should 
 be absolutely private, and that no one but the Secretary and 
 myself should be present. 
 
 "On arriving at the Manhattan on Sunday, I was met by 
 Mr. Cromwell, who ushered me into the Secretary's private 
 apartment, accompanied by my son. Assuming that arrange- 
 ments had been made for a strictly private interview, my 
 son withdrew, expecting Mr. Cromwell to do the same. 
 However, the Secretary, in a rather peremptory manner, 
 directed Mr. Cromwell to remain. This action, of course, 
 caused irritation and apprehension on my part that the 
 interview would be unpleasant and unsatisfactory, and the 
 irritation under which the Secretary was evidently labouring 
 had a tendency to prevent that calm and dignified considera- 
 tion of the question in all its bearings which should have 
 been given it. 
 
 "If the Secretary understood me to say that I had accepted 
 a position in New York, he laboured under a misapprehen- 
 sion. I did state to him that I desired to accept one, but 
 under such circumstances and conditions and at such time 
 as would cause the least embarrassment to the administra- 
 tion and the least injury to the work, and that I was even 
 willing to go to the extent of remaining for an indefinite 
 time on the Commission, should he desire my counsel and 
 advice in arranging for the change, assisting in preparing 
 plans for submission to the Advisory Board of Engineers in 
 September, or in the further consideration of the question 
 by the administration or Congress during its next session. 
 
 "Much to my surprise he indignantly spurned my sug- 
 gestion and took the position that I was compelled under 
 what he called my contract to remain in charge of the Isth- 
 mian canal, regardless of circumstances or conditions, until 
 the completion of the work, and spoke in such a manner as 
 to outrage my feeling to such an extent that further discus- 
 sion of the reasons for my action was out of the question. 
 
 "I did not seek the position of chief engineer of the Isth- 
 mian Canal Commission, and, considering my salary as gen- 
 eral manager of the Illinois Central Railroad Company and 
 
A PAINFUL EPISODE 313 
 
 my other sources of earnings, my financial condition was 
 not improved by my acceptance of the position, and it was 
 with the greatest reluctance that I did so. 
 
 "While it was my own expectation that I should continue 
 my connection with the work, it did not occur to me that I 
 was not free to withdraw if justice to myself and my family 
 and to my reputation as an engineer required me to do so. It 
 was not only my right, but my duty, to give the matter most 
 careful consideration in all its bearings, considering not only 
 the general situation as it affected the work, but my family, 
 personal and business relations, and all the various factors 
 entering into the problem, and I could not concede the right 
 to the Secretary of War or any one to dictate my decision. 
 The only debatable questions were the details as to putting 
 my decision into effect, and, while I stated to the Secretary 
 what my desires were, I told him that I was perfectly willing 
 to conform to his wishes as far as possible as to the time and 
 manner of my withdrawal. 
 
 "I have made no criticism of personnel or individuals, but 
 do believe that the obstacles due to the government meth- 
 ods required by existing laws are so serious that they will 
 have to be eliminated if the American people are to see the 
 Panama Canal constructed in a reasonable time and at a 
 moderate cost." 
 
 Upon one point there was universal agreement: namely, 
 that this episode was a most painful and regrettable one. 
 The most general opinion was that Secretary Taft had acted 
 in a justifiable and, indeed, necessary manner, and that Mr. 
 Wallace had sacrificed a splendid fame for sordid consider- 
 ations. There were those, however, who while holding this 
 general opinion thought the Secretary had been needlessly 
 severe with Mr. Wallace. The minority opinion was that 
 Mr. Wallace had been unjustly forced out of his place, or 
 else was justifiable in his act of resigning. But even those 
 who held this view, and even his warm friends and sup- 
 porters, regretted that he did not more clearly state the 
 reasons for his action. He spoke of the "primary causes" as 
 "underlying and fundamental," but he did not say what they 
 were. He spoke of "obstacles due to the governmental meth- 
 ods required by existing laws" as "serious," but he did not 
 
314 KEOEGANISATION 
 
 say what they were. Such vagueness was disappointing and 
 discouraging to his friends, who, had he spoken more explic- 
 itly, would have been glad to rush to his defence and vindi- 
 cation. There were those who ventured to assume that they 
 knew his reasons, and who gave public intimation of what 
 they believed to be their nature. One was, that he was 
 unwilling longer to inflict upon his family the distress and 
 anxiety they suffered during his stay in a plague-smitten 
 place. A second was, that he was disgusted with the red 
 tape and delay which had formerly prevailed, and feared 
 their continuance. A third was, that his heart was set upon 
 a sea-level canal and he was unwilling to be identified with 
 any other ; that he knew it would be impossible to construct 
 such a canal at a cost which Congress would sanction unless 
 supplies could be bought in the cheapest market, as Secre- 
 tary Taft had ordered ; and that he believed Congress would 
 rescind that order and thus so increase the cost of work that 
 a sea-level canal would be out of the question. 
 
 All this, however, was conjecture, and Mr. Wallace made 
 no further explanation of his course for some time. But 
 in February, 1906, he was called as a witness before a com- 
 mittee of the United States Senate which was investigating 
 canal affairs, and was asked to explain the causes of his 
 resignation. In reply he made it appear that he had been 
 largely, perhaps chiefly, moved by personal incompatibility 
 with or antagonism to Mr. Shouts, his colleague on the 
 Commission, and Mr. Cromwell. Concerning the former, he 
 said: 
 
 ^'I told Secretary Taft that I did not want to go back to 
 the Isthmus as Chief Engineer. My reason was, that I was 
 made jointly responsible with Mr. Shonts and Mr. Magoon 
 for work on the canal, while Mr. Shonts had a verbal agree- 
 ment with the President that he should have a free hand 
 in the management of all matters. I felt Mr. Shonts was 
 not as well qualified as I was either as a business man or an 
 administrator, and he was not an engineer. I thought I 
 was to be director-general of the canal work. I thought it 
 
THE NEW CHIEF ENGINEER 315 
 
 better to sacrifice my ambitions regarding this work, which 
 was to be the crowning event of my life, than remain to be 
 humiliated, forced to disobey orders, or create friction." 
 
 His objections to Mr. Cromwell were, chiefly, that he had 
 too much influence with the President and Secretary of 
 War, and was interested in too many things : 
 
 "I thought about him as being the man who brought about 
 the sale of the canal to the government ; who brought about 
 the revolution in Panama; who assisted the government of 
 Panama in making its investments; who is carried on the 
 diplomatic list of that government, and who is interested 
 in public utilities on the Isthmus. I felt that a man mixed 
 up in so many things might have his mind perverted, and at 
 some time he might give the wrong advice, and the result 
 would be a scandal." 
 
 With this, we may take leave of this regrettable incident, 
 with sincere gratification, however, that it had no mischie- 
 vous effect upon the canal enterprise. Mr. Wallace's place 
 on the Commission was not at once filled, but his successor 
 as Chief Engineer was selected and announced almost simul- 
 taneously with his resignation. This was John F. Stevens, 
 who was at that time supervising the Government's plans for 
 a thousand miles of railroads in the Philippine Islands, and 
 who had formerly been chief engineer and general manager 
 of some of the most important railroads in the United 
 States. He had been about to start for the Philippines. 
 Instead, he went straight to Panama. In the summer of 
 1905, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, of New York, an experienced 
 journalist, was made Secretary to the Commission, and in 
 December following was appointed by the President a mem- 
 ber of the Canal Commission. His nomination was not acted 
 upon by the Senate, however, and at the end of the Con- 
 gressional session, in June, 1906, it was withdrawn, or per- 
 mitted to lapse, and Mr. Bishop was returned to his former 
 place as Secretary to the Commission. At the same time 
 Colonel Ernst, who had been placed upon the retired list 
 
316 KEORGANISATION 
 
 of the army, retired from the Commission, and Mr. Stevens, 
 the Chief Engineer, was appointed a Commissioner in his 
 place. 
 
 Another important feature of the reorganisation effected 
 in 1905 was the appointment of a Board of Consulting or 
 Advisory Engineers, chiefly for the purpose of considering 
 and recommending a plan for the canal — whether at high 
 level or sea level. The creation of such a Board had been 
 recommended by Secretary Taft in a letter to the President 
 on March 30, 1905, and the President, in his instructions and 
 directions to the reorganised Commission, had promised 
 that it should be done. The Board was made to consist 
 of the following members; five of them being appointed 
 by European governments on request of the President: 
 Major-General George W. Davis, U. S. A. (retired), 
 formerly Canal Commissioner and Governor of the Canal 
 Zone, and an engineer of long and wide experience, 
 chairman; Brigadier-General Henry L. Abbot, U. S. A. 
 (retired), a distinguished engineer, long intimately conver- 
 sant with and connected with the Panama Canal enterprise ; 
 Eugen Tincauzer, chief engineer of the Kiel Canal, appointed 
 by the German Government; Edouard Quellennec, consult- 
 ing engineer of the Suez Canal, and J. W. Welcker, an 
 eminent engineer, director of the State Waterways of Hol- 
 land, appointed by the government of the Netherlands; 
 Adolph Guerard, a leading official engineer of France, in- 
 spector-general of bridges and highways, appointed by the 
 French Government; Henry W. Hunter, chief engineer of 
 the Manchester Ship Canal, appointed by the British Gov- 
 ernment; Isham Randolph, of Illinois, engineer of the 
 Chicago Drainage Canal ; Frederick P. Stearns, of Massa- 
 chusetts, the hydraulic engineer of the city of Boston ; Wil- 
 liam H. Burr, of New York, Professor of Engineering in 
 Columbia University; Joseph Ripley, of Illinois, chief engi- 
 neer of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal; William Barclay Par- 
 sons, the chief engineer of the New York City Subway ; and 
 Alfred Noble, chief engineer of a division of the Pennsyl- 
 
THE ADVISORY BOABD Sil 
 
 vania Railroad. Captain John C. Oakes, U. S. A., was made 
 secretary of the Board. To this Board, the President had 
 ordered, there should be submitted by the Isthmian Canal 
 Commission for its consideration and advice the important 
 engineering questions arising in the selection of the best 
 plan for the construction of the canal. "The recommenda- 
 tion of the Board of Consulting Engineers shall be con- 
 sidered by the Isthmian Canal Commission, and, with the 
 recommendations of the Commission, shall finally be sub- 
 mitted, through the Secretary of War, to the President for 
 his decision." 
 
 This Board — obviously one of exceptional distinction and 
 authority — was organised and began its work early in Sep- 
 tember, 1905. The instructions given to it by President 
 Roosevelt were general in terms, outlining the spirit and 
 purpose of its undertaking, rather than its details of exe- 
 cution. He said : 
 
 "There are two or three considerations which I trust you 
 will steadily keep before your minds in coming to a conclu- 
 sion as to the proper type of canal. I hope that ultimately 
 it will prove possible to build a sea-level canal. Such a 
 canal would undoubtedly be best in the end, if feasible; and I 
 feel that one of the chief advantages of the Panama route is 
 that ultimately a sea-level canal will be a possibility. But, 
 while paying due heed to the ideal perfectibility of the 
 scheme from an engineer's standpoint, remember the need of 
 having a plan which shall provide for the immediate building 
 of a canal on the safest terms and in the shortest possible 
 time. If to build a sea-level canal will but slightly increase 
 the risk, then, of course, it is preferable. But if to adopt the 
 plan of a sea-level canal means to incur a hazard, and to 
 insure indefinite delay, then it is not preferable. If the 
 advantages and disadvantages are closely balanced, I expect 
 you to say so. I desire also to know whether, if you recom- 
 mend a high-level multi-lock canal, it will be possible, after 
 it is completed, to turn it into or substitute for it, in time, 
 a sea-level canal, without interrupting the traffic upon it. 
 Two of the prime considerations to be kept steadily in mind 
 are: 
 
 "First — The utmost practicable speed of construction. 
 
318 EEOEGANISATION 
 
 "Second — Practical certainty that the plan proposed will 
 be feasible; that it can be carried out with the minimum 
 risk. 
 
 "The quantity of work and the amount of work should be 
 minimised so far as possible. 
 
 "There may be good reason why the delay incident to 
 the adoption of a plan for an ideal canal should be incurred ; 
 but if there is not, then I hope to see the canal constructed 
 on a system which will bring to the nearest possible date 
 in the future the time when it is practicable to take the first 
 ship across the Isthmus; that is, which will in the shortest 
 time possible secure a Panama waterway between the oceans 
 of such a character as to guarantee permanent and ample 
 communication for the greatest ships of our navy and for 
 the larger steamers on either the Atlantic or the Pacific. 
 The delay in transit of the vessels owing to additional locks • 
 would be of small consequence when compared with short- 
 ening the time for the construction of the canal or diminish- 
 ing the risks in its construction. 
 
 "In short, I desire your best judgment on all the various 
 questions to be considered in choosing among the various 
 plans for a comparatively high-level multi-lock canal, for 
 a lower level, with fewer locks, and for a sea-level canal. 
 Finally, I urge upon you the necessity of as great expedition 
 in coming to a decision as is compatible with thoroughness 
 in considering the conditions." 
 
 The President's policy was, in brief, to construct the best 
 canal in the shortest time. The two supremely desirable 
 qualities were promptness and efficiency, and they were 
 coordinate. Neither was to be sacrified to the other, and 
 if not to the other, certainly not to any or to all other 
 considerations in the world. As for these two, they were 
 to go harmoniously hand in hand, and everything else was 
 to make way for them and adapt itself to their requirements. 
 That was precisely as it should be. This nation does not 
 want to wait a single day unnecessarily for the canal for 
 which it and the world have waited so long and which they 
 need so much ; but neither does it want, however speedily it 
 might be provided, a canal which will prove unsafe or un- 
 satisfactory, or of which men will say it might have been 
 made better had a little more time been given it. 
 
MAJOKITY FOR SEA LEVEL 319 
 
 The Board proceeded to the Isthmus and made a careful 
 study of the canal route. At first the majority had been 
 opposed to the sea-level plan, but the views of several were 
 quickly changed by personal inspection of the route, and 
 on November 18, at a meeting of the Board in Washington, 
 after its return from Panama, it was decided by a vote of 
 8 to 5 to recommend a canal at sea level. The report of the 
 majority of the Board, on January 10, 1906, was signed by 
 Messrs. Davis, Parsons, Burr, Hunter, Guerard, Tincauzer, 
 Welcker, and Quellennec. It was largely technical in char- 
 acter, entering into minute engineering details. Its gist was 
 that all plans involving lift-locks, whether few or many, 
 should be rejected and that a sea-level plan should be 
 adopted "as the only one giving reasonable assurance of 
 safe and uninterrupted navigation." In conclusion this 
 report said : 
 
 "It is the belief of the Board that the essential and indis- 
 pensable features of a convenient and safe ship canal at 
 the American Isthmus are now known; that such a canal 
 can be constructed in twelve or thirteen years' time ; that the 
 cost will be less than |250,000,000 ; that it will endure for 
 all time. 
 
 "The Board does not believe that a provisional treatment 
 of this great question would yield results which would be 
 satisfactory to the American nation or advantageous to 
 American commerce, or that such treatment would be in 
 consonance with the increase of population, of trade, and of 
 wealth which will surely take place during the next half 
 century in the Western Hemisphere.'^ 
 
 The report of the minority of the Board was signed by 
 Messrs. Abbot, Noble, Stearns, Ripley, and Randolph. It 
 traversed largely the same ground as the other, but differed 
 from it in estimates of cost and time, and concluded as 
 follows : 
 
 "In view of the unquestioned fact that the lock canal 
 herein advocated will cost about |100,000,000 less than the 
 proposed sea-level canal; believing that it can be built in 
 
320 REOKGANISATION 
 
 much less time ; that it will afford a better navigation ; that 
 it will be adequate for all its uses for a longer time, and can 
 be enlarged, if need should arise, with greater facility and 
 less cost, we recommend the lock canal at elevation 85 for 
 adoption by the United States." 
 
 Exception may properly be taken to the phrase "unques- 
 tioned fact," applied to the estimate of |100,000,000 differ- 
 ence in cost between the two plans, seeing that the majority 
 report estimated that difference at not more than about 
 ^71,000,000. 
 
 A report was also made by the Chief Engineer, Mr. 
 Stevens, strongly in favour of a lock canal at high level; 
 going to such an extreme as to declare a preference for such 
 a canal even if one at sea level could be made as quickly and 
 as cheaply. Mr. Stevens said : 
 
 "The sum of my conclusions is, that, all things consid- 
 ered, the lock or high-level canal is preferable to the sea- 
 level type, so called, for the following reasons : 
 
 "It will provide as safe and a quicker passage for ships, 
 and, therefore, will be of greater capacity. 
 
 "It will provide, beyond question, the best solution of the 
 vital problem of how safely to care for the flood waters of 
 the Chagres and other streams. 
 
 "Provision is made for enlarging its capacity to almost 
 any extent at very much less expense of time and money than 
 can be provided for by any sea-level plan. 
 
 "Its cost of operation, maintenance, and fixed charges will 
 be very much less than any sea-level canal. 
 
 "The time and cost of its construction will be not one- 
 half that of a canal of the sea-level type. 
 
 "The element of time might become, in case of war, actual 
 or threatened, one of such importance that measured, not by 
 years, by months, or even days, the entire cost of the canal 
 would seem trivial in comparison. 
 
 "Finally, even at the same cost in time and money for each 
 type, I would favour the adoption of the high-level lock- 
 canal plan in preference to that of the proposed sea-level 
 canal." 
 
 These three reports were submitted to the Canal Commis- 
 sioners, all of whom met in Washington to consider them, 
 
COMMISSION KEVERSES ENGINEEES 321 
 
 in February, 1906. After due deliberation the Commission- 
 ers made two reports, that of the majority agreeing with the 
 minority report of the consulting engineers, and the minor- 
 ity report of the Commission agreeing with the majority 
 report of the engineers. The majority report was signed 
 by Messrs. Shonts, Magoon, Hains, Ernst, and Harrod. It 
 admitted that the ideal canal would be one at sea level, pro- 
 vided it were made of sufficient width; but it declared that 
 the cost of making a canal of such dimensions would be 
 prohibitive. It, therefore, favoured a canal with locks, at 
 85 feet level above the sea, saying : 
 
 "It appears that the canal proposed by the minority of 
 the Board of Consulting Engineers can be built in half the 
 time and a little more than half the cost of the canal pro- 
 posed by the majority of the board, and that when completed 
 it will be a better canal for the following reasons : 
 
 "(1) It provides greater safety for ships and less danger 
 of interruption to traffic by reason of its wider and deeper 
 channels. 
 
 "(2) It provides quicker passage across the Isthmus for 
 large ships or a large traffic. 
 
 "(3) It is in much less danger of damage to itself or of 
 delays to ships from the flood waters of the Chagres and 
 other streams. 
 
 "(4) Its cost of operation and maintenance, including 
 fixed charges, will be less by some |2,000,000 or more per 
 annum. 
 
 ''(5) It can be enlarged hereafter much more easily and 
 cheaply than can a sea-level canal. 
 
 "(6) Its military defence can be effected with as little or, 
 perhaps, less difficulty than the sea-level canal. 
 
 "(7) It is our opinion that the plan proposed by the 
 minority of the Board of Consulting Engineers is a most 
 satisfactory solution of the problem of an Isthmian canal, 
 and, therefore, we recommend that the plan of the minority 
 be adopted." 
 
 The minority report was signed by only one Commis- 
 sioner, Rear-Admiral Endicott, and its conclusions were as 
 follows : 
 
322 REOKGAOTSATION 
 
 "The undersigned does not concur in the preference for a 
 lock canal, expressed by the Commission, but regards a sea- 
 level canal, as proposed by the majority of the Board of Con- 
 sulting Engineers, a better canal for commercial and mili- 
 tary purposes. 
 
 "(1) Because, while for exceptionally large vessels, such 
 as built for Atlantic liners, the time of transit might be as 
 long as, or longer than, in the lock canal, the average time 
 of transit of the class of vessels which will use the canal 
 for a long term of years will be less than in the lock canal. 
 
 "(2) Because the risks of interruption to traffic from 
 accident are deemed greater in a high-level canal with six 
 locks than in a sea-level canal with a tidal lock, notwith- 
 standing the greater distance in the latter canal, which 
 might be obstructed by a sunken vessel. 
 
 "(3) Because the cost of maintenance and operation of 
 the sea-level canal will be less. 
 
 "(4) Because in the enlargements to accommodate in- 
 crease in traffic the relative advantages of the sea-level canal 
 will increase. . . . 
 
 "(5) Because it is a better, safer, and more capacious 
 canal from a military standpoint." 
 
 All these reports were laid before the Secretary of War, 
 who considered them carefully and then transmitted them to 
 the President, with a letter of recommendation. In that 
 letter he recalled the fact that the existing act of Congress 
 practically fixed the minimum dimensions of the locks (if 
 any) and the width and depth of the canal, by the require- 
 ment that the canal should be of sufficient capacity for the 
 largest vessels afloat: to wit, ships 800 feet long, 88 feet 
 beam, and 38 feet draught. The locks proposed in the high- 
 level plan would accommodate such vessels, and so would 
 the entire canal. But the proposed sea-level plan would 
 not meet the requirements. Said Mr. Taft : 
 
 "In the high-level canal a vessel of the dimensions noted 
 would have, with the exception of the 4.7 miles where the 
 width is only 200 feet, ample lee-way for safe navigation and 
 good speed, without objectionable currents and without dif- 
 ficulties at the points Avhere changes in course are necessary. 
 
ME. TAFT ON CANAL PLANS 323 
 
 "With the proposed sea-level canal conditions are differ- 
 ent. The depth is but two feet greater than the draught of 
 the ship, not suflicient to permit her to proceed under her 
 own steam, except at great risk; twenty-one miles of the 
 canal is not sufficiently wide for two such ships to pass; 
 currents caused by the regulation of the Chagres and by the 
 flow of other streams into the canal, and its many curves, 
 combine to increase the difficulties and dangers of naviga- 
 tion. In short the sea-level canal recommended is 'not of 
 suflScient capacity and depth' to 'afford convenient passage 
 for vessels of the largest tonnage and greatest depth,' and 
 can be made so only by materially increasing the depth and 
 width, and at a considerable increase of time and money. If 
 the suggested width of 150 to 200 feet is the greatest width 
 economically permissible for a sea-level canal, the cost of the 
 enlargement required must be prohibitive. 
 
 "It, therefore, follows that the high-level canal more fully 
 meets the requirements of Congress." 
 
 The Secretary further discussed the questions of locks, of 
 speed and safety of navigation, of time and cost of construc- 
 tion, and others, finally recommending the adoption — with 
 some modifications — of the high-level plans of the minority 
 of the engineers and the majority of the commissioners. He 
 said: 
 
 "When I visited the Isthmus a year and a half ago and 
 went over the site and talked with the then Chief Engineer, I 
 received a strong impression that the work of construction 
 upon which the United States was about to enter was of 
 such world-wide importance and so likely to continue in 
 active use for centuries to come that it was wise for the 
 government not to be impatient of the time to be taken or 
 of the treasure to be spent. It seemed to me that the sea-level 
 canal was necessarily so much more certain to satisfy the 
 demands of the world's commerce than a lock canal that 
 both time and money might well be sacrificed to achieve the 
 best form, and this feeling was emphasized by reading the 
 very able report of the majority. But the report of the 
 minority, in showing the actual result of the use of the locks 
 in ship canals, in pointing out the dangers of so narrow and 
 contracted a canal prism as that which the majority pro- 
 poses, and in making clear the great additional cost in time 
 
324 EEOKGANISATION 
 
 and money of a sea-level canal, has led me to a different 
 conclusion." 
 
 The next word was spoken by the President. On February 
 19, 1906, he referred the whole matter to Congress for its 
 final decision, accompanying the mass of reports and docu- 
 ments with a brief message, in which he declared his con- 
 currence with the recommendation of the Secretary of War. 
 In the message he said : 
 
 "It must be borne in mind that there is no question of 
 building what has been picturesquely termed 'the Straits of 
 Panama;' that is, a waterway through which the largest 
 vessels could go with safety at uninterrupted high speed. 
 Both the sea-level canal and the proposed lock canal would 
 be too narrow and shallow to be called with any truthful- 
 ness a strait, or to have any of the properties of a wide, deep 
 water strip. Both of them would be canals, pure and sim- 
 ple. Each type has certain disadvantages and certain advan- 
 tages. But, in my judgment, the disadvantages are fewer 
 and the advantages very much greater in the case of a lock 
 canal substantially as proposed in the papers forwarded 
 herewith ; and a careful study of the reports seems to estab- 
 lish a strong probability that the following are the facts: 
 The sea-level canal would be slightly less exposed to damage 
 in the event of war; the running expenses, apart from the 
 heavy cost of interest on the amount employed to build it, 
 would be less ; and for small ships the time of transit would 
 probably be less. On the other hand, the lock canal, at a 
 level of 80 feet or thereabouts, would not cost much more 
 than half as much to build, and could be built in about half 
 the time, while there would be very much less risk connected 
 with building it, and for large ships the transit would be 
 quicker; while, taking into account the interest on the 
 amount saved in building, the actual cost of maintenance 
 would be less. After being built, it would be easier to 
 enlarge the lock canal than the sea-level canal. 
 
 "The law now on our statute books seems to contemplate 
 a lock canal. In my judgment a lock canal, as herein rec- 
 ommended, is advisable. If the Congress directs that a sea- 
 level canal be constructed its direction will, of course, be 
 carried out. Otherwise, the canal will be built on substan- 
 tially the plan for a lock canal outlined in the accompanying 
 
HIGH-LEVEL PLAN CHOSEN 325 
 
 papers, such changes being made, of course, as may be found 
 actually necessary." 
 
 The question of the plan of the canal was thus left with 
 Congress for final determination, and that body, at the close 
 of its session in June, 1906, decided in favour of a high-level 
 lock canal, substantially on the lines suggested by the minor- 
 ity of the Advisory Board and by the majority of the Canal 
 Commission. 
 
CHAPTER XYIII 
 
 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 It was realised by judicious observers at the outset of the 
 Isthmian canal enterprise that the work of sanitation was 
 of supreme importance, and especially the elimination of 
 yellow fever, which, if not the most destructive of diseases 
 there, was decidedly the most terrifying and demoralising. 
 Nearly a century before, Humboldt had written that yellow 
 fever and other diseases at Panama were due to the marine 
 plants, mollusks, etc., on the beach at low tide, exposed to 
 the heat of the sun, while on the Caribbean coast, at Porto 
 Bello and elsewhere, bilious fever was due to putrescent 
 emanations from rank vegetation. The world knows better 
 than that now, having learned of the bacterial nature of 
 those diseases and of the part played by certain varieties of 
 mosquitoes in propagating them — the Stegomyia yellow 
 fever and the Anopheles malaria. The attention of sanitari- 
 ans at Panama was, therefore, given largely to the destruc- 
 tion of those insects, and to the guarding of non-immune 
 people against their bites. In his address to the members 
 of the Canal Commission, on their entrance upon their duties 
 in the spring of 1904, President Roosevelt said : 
 
 "There is one matter to which I wish to ask your special 
 attention — the question of sanitation and hygiene. You will 
 take measures to secure the best medical experts for this 
 l)urpose whom you can obtain, and you will, of course, make 
 the contractors submit as implicitly as your own employees 
 to all the rules and regulations of the medical department 
 under you." 
 
 It was remembered that epidemic diseases had been among 
 the most formidable of the difficulties which the French 
 
 326 
 
STATISTICS OF MOETALITY 327 
 
 companies had encountered on the Isthmus, though there 
 was encouragement in the fact that conditions had generally 
 improved since the beginning of De Lesseps's enterprise. To 
 that effect some statistics may be cited from Dr. Lacroisade, 
 who was for many years director of the great French hospi- 
 tal at Ancon Hill, Panama. From 1881 to 1888 under the 
 original company the number of employees averaged 10,854, 
 and the mean yearly percentage of disease was 62.58, and 
 of mortality 5.97 (though for a time there was the appalling 
 death rate of 60 per cent, a year) . From 1889 to 1894, under 
 the receivership, the average number of men was only 971 
 and the percentage of disease was 49.68, and of mortality 
 2.88. Under the new French company, from 1895 to 1901 the 
 number of men averaged 2,703, and the percentage of disease 
 was 37.17, and of mortality 2.61. Moreover, of this last mor- 
 tality percentage, 2.61, European diseases amounted to 2.10, 
 and characteristic tropical diseases to only 0.51. From 1892 
 to 1897 there was no yellow fever on the Isthmus. With 
 these figures before them, it behooved the American admin- 
 istrators to improve, if possible, upon the record. 
 
 As early as January 7, 1904, Mr. Buchanan, the American 
 Minister to Panama, conferred \tith Rear- Admiral Glass, in 
 command of the United States ships at Panama, concerning 
 measures to prevent the importation of disease from Ecua- 
 dorean or other South American ports, and two days later 
 he wrote to Senor Espriella, the Panaman Minister for For- 
 eign Affairs, congratulating him upon the fact that there 
 then existed upon the Isthmus no case of yellow fever, small- 
 pox, or bubonic plague, and suggesting an active and inti- 
 mate cooperation of Panaman and American authorities for 
 the preservation of that immunity. To this Senor Espriella 
 responded cordially, and the practical work of hospital 
 reorganisation and quarantine improvement was promptly 
 begun. The Provisional Board of Government of Panama on 
 January 21 issued a decree imposing severe penalties upon 
 all physicians and pharmacists who should fail at once to 
 report to the National Board of Hygiene any cases of con- 
 
328 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 tagions diseases coming under their notice. Nevertheless, a 
 few cases of yellow fever presently appeared. Two deaths 
 from that disease occurred in the hospital of San Tomas, 
 Panama, on January 15, and other cases occurred at inter- 
 vals during the year. On July 1, 1904, the American sani- 
 tary officers assumed charge of the Canal Zone, and from 
 that date to December 20 following there were ten cases of 
 yellow fever, of which two resulted fatally. Four of these 
 cases occurred in the first two weeks of December, and two 
 of them were known to Secretary Taft and his party on 
 their visit to Panama at that time. Secretary Taft was, 
 indeed, greeted on his arrival with the fearsome whisper 
 that a case or two had just occurred. No public proclama- 
 tion was made of the fact, for fear of creating a panic, but 
 the fact was perfectly well known to the visitors, and was 
 variously regarded. Some were frightened, while others 
 pooh-poohed and scorned the idea that yellow fever could 
 make any serious headway under American administration. 
 But it did make headway. Week by week new cases oc- 
 curred, steadily increasing in numbers. The rainy season 
 came on, making almost every square foot of the wretched 
 cobblestone pavements a breeding ground for the Stegomyia. 
 To make the situation worse, many of the streets were torn 
 up for the laying of sewers and water-mains, and, under the 
 torrential tropic rains, were transformed into sluggish rivers 
 of mud. Meantime demoralisation grew apace in the minds 
 of the American colony. Among many fear and fright 
 developed into absolute panic. As for those who had for- 
 merly scoffed, they assumed a cynical bravado and fatalism. 
 The refrain of their daily song was the old 
 
 '* One cup for the dead already, 
 And hurrah for the next that dies 1 '* 
 
 They professed contempt for the mosquito theory, and 
 ostentatiously tore holes in the nettings which had been 
 placed over the windows of the canal building, or removed 
 them altogether, and disregarded all the sanitary precau- 
 
CAUSES OF DEMOKAIJSATION 329 
 
 tions and regulations which had been prescribed by the 
 health officers. 
 
 It would be ungracious to dwell in too great detail or with 
 too much emphasis upon responsibility for this state of 
 affairs. Careful investigation and conservative considera- 
 tion warrant, however, the charging of it chiefly to two 
 causes. One was, the failure of the Canal Commission to 
 support the efforts of the sanitary officers with the prompt- 
 ness and liberality which were required if those efforts were 
 to be in the highest degree successful. There was too much 
 ^'red tape." Those sanitary officers were in the positions of 
 army officers on the firing line. It was necessary that they 
 should have all the arms and munitions of sanitary war- 
 fare that they wanted, and should have them right away. 
 The enforced waiting for weeks or months sometimes meant 
 disaster. It is not for a moment to be supposed the Canal 
 Commissioners were careless in the matter. They were as 
 desirous as anybody that the fever should be suppressed and 
 the sanitary conditions of the Isthmus should be improved. 
 But at Washington they did not and could not realise the 
 urgency of the case as fully as did the men at Colon and 
 Panama. Moreover, they were under the restraint of caution 
 lest they should be charged with looseness of business meth- 
 ods and with opening the door to "graft." In former years 
 the name of Panama had been synonymous with scandal and 
 corruption. These men proposed to avoid a repetition of 
 that state of affairs, and if in doing so they erred, they erred 
 on the side of caution. 
 
 The other cause of trouble was, the haste of the American 
 nation to have the canal built. Because of that heedless 
 haste, the cart was put before the horse. The canal work 
 was begun before essential preparations for it were complete. 
 This should have been realised at the outset. In its original 
 bargain with the new-born Republic of Panama for the con- 
 struction of the canal, the United States Government con- 
 tracted to do a vast work of sanitation in the cities of Pan- 
 ama and Colon and in the whole stretch of country between 
 
330 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 them. It undertook to create in them a sewer system, a 
 water supply system, and civilised street pavements, and to 
 do its utmost to destroy the Anopheles and Stegomyia mos- 
 quitoes, so as to banish malarial and yellow fevers. It was 
 not through pure benevolence to Panama that the United 
 States undertook such tasks, but in order to facilitate and 
 expedite the construction of the canal ; for it was seen that, 
 if the canal was to be built, the Isthmus must be rendered 
 fit for the builders to live in. There were those then who 
 thought this preparatory work of sanitation should be done 
 first, and that nobody should be set to work on the canal 
 until yellow fever had been completely stamped out, as it 
 had been years before in Cuba — under the direction of the 
 same health officer, Colonel Gorgas, who is now in charge at 
 Panama. But the popular impatience for the canal, and 
 the President's desire "to make the dirt fly," were too strong 
 to be at once resisted. The work of sanitation was begun, 
 but without waiting for it to be completed several thousand 
 men were also set at work upon the canal. The result was 
 not exactly disastrous, but it was deplorable and demor- 
 alising. 
 
 The state of affairs in May, 1905, when Governor Magoon 
 arrived upon the scene, may be summed up in three words — 
 panic, lethargy, bravado; and the three together meant 
 demoralisation. In that month there were thirty-eight cases 
 of fever on the Isthmus, with a threat of a large increase in 
 June. Governor Magoon arrived on May 25, and it did not 
 take him long to perceive two things. One was that the first 
 supreme and necessitous duty of the administration was to 
 get rid of yellow fever, whether a single spadeful of earth 
 was dug on the canal or not. The other was that the first 
 step toward getting rid of the fever must be to restore the 
 public mind — that of the non-immune Americans, especially 
 — to sanity. He began by frankly and publicly declaring 
 that he, personally, was afraid of the fever, and that in his 
 opinion all nonimmunes who professed not to be afraid were 
 "talking rot!" Then he ordered all the window screens to 
 
West, Photo. 
 CHARLES E. MAGOON, 
 Governor of the Canal Zone and American Minister to Panama in 1905-6. 
 
GOVEKNOR MAGOON TAKES HOLD 331 
 
 be repaired and replaced and kept in place, and announced 
 that if any man was caught leaving them open or tearing 
 holes in them, something uncommonly unpleasant would 
 happen to him. Now, when a man of Judge Magoon's mental 
 and physical stature admits that he is afraid, any lesser man 
 is a fool to say he isn't ; and when a man of Judge Magoon's 
 resolution gives an order and prescribes a penalty for its 
 violation, that order is very likely to be obeyed. In this case 
 it was, and there was an end to the cheap bravado that had 
 proved so costly. 
 
 The next step, promptly taken, was destruction of all 
 mosquitoes possible by fumigation. They began with the 
 canal building in Panama. It was thoroughly fumigated on 
 the first Sunday after the Governor's arrival, and every sec- 
 ond Sunday thereafter for some months, when the interval 
 was increased to three weeks. But that was not enough. 
 There were probably many infected mosquitoes in other 
 buildings throughout the city, which must be destroyed. In 
 Havana, Colonel Gorgas had followed the rule of disinfect- 
 ing three houses for every case of fever: to wit, the house 
 in which it had occurred and the house on each side of it. 
 That practice was effective there. But Havana is a thousand 
 miles further north than Panama, and has a winter climate 
 which is fatal to the delicate Stegomyia. No such aid from 
 nature was possible on the Isthmus, wherefore artifice must 
 be more energetic. The heroic plan was, therefore, conceived 
 of fumigating and disinfecting every building in the city of 
 Panama! It was at first hoped to do this enormous work 
 within twelve days, the period of yellow fever's incubation 
 in the Stegomyia, but this was found to be impossible, and 
 the time actually required was more than thirty days; but 
 it seems probable that the work was just as effective as 
 though it had been accomplished in the shorter time. As 
 an illustration of the energy and expedition with which 
 Isthmian affairs were then administered, it may be recalled 
 that Governor Magoon had to send to Washington for 
 material and appliances for the work. He did so by tele- 
 
332 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 graph, and within forty-eight hours after the filing of his 
 despatch the supplies were shipped and on their way to 
 Panama. There was a time when it would have taken nearer 
 forty-eight days. 
 
 It was evident to Governor Magoon, also, that the efforts 
 of the Health Department had been for some reason not as 
 effective as they should have been under so admirable a staff 
 as that of Colonel Gorgas and with so excellent a hospital 
 equipment, and he set about discovering where the fault lay. 
 It was found in the system of reporting cases of fever. In a 
 majority of cases the patients were ill four or five days 
 before they were taken to the hospital or isolated and 
 screened. Now, the first three or four days of the fever are 
 the very time in which mosquitoes are most surely infected 
 through biting the patient. Immediate isolation is, there- 
 fore, of the utmost importance. . But here these patients had 
 been left exposed to the bites of mosquitoes during that crit- 
 ical period, the time of all times when they should have 
 been under screens. What was the cause of such laxity? It 
 appeared that the health oflBcers had not sufficient means at 
 their disposal to employ expert inspectors, and were, there- 
 fore, compelled to depend for information upon voluntary 
 reports of patients or their families, and upon reports from 
 ordinary inexpert workmen who were engaged in cleansing 
 water tanks and similar work. No wonder, under these con- 
 ditions, that the fever was constantly spreading. Governor 
 Magoon changed all that in a twinkling. He employed eight 
 native Panaman physicians as sanitary inspectors, selecting, 
 with the valuable aid of President Amador, who is a dis- 
 tinguished authority on yellow fever and other tropical 
 diseases, those who were most familiar with yellow fever 
 and who would be most likely to recognise it in its earliest 
 stages. Then he divided the whole city of Panama into eight 
 districts, and assigned one of these physicians to each dis- 
 trict, with orders to make a thorough inspection of every 
 house in it every day. That was thorough inspection with a 
 In addition, these physicians were directed to 
 
A SCHOOL OF SANITATIOK 333 
 
 act as missionaries and teachers, explaining to the people 
 the mosquito theory, and impressing upon them the impor- 
 tance of hearty and constant cooperation with the American 
 authorities in sanitation. The employment of native Pan- 
 aman physicians for this purpose was a tactful device and 
 obviated friction and opposition on the part of the people. 
 
 Colonel Gorgas also organised a practical school of sani- 
 tation for the employees of his department, both inspectors 
 and workmen, to teach them what was to be done and why 
 it must be done, and to enable them in turn to explain mat- 
 ters to the people. Then the whole city was thoroughly gone 
 over, with a view to destroying all Stegomyia larvae which 
 might be found in water tanks or other vessels, and either 
 abolishing the receptacles or screening them so thoroughly 
 that no more mosquitoes could get access to them. The 
 Panamans are generally immune against yellow fever, and 
 many of them had no faith in, if even knowledge of, the 
 mosquito theory; and so they were disinclined to take the 
 trouble to screen the tanks and to replace the screens care- 
 fully every time they were removed to get at the water. Tact 
 and patience, however, in time overcame this difficulty and 
 secured the hearty and efficient cooperation of the people of 
 Panama. This achievement was, of course, greatly promoted 
 by the introduction of a new water supply and the conse- 
 quent abolition of the old tanks and cisterns. Governor 
 Magoon at an early date withdrew the workmen from the 
 canal and concentrated all efforts upon the waterworks and 
 sewers, with happy results. By July 4, the principal water 
 main was extendea as far as the Cathedral Plaza, in the very 
 heart of the city, and on that day the water was turned on 
 for public use. It was supplied freely from street hydrants 
 until plumbing connections were made with the houses. In 
 addition, as a temporary measure, until the mains could be 
 extended to all parts of the city, ten large ^'water wagons" 
 were employed to go about the city, distributing water freely 
 to all who could not get it from the hydrants. With such 
 facilities afforded to the people, it was possible to proceed 
 
334 THE FIGHT WITH FEVEE 
 
 vigorously with the work of destroying water barrels and 
 tanks and filling up wells and underground cisterns. Before 
 the end of the year fully nineteen-twentieths of such water 
 receptacles which had existed in Panama had been destroyed. 
 Meantime, a careful watch was kept on all the streets of the 
 city for the immediate removal and destruction of all empty 
 cans, bottles, etc., which, holding a little water, might serve 
 as mosquito nests, and the filling up, drainage, or treating 
 with oil or disinfectants of all pools and puddles of water. 
 In this way it was made practically impossible for the 
 Stcgomyia to be propagated in Panama. A similar work 
 was performed in Colon and in the various villages along 
 the line of the railroad and canal. 
 
 Statistics show the results of this policy. I have said 
 that in May, 1905, there were thirty-eight cases and more 
 were expected in June. They came, of course, because the 
 results of former neglect were then to be reaped, and there 
 was not time for the results of the new policy, which dates 
 from Governor Magoon's arrival on May 25, to appear. In 
 June there were sixty-two cases and Governor Magoon, with- 
 out losing faith in the ultimate triumph of his and Colonel 
 Gorgas's policy, seriously considered the question of tem- 
 porarily removing the entire non-immune population of Pan- 
 ama from the city, and placing it upon the beautiful and 
 salubrious island of Taboga, in the bay. It is probable that 
 the whole clerical force of the canal administration, at least, 
 would thus have been transferred had the buildings on 
 Taboga been in proper condition to receive it. As it was, 
 this step was not taken and was soon seen not to be needed. 
 In July the number of cases decreased to forty-two, and a 
 general feeling of encouragement arose. In August the num- 
 ber fell to twenty-seven and victory was within sight. In 
 September the disease came to an end, with a total of only 
 six cases. The last case in Colon occurred on August 27, 
 and the last case in the city of Panama on September 14. 
 The last case anywhere in the Canal Zone occurred at the 
 village of Matachin, on September 29, where I think the 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF SANITATION 335 
 
 fever had never been known before. The case was obviously 
 an adventitious one, imported by some remote chance, but 
 to guard against even the slightest danger of its duplication, 
 the whole village was literally saturated with disinfectants, 
 so that a Stegomyia flying over it would probably have 
 dropped dead. 
 
 Thus "Finis" was written to the story of yellow fever in 
 Panama. For some weeks Colonel Gorgas with Governor 
 Magoon's sanction publicly and conspicuously advertised a 
 reward of $50 in gold to any one not connected with the 
 Health Department who should report a case of the fever in 
 the Canal Zone or in the cities of Panama and Colon, but 
 nobody claimed the reward. The offer, was not, of course, 
 made in any spirit of bravado or vainglory. It was intended 
 to serve two exceedingly important and practical purposes. 
 One was to reassure the minds of all nonimmunes and put a 
 final quietus upon the demoralisation which had recently 
 existed. The other was to inspire the utmost vigilance 
 among all people, to transform every member of the poula- 
 tion into an amateur sanitary detective, and thus to secure 
 for the health officers the earliest possible information of 
 any suspicious case of illness; for now that yellow fever is 
 actually suppressed every sanitarian will appreciate the 
 supreme necessity of guarding against the spread of infec- 
 tion from any solitary sporadic case which may occur. 
 
 The completeness of the triumph of sanitation may be 
 estimated from the fact that in August, 1905, the month in 
 which yellow fever was practically subdued, the death rate 
 in the Canal Zone was only 25 to the thousand yearly, which 
 is little more than that of many of our northern cities, and 
 vastly less than that of many tropical and semi-tropical com- 
 munities. The death rate of Alexandria, Egypt, is about 35, 
 that of Cairo is nearly 38, that of Calcutta is 30, that of 
 Madras is 38, and that of Bombay is 55. Panama is a sani- 
 tarium compared with those places. In 1904 the death rate 
 of Dublin and its suburbs was 23.3, of Breslau 23.5, of Mos- 
 cow 27.6, of Rio de Janeiro 22, of St. Petersburg 23.7, of 
 
336 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 Trieste 25.8, of Venice 22.2, of Liverpool 22.6, of New 
 Orleans 21.5, and of New York 22.6. Compared with these 
 the rate of 25 at Panama is highly creditable. In that same 
 month of August, 1905, out of 12,000 workmen in the Canal 
 Zone, only 301 entered the hospitals. That fact compares 
 well with conditions in almost any industrial community. 
 
 Nor is the work of sanitation by any means complete, nor 
 is the death rate reduced as low as we may hope it will soon 
 be. Down to the beginning of 1906 there had been, in the 
 Canal Zone, less than an acre of swamp actually filled in, 
 and about 145 acres drained; three and a half miles of new 
 ditches dug, and less than 30 miles of old ditches cleaned 
 and paved ; and about 412 acres of grass and jungle cut and 
 burned. These achievements were only a scratching of the 
 surface, only a beginning of the work which is to redeem 
 Panama from pestilence and make it as healthful as it is 
 beautiful. 
 
 Much was promptly done by the reorganised Commis- 
 sion in 1905 for the general welfare of the staff, employees, 
 and residents of the Canal Zone, apart from, and in addition 
 to, the works of sanitation. Reading rooms, club rooms, 
 gymnasiums, and other places of social entertainment and 
 recreation were provided. They had been much needed, for 
 the Zone was formerly quite destitute of such things. Still 
 more important was the supplying of food. Governor 
 Magoon, upon his arrival at the Isthmus, quickly perceived 
 that this was a matter of supreme and vital interest, and 
 he quickly set about the task of dealing with it. There was 
 no hope of getting satisfactory supplies, at reasonable prices, 
 on the Isthmus. Owing to the fact that the natives never 
 look beyond their present necessities, no surplus food supply 
 ever accumulates. This normal condition of no surplus was 
 greatly intensified by the almost total failure of the crops 
 for the two preceding years, by the abandonment by agricul- 
 tural labourers of their farms back in the hills for work on 
 the canal, where they received higher pay for shorter hours, 
 and by quarantine against the port of Panama on account 
 
ESTABLISHING COMMISSARIES 337 
 
 of bubonic plague, which prevented the arrival of foodstuff 
 from neighbouring provinces. The Commission was thus 
 brought face to face with the problem of feeding 17,000 men 
 with the base of supplies 2,000 miles away. 
 
 Governor Magoon soon arranged to open local commis- 
 sary stores at every important labour camp, to provide mess 
 houses, and to furnish food, both cooked and uncooked, to 
 all employees at cost. Orders were sent by cable to have 
 the Commission's steamers equipped with refrigerating 
 plants, arrangements were made for the erection of a tem- 
 porary cold storage plant at Colon, and refrigerator cars 
 were purchased for immediate shipment to the Isthmus, thus 
 establishing a line of refrigeration from the markets of the 
 United States to the commissary stations of the Isthmus. 
 The equipment in existing hotels was also purchased from 
 individuals lessees and their management assumed by the 
 Commission. The net result of these efforts is that to-day 
 all employees have an opportunity to obtain an abundant 
 supply of wholesome food, cooked and uncooked, at reason- 
 able prices. The silver men — that is, the common labourers 
 — are being fed for 30 cents a day, and the gold employees 
 — that is, those of the higher class — at 90 cents per day, 
 and they get good food in place of bad. 
 
 I have related the story of the commissaries thus briefly, 
 chiefly in the words of the Commission's own report. It 
 should be added that the people of Panama at first strongly 
 protested against the arrangement, fearing it would deprive 
 them of a profitable market for their wares; but Governor 
 Magoon diplomatically argued the point with them and rec- 
 onciled them to the new order of things, on the ground that 
 it would be better for them to have the canal constructed 
 promptly than to have it delayed in order to retain a market 
 for their produce at exorbitant prices. Mr. Shouts then 
 made a contract with a leading railroad and hotel caterer of 
 the United States to undertake the work of feeding all the 
 employees in the Zone; but before anything material was 
 done to execute it the contract was cancelled and the com- 
 
338 THE FIGHT WITH FEVER 
 
 missary department remained under the direct charge of the 
 Commission. 
 
 A victory was won for morals and thrift in the Canal 
 Zone, in September, 1905, when the first decision of the 
 Supreme Court of the Zone was rendered. The purport of 
 that decision was to confirm the validity of Act No. 4 of 
 the Canal Zone laws, under which the conducting of a public 
 gambling place is made a penal offence. A man was charged 
 with running a roulette table. He did not deny the fact, but 
 claimed a right to maintain the place under a concession 
 from the Republic of Panama. The Circuit Court overruled 
 his plea and found him guilty, sentencing him to a fine of 
 f 100 and thirty days' imprisonment. He made appeal to the 
 Supreme Court, which unanimously affirmed the decree of 
 the lower court, with a modification of the sentence. It was 
 ^eld by this decision that under the treaty between the 
 United States and the Republic of Panama, the United 
 States has full control of the Canal Zone, just as though it 
 were the actual sovereign of that territory, free from all 
 anterior obligations or concessions of any kind, and has also 
 full power to legislate for the Zone. If any concession holder 
 is aggrieved by such exercise of authority by the United 
 States, his remedy is in action against the Republic of Pan- 
 ama, and not against the United States. The prohibition 
 of gambling within the Zone was within the legal power of 
 the Isthmian Canal Commission, under the treaty and under 
 the act of Congress constituting the Commission, and is 
 therefore valid. The effect of this decision was most salu- 
 tary. Gambling had long been one of the chief vices of Pan- 
 ama. It was one of the worst features of the regime of the 
 French canal companies. The purveyor of lottery tickets 
 and the tout for gambling dens dogged the heels of the pay- 
 master, and a large share of the wages paid went quickly 
 into the pockets of professional gamblers. It is now deter- 
 mined that there shall be no more gambling within the limits 
 of the Canal Zone, and that means that there will be none 
 within reach of the vast majority of the canal employees. 
 
KULES AND KEGULATIONS 339 
 
 This is a gratifying assurance for morals, for industry, and 
 for thrift, and it will serve as another of those valuable 
 object lessons which Americans are giving to the Panamans, 
 and which the latter, it is encouraging to observe, appreciate 
 and use to their own profit. 
 
 Early in 1906 two more decisions were made with a view 
 to facilitating and expediting the work of canal construc- 
 tion. One was made on January 8, by the President, the 
 Secretary of War, the Chairman of the Canal Commission, 
 the Chief Engineer, and the United States Civil Service Com- 
 mission, to the effect that the civil service rules and regula- 
 tions, devised for use in the United States, should not apply 
 in Panama, in the employment of what were termed in a 
 general way "outside men," — that is, track layers, skilled 
 labourers, foremen, etc. To other classes of employees, 
 stenographers, clerks, bookkeepers, and other "inside men," 
 the rules were to continue to apply. The other decision was 
 made by Congress, a month later ; to the effect that the eight- 
 hour labour law should no longer be enforced upon the Isth- 
 mus. It was recognised that that law, devised for the bene- 
 fit of American labourers in America, was not suited to the 
 conditions at Panama, where the labourers were nearly all 
 aliens, who had never even heard of the eight-hour law before 
 and who had no desire for its application. The enforcement 
 of that law would, therefore, benefit nobody and please 
 nobody, but would greatly delay the completion of the canal 
 and increase its cost. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 The progeny of Gifted Hopkins is numerous and vocifer- 
 ous. There is no important subject upon which much non- 
 sense is not spoken, and there is no great work concerning 
 which there are not counsels of folly. In most cases we may 
 perhaps concede these to have been the output of honest 
 ignorance, or of that intrepidity and precipitancy of judg- 
 ment to which the human mind is too often prone. When 
 the Quarterly Review declared a man might as well ride 
 upon a Congreve rocket as upon a railroad train at twenty 
 miles an hour, it was doubtless sincere, and not moved by 
 malice against Stephenson. We may say the same of Thiers, 
 with his cocksure pronouncement that, however useful rail- 
 roads might be for some purposes, they could never be of 
 value for transporting freight. Lardner was doubtless ani- 
 mated by a purely scientific spirit when he argued that no 
 steamship could carry enough coal to feed its engines on a 
 voyage across the Atlantic. The railings against the Erie 
 Canal were perhaps less honest, having a strong tincture of 
 partisan politics; and the British prophecies that the Suez 
 Canal would never pay its cost were probably in part in- 
 spired by jealousy of the French builders of that great 
 highway. In the case of Panama, there has been more folly 
 emitted than in any of these others, and it has been of 
 a distinctly lower type, marked chiefly either with deliber- 
 ate malice or with a crass ineptitude most urgently requir- 
 ing the fool-killer's attention. It would require a large 
 volume to contain even a synopsis of the half-foolish and 
 half-malicious stuff which has been spoken, written, and 
 printed about various phases of the Panama enterprise in 
 the last three years. The compass of this chapter would not 
 
 840 
 
THEESITES KUNNING AMUCK 341 
 
 suffice for a mere catalogue of it. But it may serve the pur- 
 pose to cite just a few samples of its chief types. Ex pede — 
 Thersitem! 
 
 One of the first propagandists of folly, in point of time, 
 was employed by a political organisation in the United 
 States, to go into a foreign land and there lampoon and 
 libel his own country and its government for the sake 
 of hoped-for partisan advantages in a political campaign. 
 He went to Colombia in December, 1903, right after the 
 Panaman revolution, and sought to cultivate the acquaint- 
 ance of the President, Dr. Marroquin. He represented 
 himself as the agent of the newspaper press of one of 
 the great political parties of this country, which was 
 strongly opposed to President Roosevelt's administration 
 and especially to his policy toward Colombia and Panama. 
 He had come, he said, to investigate and to report upon the 
 ^^situation of Colombia with regard to the painful occur- 
 rences upon the Isthmus of Panama." "There prevails in my 
 country, with respect to this matter," he said, " a great senti- 
 ment of sympathy for Colombia; and the acts and attitude 
 of the Roosevelt government are regarded with profound 
 repugnance." He, therefore, sought "such information and 
 opinions as shall enable the American people to make a 
 decision in favour of your excellency's government and the 
 people of Colombia." That is to say, he was confessedly 
 seeking, in a foreign land, mud to throw at his own gov- 
 ernment ! The political ethics of Colombia have not always 
 been of the highest type, but they were far too high for such 
 a scheme as that, and Dr. Marroquin pretty promptly and 
 curtly declined to lend himself to the tainted scheme. He 
 answered the applicant with a few words which produced 
 "the most painful impression." Thereupon this precious 
 propagandist betook himself to Panama, as the accredited 
 agent of a political organisation, and there, in September 
 and October, 1904, during the Presidential campaign in the 
 United States, busied himself with trying to prove that Dr. 
 Marroquin — ^who by this time was dead and unable to defend 
 
342 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 himself against such attacks — had been a perjured and sor- 
 did knave, who had conspired with President Roosevelt to 
 betray Colombia for American gold ! The astounding fiction 
 was evolved that President Roosevelt, through Secretary 
 Hay, had bribed Dr. Marroquin, with $250,000, himself to 
 foment the Panaman revolution and so turn the Canal Zone 
 over to the United States. Cipher despatches were actually 
 sent by this accomplished discoverer of mare's nests from 
 Panama to his political employers in the United States, 
 declaring that if he were supplied with suflScient funds he 
 could secure documentary proofs of such a bargain ! Doubt- 
 less he could have done so. The supply of fiction is always 
 adequate to the demand, especially under the potent inspi- 
 ration of "Culebra cocktails." I do not think the slightest 
 perceptible result was produced upon the United States 
 election by this fantastic folly, but I do know that the joy 
 of Panama was materially enhanced by it. For many a 
 week thereafter the very mention of that versatile propa- 
 gandist's name, whether in a club on the Cathedral Plaza or 
 in the less conventional purlieus of the road to "Section," 
 was an unfailing and irresistible provocation to something 
 more than Homeric mirth. 
 
 Another outbreak occurred a year later. At the beginning 
 of September, 1905, the corner stone of a new school building 
 was laid at La Trinchera, in the presence of the President of 
 Panama and his Cabinet, and an oration was pronounced by 
 a prominent young member of the Opposition party. Im- 
 mediately it was announced, and bruited over the world, that 
 the speaker had bitterly referred to the impending spolia- 
 tion of Panama by the United States, and impassioned homi- 
 lies were published upon the wickedness of America's thus 
 oppressing the little republic, and we were warned — all this 
 stuff in our own American press, of course — that when the 
 Liberals came into power in Panama there would be resist- 
 ance to the bitter end against our confiscatory schemes. It 
 is quite true that he did speak of the Republic of Panama as 
 being about to be "rent in twain by the iron hand of Amer- 
 
A WAIL OF WOE 343 
 
 ica," but there was scarcely a person in the audience who did 
 not understand what was, of course, his meaning — that 
 America was going to cut a big ditch across the Isthmus! 
 He, in fact, welcomed that prospect, as assuring the future 
 greatness of Panama. 
 
 I remember, too, another case, in which a probably well- 
 meaning descendant of the illustrious Hopkins, in an 
 important magazine article, dolefully descanted upon the 
 primitive and barbarous conditions which prevailed along 
 the line of the canal. When this pious pilgrim visited the 
 labourers' camp at Culebra, he found there actually no pave- 
 ments on the sidewalks. Neither were there electric lights. 
 He could find no resorts of entertainment and social culture, 
 excepting a reading room and a cafe, the latter, by the way, 
 deserted ! Beside all of which, it rained ! Men familiar with 
 similar camps in the United States will appreciate the 
 unrelieved horror of the situation, and will join with that 
 scribe in condemning the American Government for trying to 
 dig a canal without first establishing squash courts and auto- 
 mobile garages all along the line, and changing the climate 
 so that it could be depended upon not to rain when dis- 
 tinguished visitors were in town. 
 
 At the risk of tediousness, I must quote somewhat at 
 length a really notable gem of anti-Panaman literature, 
 which has recently been widely current. Here it is : 
 
 "A land as feverish to the imagination as to the body is 
 Panama. It is a land making a fitting environment tothe 
 deeds of conspiracy, piracy, loot, cruelty, and blood that 
 have principally made its history for centuries. This gloomy, 
 God-forsaken Isthmus is a nightmare region. One descrip- f 
 tive writer has truly said of it that it is a land where the \ 
 flowers have no odour, the birds no song ; where the men are 
 without honour, and the women without virtue. He is not \ 
 far wrong. The birds, brilliant as is their plumage, have 
 no musical notes. The dense forests teem with bright-hued 
 parrots, parroquets, and other birds, which squeak and 
 scream but do not sing. There are beautiful orchids to be 
 found in the swamps and jungles, fair to look upon, but they 
 have no odour. The oranges have green skins, instead of 
 
344 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 golden, the plantains must be fried to make them fit to eat, 
 the reptiles and insects are often venomous, and myriads of 
 parasites are ever ready to invade the human body and bring 
 disease and death. In the atmosphere itself is something 
 suggestive of the days of the old pirates and their fiendish 
 cruelties and orgies. There is no life in the air; it is depress- 
 ing, damp, miasmatic, and intensely hot. For a great part 
 of the year thunder showers succeed each other all day 
 long and half the night, with sheet lightning all around 
 the horizon after dark. There is practically no twilight, day 
 passing almost instantly into night. It is no wonder that 
 this uncanny land has made its residents degenerate into 
 plotters, revolutionists, murderers, and thieves. Its aspect 
 is one of darkness, treachery, and curse." 
 
 Now I wonder if the author of that precious twaddle 
 really regards a land of exceptionally brilliant and profuse 
 sunshine as "gloomy." I wonder if he is really ignorant of 
 the fact that it is the rule in all tropical lands, and indeed 
 to a considerable extent in all the world, that the most bril- 
 liantly coloured birds are songless and the singers are of 
 plain and inconspicuous dress ; and that the gaudiest flowers 
 are destitute of sweet perfume. Did he never compare a 
 blue-jay with a cat-bird, or a wood-duck with a nightingale? 
 Did he never observe the differences between a peony and a 
 violet? It is quite true that at Panama the oranges have 
 green skins. So they do everywhere, before they are ripe! 
 It is true that plantains are better fried than raw, as they 
 are in Jamaica, and New York, and everywhere ; though they 
 are better raw in Panama than in almost any other part of 
 the world, and are eaten raw there as often as anywhere else. 
 Of course, there is little twilight ; but does anybody suppose 
 that is a condition peculiar to Panama and unknown in 
 other tropical lands? As for the monstrous fling at the 
 people of Panama, it could not — save in an ignorance 
 scarcely removed from criminality — have been made by any 
 one capable of appreciating either the honour of men or the 
 virtue of women. I should not have quoted the offensive 
 stuff, save for the purpose which is sometimes served of 
 letting a bit of carrion in the pillory. 
 
MR BIGELOW'S BLAST 345 
 
 One more example of stultiloquentia running amuck, and 
 I leave this unpleasant phase of my subject. I refer to Mr. 
 Poultney Bigelow's screed on "Our Mismanagement at Pan- 
 ama," in the New York Independent, of January 4, 1906, 
 chiefly for two reasons. One is, that its writer's name is 
 somewhat more conspicuous than the names of most of the 
 other purveyors of misinformation and malice who have 
 expended their ignorance or spleen upon Panama, and the 
 other is, that it was deemed of sufiScient interest to be the 
 subject of Executive inquiry and Congressional investiga- 
 tion. But I am at a loss to know whether to regard it as 
 the more malicious or absurd. Certainly nothing could be 
 more preposterous than the pretensions to encyclopaedic 
 wisdom which are put forth in the article, when contrasted 
 with the meagreness of the writer's information and of his 
 opportunity for acquiring information. 
 
 "I have had," says Mr. Bigelow, "abundant opportunity 
 to hear the views of opposing witnesses, but I have also been 
 in a position to examine on the spot many things which 
 have so far been conspicuous by their absence in so-called 
 'oflSciaP and authoritative reports. ... I made a house- 
 to-house visitation throughout the best part of a blazing hot 
 day. . . . One day I stopped to chat with a well-dressed, 
 intelligent, and energetic negro. . . . Next day I came to 
 the same place for another chat. He was not there. . . ." 
 
 The facts are that Mr. Bigelow reached Colon on the 
 steamer Trent, at 10 a. m. on November 30, went across to 
 Panama, returned to Colon the same evening, and sailed 
 away at 2.10 p. m. on December 1. Thus he spent precisely 
 twenty-eight hours and ten minutes on the Isthmus, half of 
 that time being a holiday when no work was done. The 
 "abundant opportunity" was all within that brief period. 
 The "best part of a blazing hot day" was presumably the 
 forenoon of December 1, just before he sailed. The "one 
 day" and the "next day" were the only days he spent at 
 Panama. Note, also, that his article, which was published in 
 New York, on January 4, 1906, was dated, as a letter, at 
 
346 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 "Panama, December, 1905," as though it had been written at 
 Panama and sent on from that place where he was still 
 remaining; when, as a matter of fact, it was not and could 
 not have been written there, for it bears intrinsic and con- 
 fessed evidence of having been written at least some days 
 later, at some place remote from Panama. 
 
 The specific charges against the canal management which 
 Mr. Bigelow made were specifically answered by Mr. Stevens, 
 the Chief Engineer. Mr. Bigelow's information as to the 
 awful unhealthfulness of Colon seems to have been derived 
 largely from a man who had lived there for more than forty 
 years and had all that time been in splendid health! The 
 "vast hordes" of negroes whom Mr. Bigelow saw fleeing from 
 the Isthmus had been employed there for the best part of 
 a year, and were going home to spend the Christmas holi- 
 days. The quarter-mile awning which Mr. Bigelow saw 
 stretched over a ditch, which he was told was "to protect the 
 workmen from the sun," and which tale he believed because 
 "no one could invent such midsummer madness," was really 
 put there to protect the concrete lining of the drain from 
 rain until it had hardened. Concerning the new hotel at 
 Corozal, said Mr. Stevens, "Mr. Bigelow's statement that 
 it is deserted is absolutely false. Every room is occupied, 
 and has been since it was opened." The "big new dredges at 
 the Culebra cut" were not dredges at all but steam shovels. 
 "The statement that there is no water supply at Colon is 
 absolutely and unqualifiedly false." In such manner, with 
 citations of facts, figures, and indisputable evidence, Mr. 
 Stevens traversed and refuted practically every serious 
 accusation made by Mr. Bigelow. On some essential points 
 further refutation was provided by Governor Magoon. In 
 summing the matter up in an official report to the Presi- 
 dent, Secretary Taft said : 
 
 "I learn from the isthmus that the writer arrived in Pan- 
 ama on the Royal Mail steamer Trent from Jamaica, and 
 left by the same steamer. The steamer docked at 10 o'clock 
 on the morning of November 30, and sailed at 2 o'clock on the 
 
TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS OF WISDOM 347 
 
 afternoon of December 1. Assuming that after landing and 
 docking the writer at once began work, it is not unfair to 
 say that his opportunities for observation were limited to 
 twenty-eight hours, including daytime and nighttime. It 
 would seem not to be a very long period in which to look 
 carefully into and determine the character of the engineering 
 difficulties of the greatest constructive enterprise yet under- 
 taken by man, the efficiency of tropical negro labour, the 
 healthfulness of a city, the proper place to put dredges, the 
 proper amount of capacity to obtain from steam shovels, the 
 character of the administration of justice, the proper posi- 
 tion of hotels along the line of the road, the question whether 
 a sewer system should be adapted to Panama at all, or 
 whether the sewer system as established was sufficient for the 
 purpose. Nor does it seem to offer the abundant opportunity 
 for examining opposing witnesses on controverted issues 
 which the writer of the article assures us that he had. The 
 ^many things on the spot' which he says he was able to 
 examine must, therefore, be taken with some qualification. 
 In view of the time which this critic — a man with no knowl- 
 edge of engineering whatever — took to decide all the ques- 
 tions which arise in the construction of the canal and pro- 
 nounce them of altogether vanishing difficulty, he should 
 not take exception to the seven or eight days which twelve 
 of the most distinguished engineers in the world in canal 
 construction devoted to the same task. . . . 
 
 "The writer of the article says that he proposes to state 
 the truth from the standpoint 'neither of an officeholder nor 
 an office seeker, much less that of a disappointed contractor 
 or an invalided labourer;' that 'he has had abundant oppor- 
 tunity to hear the views of opposing witnesses' and was in a 
 position 'to examine on the spot many things so far con- 
 spicuous for their absence in so-called "official" and authori- 
 tative reports.' It will be observed that from the beginning 
 to the end of the article the writer shows that instead of 
 seeking evidence from the officials responsible for the work 
 on the Isthmus he deliberately avoided consulting them or 
 giving them any opportunity whatever to state their knowl- 
 edge or explanation of the facts which he says had attracted 
 his attention. When the actual facts are compared with 
 the statements in this article it gives rise to doubt what 
 the real explanation of the article is — whether it was written 
 from such a wanton motive as actuates a pure sensation 
 monger or whether it arises from the exaggerated eccentric- 
 
348 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 ity of mind which furnishes both an excuse and an expla- 
 nation." 
 
 If I have thus devoted more space to Mr. Bigelow's attack 
 upon the canal administration than the importance of it may 
 seem to some to warrant, it is because of all such attacks 
 his was apparently the most studied and detailed, and of 
 all who have made such attacks he was the best known and 
 the most likely to command attention and credence. If, 
 therefore, his attack was not important, it was at any rate 
 the least unimportant of them all. In one respect it was 
 highly important, and that was, as an exposure of the weak- 
 ness of the enemy. It was with reason said on every hand 
 that if that was the most destructive criticism that could 
 be directed against the canal administration, then that 
 administration must be pretty nearly sans peur et sans 
 reprochc, and the net result unquestionably was to dis- 
 credit all other attacks upon the administration and to con- 
 firm it more strongly than ever before in public confidence. 
 
 Nevertheless, even though good be thus brought out of it, 
 evil remains evil still; and it would be difficult to find a 
 way of absolving Mr. Bigelow — or his article — from the 
 imputation either of evil intent or of evil ignorance. If his 
 misstatements were made knowingly, Mr. Stevens's charac- 
 terisations of them, in stronger terms than any I have 
 quoted, must be deemed well deserved. If they were made 
 ignorantly, what is to be said of the ignorance that assumes 
 omniscience? It is just possible, however, that there is a 
 third explanation, beside the two suppositious ones already 
 named, and that it is the true one, to wit, habit. Account 
 must be taken of idiosyncrasies. Almost simultaneously 
 with the publication of this diatribe in New York there 
 appeared from Mr. Bigelow's pen in a leading London 
 journal — The Outlook — an attack upon the American army 
 administration which I can scarcely describe with a milder 
 word than malignant. Taking for his text some statements 
 of Secretary Taft — whom he repeatedly called "my illus- 
 
KEVILING THE AEMY 349 
 
 trious friend" — in defence of the American army against 
 some German criticisms, this American writer in a foreign 
 journal assured his foreign readers that "during the Span- 
 ish war of 1898 the military authorities at Washington 
 treated the army mainly as a means of political jobbery;" 
 that "the commanders of brigades, divisions, and army corps 
 were as a rule profoundly ignorant of elementary military 
 matters;" — to wit, Generals Miles, Wheeler, Shatter, Lee, 
 Chaffee, Lawton, Brooke, Merritt, Grant, Wilson, Stone, 
 MacArthur, et al. ; that "our generals are mainly conspic- 
 uous for not having been educated at West Point ;" that "the 
 American army is not fit to take the field to-day. The same 
 spirit which made it the tool of political jobbers during the 
 Spanish war is dominant to-day," et cetera. If these stric- 
 tures and railings had been true, the publication of them 
 in an American paper might have been entirely justifiable, 
 and commendable. But to select a foreign medium and a 
 foreign constituency for the publication of such a belittle- 
 ment of one's own country, might well be regarded as indi- 
 cating a mental habit as much at variance with patriotic 
 manners and morals as that shown in the Panama article 
 was at variance with truth. 
 
 It was in reviewing such utterances as those which I have 
 cited in this chapter, of which the name, all through the 
 year 1905, was legion, that President Roosevelt, on January 
 8, 1906, wrote in a message to Congress : 
 
 "From time to time various publications have been made, 
 and from time to time in the future various similar publica- 
 tions, doubtless, will be m^de, purporting to give an account 
 of jobbing or immorality or inefficiency or misery as obtain- 
 ing on the Isthmus. I have carefully examined into each 
 of these accusations which seemed worthy of attention. In 
 every instance the accusations have proved to be without 
 foundation in any shape or form. They spring from several 
 sources. Sometimes they take the shape of statements by 
 irresponsible investigators of a sensational habit of mind, 
 incapable of observing or repeating with accuracy what they 
 see, and desirous of obtaining notoriety, by wide-spread slan- 
 
350 STULTILOQUENTIA 
 
 der. More often thej originate with or are given currency by 
 individuals with a personal grievance. The sensation mon- 
 gers, both those who stay at home and those who visit the 
 Isthmus, may ground their accusations on false statements 
 by some engineer, who, having applied for service on the 
 Commission and been refused such service, now endeavours 
 to discredit his successful competitors, or by some lessee 
 or owner of real estate who has sought action or inaction by 
 the Commission to increase the value of his lots, and is bitter 
 because the Commission cannot be used for such purposes, or 
 on the tales of disappointed bidders for contracts, or of 
 oflSceholders who have proved incompetent or who have been 
 suspected of corruption and dismissed, or who have been 
 overcome by panic and have fled from the Isthmus. Every 
 specific charge relating to jobbery, to immorality, or to 
 ineflBciency, from whatever source it has come, has been 
 immediately investigated and in no single instance have the 
 statements of these sensation mongers and the interested 
 complainants behind them proved true. The only discredit 
 inhering in these false accusations is to those who originate 
 and give them currency, and who, to the extent of their 
 abilities, thereby hamper and obstruct the completion of the 
 great work in which both the honour and the interest of 
 America are so deeply involved. It matters not whether 
 those guilty of these false accusations utter them in mere 
 wanton recklessness and folly, or in a spirit of sinister mal- 
 ice to gratify some personal or political grudge." 
 
 To that, we may well add that it is high time we were at an 
 end of this flood of folly and worse than folly, and were at 
 least within measurable distance of an end of the discussions 
 and investigations of Panaman affairs which have been so 
 copious for most of the time since the great enterprise was 
 undertaken. That view of the case was well expressed by 
 Secretary Taft, in a public address at Detroit, Michigan, in 
 February, 1906. He had been speaking of the then current 
 investigation into canal affairs, and had made it clear that 
 neither he nor the President nor anybody else in authority 
 shrank from the most searching scrutiny of everything that 
 had been done. But, he continued : 
 
 "After one thorough investigation has been completed and 
 every truthful man and every liar has been heard, then let 
 
TIME TO STOP BABBLING 351 
 
 the work go on. You can't be answering questions and build- 
 ing a canal at the same time. You can't have the chief engi- 
 neer and the other constructing officers engaged in that work 
 both in Washington and on the Isthmus. Therefore, I say 
 that all those who wish to be heard ought to be heard now, 
 or ever after hold their peace." 
 
 There spoke the voice of common sense and justice. Dis- 
 cussion and investigation have doubtless been necessary. 
 But some day there should be an end of them, and that day 
 should be somewhere this side of the Greek Kalends. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 THE NEXT THING 
 
 The task before us at Panama is well begun. Despite the 
 proverb, however, it is not half done, and it will not be 
 done years hence when the canal is opened to the commerce 
 of the world. It is a never-ending task which we have under- 
 taken, a perpetual responsibility which we have assumed. 
 That is a fact which should be well borne in mind. "Do the 
 next thing" is a wise counsel; and we may supplement it 
 with many others to the same effect, from the divine "suflS- 
 cient unto the day is the evil thereof," to the homely adjura- 
 tion not to cross a bridge until we reach it. But there is 
 an equal marshalling of authorities to the contrary effect, 
 that it is not wise to begin building a house until the plans 
 are drawn and the cost is counted. Assuredly it would not 
 be wise to engage in a permanent undertaking upon a tem- 
 porary basis. In every detail of our work at Panama, there- 
 fore, it is to be remembered that we are doing a work for 
 all time; whether in engineering, or in sanitation, or in the 
 establishment of political and social relationships with the 
 Isthmian people. 
 
 That was one powerful argument in favour of a sea-level 
 canal, as I have already tried to show. If we were con- 
 structing a canal for ten or twenty years, one at high level 
 might be preferable, and would certainly be the less expen- 
 sive. But we are making a canal for all time, to be in ui 3 
 as long as the trade winds sweep the Caribbean and the tides 
 of the Pacific rise and fall. The plan of it should, there- 
 fore, be determined and adopted with such destiny in view. 
 And there are still those who hold that, despite the contrary 
 decision now made and the high-level plan now adopted, we 
 
 852 
 
LOOKING AHEAD 353 
 
 shall in time have to come to the sea-level plan. The ques- 
 tion is whether we shall secure for ourselves and for poster- 
 ity the advantage and the reward of a wise forethought, or 
 shall incur the inexorable penalty of cowardice and delay. 
 Surely it would seem that the fulfilment of the world's desire 
 of four centuries in the completion of an equatorial water- 
 way around the globe is an enterprise more worthily to be 
 achieved in a Promethean than in an Epimethean spirit. 
 
 The same is to be said of the adjunct and auxiliary works. 
 There are harbours to construct ; perhaps, on the Caribbean, 
 a new terminal city to build ; the appurtenances of civilisa- 
 tion to supply throughout the Canal Zone. These are not 
 simply to be done for the construction of the canal, during 
 the next five or ten or fifteen years, but for the perpetual 
 maintenance of the canal for uncounted centuries to come. 
 It was a heroic task to get rid of yellow fever in the summer 
 of 1905. But what is it going to be, to keep the Isthmus 
 free from that and other pestilences ^^far on, in summers 
 that we shall not see," in 1955, and 2005? Is that looking 
 too far? We must respect the future, said Jacques Cartier. 
 There are those who would interpret that to mean that we 
 should not overtax ourselves with efforts and expenditures 
 for the remote future, but should leave a share of the burden 
 for the future itself to bear. That in a measure is true. But 
 a no less true interpretation is that we are not to impose 
 upon the future the handicap of our weakness and cowardice, 
 nor to compel it to undo the ill-devised deeds of our short- 
 sighted blundering. It might be well to leave the pecuniary 
 cost of the canal to be paid little by little through the next 
 century, or the next five centuries. It would not be well 
 to turn a single spadeful of soil or to lay a single stone for 
 some future generation to undo. "SuflScient unto the day 
 is the evil thereof," and suflScient unto the future days will 
 be the tasks of that time, without a legacy of our ineptitude. 
 
 This principle applies with peculiar force to the question 
 of labour on the canal. There is a vast amount of work to 
 be done, and of manual work despite our utmost introduc- 
 
364 THE NEXT THING 
 
 tion of machinery. It is reckoned that as many as 25,000 
 workmen, efficient according to the American standard, will 
 need to be employed, if the canal is to be constructed with 
 all possible expedition. Now the efficiency of labour in the 
 United States is about three times as great as that in Pan- 
 ama. To secure such a working energy, therefore, it will be 
 necessary to employ something like 75,000 men. That will 
 be a formidable army, equal in numbers to the entire adult 
 male population of the republic. It will be no easy task to 
 secure such hosts of workingmen, and from the political and 
 social point of view it will be no light thing to introduce 
 them into the Zone and into the Republic of Panama. 
 
 There arises at once the question whether they are to be 
 introduced for the temporary purposes of canal construction, 
 or as permanent residents of the Isthmus. Beyond doubt, I 
 think, the latter would be preferable, provided they were of 
 proper character. Panama needs more men. The popula- 
 tion of the state is not more than a tithe of what it should 
 be. Belgium, scarcely more than one-third as extensive in 
 area, has twenty-two times as many people. Bulgaria, only 
 a little larger than Panama, has ten times its population. 
 Switzerland, only half as large as Panama, and with so 
 much of its area uninhabitable, has ten times as many people 
 as the Isthmian republic. Nor need we confine ourselves to 
 comparisons with distant lands in another zone. The neigh- 
 bouring Republic of Salvador has scarcely a quarter of Pan- 
 ama's area, yet has more than three times its population. 
 Hayti has only a third of Panama's area, yet has four times 
 its population. Nor is there any natural inhibition against 
 the increase of population on the Isthmus. Climate and soil 
 and products are all well calculated for the prosperous main- 
 tenance of ten times the present number of inhabitants. We 
 need not here enter elaborately into the causes which have 
 retarded growth. They have been sufficiently indicated in 
 the story of Panama's misgovernment at the hands of Colom- 
 bia, with all the attendant wars and revolutions, the neglect 
 of sanitation and other public interests, and the general 
 
THE LABOUR PROBLEM 355 
 
 prostitution of Isthmian interests and welfare to the pas- 
 sions and greed of Bogotd. With the new era that was 
 established in 1903, a marked change in the Isthmian census 
 should be effected. 
 
 It would be desirable, then, to increase the population of 
 Panama by introducing an army of workmen for the canal 
 who would remain as permanent residents after the comple- 
 tion of the canal. But in that case, as I have already hinted, 
 they must be men of desirable character, from both the Pan- 
 aman and the American point of view. They must be such 
 as would be congenial and acceptable to the present people 
 of Panama, and would be worthy citizens of that republic; 
 and they must be also well disposed toward the United 
 States and its administration of the Canal Zone and its 
 protectorate of Panama. It would be criminal to introduce 
 an element which would be antagonistic to the Panamans, 
 and it would be one of those blunders which are worse than 
 crimes to plant upon the Isthmus a numerous colony 
 hostile to the United States. From what source, then, could 
 we secure a permanent industrial army answering these 
 requirements ? 
 
 The answer, I fear, must be that there is no adequate 
 source. Workmen can doubtless be secured, but not enough 
 of them of a kind desirable for citizenship in Panama. For 
 to be thus desirable, or even acceptable, they must be of the 
 Caucasian race. This is to be said without the slightest 
 prejudice against either the black or the yellow race, but 
 with the fullest sympathy with them and the fullest appre- 
 ciation of their excellent qualities. But even those who — like 
 myself — most strongly condemn the savage proscription and 
 persecution of Chinamen which was begun by the hoodlums 
 and criminals of the Pacific Coast and which — through 
 agencies too well understood to require elucidation — have 
 now become potent throughout the land, even we, I say, 
 would shrink from the prospect of introducing say ten mil- 
 lion Chinese coolies into the United States. Well, propor- 
 tionally, it would be as bad as that to introduce fifty thou- 
 
356 THE NEXT THING 
 
 sand of them into Panama. There are already, I think, more 
 Chinese in Panama than in the United States, proportion- 
 ally ; and the Panaman government is certainly as much jus- 
 tified as our own in prohibiting their further immigration. 
 Those who are already there are treated with a degree of 
 courtesy and justice which makes the American observer 
 blush at the contrast it presents to the savagery of New 
 York, San Francisco, and Rock Springs. But to the increase 
 of their number to an extent which would make them one- 
 seventh the population of the whole republic, Panama not 
 unreasonably nor unrighteously objects. 
 
 Neither would it be well to plant there so large a per- 
 manent colony of the negro race. In saying this there is no 
 thought of prejudice against the negro. But it is not well 
 to transform a white man's country into a black man's 
 country; and especially it is not well to plant the seeds of 
 racial antagonisms in a country where that noxious plant 
 has hitherto been unknown. At the present time, the white 
 race is the dominant race in Panama, though there is no 
 discrimination whatever against the coloured race. A negro 
 is as good as a Spaniard in Panama, provided his character 
 and capacity are equal to the Spaniard's. Or if there is 
 any disposition to treat the negro as an inferior, it has been 
 introduced there by Americans. As to numbers, I believe the 
 negroes equal and perhaps outnumber the whites, and might 
 be able to outvote them and control the government if they 
 were so disposed. But they are not so disposed, but amica- 
 bly acquiesce in an almost purely white government. That 
 is partly because the whites treat the blacks with so much 
 friendliness and equity that the blacks feel their interests 
 to be quite safe in white men's hands without any need of 
 their own self-assertion; and partly because the negroes 
 have no particular taste or aptitude for politics, while the 
 white Panama ns are born politicians and possess the genius 
 of government in an eminent degree. So long as matters 
 remain in their present general condition, therefore, we need 
 fear for Panama none of the brutal race conflicts which have 
 
IMPRACTICABLE COLONISTS 357 
 
 disgraced America from New York to Texas. But if from 
 fifty to seventy-five thousand negro labourers were perma- 
 nently colonised in Panama, and were made citizens of the 
 state, Panama would be made a "black republic" almost as 
 much as Hayti is to-day. With negro voters outnumbering 
 the whites more than two to one, the opportunity for ill- 
 advised or unscrupulous ambition would be dangerously 
 great, and we should probably soon see there a political and 
 social war of races which would be disastrous to the prop- 
 erty and progress of Panama, and embarrassing in a great 
 degree to our own administration of the Canal Zone. 
 
 If then we rule out the yellow and black races from exten- 
 sive colonisation in Panama, whence are the tens of thou- 
 sands of recruits to be drawn? There have been various 
 suggestions, chiefly futile. I have heard it gravely proposed 
 that colonies of Russian refugees, Jews or others, should be 
 planted there. Some Russians have, I believe, settled in 
 Mexico and are reported to be doing well. But the idea of 
 transplanting extensive communities from sub-arctic to 
 tropical latitudes does not commend itself to reason. 
 Another suggestion was that Boers should be brought from 
 South Africa. From the climatic point of view that seems 
 not impracticable, for the Transvaal lies within the semi- 
 tropical zone. But the Boers are, of course, not sufiQciently 
 numerous to provide the labour needed at Panama without 
 depopulating their own land of all save those whom they 
 used to call Outlanders; they indicate no desire to emigrate 
 in any considerable numbers; and they would certainly 
 prove irreconcilably antagonistic to the Panamans, and 
 uncommonly difficult for American administrators to deal 
 with. The hosts of emigrants from Europe who now come to 
 our shores are, with the exception of the Italians, unsuited 
 for labour in the tropics. For the same reason, of course, 
 we must rule out our own people, the white men of the 
 United States. I have been confronted with the inquiry why, 
 if we are eliminating yellow fever and making the Isthmus 
 healthful, an army of American labourers cannot safely go 
 
J^ 
 
 358 THE NEXT THING 
 
 thither and do the work. The answer is easy. We can make 
 Panama sanitary, but we cannot make it temperate in cli- 
 mate. Tropical it is and tropical it will remain ; and Ameri- 
 cans will not and cannot successfully engage in habitual and 
 severe manual exertion in the tropics. Moreover, Americans 
 who can earn high wages at home will not go to Panama to 
 work for low wages. Engineers, foremen, draughtsmen, and 
 the large clerical force, can, of course, be taken from the 
 United States, and in such capacities there are and will be 
 many desirable opportunities for young Americans of ability 
 and character, and of common sense enough to live in proper 
 fashion in the tropics and not get hobnails on their livers 
 through recklessness in food and drink. But American 
 workingmen have no call to Panama, any more than Eng- 
 lish workingmen have to the plains of India. 
 
 There remain the peoples of the two great southern penin- 
 sulas of Europe. Spain is not commonly thought of as a 
 land of considerable emigration. Its less than 19,000,000 
 people do not overcrowd it. Nor do we regard the Spanish 
 as a conspicuously industrial race. Yet, in fact, many Span- 
 iards do go abroad each year, and they are capable of 
 splendid efficiency in industrial pursuits, even in the hardest 
 forms of manual labour. It might not be possible to get 
 anything like a sufficient number of workingmen from Spain. 
 If it were possible it would be a most advantageous thing 
 to do, and it would be well in any case to encourage as large 
 an immigration to Panama from Spain as may be secured; 
 because such colonists would be in admirable accord with 
 the existing population of Panama, and would make a homo- 
 geneous and harmonious addition thereto. 
 
 The Italians have already been mentioned, ^heir splendid 
 ^physi cal efficiency is amply known in the United States, as 
 are also their devotion to dutv, their ambition, their frugal- 
 ity, and their adaptability to new modes of life. They would 
 probably get along well with the Panamans, and would form 
 a valuable addition to the permanent population of the Isth- 
 mus. Of their ability to endure the climate there need be 
 
CHINESE LABOUK 359 
 
 little question. Each year now sees hundreds of thousands 
 of them go abroad, chiefly to the United States and to Argen- 
 tina and Brazil. It would be an admirable stroke of policy, 
 from every point of view, to divert a part of that great 
 stream of migration from our own shores to Panama. We 
 do not need so many Italians here, and we do need them in 
 Panama, and Panama needs them to cultivate her waste 
 places and to transform the jungles into gardens. 
 
 Such are the possible — and impossible — sources of labour, 
 if that labour is to remain permanently in Panama. There 
 remains the other course, less desirable, of securing a suf- 
 ficient force of workmen for the construction of the canal, 
 with the understanding that when that task is done they 
 will depart from the Isthmus. That plan must be adopted if 
 suitable permanent colonists cannot be found, and in that 
 case it will probably be best to look to China for a supply. 
 It is true that Panama has a strict Chinese exclusion law, 
 which it will probably be necessary to maintain. But even 
 with that law in force it w^ould be easy to make a contract 
 with some of the great Chinese companies, for the supplying 
 of so many thousand labourers, who would live at Panama 
 within a certain pale, and when their work there was done 
 would return to China. Precisely such an arrangement has 
 been effected in South Africa for tjie working of mines, and, 
 despite the political campaign clamour which has been raised 
 against it, it seems to be reasonably successful and satis- 
 factory. I can see no convincing argument against the adop- 
 tion of such a system at Panama, while the arguments in 
 its favour are many, obvious, and strong. There can be no 
 doubt of the ability of the Chinese to endure the climate and 
 to do the work with marked efficiency. Their labour would 
 be inexpensive, and they would be exceptionally trustworthy 
 and easy to govern ; while their return home could be much 
 more readily and certainly assured than that of any other 
 temporary levy. 
 
 We must remember, too, that we are not merely doing at 
 Panama an immense physical work that is to endure, under 
 
360 THE NEXT THING 
 
 our control and responsibility, for all time. We are also 
 entering into political and social relations with an alien 
 people, and those relations, in some form, are to endure for 
 all time. Concerning that feature of the case, of unsur- 
 passed interest and importance, three things may be asserted 
 with confidence. One is, that we do not wish to annex Pan- 
 ama, nor to subvert nor interfere with its autonomy further 
 than is provided in our treaty with that republic and in its 
 own Constitution. The second is, that we do intend to main- 
 tain our protectorate over Panama and our special and ex- 
 clusive privileges — and responsibilities — there. The third 
 is, that we desire these relations to be maintained in a spirit 
 of mutual amity, confidence, and contentment. It would be 
 a most unwelcome — I might almost say, an abhorrent — ^thing 
 to be compelled for any reason to reduce Panama to the con- 
 dition of a subject province, or to add it to the category of 
 those alien possessions which were forced upon us by the 
 logic of an unsought war, and which are to us to-day a 
 ^'white man's burden" which is heavy and costly to bear — 
 though we shall doubtless bear it unflinchingly as long as 
 necessity or duty may require. It would be no less unpro- 
 pitious for us to lose our hold upon the Isthmus in any way ; 
 the hold which we have had, for its profit and our own, not 
 merely since the treaty of 1904, but since the treaty of 1846 
 was signed. Assuredly, it would be intolerable to have our 
 permanent relations with Panama incessantly or even peri- 
 odically marked with friction and irritation. 
 
 How, then, are we to insure the permanence of pleasant 
 relations between America and Panama? I would answer, 
 first of all, that we must treat Panama with justice. The 
 Panaman sense of justice is as highly cultivated, and the 
 Panaman sensitiveness to and resentment of injustice are as 
 keen, as our own. I shall never forget an incident of Sec- 
 retary Taft's visit to Panama in 1904 — to which I have 
 already devoted a chapter. At the state banquet in his hon- 
 our on the evening of December 1, at which were present the 
 representative men of Panama, of all parties, he said in the 
 
JUSTICE FOK PANAMA 361 
 
 course of his address that since his arrival there he had 
 become convinced "that justice had not been done to Pan- 
 ama." The approving applause was instantaneous, spon- 
 taneous, electric, universal, tremendous. The whole heart of 
 Panama, without regard to party, responded to that senti- 
 ment, nor was there a whisper of dissent from any of the 
 well-informed Americans present. There were two possible 
 interpretations of those words. One was, that justice had 
 not been done to the climate, the resources, and the attract- 
 iveness of Panama. The other was, that Panama had not 
 been justly treated in the customs and postal arrangements 
 between it and the United States. There was some doubt, 
 among some, as to which of these things the speaker meant. 
 I have purposely refrained from asking him. But I think 
 that it may safely be assumed that, whichever thought may 
 for the moment have been uppermost in his mind, — for he 
 spoke entirely ex tempore^ — upon mature reflection he would 
 have meant and did mean both. Indeed, only four days 
 later, speaking again from almost the same place, he made 
 it quite clear that he did mean both those things. 
 
 There can be no question, however, of the interpretation 
 of his words which instantly sprang uppermost in the mind 
 of every one of his Panaman hearers. It was the latter of 
 the two. They had felt for months past that they were 
 being unjustly treated — as they were. They had been 
 divided in opinion, some holding that the injustice was inten- 
 tional and would be arrogantly persisted in by the irresisti- 
 ble northern power, and others declaring that it was unin- 
 tentional and would be abated as soon as the state of affairs 
 was made clear to the American government. Secretary 
 Taft's visit, therefore, was crucial. It was to determine and 
 to demonstrate which of these views was correct. Until he 
 arose to speak that night, he had given no intimation as to 
 what he thought of the matter. But in almost the opening 
 sentence of his address he made the unequivocal declaration 
 which I have quoted. That settled it. In that instant he 
 won the loyalty and the affection and the confidence of Pan- 
 
362 THE NEXT THING 
 
 ama as America had never had it before. The Panamans, 
 some to their pleased surprise and some to the welcome con- 
 firmation of their hopes, realised that the injustice they had 
 suffered had been unintentional, and that the American gov- 
 ernment was great enough and brave enough to admit and 
 to repair its inadvertent fault. I doubt if in all the story of 
 our dealings with Panama there is an utterance or a deed 
 more auspicious of good, or more significant of the true 
 policy to be pursued, than was that pregnant sentence in an 
 after-dinner speech. 
 
 We must, in the next place, act with firmness, and with 
 consistent firmness. We must do that, for the maintenance 
 of our own rights and privileges, and also for the protection 
 of Panama alike from external foes — which are little to be 
 feared — and from intestine disorder — which is not beyond 
 the bounds of reasonable apprehension. Let me revert again 
 to that speech of Mr. Taft's to say again that some of the 
 very heartiest and most universal applause — I am convinced 
 it was as sincere as it was tumultuous — was given to his 
 declaration that the United States would countenance no 
 political revolutions in Panama other than those constitu- 
 tionally effected at the polls. The approval of that decla- 
 ration was, indeed, no less positive than that which greeted 
 his statement concerning the doing of justice to Panama. 
 The people of the Isthmus want justice. But equally they 
 are willing to submit themselves to such American authority 
 as they have in their Constitution formally accepted. They 
 realise the inexorable force of the familiar principle, that 
 authority and responsibility must be commensurate and 
 inseparable. They have accepted with gratitude the guard- 
 ianship of the United States, and they have in equal measure 
 accepted its control. 
 
 We must act, moreover, with discretion and with tact. 
 The first part of oratory, said Demosthenes, is action; the 
 second part is action ; and the third part is action. Danton, 
 prescribing or describing political success, said "De I'audace, 
 encore de I'audace, toujours de I'audace!" I would that 
 
THE NEED OF TACT 363 
 
 some voice of similar authority might impress upon all 
 Americans, official and unofficial, the necessity and the 
 supreme utility, first, of tact ; second, of tact ; and third, of 
 tact. It would not hurt us to cultivate that quality in our 
 domestic operations. In our dealings with foreign peoples, 
 it is simply indispensable; if our car of progress is not 
 always to be at least a potential powder cart. Nor are 
 there any people in the world toward whom the exercise of 
 tact is more desirable than our Latin- American or Spanish- 
 American neighbours at the south. It was all very well for 
 Pinckney to read the riot act to Godoy, and for John Quincy 
 Adams to treat Onis and Vives with New England brusque- 
 ness. That was the particular type of tact which those 
 Spanish statesmen needed to have applied to them; and, 
 moreover, we were quite ready and not at all reluctant to 
 accept the consequences, even though they had been militant. 
 Nor should we forget that a great power, such as Spain then 
 still professed to be, can endure bullying much more easily 
 than can a small one. The great power can yield to a peremp- 
 tory demand as a matter of magnanimous grace, where a 
 small power would feel and would seem coerced and 
 humiliated. 
 
 Now Panamans are weak, but they are also proud and 
 sensitive. It would be in our power, of course, to drive them 
 whithersoever we pleased ; but they would greatly and prop- 
 erly resent it. It is in our power to lead them in certain 
 desirable and beneficent ways, and for our doing so they will 
 be grateful. But even in leading them instead of driving 
 them, we should exercise tact and discretion. It is not 
 desirable to lead them into all the ways which we ourselves 
 might properly and profitably pursue. For they are Pan- 
 amans and we are Americans, and there is a difference 
 between us. I do not mean that there is a difference which 
 is significant of superiority on the one hand and of infe- 
 riority on the other. Peers differ among themselves. The 
 antecedents of the Spanish people for many centuries have 
 been radically different from those of the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
364 THE NEXT THING 
 
 Their temperaments and dispositions, their ambitions, their 
 whole mental and spiritual make-up, are different from ours. 
 There could be nothing more foolish and more fruitless than 
 to try to make them like ourselves. Between them and us 
 there are and there will be some things in common, but there 
 also are and will always be some decided differences; and 
 the sooner and the more fully we realise, accept, and act 
 upon that fact, the better it will be for all concerned. 
 
 Improvement, not transformation, is needed. We could 
 not make Panama wholly American if we should try, and 
 we could not transform the Panamans into Americans. To 
 attempt it would be both futile and impertinent. Instead, 
 we should seek to promote the development of all that is 
 best in Panama and the Panamans, as Panamans and not as 
 pseudo-Americans. As the latter they would be our inferi- 
 ors, while as the former they are our equals. We cannot 
 make ourselves Panamans, no matter how hard we try. No 
 matter how long we live there, no matter how well we learn 
 their language, no matter how much we strive to adopt 
 their customs, we remain aliens, awkward and absurd, until 
 the second or third generation. If any American wants to 
 make of himself a butt of merited ridicule, all he has to do 
 is to go to Panama and try to pose as a Panaman. He will 
 find himself inferior to the poorest and most ignorant native. 
 But if he goes thither and remains confessedly an American, 
 he will command respect. Now it is precisely the same with 
 Panamans. They cannot rival us as Americans. But if 
 they remain Panamans, and make the best of themselves as 
 such, they will be entitled to our respect. 
 
 What is incumbent upon us, then, is to regard Panama 
 from the Panaman point of view, just as we demand that 
 Panamans and other aliens shall regard America from the 
 American point of view. That is not easy to do, I know. It 
 is not easy, perhaps not always possible, to see ourselves 
 as others see us; and it is no less diflScult to see others as 
 they see themselves. But this latter ability is just as much 
 to be desired as the former, and is just as necessary to a 
 
NEW YOKK AND PANAMA 365 
 
 correct judgment of our neighbours. To each, his own stand- 
 ard. Judged by the standard of New York, Panama would 
 seem a contemptible place. Judged by the standard of Pan- 
 ama, New York would be intolerable. Judged by its own 
 standard, Panama is the equal and perhaps the superior of 
 New York. It has probably more nearly attained its ideal 
 than has the American metropolis. Perhaps the New York 
 standard is the higher and better, in some respects — for New 
 Yorkers, not for Panamans. But that is not the essential 
 point. What we need to recognise is the equality of Panama 
 with America — its equal rights to live its own life and 
 develop its own destiny. No matter if Panama is not 
 America's equal, measured by our rule. No two men in the 
 world are exactly equal ; yet we have agreed to regard them 
 as so, for purposes of business and politics and social inter- 
 course. Upon such foundation of equality must we build our 
 permanent relationship with Panama, if the structure is 
 to be enduring and is to be a temple of peace. 
 
 Such tactful policy is, moreover, as necessary in private 
 and individual as in official and public affairs. At home we 
 may lay the flattering unction to our souls that we are The 
 People, as much as we please. But that will not work well 
 abroad. The American who goes to Panama and regards the 
 Panamans as "damned Greasers" — as I have known only too 
 many to do — sets himself down at once as a boor and a fool. 
 He is a boor, thus to treat those upon whose hospitality he 
 has intruded himself; and he is a fool, because he shows 
 himself incapable of appreciating people who in manners 
 and learning are decidedly his superiors. He is and does 
 something still worse. He brings reproach upon his coun- 
 try, and engenders ill-feeling between it and the land he thus 
 maligns. For, generally speaking, a nation is estimated not 
 according to its constitution or its government or its ab- 
 stract rank in the scale of civilisation, but according to the 
 concrete, individual specimens of its people with whom we 
 come into contact. If a lot of individual Americans go to 
 Panama and call the Panamans "damned Greasers," the 
 
366 THE NEXT THING 
 
 Panamans will not say — as they might, truly — "These are 
 only a few unworthy Americans, who have left their 
 country for their country's good. The mass of the American 
 people and the American Government are just and cour- 
 teous." No, but they will say — as we should do in their 
 place — "So! The Americans regard us as ^damned Greas 
 ers,' do they? Well, who cares what the damned Yankees 
 think, anyway?" Seriously, it is in such fashion that half 
 the international animosities in the world are generated. 
 
 There is need, too, that we shall study Panama and the 
 Panamans. Certainly we ought to know as much about them 
 as they do about us. At present we certainly do not. Few 
 things impressed me more at Panama than the perfect famil- 
 iarity of Panamans with America and American affairs, as 
 contrasted with the ignorance of Americans of Panama and 
 Panaman affairs. The Panamans have visited America. They 
 have studied in our schools and colleges. They are familiar 
 with our social customs. But what do we know of them? 
 It will not do to say that America is worth but Panama is 
 not worth studying. Our own conduct gives that excuse the 
 lie. If Panama is worth going to, as we are going to it, 
 it is worth studying. If the Panamans are worthy of the 
 relationships with them which we, at our own initiative, 
 have sought, they are worthy of study. We have much to 
 teach them, but they have also much to teach us. Especially 
 have they to teach us a lesson of tactful adaptation. The 
 Panaman endeavours to treat his American guest as that 
 American wants to be treated. He studies his tastes, sus 
 ceptibilities, prejudices, national idiosyncrasies. He says, in 
 effect, "Your ways are not my ways, and I would not like 
 them for myself ; but they are yours, and therefore I respect 
 them and cater to them to the best of my ability." Do 
 Americans treat Panamans thus? Some do, and some do 
 not ; but it is in proportion as they do so that they establish 
 mutually satisfactory relations with them. 
 
 This is a lesson which Americans greatly need to learn in 
 commercial matters, not only in Panama but in all the lands 
 
TRADE METHODS 367 
 
 of Central and South America. It is a matter of surprise 
 and regret to many that our European rivals so far outstrip 
 us in the markets of those countries. To those who have 
 studied and compared the methods of Americans and Euro- 
 peans in pushing trade, it is a matter of no surprise at all. 
 A Panaman merchant expressed it to me epigrammatically 
 but most comprehensively, when he said, "The American 
 brings samples, but the European gets samples." That is 
 precisely it. The American commercial agent goes to Cen- 
 tral or South America with a case full of samples of goods 
 such as we use at home and such as are not at all designed 
 for use in the tropics, and tries to persuade the people that 
 these are the things they ought to buy and to use, instead 
 of the things they have long been accustomed to and which 
 are especially suited to their needs. "You poor, benighted 
 heathen," he says, in effect, "you ought to give up your ways 
 and manners, your tools and clothes, and adopt such as we 
 Superior People have. You don't know what is best for 
 you. We do. Behold, here are the things you ought to 
 buy !" The German, or the Frenchman, or the Englishman, 
 on the other hand, goes to them with an empty bag, and asks 
 "What kind of clotheg do you like to wear? And what kind 
 of tools do you prefer to use? And what are your tastes in 
 this and that and the other thing?" He gets samples of 
 all the things they use, and takes home a bag full of them. 
 Then his employers at home manufacture exactly the sorts 
 of things which he has found out the people want, and they 
 send those goods to them, and sell them at a handsome profit, 
 and get a practical monopoly of the market. 
 
 Now that is what we must do, if we are to win the place 
 in the Central and South American market which we desire. 
 We must cater to our customers. We must give them the 
 things they want, and not try to force upon them the things 
 they don't want but which we think they ought to want. In 
 Europe there are vast manufacturing establishments whose 
 wares are never seen in European markets, but are all 
 shipped abroad, for the supplying of foreign demands. And 
 
368 THE NEXT THING 
 
 the foreign order is faithfully filled, no matter how strange 
 or outlandish it may seem. As a widely and shrewdly 
 observant friend of mine said one day, "It is no business of 
 ours what they want. Our business is to supply it. No 
 matter if it is razors without edges, or guns without trig- 
 gers, or shoes without soles — if they want such things and 
 are willing to pay for them, in the name of Mercury, god 
 of trade, let them have them!'^ As a matter of fact, our 
 Panaman friends know what they want and what is good 
 for them a great deal better than we do. They have been 
 settled on that tropical Isthmus for a hundred years longer 
 than we have been settled here, and they understand their 
 natural environment not only better than we do but, I am 
 inclined to think, actually better in some respects than we 
 understand our own. 
 
 All this, however, is not to say that we are not to introduce 
 any of our ways and manners at Panama. On the contrary, 
 we must do so, promptly and resolutely, if our enterprise 
 there is to prove successful. Americans cannot live at Pan- 
 ama as the Panamans live, and cannot do in all things as the 
 Panamans do. There must be special laws and customs and 
 institutions provided for the benefit of the Americans who 
 are now there and who will be and must be there in increas- 
 ing numbers in future. For example, Panamans are largely 
 immune against yellow fever, while Americans are not. Pan- 
 amans could therefore afford to neglect sanitary precautions 
 which are necessary for the safety of Americans. But for 
 the sake of Americans, it is necessary that the Panamans 
 shall adopt and maintain regulations which seem to them 
 unnecessary. They are willing, of course, to do so. But 
 even with their voluntary and efficient cooperation, the task 
 of keeping Panama free from pestilence is not going to be 
 an easy one. That is not because the place itself is essen- 
 tially unhealthful, or must remain so, for it can be made 
 almost a tropical sanitarium, but because it is and will be 
 increasingly subject to invasion from all parts of the world. 
 It is to-day a cosmopolitan spot. But when the canal is 
 
"ETERNAL VIGILANCE" 369 
 
 opened it will be a veritable world centre, the resort of trade 
 and travel from every continent and from all the islands of 
 the seas. With every plague of every clime making insidi- 
 ous approaches to it, Panama will need, and needs to-day 
 and from this day forward unremittingly, a sanitary guard- 
 ianship surpassed by none in the world for intelligence, for 
 vigilance, and for inflexible authority. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 PANAMA 
 
 I HESITATE to Write of Panama. I mean not only Panama 
 the country, but also and more especially Panama the city, 
 and its environs, and its people. I mean Panama, with its 
 faults and frailties, and also with its beauties and its vir- 
 tues, and with its unique and ineffable charm. One may well 
 hesitate to write about his host, save with unfailing courtesy. 
 Yet at least equally one must hesitate to write aught but the 
 truth. Let me hope that in writing the truth, both pleasant 
 and unpleasant, unfailing courtesy may prevail, and the net 
 balance may be on the side which is not only agreeable but 
 welcome to my friends in Panama. The memory of that 
 place is one of blue skies, seen through a fairy tracery of 
 palm-fronds; of quaint old streets that made me dream a 
 composite dream of Seville, Naples, and Hong Kong; of a 
 sea more blue and more calm than ever is seen on our bois- 
 terous Atlantic coasts ; of a strange mingling of the fifteenth 
 century with the twentieth ; of pearl-roofed spires and clan- 
 gorous bells ; of a riot of rich colours and sweet sounds ; of 
 a hospitality at once stately and inviting, dignified and 
 cordial, which made the stranger to feel at home and the 
 wanderer to realise that he had won the goal of his desire. 
 Because of such memories I have deferred writing of Pan- 
 ama until I have written of all else that I may write about 
 upon the Isthmus, and now I shall try to write of Panama 
 as it was, but as it will be no more. It was then trembling 
 upon the verge of a great and strange transition. The Pan- 
 ama of Philip of Hapsburg still remained, and the Panama 
 of Theodore Roosevelt was dawning into existence. No 
 more suggestive contrast has been seen in all the world than 
 
 370 
 
IMPBESSIONS OP COLOK 371 
 
 was there and then presented, and none more worthy of 
 commemoration. 
 
 The approach was, of course, by way of Colon — the Aspin- 
 wall of earlier years — and it must be confessed it was not 
 impressive. The translucent ultramarine of the Caribbean 
 was changed as we approached the coast to turbid, tawny 
 yellow, due partly to the muddy outflow of the Chagres and 
 partly to the all but insistent trade-winds which beat upon 
 that coast and so disturb the waters of the open roadstead 
 as constantly to stir up the mud from the shallower bottoms. 
 Yet the coast itself was not unattractive. Low and flat as 
 Manzanillo Island itself is, at each side and at the inland 
 background the eye found grateful variety in swelling hills 
 and jutting headlands, while everywhere was a riotous pro- 
 fusion of verdure, both low and lofty. The rows of graceful, 
 towering palms, all leaning at a uniform angle before the 
 trade-winds, gave even the squalid streets of Colon an air 
 of distinction at a distance. But it must be confessed that 
 the enchantment of the view was in great measure lent by 
 distance. It needed only a short time ashore to persuade me 
 that Colon was a wretched blunder. The site is all but 
 hopeless. It is wind-swept, and therefore not as hot as some 
 other places on the Isthmus. But it lies at only the slightest 
 elevation above an almost tideless sea, in one of the rainiest 
 climates of the world. The result is such humidity as not 
 even the Ganges Delta knows, and an almost hopeless lack of 
 drainage. The elevation is scarcely sufficient to permit sew- 
 erage into the sea, though we have been building a sewer 
 system there ; and such sewage as does find its way into the 
 sea is not swept away into the depths, but is beaten back 
 upon the shore, or churned about in the shore waters. We 
 used to say of certain lands that they would be delightful if 
 only they could be submerged in the sea for an hour, until 
 all the inhabitants were drowned beyond resuscitation, and 
 then be raised again for a new population. Colon would be 
 an attractive place if, on the other hand, it could be elevated 
 in a mass ten or twenty feet, and sustained there. If enough 
 
3V2 PANAMA 
 
 earth for that purpose can be brought down from Culebra, 
 well and good. Colon may be redeemed. Otherwise, it 
 would be best to abandon it altogether and rebuild else- 
 where. 
 
 When, however, we got away from the reeking coast 
 swamps, and reached solid ground, and began to wind our 
 way among the hills, the prospect was charmingly trans- 
 formed. The general landscape varied from the beautiful 
 to the sublime, while detailed bits on every hand presented 
 an exquisite loveliness beyond the power of words to describe. 
 There were impenetrable jungles of vines and fern and brake, 
 and there were stately open woodlands of palm and cedar 
 and mahogany and ceiba and a hundred other woods. There 
 were near the coast some sluggish waters, from which alli- 
 gators leered at us with half-human, half-reptilian eyes, 
 but elsewhere the swift-flowing streams were clear as crys- 
 tal. Orchids and innumerable other flowers glowed and 
 blazed with colours which would be the despair of a painter's 
 palette, but of course, as is the rule in tropic lands, most — 
 not all — of them were without perfume. (Is not, by the 
 way, the same to be said of our flowers in the north? The 
 majority of the showy ones are odourless, or have unpleasant 
 odours.) Monkeys chattered in the treetops, and there 
 was assuredly no "loneliness of wings," with the countless 
 multitudes of birds, from the humming-birds, scarcely bigger 
 than a bumble bee, to parrots and cockatoos as big as barn- 
 yard fowls — and, of course, the omnipresent black vulture, 
 sailing and circling on motionless wings far up the sky. 
 Again, according to the rule of tropic lands, the most bril- 
 liantly coloured birds were songless. (But why say the rule 
 of tropic lands? With few exceptions the same is true else- 
 where. One little brown house wren can outsing a whole 
 flock of your brilliant jays and tanagers, and even bluebirds 
 and orioles, while the greatest of all our feathered choir, the 
 catbird, the mocking-bird, and the veery, are very Quakers 
 and nuns for plainness of garb.) 
 
 The stretches of open and cultivated country were by no 
 
RESOUKCES OF ISTHMIAN LANDS 373 
 
 means unattractive. There was not, of course, the thrift of a 
 New England farm, nor were there the magnificent expanses 
 of tillage which our western prairies and plains afford. But 
 there were fine corn-fields and creditable gardens, and the 
 rich pasture lands showed herds of cattle, and nowhere did 
 I see the piteous neglect of some of our ^'abandoned farms," 
 or the dreary shiftlessness of the poorer regions of our 
 Southern States. Jerrold said that in Australia "Earth is 
 so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with 
 a harvest." In Panama she does not need so much as the 
 tickling. If ever there was a land of natural plenty, "flow- 
 ing with milk and honey," it is Panama. Unhappily, such 
 profusion of nature's bounty, and the consequent ease of 
 sustenance, in the absence of commercial and industrial 
 stimulus, have greatly induced neglect and sloth. There 
 is nothing more impressive on the Isthmus than the magni- 
 tude of the opportunities and the completeness with which 
 they are neglected. Corn grows as well there as in Georgia 
 or Illinois, and you can grow three crops of it in a year. 
 Yet it is a neglected industry. Some cattle are raised, with 
 much success. But what would not be possible in a land 
 where the rich guinea grass produces the equivalent of from 
 20 to 30 tons of hay to the acre, and of course cattle can 
 be at pasture the whole year round? There are, I am told, 
 some 300 acres planted with india rubber trees, in Panama. 
 Yet there are hundreds of square miles on which some of 
 them — notably the fine Castilloa elastica — would flourish. 
 You may plant a hundred trees on the acre, at a cost 
 of only thirty dollars, and in a few years each tree will be 
 yielding from two to ten pounds of rubber a year, worth 
 nearly a dollar a pound. The San Bias Indians raise some 
 of the finest coffee in the world, and its culture might be 
 general throughout much of the republic. As for cocoanuts, 
 bananas, all the citrus fruits, vanilla, sarsaparilla, ipecac- 
 uanha, indigo, and what not else, the Isthmus is their 
 chosen home. 
 
 Amid all this luxuriance and these unbounded possibili- 
 
374 PANAMA 
 
 ties a large proportion of the people lead an indolent, unam- 
 bitious life. Cabins built of logs and thatch form their 
 homes, surrounded by banana and cocoanut trees, with per- 
 haps an acre or two of cultivated ground. Scarcely less 
 primitive, and much more squalid, are the homes in the vil- 
 lages. The "native" streets of the villages along the rail- 
 road, and practically the entire villages remote from that 
 line, are composed of thatched cabins of one or two rooms 
 each. The main streets of the railroad villages, built largely 
 by foreigners, have two-storied houses of dressed lumber, 
 which are really far more squalid and vastly less picturesque 
 than the thatched cabins. These villages are not lovely to 
 look at or to smell of. Squalid and savage, most visitors 
 would say. Yes, but in that genial clime life in such quar- 
 ters is not physically uncomfortable, and really its condi- 
 tions even at the worst are not nearly as shocking, not as 
 squalid, not as repulsive to see, as are those of tens of 
 thousands of both blacks and whites in our own Southern 
 States, and in some parts of some of our Northern States, 
 or of the denizens of the overcrowded, reeking, rotting slums 
 of our great cities. I have seen within an hour or two of 
 New York, and even in the immediate suburbs of that city, 
 in rural villages, families of white Americans, of several 
 generations of American ancestry, living in worse squalor 
 than any in Panama ; while as for some of the metropolitan 
 tenements, which still exist in this Twientieth Century, by 
 the side of them the hovels of Panama appear like sanita- 
 riums and pleasure resorts. 
 
 The city of Panama is unfortunate in its entrance-way, by 
 land; the railroad delivering you in one of its very poorest 
 quarters. In that respect it does not differ from many other 
 places of greater pretensions. Some parts of Newark (New 
 Jersey), for example, and of Atlanta (Georgia), are excep- 
 tionally handsome and attractive; yet it would be diflScult to 
 imagine anything more dreary and uninviting than the 
 aspect of those really splendid cities from a railroad train. 
 At the time of our advent in Panama, the roadways of the 
 
THE STKEETS OF PANAMA 375 
 
 streets were mud, dust, and cobblestones, varied with cob 
 blestones, mud, and dust. Perhaps there were worse paved 
 streets, somewhere. Of course we used to have in New York 
 and Brooklyn streets paved with cobblestones, in all respects 
 but one probably as bad as those of Panama. But the Pan- 
 aman streets were unique in having a sort of fret-work, or 
 diaper work, composed of rows of bigger stones, rising above 
 the general cobble-level two or three inches, and crossing 
 the streets at all sorts of angles, a few feet or yards apart. 
 It is all changed now; and you may ride about the town, 
 from the Chiriqui Plaza to the Savannahs, on smooth pave- 
 ments of vitrified brick, and macadam. But never, till oste- 
 opathy is a lost art, shall I forget the sensations of riding 
 along those fretted-cobblestone streets, in a cabriolet with- 
 out rubber tires, and with the most inflexible of springs, and 
 with the little horses always at a gallop ! 
 
 The streets were — and are — generally narrow, many of 
 them little if any wider than some of the narrowest in New 
 York and Boston and Philadelphia. Their narrowness is 
 accentuated, too, by the overhanging balconies which run 
 along the second stories of many of the houses, from one to 
 the other of which an agile man might leap across some 
 streets. Yet none of the streets seem quite as narrow as 
 some in New York, for the reason that the buildings seldom 
 exceed three stories in height. Panama contains no such 
 canyon of gloom and hideousness as Nassau Street or Ex- 
 change Place, in New York. Some Panaman streets are 
 crooked, though as a rule they are straighter and more regu- 
 lar than those of some parts of New York and Boston — not 
 to mention many European cities. Some of them are steep, 
 too, so that the sidewalks are built like flights of stairs, but 
 these are very few. The sidewalks are narrow, and the 
 buildings abut directly upon them, without any intervening 
 area, bringing the passer-by into a somewhat startling prox- 
 imity to the interiors, with the doors and windows wide 
 open, at sidewalk-level. As a rule, however, the ground 
 floors are not used for dwelling purposes, save by the poorer 
 
376 PANAMA 
 
 classes. All the better residences are upstairs, sometimes 
 with shops or business offices below, and sometimes with the 
 ground floor a vacant court-yard. The typical house of the 
 best class is built of stone, brick, or concrete, with thick 
 walls through which the heat of the sun never penetrates. 
 It is built around an open central court, and has a shaded 
 balcony along the street front of the second story. The roof 
 is of heavy, heat-resisting tiles. Often the windows are void 
 of glass, slatted blinds taking the place of sashes. 
 
 The city contains a number of parks, the most important 
 being the Plaza de la Cathedral and the Plaza Santa Anna. 
 These are small, mere squares, but of much beauty. The 
 Plaza de la Cathedral is the real centre of the city. Upon 
 it face the stately old Cathedral, with its towers roofed with 
 mother-of-pearl; the Bishop's palace, with the office of the 
 Panama Lottery Company on the ground floor; the Grand 
 Central Hotel, the City Hall, the handsome Canal Adminis- 
 tration Building, and several important banking houses and 
 stores, while close by are the fine mansion of the American 
 Minister and the attractive quarters of the Commercial Club. 
 In the park is a band stand, where an excellent band dis- 
 courses music every Sunday evening and on various other 
 occasions. The Government House is a few squares away. 
 It is a stately and sumptuously furnished mansion, fronting 
 eastward upon the Bay of Panama; and commanding from 
 its spacious balconies a landscape and seascape of singular 
 beauty. The ancient sea wall which extends along the water- 
 front at the southwest part of the city affords a charming 
 promenade, at an elevation, from which one can overlook 
 on the one hand the red-tiled roofs of the city interspersed 
 with masses of palm fronds, with the great mass of Ancon 
 Hill in the background, and on the other the serene azure 
 expanse of the Pacific, with the islands of Taboga, Naos, 
 Perico, and Flamengo jutting up "like peaks of some sunk 
 continent." 
 
 There is, of course, a seamy side to Panama. I found 
 some streets given over to filth and squalor, but none worse, 
 
THE SEAMY SIDE 377 
 
 on the whole, than some I have seen in New York. Indeed, 
 I should say that nowhere did I find conditions quite as 
 depressing and repulsive as some in the American metrop- 
 olis. However poor the place, and however ragged the 
 clothing, house and people still had a certain artistic air, or 
 at least an air of joyousness and content. There was none of 
 the sordid sullenness and black despair which are so ominous 
 a feature of the denizens of our northern slums. The place 
 at its poorest reminded me of the Spanish caballero of ruined 
 fortune who discovered that he had not enough money to 
 buy a breakfast, and so must go hungry, but at least had 
 enough to buy a bunch of violets ! To pick one's steps among 
 a dozen quite naked babies, sunning themselves on a side- 
 walk in Panama, was not half as unpleasant to humane sus- 
 ceptibilities as to see a single barefoot newsboy in the streets 
 of New York. No doubt there is vice, too, in Panama. The 
 American colony there would assure that. And vice is vice, 
 the world over. But at least it does not flaunt itself in Pan- 
 ama as openly as in many cities of the United States; and 
 while the native morals of Panama are doubtless open to 
 much reproach, it is, I believe, a fact that the chief pur- 
 veyors of vice and the chief patronage of their establish- 
 ments are of North American origin. 
 
 One thing that gTeatly impressed me at Panama was the 
 sobriety of the people. There was much drinking, no doubt, 
 and it was drinking of strong liquors, too. Whiskey and 
 rum and brandy and gin flowed freely. Yet there was no 
 drunkenness, save among the American element. I cannot 
 remember that I saw a single Panaman intoxicated, though 
 I was compelled to blush for shame at the condition of sev- 
 eral of my own countrymen. One evening — it was the even- 
 ing when, as I have related in a former chapter, Secretary 
 Taft made his memorable speech to the people of Panama 
 from the balcony of the Grand Central Hotel — it was an- 
 nounced that for two hours, from six to eight o'clock, every 
 barroom on the Cathedral Plaza would serve free drinks to 
 all comers at government expense. A shocking way for a 
 
378 PANAMA 
 
 national government to celebrate a great occasion, some will 
 say. Doubtless it was, from some points of view. But, as I 
 have already tried to make plain, there are other points of 
 view than ours, which perhaps are no less entitled to respect 
 from us than ours is from others. I remembered, that night, 
 the saloon I had noticed one day on the road to "Section," 
 with its hospitable sign : "Caf6 of All Nations : All Nations 
 Welcome, except Carrie !" and I wondered how such a festi- 
 val would be regarded by the strenuous hatchet-wielder 
 whose name was thus taken in vain. At about the height 
 of the orgy I went over to the barroom of the Grand Central 
 Hotel, the biggest and most frequented in the city, and 
 watched the proceedings from the coign of vantage afforded 
 by the top of a large up-ended cask. The scene was not 
 unlike the Brooklj^n Bridge entrance in rush hours. At 
 one end of the big room there poured in a tumultuous throng 
 of men and boys of all ages, colours, and present conditions 
 of thirstiness, literally climbing over each other in their 
 eagerness to reach the bar. Before the bar they were 
 crowded like massed players in a football rush. Behind the 
 bar were half a dozen active and agile men, handing out 
 drinks with both hands. But not drinks by the glass. Oh, 
 no! A full bottle was placed in every outstretched hand, 
 whiskey or wine or beer, as the taste might be. And then 
 at the other end of the room there poured out a half- 
 reluctant throng, each man or boy with at least one bottle 
 snugly held beneath his arm. 
 
 Now, suppose that had been tried in New York, or Wash- 
 ington, or any North American city? I do not care whether 
 it had been on Fifth Avenue or on the Bowery — in five min- 
 utes there would have been a dozen fights, and a hurry call 
 for police reserves and ambulances, and it would have 
 required an expert census-taker to enumerate the "drunks." 
 But in Panama there was not a man intoxicated, not a blow 
 struck, not a hard word spoken ; and all the police had to do 
 was to stand around and watch the fun ! Of course, it was 
 a hideous orgy, a degrading debauch, and all that. Yet it 
 
AN ISTHMIAN SUNDAY 379 
 
 was as good-natured, and as free from ruflSanism, and as 
 sober, as a Sunday School picnic. And somehow I could not 
 help contrasting it, and not to the disadvantage of Panama, 
 with some particularly fashionable and aristocratic "social 
 functions" in Washington and Philadelphia and New York, 
 from which many of the guests went away maudlin. Nay, 
 a contrast was presented later that same evening, when I 
 personally assisted, with physical force, in restraining two 
 of my fellow Americans, who had become hopelessly drunk, 
 from creating a public scandal. 
 
 On Sunday evenings all Panama went to the promenade 
 concert in the Cathedral Plaza. The fashion and the beauty 
 of the city were there, strolling to and fro beneath the palm 
 fronds, now in the full blaze of the electric lights, and now 
 under only the softer lustre of the tropical constellations. It 
 suggested a scene in a great conservatory adjoining some 
 fashionable New York ballroom, save that the men were in 
 white duck instead of black broadcloth. Moreover, there 
 were plebeians as well as patricians — the twenty thousand 
 as well as the Four Hundred of Panama. But in what city 
 of the United States, at an open-air evening concert in a 
 park, would it be fitting, as in Panama, for girls and women 
 of refinement to stroll about without chaperons or male 
 escorts; and where, if they did so, would they be secure 
 against insult or annoyance? Where, indeed, would such 
 a gathering be exempt from an amount of "hoodlumism'^ 
 requiring frequent activity of the police? 
 
 It was a queer Sunday, that of Panama ; at least to any 
 one possessed of even a fragment of the traditional "New 
 England conscience.'^ In the forenoon we went to church, 
 if we were so disposed; and noticed the multitudes of mos- 
 quito "wigglers" in the holy water in the Cathedral font. 
 At noon we went to the Bishop's palace, to attend the weekly 
 drawing of the lottery, and to assure ourselves that we had 
 nothing better than blanks. Most of the afternoon was given 
 up to the siesta. In the evening there was the promenade 
 concert ; and after that there was, for the select few, a ball 
 
380 PANAMA 
 
 at the Commercial Club, where the youth and beauty of 
 Panama danced until well on into Monday morning. Most 
 of it was very reprehensible and shocking, no doubt, from 
 the orthodox United States point of view; and yet it was 
 all very orderly and quiet and well disposed, and not nearly 
 as offensive to the thoughtful mind as the furtive sneaking 
 in and out of saloon side doors in a city where reputedly 
 rigid "Sunday laws" prevail. Of course, I am not arguing 
 that these Panaman customs should be adopted in New York. 
 That would be incongruous and indeed impossible — as much 
 so as to enforce our customs in Panama. The point to be 
 kept in mind is that which I have already expressed, that 
 Panama is Panama and not the United States, and is prop- 
 erly to remain so, and not be dragooned into the alien ways 
 of the alien folk who have now come into so close relations 
 with it. 
 
 Business in Panama is business, as it is the world over. 
 There are handsome and well-stocked "department stores," 
 or bazaars as they are called; some conducted by Panamans 
 and some by Chinese merchants. The transaction of busi- 
 ness is more quiet and deliberate than in American cities, 
 but certainly not less satisfactory. Prices rule much lower 
 than in New York, whether for American or for European 
 goods. In some lines of goods, particularly for men's wear, 
 it was somewhat disappointing to American pride to find 
 the European goods of by far the better quality, at the same 
 or actually less price. In other lines, however, notably hard- 
 ware, American goods easily dominated the market. 
 
 The Panama landlord is much like his brethren elsewhere. 
 His rule is to get as much and spend as little as he can. A 
 friend of mine wanted to lease a house in the city. The land- 
 lord positively refused to give him a year's lease, and was 
 with the utmost diflBculty at last prevailed upon to give him 
 a lease for as long as two months. Why? Because, he 
 frankly said, he might want to increase the rental before a 
 year had passed. And he did. The house contained no bath- 
 room and no plumbing, and as the landlord would not supply 
 
BUSINESS WAYS AND MEANS 381 
 
 such things, my American friend, who regarded them as 
 necessities, had them put in at his own expense. I believe 
 he spent about $500, in permanent improvements on the 
 house, which, of course, would remain there for the land- 
 lord's benefit. Thereupon, at the end of the two months, the 
 landlord promptly and very materially raised the rent; 
 because, he naively explained, the house was worth a great 
 deal more, since all those improvements had been made in it ! 
 
 Hotel rates were high. My friends told me that when 
 they paid their weekly bills, they felt that they ought to get 
 in return title deeds for the building and ground ! I know 
 that when, occasionally, I was compelled to patronise a 
 hotel, it impressed me unpleasantly to have to pay two or 
 three dollars for a breakfast which I could easily equal in 
 New York or Washington for less than a dollar. In the 
 matter of cab fares, however, Panama had an advantage 
 over all American cities of my acquaintance. Ten cents 
 was the uniform rate, for any distance within the city 
 limits. It was, however, necessary to make it a "contin- 
 uous passage." If the cab was halted for even an instant, 
 to speak to a friend, to take a snap-shot photograph, or for 
 any other purpose, a second fare was charged. Thus a ride 
 of ten minutes, with five stops of a minute each, would cost 
 fifty cents, while a ride of half an hour with no stops would 
 cost only ten cents. On the whole, even with frequent stop- 
 pings, it was cheap riding. And there was no extra charge 
 for the osteopathic treatment we got from the combination 
 of cobblestones, steel tires, and stiff springs. 
 
 If some Panaman business men, especially landlords and 
 hotel proprietors, do seem a bit rapacious, there is no cause 
 for wonder and little cause for blame. They are merely 
 living up to the traditions of the land. We were talking one 
 day with some Panamans, whose family names are on the 
 rolls of Columbus's and Balboa's and Cortez's companies. 
 "Did your ancestors come hither with Balboa?" I asked one. 
 Before he could reply, an audacious American broke in with 
 "No! with Harry Morgan!" The Panamans roared with 
 
382 PANAMA 
 
 laughter, and confessed the hit well made. I have never 
 felt inclined greatly to blame our Southern negroes for 
 sometimes disregarding the law of meum et tuum, especially 
 when chickens or watermelons are in question, because for 
 generations, in slavery days, that law was practically made 
 a dead letter to them. Well, so it is with the Panamans — 
 with a distinction, of course. In the old Spanish days, 
 from Pedrarias Davila, through the days of Drake, in the 
 dark time of Morgan, and all the way down to Sharpe and 
 Paterson, they were so frequently the victims of spoliation 
 that they began to apply to all life 
 
 "... the good old rule 
 
 the simple plan, 
 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can." 
 
 Nor did their three-fourths of a century of connection 
 with Colombia do aught to change their view or practice. 
 The rule in the days of the "Forty-Niners" was to exact all 
 possible tribute from the gold-seekers and gold-bearers who 
 crossed the Isthmus, and the mad profligacy of the De Les- 
 sepsian regime confirmed them in whatever grasping procliv- 
 ities heredity had given them. Some of them are probably 
 disappointed and grieved, to find that the American advent 
 does not mean a renewal and perpetuation of the extrava- 
 gance and "graft" of the French. Yet, on the whole, I fancy 
 that the business men of Panama are no less honest and no 
 more selfish or rapacious than those of other cities, the world 
 around. 
 
 Above all, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, I 
 hesitate to write of the people of Panama, as I met them 
 and knew them, and of their social and domestic life, into 
 which I was permitted to enter. I shall probably not be 
 able to do so without incurring the imputation of partiality, 
 which, however, I feel certain I do not deserve. To me, the 
 Panamans were almost wholly charming. I had not been 
 prepossessed in their favour. For many years I had come 
 
COSMOPOLITAN CULTUEE 383 
 
 into occasional contact, here in the United States, with peo- 
 ple from Latin America, and I had not learned to like them. 
 Perhaps that was because they were here removed from their 
 native and harmonious environment. But when I got among 
 them in their own land and city, the whole impression was 
 one of charm. In the first place, there was a fine cosmopoli- 
 tanism of knowledge and interest, such as not more than one 
 or two American cities — and not New York — could rival. I 
 found that they knew a great deal more" about us than we 
 about them. They knew at least as much, too, about Europe 
 and the world at large as the best informed and most widely 
 travelled Americans. Why not? Here was one who had 
 spent four years in one of the largest American universi- 
 ties and four more in a New York medical college. Here was 
 one who was graduated from a New England college and 
 from a great German university. Here was one who had 
 travelled three times around the world, by three different 
 routes. Here was a jurist who could make arguments or 
 render decisions with equal readiness in Spanish, English, 
 French, or Latin. Here were half a dozen pretty girls, chat- 
 tering away in a medley of tongues, as in a boudoir at Babel ; 
 and when I ventured to compliment one upon her perfect 
 English accent, they cried in chorus, "What's the matter with 
 the rest of us ? We all studied in New Y^'ork and Baltimore !" 
 If there is as high an average of intellectual acumen and of 
 cosmopolitan culture in a fashionable New Y^'ork reception 
 as I found in gatherings in the salon of President Amador, 
 then the groves of Academia are nearer to the banks of the 
 Hudson than I have supposed. 
 
 This cosmopolitanism of Panama has been, of course, 
 much promoted by the advantage of situation. Mohammed 
 has not had to go to the mountain; the mountain has come 
 to him. All the world has crossed the Isthmus and has 
 passed through the streets of Panama. We were at a great 
 state banquet given by the government one evening and I 
 was admiring — as they well deserved to be admired — its 
 general appointments, which would have been highly cred- 
 
384 PANAMA 
 
 itable to the best New York hotel. "Panama has certainly 
 ^done herself proud/ to-night," I said. "Yes," said my Pan- 
 aman neighbour, "but she has drawn upon the whole world 
 to enable her to do it. This fish, and some of these fruits, 
 are from Panama. These olives and these vegetables are 
 from the United States. This butter is from Denmark. 
 This wine is from France, and Italy. This whiskey is from 
 Scotland. This mineral water is from Germany." And so 
 he went through the entire menu ; and what was true of that 
 banquet is largely true of the whole life of Panama. 
 
 So will it be henceforward, in the great new era which 
 is dawning upon Panama. Through the canal which we are 
 cutting the tides of the world's travel and trade will flow in 
 floods such as have scarcely been dreamed of in former days. 
 Half the people of the world live in lands fronting upon 
 the Paciflc, and this canal will be the gateway of that ocean. 
 That fact alone is of ample significance. Couple with it the 
 fact that the canal will be an integral part of our own 
 coast line, giving for the first time direct navigation be- 
 tween our Atlantic and Gulf ports on the one hand and our 
 Pacific ports on the other. Once more, observe that by way 
 of Panama we shall have for the first time direct water com- 
 munication with the rich western coast of South America. 
 Let us note a few comparative distances. From New York 
 to San Francisco by way of the Strait of Magellan is 13,107 
 miles, and by way of Panama it will be only 5,294, a saving 
 of 7,813 miles. From New York to Callao (Peru), by way of 
 Cape Horn is 9,700 miles, and by way of Panama it will 
 be only 3,359 miles, or a little more than one-third as far. 
 From New York to Auckland by way of Cape Horn is 11,771 
 miles, and by way of Panama it will be only 8,610 miles, 
 a saving of 3,161 miles. From New York to Sydney by way 
 of Cape Horn is 13,051 miles and by way of Panama it will 
 be only 9,709 miles, a saving of 3,342. Marked, too, is the 
 contrast against the Suez route. From New York to Shang- 
 hai by way of Suez is 13,324 miles, while by way of Pan- 
 ama it will be only 10,689 miles. From New York to Yoke- 
 
g^i^coH Ubt«ty 
 
COMPAKISONS OF EOUTES 385 
 
 hama by way of Suez is 13,042 miles, and by way of Panama 
 it will be only 9,719 miles. Nor will New York be the only 
 gainer. All our Atlantic and Gulf ports will profit, some 
 in even more notable degree. Thus from New Orleans to 
 San Francisco by way of Cape Horn is 13,650 miles, while 
 by way of Panama it will be only 4,700 miles. From New 
 Orleans to Callao by way of Cape Horn is 10,100 miles, and 
 by way of Panama it will be only 2,750 miles. 
 
 If we reckon Panama the centre of the Pacific Coast of 
 the American continents, as indeed it is, for it lies almost 
 exactly equidistant between Sitka and Cape Horn, we may 
 measure the gain of the canal to Atlantic commerce by the 
 difference in distance to Panama by way of the Strait of 
 Magellan, now the shortest existing water route, and by 
 the canal. Let us regard such distances from both Ameri- 
 can and European ports, in tabular form : . 
 
 To Panama 
 
 By Strait of 
 
 By 
 
 the 
 
 Saving by 
 
 from 
 
 Magel] 
 
 ian 
 
 Canal 
 
 Canal 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 11,383 
 
 miles 
 
 4,463 
 
 miles 
 
 6,920 miles 
 
 Charleston 
 
 10,803 
 
 
 1,611 
 
 
 9,192 " 
 
 Galveston 
 
 11,391 
 
 
 1,545 
 
 
 9,846 " 
 
 Genoa 
 
 11,143 
 
 
 5,229 
 
 
 5,914 " 
 
 Hamburg 
 
 11,614 
 
 
 5,054 
 
 
 6,560 " 
 
 Havana 
 
 10,682 
 
 
 1,425 
 
 
 9,257 " 
 
 Havre 
 
 11,156 
 
 
 4,648 
 
 
 6,508 " 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 11,261 
 
 
 4,575 
 
 
 6,686 " 
 
 Marseilles 
 
 10,985 
 
 
 5,071 
 
 
 5,914 " 
 
 New Orleans 
 
 10,286 
 
 
 1,425 
 
 
 8,861 " 
 
 New York 
 
 10,851 
 
 
 2,017 
 
 
 8,834 " 
 
 Southampton 
 
 11,137 
 
 
 4,608 
 
 
 6,529 " 
 
 These figures tell their own story and they speak with 
 convincing eloquence of the future of Panama. The two 
 ports of Panama and Colon are now visited by 1,000 vessels 
 a year, landing 1,000,000 tons of merchandise, and the Isth- 
 mus is crossed by 100,000 travellers. What will those fig- 
 ures be when the canal is opened, and there goes thither all 
 the traffic that now passes around Cape Horn and through 
 
386 PANAMA 
 
 the Strait of Magellan and much that goes by way of Suez? 
 Nor will it do to say the canal will be a mere passageway, 
 and that the city and republic of Panama will profit from 
 it no more than the Isthmus of Suez has locally profited 
 from its canal. There is an immeasurable difference between 
 the two. The climate, the people, the scenery, the resources, 
 and all the conditions and circumstances of Panama are as 
 attractive, opulent, and promising as those of Suez are abom- 
 inable, squalid, and depressing. No rational man desires at 
 Suez anything more than the utmost speed in passing 
 through and getting away, and his memory of it, in sight 
 and smell and sound and taste and feeling is altogether one 
 which he would gladly erase from the tortured tablets of the 
 mind. But those who pass by way of Panama will wish to 
 linger long in sheer delight amid its scenes of beauty; and, 
 taking at last a reluctant leave, will cherish forever a mem- 
 ory of emerald shores and sapphire seas, of feathery palm 
 fronds and pearl-roofed spires, of lovely women and of 
 courteous, hospitable men, of a fascinating cosmoculus of 
 all times and places, manners and customs, tribes and 
 nations, of nature's very masterpiece of riotous luxuriance — 
 
 *' Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, 
 Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise." 
 
 On one never-to-be-forgotten Sunday at Panama we visited 
 the Pearl Islands — that wondrous cluster of summer isles ot 
 Eden lying not in dark purple spheres of sea but in a sea 
 that differs from the overarching sky only in being a deeper, 
 purer blue. We had trailed the daring divers through the 
 deeps by their long wakes of opalescent bubbles; we had 
 spied out the nestling villages beneath the palm trees on 
 the cliffs; we had feasted, and danced, and drunk deep of 
 the beauty and mystery of the sea — of that storied South 
 Sea where Drake had mingled crimson with the blue and 
 blended thus the purple of world-wide empire ; we had even 
 organised, some favoured few of us, such a joyous Junta 
 as surely not even that realm of Juntas had known before; 
 
A MEMORABLE PANORAMA 387 
 
 and then at last, we were returning, with reluctance to 
 leave the Fortunate Isles and the Sea of Peace, though with 
 gladness to regain the gardens and the palm groves that lay 
 in the shadow of Ancon Hill. Then, as we neared the city, 
 as the sun was setting, and the rich colouring of sea and 
 sky and land gave to the scene an air of unreal and unearthly 
 beauty, a strange thing appeared. Upon the crest of Ancon, 
 and upon the summits and shoulders and ledges of the more 
 distant amphitheatre of hills that girt the fair city round, 
 from beyond the ruined tower of Old Panama in the darken- 
 ing east to Chorrera in the still glowing west, we saw what 
 seemed like drifts of snow, pure, glittering white amid the 
 dark green of the hillside forests. I marvelled, for I knew 
 that in that tropic latitude snow never fell. Yet there the 
 drifts lay, white, spectral, motionless, precisely as I had 
 seen them upon the peaks and ledges of our own White 
 Hills. But as we drew nearer and nearer, I saw they were 
 not snow, nor any solid thing, but only masses of mist and 
 floating cloud, which presently faded from our view and 
 vanished. Then, as from the full golden glow of day we 
 rushed through the brief tropic twilight into the purple 
 solemnities of night, and the Southern Cross and all the 
 luminous constellations of the Equatorial heavens shone out 
 in splendour, I fell to likening those seeming snowdrifts and 
 glaciers to the difficulties and dangers which the faint- 
 hearted and the hostile have conjured up as besetting our 
 way in our great enterprise at Panama, and it seemed to me 
 that the worst of them, the most chilling and oppressive and 
 ominous, might in the end prove to be as tenuous and as 
 evanescent as those fugitive cloud-wraiths, so that we might 
 cry to it in confident defiance, 
 
 " Thou art a phantom, 
 A shape of the sea-mist, 
 A shape of the brumal 
 Rain, and tlie darkness 
 Fearful and formless; 
 Day dawns, and thou art not! " 
 
388 PANAMA 
 
 We have only to be true to our opportunities, true to our 
 principles, true to our destiny, true to ourselves, to make 
 the obstacles before us flee as the clouds from the mountains ; 
 to fulfil the great designs of Columbus and Cortez ; to make, 
 to our own honour and the inestimable profit of the whole 
 world, the Panama canal an accomplished fact ; to open up a 
 highway of peaceful commerce between the two great oceans ; 
 and, after four centuries have their full cycles turned, to 
 achieve at last the triumphant fulfilment of the world's age- 
 long desire. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 The United States — New Granada (Colombia) Treaty 
 OF 1846 (In part). 
 
 Ratified June 10, Wi6 
 
 The United States of America and the Republic of New 
 Granada, desiring to make as durable as possible the relations 
 which are to be established between the two parties by virtue 
 of this treaty, have declared solemnly and do agree to the 
 following points: . . . 
 
 For the better understanding of the preceding articles, 
 it is and has been stipulated between the high contracting 
 parties that the citizens, vessels, and merchandise of the 
 United States shall enjoy in the ports of New Granada, 
 including those of the part of the Granadian territory gener- 
 ally denominated Isthmus of Panama, from its southernmost 
 extremity until the boundary of Costa Rica, all the exemp- 
 tions, privileges, and immunities concerning commerce and 
 navigation which are now or may hereafter be enjoyed 
 by Granadian citizens, their vessels, and merchandise; and 
 that this equality of favours shall be made to extend to the 
 passengers, correspondence, and merchandise of the United 
 States in their transit across the said territory from one sea 
 to the other. The government of New Granada guarantees 
 to the government of the United States that the right of 
 way or transit across the Isthmus of Panama, upon any 
 modes of communication that now exist or that may be here- 
 after constructed, shall be open and free to the government 
 and citizens of the United States, and for the transportation 
 of any articles of produce, manufactures or merchandise, of 
 lawful commerce, belonging to the citizens of the United 
 States; that no other tolls or charges shall be levied or col- 
 lected upon the citizens of the United States, or their said 
 merchandise thus passing over any road or canal that may 
 be made by the government of New Granada, or by the 
 
392 APPENDICES 
 
 authority of the same, than is, under like circumstances, 
 levied upon and collected from the Granadian citizens ; that 
 any lawful produce, manufactures, or merchandise belong- 
 ing to the citizens of the United States thus passing from 
 one sea to the other, in either direction, for the purpose of 
 exportation to any other foreign country, shall not be liable 
 to any import duties whatever, or, having paid such duties, 
 they shall be entitled to drawback upon their exportation; 
 nor shall the citizens of the United States be liable to any 
 duties, tolls, or charges of any kind to which native citizens 
 are not subjected for thus passing the said Isthmus. And, 
 in order to secure to themselves the tranquil and constant 
 enjoyment of these advantages, and as an especial compen- 
 sation for the said advantages, and for the favours they 
 have acquired by the 4th, 5th, and 6th articles of this treaty, 
 the United States guarantee positively and efiBcaciously to 
 New Granada, by the present stipulation, the perfect neutral- 
 ity of the before-mentioned Isthmus, with the view that the 
 free transit from the one to the other sea may not be inter- 
 rupted or embarrassed in any future time while this treaty 
 exists; and, in consequence, the United States also guaran- 
 tee, in the same manner, the rights of sovereignty and prop- 
 erty which New Granda has and possesses over the said 
 territory. 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
 Ratified July 5, 1850 
 
 The United States of America and Her Britannic Majesty, 
 being desirous of consolidating the relations of amity which 
 so happily subsist between them, by setting forth and fixing 
 in a convention their views and intentions with reference 
 to any means of communication by ship-canal which may 
 be constructed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by 
 the way of the river San Juan de Nicaragua and either or 
 both of the Lakes of Nicaragua or Managua, to any port 
 or place on the Pacific Ocean, the President of the United 
 States has conferred full powers on John M. Clayton, Sec- 
 retary of State of the United States, and Her Britannic 
 Majesty on the Right Honourable Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, 
 a member of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, 
 Knight Commander of the most honourable Order of the 
 Bath, and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
 tiary of Her Britannic Majesty to the United States, for the 
 aforesaid purpose ; and the said plenipotentiaries having ex- 
 changed their full powers, which were found to be in proper 
 form, have agreed to the following articles : 
 
 article I 
 
 The governments of the United States and Great Britain 
 hereby declare that neither the one nor the other will ever 
 obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the 
 said ship-canal ; agreeing that neither will ever erect or main- 
 tain any fortifications commanding the same or in the vicin- 
 ity thereof, or occupy, or fortify, or colonise, or assume, or 
 exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mos- 
 quito Coast, or any part of Central America ; nor will either 
 make use of any protection which either affords or may 
 afford, or any alliance which either has or may have to or 
 with any state or people, for the purpose of erecting or main- 
 taining any such fortification, or of occupying, fortifying, 
 
394 APPENDICES 
 
 or colonising Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, 
 or any part of Central America, or of assuming or exercising 
 dominion over the same ; nor will the United States or Great 
 Britain take advantage of any Intimacy, or use any alliance, 
 connection, or influence that either may possess with any 
 state or government through whose territory the said canal 
 may pass, for the purpose of acquiring or holding, directly 
 or indirectly, for the citizens or subjects of the one, any 
 rights or advantages in regard to commerce or navigation 
 through the said canal which shall not be offered on the 
 same terms to the citizens or subjects of the other. 
 
 ARTICLE II 
 
 Vessels of the United States or Great Britain traversing 
 the said canal shall, in case of war between the contracting 
 parties, be exempted from blockade, detention, or capture 
 by either of the belligerents; and this provision shall extend 
 to such a distance from the two ends of the said canal as 
 may hereafter be found expedient to establish. 
 
 ARTICLE III 
 
 In order to secure the construction of the said canal, the 
 contracting parties engage that if any such canal shall be 
 undertaken upon fair and equitable terms by any parties 
 having the authority of the local government or governments 
 through whose territory the same may pass, then the per- 
 sons employed in making the said canal, and their property 
 used, or to be used for that object, shall be protected, from 
 the commencement of the said canal to its completion, by 
 the governments of the United States and Great Britain, 
 from unjust detention, confiscation, seizure, or any violence 
 whatsoever. 
 
 ARTICLE IV 
 
 The contracting parties will use whatever influence they re- 
 spectively exercise with any state, states, or governments pos- 
 sessing or claiming to possess any jurisdiction or right over 
 the territory which the said canal shall traverse, or which 
 shall be near the waters applicable thereto, in order to 
 induce such states or governments to facilitate the con- 
 struction of the said canal by every means in their power. 
 
APPENDICES 395 
 
 And furthermore, the United States and Great Britain agree 
 to use their good offices, wherever or however it may be most 
 expedient, in order to procure the establishment of two free 
 ports, one at each end of the canal. 
 
 ARTICLE V 
 
 The contracting parties further engage, that when the 
 said canal shall have been completed, they will protect it 
 from interruption, seizure, or unjust confiscation, and that 
 they will guarantee the neutrality thereof, so that the said 
 canal may forever be open and free, and the capital invested 
 therein secure. Nevertheless, the governments of the United 
 States and Great Britain, in according their protection to 
 the construction of the said canal, and guaranteeing its 
 neutrality and security when completed, always understand 
 that this protection and guaranty are granted condition- 
 ally, and may be withdrawn by both governments, or either 
 government, if both governments, or either government, 
 should deem that the persons or company undertaking or 
 managing the same adopt or establish such regulations con- 
 cerning the traffic thereupon as are contrary to the spirit 
 and intention of this convention, either by making unfair 
 discriminations in favour of the commerce of one of the con- 
 tracting parties over the commerce of the other, or by 
 imposing oppressive exactions or unreasonable tolls upon 
 passengers, vessels, goods, wares, merchandise, or other 
 articles. Neither party, however, shall withdraw the afore- 
 said protection and guaranty without first giving six 
 months' notice to the other. 
 
 ARTICLE VI 
 
 The contracting parties in this convention engage to invite 
 every state with which both or either have friendly inter- 
 course to enter into stipulations with them similar to those 
 which they have entered into with each other, to the end that 
 all other states may share in the honour and advantage of 
 having contributed to a work of such general interest and 
 importance as the canal herein contemplated. And the con- 
 tracting parties likewise agree that each shall enter into 
 treaty stipulations with such of the Central American 
 states as they may deem advisable, for the purpose of more 
 effectually carrying out the great design of this convention : 
 
396 APPENDICES 
 
 namely, that of constructing and maintaining the said canal 
 as a ship communication between the two oceans for the 
 benefit of mankind, on equal terms to all, and of protecting 
 the same ; and they also agree, that the good offices of either 
 shall be employed, when requested by the other, in aiding 
 and assisting the negotiation of such treaty stipulations; 
 and should any differences arise as to right or property over 
 the territory through which the said canal shall pass be- 
 tween the states or governments of Central America, and 
 such differences should in any way impede or obstruct the 
 execution of the said canal, the governments of the United 
 States and Great Britain will use their good offices to settle 
 such differences in the manner best suited to promote the 
 interests of the said canal, and to strengthen the bonds of 
 friendship and alliance which exist between the contracting 
 parties. 
 
 ARTICLE VII 
 
 It being desirable that no time should be unnecessarily 
 lost in commencing and constructing the said canal, the gov- 
 ernments of the United States and Great Britain determine 
 to give their support and encouragement to such persons 
 or company as may first offer to commence the same, with the 
 necessary capital, the consent of the local authorities, and on 
 such principles as accord with the spirit and intention of 
 this convention; and if any persons or company should 
 already have, with any state through which the proposed 
 ship canal may pass, a contract for the construction of such 
 a canal as that specified in this convention, to the stipula- 
 tions of which contract neither of the contracting parties 
 in this convention have any just cause to object, and the 
 said persons or company shall moreover have made prepa- 
 rations, and expended time, money, and trouble, on the faith 
 of such contract, it is hereby agreed that such persons or 
 company shall have a priority of claim over every other per- 
 son, persons, or company to the protection of the govern- 
 ments of the United States and Great Britain, and be 
 allowed a year from the date of the exchange of the ratifica- 
 tions of this convention for concluding their arrangements, 
 and preventing evidence of sufficient capital subscribed to 
 accomplish the contemplated undertaking; it being under- 
 stood that if, at the expiration of the aforesaid period, such 
 persons or company be not able to commence and carry out 
 the proposed enterprise, then the governments of the United 
 
APPENDICES 397 
 
 States and Great Britain shall be free to afford their pro- 
 tection to any other persons or company that shall be 
 prepared to commence and proceed with the construction of 
 the canal. 
 
 ARTICLE VIII 
 
 The governments of the United States and Great Britain 
 having not only desired, in entering into this convention, 
 to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a 
 general principle, they hereby agree to extend their protec- 
 tion, by treaty stipulations, to any other practicable com- 
 munications, whether by canal or railway, across the 
 isthmus which connects North and South America, and 
 especially to the interoceanic communications, should the 
 same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, 
 which are now proposed to be established by the way of 
 Tehuantepec or Panama. In granting, however, their joint 
 protection to any such canals or railways as are by this 
 article specified, it is always understood by the United 
 States and Great Britain that the parties constructing or 
 owning the same shall impose no other charges or conditions 
 of traffic thereupon than the aforesaid governments shall 
 approve of as just and equitable; and that the same canals 
 or railways, being open to the citizens and subjects of the 
 United States and Great Britain on equal terms, shall also, 
 be open on like terms to the citizens and subjects of every 
 other state which is willing to grant thereto such protection 
 as the United States and Great Britain engage to afford. 
 
 ARTICLE IX 
 
 The ratifications of this convention shall be exchanged at 
 Washington within six months from this day, or sooner if 
 possible. 
 
 In faith whereof, we, the respective plenipotentiaries, have 
 signed this convention, and have hereunto affixed our seals. 
 
 Done at Washington, the nineteenth day of April, anno 
 Domini one thousand eight hundred and fifty. 
 
 John M. Clayton (L. S.) 
 Henry Lytton Bulwer (L. S.) 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 The Isthmian Canal Convention 
 (Commonly called the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty) 
 
 Signed, November 18, 1901 
 
 Submitted to the Senate, December 5, 1901 
 
 Ratified hy the Senate, December 16, 1901 
 
 I. The high contracting parties agree that the present 
 treaty shall supersede the afore-mentioned (Clayton-Bulwer) 
 convention of April 19, 1850. 
 
 II. It is agreed that the canal may be constructed under 
 the auspices of the government of the United States either 
 directly at its own cost, or by gift or loan of money to 
 Individuals or corporations, or through subscription to or 
 purchase of stock or shares, and that, subject to the pro- 
 visions of the present treaty, the said government shall have 
 and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as 
 well as the exclusive right of providing for the regulation, 
 and management of the canal. 
 
 III. The United States adopts as the basis of the neu- 
 tralisation of such ship canal the following rules substan- 
 tially as embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, 
 signed the 28th October, 1888, for the free navigation of the 
 Suez Canal; that is to say: 
 
 First — The canal shall be free and open to the vessels 
 of commerce and of war of all nations observing these rules, 
 on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no dis- 
 crimination against any such nation or its citizens or sub- 
 jects in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or 
 otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be 
 just and equitable. 
 
 Second — The canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall 
 any right of war be exercised nor any act of hostility be 
 committed within it. The United States, however, shall be 
 at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal 
 as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and 
 disorder. 
 
APPENDICES 399 
 
 Third — ^Vessels of war of a belligerent shall not revictual 
 nor take any stores in the canal except so far as may be 
 strictly necessary; and the transit of such vessels through 
 the canal shall be effected with the least possible delay in 
 accordance with the regulations in force, and with only such 
 intermission as may result from the necessities of the 
 service. 
 
 Prizes shall be in all respects subject to the same rules as 
 vessels of war of the belligerents. 
 
 Fourth — No belligerent shall embark or disembark 
 troops, munitions of war or warlike materials in the canal 
 except in case of accidental hindrance of the transit and 
 in such case the transit shall be resumed with all possible 
 despatch. 
 
 Fifth — The provisions of this article shall apply to 
 waters adjacent to the canal, within three marine miles of 
 either end. Vessels of war of a belligerent shall not remain 
 in such waters longer than twenty-four hours at any one 
 time except in case of distress, and in such case shall depart 
 as soon as possible, but a vessel of war of one belligerent 
 shall not depart within twenty-four hours from the depart- 
 ure of a vessel of war of the other belligerent. 
 
 Sixth — The plant, establishments, buildings and all 
 works necessary to the construction, maintenance and oper- 
 ation of the canal shall be deemed to be parts thereof for 
 the purpose of this treaty, and in time of war, as in time of 
 peace, shall enjoy complete immunity from attack or injury 
 by belligerents, and from acts calculated to impair their use- 
 fulness as part of the canal. 
 
 IV. It is agreed that no change of territorial sovereignty 
 or of international relations of the country or countries 
 traversed by the before mentioned canal shall affect the gen- 
 eral principle of neutralisation or the obligation of the high 
 contracting parties under the present treaty. 
 
 V. The present treaty shall be ratified by the President 
 of the United States by and with the advice and consent of 
 the Senate thereof, and by His Britannic Majesty; and the 
 ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington or at London 
 at the earliest possible time within six months from the 
 date hereof. 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 The Isthmian Canal Law 
 (Commonly called the Spooner Bill) 
 
 Approved^ June 28, 1902 
 
 Be it enacted, etc. That the President of the United States 
 is hereby authorised to acquire, for and on behalf of the 
 United States, at a cost not exceeding |40,000,000, all of the 
 rights, privileges, franchises, concessions, grants of land, 
 right of way, unfinished work, plants and other property, 
 real, personal and mixed, of every name and nature, owned 
 by the New Panama Canal Company, of France, on the Isth- 
 mus of Panama, and all its maps, plans, drawings, records, 
 on the Isthmus of Panama and in Paris, including ail the 
 capital stock, not less, however, than 68,863 shares of the 
 Panama Eailroad Company, owned by or held for the use of 
 said canal company, provided a satisfactory title to all of 
 said property can be obtained. 
 
 Sec. 2. That the President is hereby authorised to acquire 
 from the Republic of Colombia, for and on behalf of the 
 United States, upon such terms as he may deem reasonable, 
 exclusive and perpetual control in perpetuity of a strip of 
 land from the territory of the Republic of Colombia, not less 
 than 6 miles in width, extending from the Caribbean Sea to 
 the Pacific Ocean, and the right to use and dispose of the 
 waters thereon, and to excavate, construct and to perpet- 
 ually maintain, operate and protect thereon a canal, of such 
 depth and capacity as will afford convenient passage of ships 
 of the greatest tonnage and draught now in use, from the 
 Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, which control shall in- 
 clude the right to perpetually maintain and operate the Pan- 
 ama Railroad, if the ownership thereof or a controlling 
 interest therein shall have been acquired by the United 
 States, and also jurisdiction over said strip and the ports at 
 the ends thereof ; to make such police and sanitary rules and 
 regulations as shall be necessary to preserve order and pre- 
 
 400 
 
APPENDICES 401 
 
 serve the public health thereon, and to establish such judicial 
 tribunals thereon as may be necessary to enforce such rules 
 and regulations. The President may acquire such additional 
 territory and rights from Colombia as in his judgment will 
 facilitate the general purposes hereof. 
 
 Sec. 3. That when the President shall have arranged to 
 secure a satisfactory title to the property of the New Pan 
 ama Canal Company, as provided in Section 1 hereof, and 
 shall have obtained by treaty control of the necessary terri- 
 tory from the Republic of Colombia, as provided in Section 
 2 hereof, he is authorised to pay for the property of the 
 New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000, and to the Repub- 
 lic of Colombia such sums as shall have been agreed upon 
 and a sum sufficient for both said purposes is hereby appro- 
 priated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise 
 appropriated, to be paid on warrant or warrants drawn by 
 the President. 
 
 The President shall then cause to be excavated, con- 
 structed and completed, utilising to that end as far as 
 practicable the work heretofore done by the New Panama 
 Canal Company, of France, and its predecessor company, a 
 ship canal from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. 
 Such canal shall be of sufficient capacity and depth as shall 
 afford convenient passage for vessels of the largest tonnage 
 and greatest draught now in use, and such as may be rea- 
 sonably anticipated and shall be supplied with all necessary 
 locks and other appliances to meet the necessities of vessels 
 passing through the same from ocean to ocean ; and he shall 
 also cause to be constructed such safe and commodious har- 
 bours at the terminals of said canal, and make such pro- 
 visions for defence as may be necessary for the safety and 
 protection of said canal and harbours. That the President 
 is authorised for the purposes aforesaid to employ such per- 
 sons as he may deem necessary, and to fix their compensa- 
 tion. 
 
 Sec. 4. That should the President be unable to obtain for 
 the United States a satisfactory title to the property of the 
 New Panama Canal Company, and the control of the neces- 
 sary territory of the Republic of Colombia, and the rights 
 mentioned in Sections 1 and 2 of this act, within a reasona- 
 ble time and upon reasonable terms, then the President, 
 having first obtained for the United States exclusive and 
 perpetual control, by treaty, of the necessary territory from 
 Costa Rica and Nicaragua, upon terms which he may con- 
 
402 APPENDICES 
 
 sider reasonable, for the construction, perpetual mainte- 
 nance, operation and protection of a canal connecting the 
 Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean by what is commonly 
 known as the Nicaragua route, shall cause to be excavated 
 and constructed a ship canal and waterway from a point on 
 the shore of the Caribbean Sea near Greytown, by way of 
 Lake Nicaragua, to a point near Brito, on the Pacific Ocean. 
 Said canal shall be of sufficient capacity and depth to afiford 
 convenient passage for vessels of the largest tonnage and 
 greatest draught now in use, and such as may be reasonably 
 expected, and shall be supplied with all necessary locks and 
 other appliances to meet the necessities of vessels passing 
 through the same from ocean to ocean ; and he shall also con 
 struct such safe and commodious harbours at the terminal 
 of such canal as shall be necessary for the safe and conven- 
 ient use thereof, and shall make such provisions for defence 
 as may be necessary for the safet}^ and protection of said 
 harbours and canal ; and such sum or sums of money as may 
 be agreed upon b}' such treaty as compensation to be paid 
 Nicaragua and Costa Rica for the concessions and rights 
 hereunder provided to be acquired by the United States are 
 hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not 
 otherwise appropriated, to be paid on warrant or warrants 
 drawn by thfe President. 
 
 The President shall cause such surveys as may be neces- 
 sary for said canal and harbours to be made, and in making 
 such surveys, and in the construction of said canal, may 
 employ such persons as he may deem necessary, and may fix 
 their compensation. 
 
 In the excavation and construction of said canal the San 
 Juan River and Lake Nicaragua, or such parts of each as 
 may be made available, shall be used. 
 
 Sec. 5. That the sum of |10,000,000 is hereby appropriated 
 out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appro- 
 priated, toward the project herein contemplated, by either 
 route so selected. 
 
 And the President is hereby authorised to cause to be 
 entered into such contract or contracts as may be deemed 
 necessary for the proper excavation, construction, comple- 
 tion and defence of said canal, harbours and defences, by the 
 route finally determined upon under the provisions of this 
 act. Appropriations therefor shall from time to time be 
 hereafter made, not to exceed in the aggregate the addi- 
 tional sum of 1135,000,000, should the Panama route be 
 
APPENDICES 403 
 
 adopted, or |180,000,000, should the Nicaragua route be 
 adopted. 
 
 Sec. 6. That in any agreement with the Republic of Co- 
 lombia or with the States of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the 
 President is authorised to guarantee to said republic or 
 said States the use of said canal and harbours, upon such 
 terms as may be agreed upon, for all vessels owned by said 
 States or by citizens thereof. 
 
 Sec. 7. That to enable the President to construct the 
 canal and works appurtenant thereto, as provided in this 
 act, there is hereby created the Isthmian Canal Commission, 
 the same to be composed of seven members, who shall be 
 nominated and appointed by the President, by and with the 
 advice and consent of the Senate, and who shall serve during 
 the pleasure of the President, and one of whom shall be 
 named as the chairman of said commission. 
 
 Of the seven members of said commission, at least four 
 shall be persons learned and skilled in the practice of engi- 
 neering, and of the four at least one shall be an officer of 
 the United States Army, and at least one other shall be an 
 officer of the United States Navy, the said officers respect- 
 ively being either upon the active or the retired list of the 
 army or of the navy. Said commissioners shall each receive 
 such compensation as the President shall prescribe until the 
 same shall have been otherwise fixed by Congress. In addi- 
 tion to the members of said Isthmian Canal Commission, the 
 President is hereby authorised, through said commission, to 
 employ in said service any of the engineers of the United 
 States Army at his discretion, and likewise to employ any 
 engineers in civil life, at his discretion, and any other per- 
 sons necessary for the proper and expeditious prosecution of 
 said work. The compensation of all such engineers and 
 other persons employed under this act shall be fixed by said 
 commission, subject to the approval of the President. The 
 official salary of any officer appointed or employed under 
 this act shall be deducted from the amount of salary or com- 
 pensation provided by or which shall be fixed under the 
 terms of this act. 
 
 Said commission shall in all matters be subject to the 
 direction and control of the President, and shall make to the 
 President annually and at such other periods as may be 
 required either by law or by the order of the President full 
 and complete reports of all their actings and doings and of 
 all moneys received and expended in the construction of said 
 
404 APPENDICES 
 
 work, and in the performance of their duties in connection 
 therewith, which said reports shall be by the President trans- 
 mitted to Congress. 
 
 And the said commission shall furthermore give to Con- 
 gress, or either House of Congress, such information as may 
 at any time be required either by act of Congress or by the 
 order of either House of Congress. The President shall 
 cause to be provided and assigned for the use of the commis- 
 sion such offices as may, with the suitable equipment of the 
 same, be necessary and proper, in his discretion, for the 
 proper discharge of the duties thereof. 
 
 Sec. 8. That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby 
 authorised to borrow on the credit of the United States from 
 time to time, as the proceeds may be required to defray 
 expenditures authorised by this act (such proceeds when re- 
 ceived to be used only for the purpose of meeting such ex- 
 penditures) the sum of |130,000,000, or so much thereof as 
 may be necessary, and to prepare and issue therefor coupon 
 or registered bonds of the United States in such form as he 
 may prescribe, and in denominations of $20 or some multiple 
 of that sum, redeemable in gold coin at the pleasure of the 
 United States after ten years from the date of their issue, 
 and payable twenty years from such date, and bearing inter- 
 est payable quarterly in gold coin at the rate of 2 per cent, 
 per annum ; and the bonds herein authorised shall be exempt 
 from all taxes or duties of the United States, as well as from 
 taxation in any form by or under State, municipal or local 
 authority. 
 
 Provided, That said bonds may be disposed of by the 
 Secretary of the Treasury at not less than par, under such 
 regulations as he may prescribe, giving to all citizens of 
 the United States an equal opportunity to subscribe there- 
 for, but no commissions shall be allowed or paid thereon; 
 and a sum not exceeding one-tenth of 1 per cent, of the 
 amount of the bonds herein authorised is hereby appropri- 
 ated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appro- 
 priated, to pay the expense of preparing, advertising and 
 issuing the same. 
 
 And provided further, that none of the said bonds shall 
 be sold to pay the sums appropriated in Sections 1 and 2 of 
 this act, or to pay the sum of $10,000,000 appropriated in 
 Section 5 of this act. 
 
APPENDIX V 
 
 The Panaman Declaration of Independence 
 Signed and Promulgated on November 4y 190S 
 
 The transcendental act that by a spontaneous movement 
 the inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama have just executed 
 is the inevitable consequence of a situation which has become 
 graver daily. 
 
 Long is the recital of the grievances that the inhabitants 
 of the Isthmus have suffered from their Colombian brothers ; 
 but those grievances would have been withstood with resig- 
 nation for the sake of harmony and national union had its 
 separation been possible and if we could have entertained 
 well-founded hopes of improvement and of effective prog- 
 ress under the system to which we were submitted by that 
 Republic. We have to solemnly declare that we have the 
 sincere and profound conviction that all the hopes were 
 futile and useless, all the sacrifices on our part. 
 
 The Isthmus of Panama has been governed by the Republic 
 of Colombia with the narrow-mindedness that in past times 
 was applied to their colonies by the European nations — the 
 Isthmian people and territory were a source of fiscal re- 
 sources and nothing more. The contracts and negotiations 
 regarding the railroad and the Panama Canal and the 
 national taxes collected in the Isthmus have netted to 
 Colombia tremendous sums which we will not detail, not 
 wishing to appear in this exposition which will go down to 
 posterity as being moved by a mercenary spirit, which has 
 never been nor is our purpose; and of these large sums the 
 Isthmus has not received the benefit of a bridge for any of 
 its numerous rivers, nor the construction of a single road 
 between its towns, nor of any public building nor of a single 
 college, and has neither seen any interest displayed in ad- 
 vancing her industries, nor has a most infinite part of those 
 sums been applied toward her prosperity. 
 
 405 
 
406 APPENDICES 
 
 A very recent example of what we have related above is 
 what has occurred with the negotiations of the Panama 
 Canal, which, when taken under consideration by Congress, 
 was rejected in a summary manner. There were a few pub- 
 lic men who expressed their adverse opinion, on the ground 
 that the Isthmus of Panama alone was to be favoured by 
 the opening of the canal by virtue of a treaty with the 
 United States, and that the rest of Colombia would not 
 receive any direct benefits of any sort by that work, as if 
 that way of reasoning, even though it be correct, would jus-, 
 tify the irreparable and perpetual damage which would be 
 caused to the Isthmus by the rejection of the treaty in the 
 manner in which it was done, which was equivalent to the 
 closing of the doors to future negotiations. 
 
 The people of the Isthmus, in view of such notorious 
 causes, have decided to recover their sovereignty and begin 
 to form a part of the society of the free and independent 
 nations, in order to work out its own destiny, to insure its 
 future in a stable manner, and discharge the duties which it 
 is called on to do by the situation of its territory and its 
 immense richness. 
 
 To that we, the initiators of the movement effected, aspire 
 and have obtained a unanimous approval. 
 
 We aspire to the formation of a true republic, where tol- 
 erance will prevail, where the law shall be the invariable 
 guide of those governing and those governed, where effective 
 peace be established, which consists in the frequent and har- 
 monious play of all interests and all activities, and where, 
 finally, civilisation and progress will find perpetual sta- 
 bility. 
 
 At the commencement of the life of an independent nation 
 we fully appreciate the responsibilities that state means, but 
 we have profound faith in the good sense and patriotism of 
 the Isthmian people, and we possess sufficient energy to open 
 our w^ay by means of labour to a happy future without any 
 worry or any danger. 
 
 At separating from our brothers of Colombia we do it 
 without hatred and without any joy. Just as a son with- 
 draws from his paternal roof, the Isthmian people in adopt- 
 ing the lot it has chosen have done it with grief, but in com- 
 pliance with the supreme and inevitable duty it owes to 
 itself — that of its own preservation and of working for its 
 own welfare. 
 
 We therefore begin to form a part among the free nations 
 
APPENDICES 407 
 
 of the world, considering Colombia as a sister nation, with 
 which we shall be whenever circumstances may require it, 
 and for whose prosperity we have the most fervent and 
 sincere wishes. 
 
 JosB Agustin Arango, 
 Federico Boyd, 
 ToMAS Arias. 
 
APPENDIX VI 
 
 The Panama Canal Convention 
 (Commonly called the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty) 
 
 Signed at Washington, November 18, 1903 
 Transmitted to the Senate, December 7, 1903 
 Ratification advised by the Senate, February 23, 1904 
 Ratified by the President, February 25, 1904 
 Ratified by Panama, December 2, 1903 
 Ratifications exchanged at Washington, February 26,1904 
 Proclaimed, February 26, 1904 
 
 The United States of America and the Republic of Pan- 
 ama being desirous to insure the construction of a ship-canal 
 across the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and 
 Pacific oceans, and the Congress of the United States of 
 America having passed an act approved June 28, 1902, in 
 furtherance of that object, by which the President of the 
 United States is authorised to acquire within a reasonable 
 time the control of the necessary territory of the Republic 
 of Colombia, and the sovereignty of such territory being 
 actually vested in the Republic of Panama, the high con- 
 tracting parties have resolved for that purpose to conclude 
 a convention and have accordingly appointed as their 
 plenipotentiaries, — 
 
 The President of the United States of America, John Hay, 
 Secretary of State, and the Government of the Republic of 
 Panama, Philippe Bunau Varilla, Envoy Extraordinary and 
 Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama, there- 
 unto specially empowered by said government, who after 
 communicating with each other their respective full powers 
 found to be in good and due form, have agreed upon and 
 concluded the following articles: 
 
 ARTICLE I 
 
 The United States guarantees and will maintain the inde- 
 pendence of the Republic of Panama. 
 
APPENDICES 409 
 
 ARTICLE II 
 
 The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in 
 perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land 
 and land under water for the construction, maintenance, 
 operation, sanitation and protection of said Canal of the 
 width of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on 
 each side of the centre line of the route of the Canal to be 
 constructed; the said zone beginning in the Caribbean Sea 
 three marine miles from mean low water mark and extend- 
 ing to and across the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific 
 Ocean to a distance of three marine miles from mean low 
 water mark with the proviso that the cities of Panama and 
 Colon and the harbours adjacent to said cities, which are in- 
 cluded within the boundaries of the zone above described, 
 shall not be included within this grant. The Republic of 
 Panama further grants to the United States in perpetuity 
 the use, occupation and control of any other lands and 
 waters outside of the zone above described which may be 
 necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, 
 operation, sanitation and protection of the said Canal or of 
 any auxiliary canal or other works necessary and convenient 
 for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and 
 protection of the said enterprise. 
 
 The Republic of Panama further grants in like manner 
 to the United States in perpetuity all islands within the 
 limits of the zone above described and in addition thereto 
 the group of small islands in the Bay of Panama, named 
 Perico, Naos, Culebra and Flamenco. 
 
 ARTICLE III 
 
 The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all 
 the rights, power and authority within the zone mentioned 
 and described in Article II of this agreement and within the 
 limits of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and 
 described in said Article II which the United States would 
 possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory 
 within which said lands and waters are located to the entire 
 exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any 
 such sovereign rights, power or authority. 
 
 ARTICLE IV 
 
 As rights subsidiary to the above grants the Republic of 
 Panama grants in perpetuity to the United States the right 
 
410 APPENDICES 
 
 to use the rivers, streams, lakes and other bodies of water 
 within its limits for navigation, the supply of water or 
 water-power or other purposes, so far as the use of said 
 rivers, streams, lakes and bodies of water and the waters 
 thereof may be necessary and convenient for the construc- 
 tion, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of 
 the said Canal. 
 
 ARTICLE V 
 
 The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in 
 perpetuity a monopoly for the construction, maintenance 
 and operation of any system of communication by means of 
 canal or railroad across its territory between the Caribbean 
 Sea and the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 ARTICLE VI 
 
 The grants herein contained shall in no manner invalidate 
 the titles or rights of private land holders or owners of pri- 
 vate property in the said zone or in or to any of the lands 
 or waters granted to the United States by the provisions of 
 any Article of this treaty, nor shall they interfere with the 
 rights of way over the public roads passing through the said 
 zone or over any of the said lands or waters unless said 
 rights of way or private rights shall conflict with rights 
 herein granted to the United States, in which case the rights 
 of the United States shall be superior. All damages caused 
 to the owners of private lands or private property of any 
 kind by reason of the grants contained in this treaty or by 
 reason of the operations of the United States, its agents or 
 employees, or by reason of the construction, maintenance, 
 operation, sanitation and protection of the said Canal or of 
 the works of sanitation and protection herein provided for, 
 shall be appraised and settled by a joint Commission 
 appointed by the Governments of the United States and the 
 Republic of Panama, whose decisions as to such damages 
 shall be final and whose awards as to such damages shall be 
 paid solely by the United States. No part of the work on 
 said Canal or the Panama railroad or on any auxiliary 
 works relating thereto and authorised by the terms of this 
 treaty shall be prevented, delayed or impeded by or pending 
 such proceedings to ascertain such damages. The appraisal 
 of the said private lands and private property and the assess- 
 
APPENDICES 411 
 
 meat of damages to them shall be based upon their value 
 before the date of this convention. 
 
 ARTICLE VII 
 
 The Republic of Panama grants to the United States 
 within the limits of the cities of Panama and Colon and their 
 adjacent harbours and within the territory adjacent thereto 
 the right to acquire by purchase or by the exercise of the 
 right of eminent domain, any lands, buildings, water rights 
 or other properties necessary and convenient for the con- 
 struction, maintenance, operation and protection of the 
 Canal and of any works of sanitation, such as the collection 
 and disposition of sewage and the distribution of water in 
 the said cities of Panama and Colon, which, in the discretion 
 of the United States, may be necessary and convenient for 
 the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and 
 protection of the said Canal and railroad. All such works 
 of sanitation, collection and disposition of sewage and dis- 
 tribution of water in the cities of Panama and Colon shall 
 be made at the expense of the United States, and the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, its agents or nominees shall 
 be authorised to impose and collect water rates and sewer- 
 age rates which shall be sufficient to provide for the payment 
 of interest and the amortisation of the principal of the cost 
 of said works within a period of fifty years and upon the 
 expiration of said term of fifty years the system of sewers 
 and water works shall revert to and become the properties 
 of the cities of Panama and Colon respectively ; and the use 
 of the water shall be free to the inhabitants of Panama and 
 Colon, except to the extent that water rates may be neces- 
 sary for the operation and maintenance of said system of 
 sewers and water. 
 
 The Republic of Panama agrees that the cities of Panama 
 and Colon shall comply in perpetuity with the sanitary 
 ordinances whether of a preventive or curative character 
 prescribed by the United States, and in case the Government 
 of Panama is unable or fails in its duty to enforce this 
 compliance by the cities of Panama and Colon with the sani- 
 tary ordinances of the United States the Republic of Pan- 
 ama grants to the United States the right and authority to 
 enforce the same. 
 
 The same right and authority are granted to the United 
 States for the maintenance of public order in the cities of 
 Panama and Colon and the territories and harbours adjacent 
 
412 APPE]<5^DICES 
 
 thereto in case the Republic of Panama should not be, in 
 the judgment of the United States, able to maintain such 
 order. 
 
 ARTICLE VIII 
 
 The Republic of Panama grants to • the United States 
 all rights which it now has or hereafter may acquire to the 
 property of the New Panama Canal Company and the Pan- 
 ama Railroad Company as a result of the transfer of sov- 
 ereignty from the Republic of Colombia to the Republic of 
 Panama over the Isthmus of Panama, and authorises the 
 New Panama Canal Company to sell and transfer to the 
 United States its rights, privileges, properties and conces- 
 sions as well as the Panama Railroad and all the shares or 
 part of the shares of that company; but the public lands 
 situated outside of the zone described in Article II of this 
 treaty now included in the concessions to both said enter- 
 prises and not required in the construction or operation of 
 the Canal shall revert to the Republic of Panama except any 
 property now owned by or in the possession of said com- 
 panies within Panama or Colon or the ports or terminals 
 thereof. 
 
 ARTICLE IX 
 
 The United States agrees that the ports at either entrance 
 of the Canal and the waters thereof, and the Republic of 
 Panama agrees that the towns of Panama and Colon, shall 
 be free for all time, so that there shall not be imposed or 
 collected customhouse tolls, tonnage, anchorage, lighthouse, 
 wharf, pilot, or quarantine dues or any other charges or 
 taxes of any kind upon any vessel using or passing through 
 the Canal or belonging to or employed by the United States, 
 directly or indirectly, in connection with the construction, 
 maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the 
 main Canal, or auxiliary works, or upon the cargo, officers, 
 crew, or passengers of any such vessels, except such tolls and 
 charges as may be imposed by the United States for the use 
 of the Canal and other works, and except tolls and charges 
 imposed by the Republic of Panama upon merchandise des- 
 tined to be introduced for the consumption of the rest of 
 the Republic of Panama, and upon vessels touching at the 
 ports of Colon and Panama and which do not cross the 
 Canal. 
 
APPENDICES 413 
 
 The Government of the Republic of Panama shall have 
 the right to establish in such ports and in the towns of Pan- 
 ama and Colon such houses and guards as it may deem 
 necessary to collect duties on importations destined to other 
 portions of Panama and to prevent contraband trade. The 
 United States shall have the right to make use of the towns 
 and harbours of Panama and Colon as places of anchorage, 
 and for making repairs, for loading, unloading, depositing, 
 or transshipping cargoes either in transit or destined for the 
 service of the Canal and for other works pertaining to the 
 Canal. 
 
 ARTICLE X 
 
 The Republic of Panama agrees that there shall not be 
 imposed any taxes, national, municipal, departmental, or of 
 any other class, upon the Canal, the railways and auxiliary 
 works, tugs and other vessels employed in the service 
 of the Canal, storehouses, workshops, offices, quarters for 
 labourers, factories of all kinds, warehouses, wharves, ma- 
 chinery and other works, property, and effects appertain- 
 ing to the Canal or railroad and auxiliary works, or their 
 officers or employees, situated within the cities of Panama 
 and Colon, and that there shall not be imposed contribu- 
 tions or charges of a personal character of any kind upon 
 officers, employees, labourers, and other individuals in the 
 service of the Canal and railroad and auxiliary works. 
 
 ARTICLE XI 
 
 The United States agrees that the official despatches of 
 the Government of the Republic of Panama shall be trans- 
 mitted over any telegraph and telephone lines established for 
 canal purposes and used for public and private business at 
 rates not higher than those required from officials in the 
 service of the United States. 
 
 ARTICLE XII 
 
 The Government of the Republic of Panama shall permit 
 the immigration and free access to the lands and workshops 
 of the Canal and its auxiliary works of all employees and 
 workmen of whatever nationality under contract to work 
 upon or seeking employment upon or in any wise connected 
 
414 APPENDICES 
 
 with the said Canal and its auxiliary works, with their 
 respective families, and all such persons shall be free and 
 exempt from the military service of the Republic of Panama. 
 
 ARTICLE XIII 
 
 The United States may import at any time into the said 
 zone and auxiliary lands, free of custom duties, imposts, 
 taxes, or other charges, and without any restrictions, any 
 and all vessels, dredges, engines, cars, machinery, tools, 
 explosives, materials, supplies, and other articles necessary 
 and convenient in the construction, maintenance, operation, 
 sanitation and protection of the Canal and auxiliary works, 
 and all provisions, medicines, clothing, supplies and other 
 things necessary and convenient for the officers, employees, 
 workmen and labourers in the service and employ of the 
 United States and for their families. If any such articles 
 are disposed of for use outside of the zone and auxiliary 
 lands granted to the United States and within the territory 
 of the Republic, they shall be subject to the same import or 
 other duties as like articles imported under the laws of the 
 Republic of Panama. 
 
 ARTICLE XIV 
 
 As the price or compensation for the rights, powers and 
 privileges granted in this convention by the Republic of 
 Panama to the United States, the Government of the United 
 States agrees to pay to the Republic of Panama the sum of 
 ten million dollars (|10,000,000) in gold coin of the United 
 States on the exchange of the ratification of this convention 
 and also an annual pavment during the life of this conven- 
 tion of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars (|250,000) 
 in like gold coin, beginning nine years after the date 
 aforesaid. 
 
 The provisions of this Article shall be in addition to all 
 other benefits assured to the Republic of Panama under 
 this convention. But no delay or difference of opinion under 
 this Article or any other provisions of this treaty shall affect 
 or interrupt the full operation and effect of this convention 
 in all other respects. 
 
 ARTICLE XV 
 
 The joint commission referred to in Article VI shall be 
 established as follows: 
 
APPENDICES 415 
 
 The President of the United States shall nominate two 
 persons and the President of the Republic of Panama shall 
 nominate two persons and they shall proceed to a decision ; 
 but in case of disagreement of the Commission (by reason 
 of their being equally divided in conclusion) an umpire shall 
 be appointed by the two Governments who shall render the 
 decision. In the event of the death, absence, or incapacity of 
 a commissioner or umpire, or of his omitting, declining or 
 ceasing to act, his place shall be filled by the appointment 
 of another person in the manner above indicated. All 
 decisions by a majority of the Commission or by the umpire 
 shall be final, 
 
 ARTICLE XVI 
 
 The two Governments shall make adequate provision by 
 mutual agreement for the pursuit, capture, imprisonment, 
 detention and delivery within said zone and auxiliary lands 
 to the authorities of the Republic of Panama of persons 
 charged with the commitment of crimes, felonies or misde- 
 meanours without said zone and for the pursuit, capture, im- 
 prisonment, detention and delivery without said zone to the 
 authorities of the United States of persons charged with the 
 commitment of crimes, felonies and misdemeanours within 
 said zone and auxiliary lands. 
 
 ARTICLE XVII 
 
 The Republic of Panama grants to the United States the 
 use of all the ports of the Republic open to commerce as 
 places of refuge for any vessels employed in the Canal enter- 
 prise, and for all vessels passing or bound to pass through 
 the Canal which may be in distress and be driven to seek 
 refuge in said ports. Such vessels shall be exempt from 
 anchorage and tonnage dues on the part of the Republic of 
 Panama. 
 
 ARTICLE XVIII 
 
 The Canal, when constructed, and the entrances thereto 
 shall be neutral in perpetuity, and shall be opened upon the 
 terms provided for by Section I of Article Three of, and in 
 conformity with all the stipulations of, the treaty entered 
 into by the Governments of the United States and Great 
 Britain on November 18, 1901. 
 
416 APPENDICES 
 
 ARTICLE XIX 
 
 The Government of the Republic of Panama shall have the 
 right to transport over the Canal its vessels and its troops 
 and munitions of war in such vessels at all times without 
 paying charges of any kind. The exemption is to be extended 
 to the auxiliary railway for the transportation of persons in 
 the service of the Republic of Panama, or of the police force 
 charged with the preservation of public order outside of said 
 zone, as well as to their baggage, munitions of war and 
 supplies. 
 
 ARTICLE XX 
 
 If by virtue of any existing treaty in relation to the terri- 
 tory of the Isthmus of Panama, whereof the obligations shall 
 descend or be assumed by the Republic of Panama, there 
 may be any privilege or concession in favour of the Govern- 
 ment or the citizens and subjects of a third power relative to 
 an interoceanic means of communication which in any of its 
 terms may be incompatible with the terms of the present 
 convention, the Republic of Panama agrees to cancel or mod- 
 ify such treaty in due form, for which purpose it shall give 
 to the said third power the requisite notification within the 
 term of four months from the date of the present conven- 
 tion, and in case the existing treaty contains no clause per- 
 mitting its modification or annulment, the Republic of 
 Panama agrees to procure its modification or annulment in 
 such form that there shall not exist any conflict with the 
 stipulations of the present convention. 
 
 ARTICLE XXI 
 
 The rights and privileges granted by the Republic of Pan- 
 ama to the United States in the preceding Articles are under- 
 stood to be free of all anterior debts, liens, trusts, or liabil- 
 ities, or concessions or privileges to other Governments, cor- 
 porations, syndicates or individuals; and consequently, if 
 there should arise any claims on account of the present con- 
 cessions and privileges or otherwise, the claimant shall 
 resort to the Government of the Republic of Panama and not 
 to the United States for any indemnity or compromise which 
 may be required. 
 
APPENDICES 41 V 
 
 ARTICLE XXII 
 
 The Republic of Panama renounces and grants to the 
 United States the participation to which it might be entitled 
 in the future earnings of the Canal under Article XV of the 
 concessionary contract with Lucien N. B. Wyse now owned 
 by the New Panama Canal Company and any and all other 
 rights or claims of a pecuniary nature arising under or 
 relating to said concession, or arising under or relating to 
 the concessions to the Panama Railroad Company or any 
 extension or modification thereof ; and it likewise renounces, 
 confirms and grants to the United States, now and hereafter, 
 all the rights and property reserved in the said concessions 
 which otherwise would belong to Panama at or before the 
 expiration of the terms of ninety-nine years of the conces- 
 sions granted to or held by the above mentioned party and 
 companies, and all right, title and interest which it now has 
 or may hereafter have, in and to the lands, canal, works, 
 property and rights held by the said companies under said 
 concessions or otherwise, and acquired or to be acquired by 
 the United States from or through the New Panama Canal 
 Company, including any property and rights which might or 
 may in the future either by lapse of time, forfeiture or other- 
 wise, revert to the Republic of Panama under any contracts 
 or concessions, with said Wyse, the Universal Panama Canal 
 Company, the Panama Railroad Company and the New Pan- 
 ama Canal Company. 
 
 The aforesaid rights and property shall be and are free 
 and released from any present or reversionary interest in or 
 claims of Panama and the title of the United States thereto 
 upon consummation of the contemplated purchase by the 
 United States from the New Panama Canal Company shall 
 be absolute, so far as concerns the Republic of Panama, ex- 
 cepting always the rights of the Republic specifically secured 
 under this treaty. 
 
 ARTICLE xxiii 
 
 If it should become necessary at any time to employ armed 
 forces for the safety or protection of the Canal, or of the 
 ships that make use of the same, or the railways and aux- 
 iliary works, the United States shall have the right, at all 
 times and in its discretion, to use its police and its land and 
 naval forces or to establish fortifications for these purposes. 
 
418 APPENDICES 
 
 ARTICLE XXIV 
 
 No change either in the Government or in the laws and 
 treaties of the Republic of Panama shall, without the con- 
 sent of the United States, affect any right of the United 
 States under the present convention, or under any treaty 
 stipulation between the two countries that now exists or 
 may hereafter exist touching the subject matter of this 
 convention. 
 
 If the Republic of Panama shall hereafter enter as a con- 
 stituent into any other Government or into any union or 
 confederation of states, so as to merge her sovereignty or 
 independence in such Government, union or confederation, 
 the rights of the United States under this convention shall 
 not be in any respect lessened or impaired. 
 
 ARTICLE XXV 
 
 For the better performance of the engagements of this 
 convention and to the end of the efficient protection of the 
 Canal and the preservation of its neutrality, the Government 
 of the Republic of Panama will sell or lease to the United 
 States lands adequate and necessary for naval or coaling 
 stations on the Pacific coast and on the western Caribbean 
 coast of the Republic at certain points to be agreed upon 
 with the President of the United States. 
 
 ARTICLE XXVI 
 
 This convention when signed by the Plenipotentiaries of 
 the Contracting Parties shall be ratified by the respective 
 Governments and the ratifications shall be exchanged at 
 Washington at the earliest date possible. 
 
 In faith whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have 
 signed the present convention in duplicate and have here- 
 unto affixed their respective seals. 
 
 Done at the City of Washington the 18th day of November 
 in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and three. 
 
 John Hay (Seal) 
 
 P. BuNAU Varilla (Seal) 
 
APPENDIX VII 
 Proclamation of the Governor of the Canal Zone Issued 
 
 AT CULEBRA^ PANAMA, MaY 19, 1904 
 
 To the InhaMtants of the Isthmian Canal Zone: 
 
 In pursuance of the terms of the canal convention 
 between the United States and the Republic of Panama, the 
 ratifications of which were exchanged on the 26th day of 
 February, 1904, the Republic of Panama granted to the 
 United States, on the Isthmus of Panama, the perpetual use, 
 occupation, and control of a certain zone of land 10 miles in 
 width, and land under water, including the islands within 
 said zone, and also the islands of Perico, Naos, Culebra, and 
 Flamenco, situated on the Bay of Panama, and the use, 
 occupation, and control of certain other lands and waters 
 outside said zone, which may be found to be necessary and 
 convenient, all to be utilised for and in connection with the 
 construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and pro- 
 tection of the ship canal which the United States is to con- 
 struct, and which will extend from the Caribbean Sea, near 
 Colon, to the Pacific Ocean, near the City of Panama. 
 
 In addition to the perpetual use, occupation, and control 
 of the lands and waters referred to, the Republic of Pan- 
 ama has also granted to the United States all the rights, 
 powers, and authority within said zone, auxiliary canals, 
 islands, and lands under water which the United States 
 would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the 
 territory granted, to the entire exclusion of the exercise by 
 the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power, 
 and authority. 
 
 The canal zone, and all the real and movable property 
 situated within it, that formerly belonged to the New Pan- 
 ama Canal Company have been purchased and taken pos- 
 session of and are now occupied or controlled by or on 
 behalf of the United States of America. 
 
 For the maintenance of order within the territory above 
 described, the use, occupation, and control of which have 
 been granted to the United States, and in order that the 
 
 419 
 
420 APPENDICES 
 
 inhabitants may be protected in the full enjoyment of their 
 liberty, property, and religion, the President of the United 
 States has been empowered by the Congress to establish a 
 temporary government for the canal zone, to which end he 
 has been authorised to delegate to such person or persons 
 as he may designate, and to control the manner of their 
 exercise, all the military, civil, and judicial powers and 
 authority granted to the United States by the Republic of 
 Panama as well as the power to make all needful rules and 
 regulations. 
 
 With respect to the government and administration of the 
 canal zone, the President has delegated to the undersigned, 
 as governor of the zone, all necessary executive and adminis- 
 trative attributes, with power to appoint the officials and 
 organise the police force necessary to preserve order and to 
 carry out the purposes of government on the Isthmus. The 
 power to make rules and regulations — in short, all matters 
 of legislation for the zone and its inhabitants — have been 
 delegated to the members of the Isthmian Canal Commis- 
 sion, of whom four constitute a quorum for legislative pur- 
 poses; but it is provided that the governor of the zone and 
 the legislative commission shall exercise their powers and 
 authority and carry on their work always under the super- 
 vision and direction of the Secretary of War. 
 
 The President has ordered that the laws of the land w^hich 
 were in force on the 27th of February, 1904, shall continue 
 in force in all places on the Isthmus of Panama over which 
 the United States has jurisdiction until said laws are altered 
 or annulled by the canal commission, and the people are 
 entitled to security in their persons, property, and religion, 
 and in all their private rights and relations. They will be 
 disturbed as little as possible in their customs and avoca- 
 tions that are in harmony with the principles of well ordered 
 and decent living, but there are certain great principles of 
 government that have been made the basis of our existence 
 as a nation which are deemed essential to the rule of law and 
 the maintenance of order, and will have force within the 
 canal zone and within other lands on the Isthmus that are 
 controlled by the United States. The principles referred to 
 may be generally stated as follows: 
 
 That no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or prop- 
 erty without due process of law ; that private property shall 
 not be taken for public use without just compensation ; that 
 in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right 
 
APPEISTDICES 421 
 
 of a speedy and public trial, to be informed of the nature 
 and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the wit- 
 nesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining 
 witnesses in his favour, and to have the assistance of counsel 
 in his defence ; that excessive bail shall not be required nor 
 excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishment 
 inflicted ; that no person shall be put twice in jeopardy for 
 the same offence, or be compelled in any criminal case to be 
 a witness against himself; that the right to be secure against 
 unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; 
 that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist, 
 except as a punishment for crime; that no bill of attainder 
 or ex-post facto law shall be passed; that no law shall be 
 passed abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or of 
 the rights of the people to peaceably assemble and petition 
 the Government for a redress of grievances; that no law 
 shall be made respecting the establishment of religion, or 
 prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Provided, however, 
 that the commission shall have power to exclude from time 
 to time from the canal zone and other places on the Isthmus 
 over which the United States has jurisdiction, persons of 
 the following classes who were not actually domiciled within 
 the zone on the 26th of February, 1904, viz.: idiots, the 
 insane, epileptics, paupers, criminals, professional beggars, 
 persons afllicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious 
 diseases, those who have been convicted of felony, anarchists, 
 those whose purpose it is to incite insurrection, and others 
 whose presence it is believed by the commission would tend 
 to create public disorder, endanger the public health, or in 
 any manner impede the prosecution of the work of opening 
 the canal; and may cause any and all such newly arrived 
 persons, or those of the same classes alien to the zone, to be 
 expelled and deported from the territory controlled by the 
 United States, and the commission may defray from the 
 canal appropriation the cost of such deportation, as neces- 
 sary expenses of the sanitation, the police protection of the 
 canal route, and the preservation of good order among the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 The President has further directed notification to the 
 inhabitants of the canal zone that the establishment and 
 maintenance of lotteries and the holding of lottery drawings, 
 or sale of lottery tickets, or the conduct of gambling meth- 
 ods and devices of a character that is prohibited by the laws 
 of the United States are to be strictly forbidden by the canal 
 
422 APPENDICES 
 
 commission, within the canal zone, and that any violation 
 of the law respecting lotteries and gambling, to be enacted, 
 will subject the offender to severe punishment. 
 
 The municipal laws of the canal zone are to be adminis- 
 tered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were 
 before the change of government. Alcaldes, comisarios de 
 barrios, and other persons in lawful discharge of official 
 duties in the zone that are in harmony with the principles 
 of government herein set forth will be continued in office for 
 the present. A judge of a superior court will soon be ap- 
 pointed, and as soon as practicable the limits of the zone will 
 be defined. 
 
 The following announcements are made of heads of 
 departments in the government of the zone : 
 
 Secretary: Mr. Ernest Legarde, Jr. 
 
 Treasurer : Paymaster E. C. Tobey, United States Navy. 
 \ Captain of police : Mr. G. R. Shanton. 
 
 Sanitary officer : Dr. L. W. Sprattling, United States Navy. 
 
 Geo. W. Davis^ Governor. 
 
APPENDIX VIII 
 
 The First Administrative Order 
 
 The following is the text of the first Administrative Order, 
 the enforcement of which was regarded by the Panama Gov- 
 ernment as an oppressive hardship: 
 
 War Department, 
 Washington, June 24, 1904. 
 To the Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission: 
 
 By direction of the President it is ordered : 
 
 Section 1. The territory of the canal zone of the Isthmus 
 of Panama is hereby declared open to the commerce of all 
 friendly nations. All articles, goods, and wares, not in- 
 cluded in the prohibited list, entering at the established 
 customs ports, will be admitted upon payment of such cus- 
 toms duties and other charges as are in force at the time and 
 place of their importation. 
 
 Sec. 2. For the purposes of customs administration in 
 said canal zone, there are hereby established two collection 
 districts, as follows : 
 
 First. The district of Ancon, comprising the southern 
 half of said canal zone, more particularly described as 
 follows : 
 
 The port of entry in said district shall be Ancon. 
 
 Second. The district of Cristobal, comprising the north- 
 ern half of said canal zone, more particularly described as 
 follows : 
 
 The port of entry in said district shall be Cristobal. 
 
 Sec. 3. There is hereby created and shall be maintained in 
 the government of the canal zone a subdivision of the execu- 
 tive branch to be known as the customs service ; the general 
 duties, powers and jurisdiction of the customs service shall 
 be to administer the customs laws and tariff regulations in 
 force in said zone. The governor of the canal zone shall be 
 the head of the customs service. There shall be a collector 
 of customs for each collection district, who shall receive an 
 annual salary of |2,500 in gold, payable in monthly instal- 
 
 428 
 
424 APPENDICES 
 
 ments. It shall be the duty of the collector to collect all 
 revenues derived from the enforcement of the customs laws 
 and tariff regulations in the district subject to his juris- 
 diction and to perform such other service in the administra- 
 tion of such laws as is ordinarily performed by a collector of 
 customs or as he may be required to perform by the governor 
 of the canal zone. The collector of customs shall be ap- 
 pointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the 
 Isthmian Commission. The governor of the canal zone is 
 hereby authorised to appoint and fix the compensation of 
 deputy collectors, surveyors of customs, and such other sub- 
 ordinates and employees as may be necessary for the efficient 
 administration of the customs laws and service. 
 
 Sec. 4. The governor of the canal zone is hereby author- 
 ised and empowered to prescribe and enforce rules and regu- 
 lations for the administration of the customs laws and 
 service of said zone, and report the same to the chairman of 
 the Commission, and said rules and regulations shall have 
 the force and effect of law until annulled or modified by 
 legislative act of the Isthmian Canal Commission or other 
 competent authority. 
 
 Sec. 5. Until otherwise provided by competent authority 
 duties on importations into the canal zone are to be levied 
 in conformity with such duties as Congress has imposed 
 upon foreign merchandise imported into other ports of the 
 United States. 
 
 Sec. 6. Goods or merchandise entering the canal zone 
 from ports of the United States or insular possessions of 
 the United States shall be admitted on the same terms as at 
 the ports of the States of this Union. 
 
 Sec. 7. All goods or merchandise, whether free or duti- 
 able, entering the canal zone by water, by rail, or otherwise, 
 for transportation across said zone must be entered at the 
 custom house of the collection district wherein the point of 
 entrance is situated. Violation of this requirement shall 
 subject the goods to seizure and forfeiture by the customs 
 officials. 
 
 Sec. 8. The governor of the canal zone is authorised to 
 enter and carry out an agreement with the President of the 
 Republic of Panama for cooperation between the customs 
 service of the canal zone and that of the Republic of Pan- 
 ama to protect the customs revenues of both Governments 
 and to prevent frauds and smuggling. 
 
 Sec. 9. The governor of the canal zone is hereby authorised 
 
APPENDICES 425 
 
 to enter upon negotiations and make a tentative agreement 
 with the President of the Republic of Panama respecting 
 reciprocal trade relations between the territory and inhabi- 
 tants of the canal zone and appurtenant territory and the 
 Republic of Panama; also a readjustment of customs duties 
 and tariff regulations so as to secure uniformity of rates and 
 privileges and avoid the disadvantages resulting from differ- 
 ent schedules, duties, and administrative measures in limited 
 territory subject to the same conditions and not separated by 
 natural obstacles. The governor shall report as to such 
 negotiations and proposed agreement to the chairman of the 
 Isthmian Canal Commission for submission and considera- 
 tion by the Commission and such action by competent 
 authority as may be necessary to render said agreement 
 effective in the canal zone. 
 
 This order will be proclaimed and enforced in the canal 
 zone at Panama. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 Wm. H. Taft, Secretary of War, 
 
APPENDIX IX 
 
 The Panaman Protest 
 
 The following is the text of the Panaman Government's 
 oflBcial representation, against the Administrative Order. It 
 was addressed by the Panaman Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs to the American Minister at Panama : 
 
 Mr. Arias to Mr. Barrett. 
 
 Memorandum. 
 
 Office of the Secretary of Government 
 AND Foreign Affairs, 
 
 Panama, July 27, 1904. 
 
 The undersigned, secretary of government and foreign 
 affairs of the Republic of Panama, has received instructions 
 from the President of the aforesaid Republic to submit to 
 his excellency the envoy extraordinary and minister pleni- 
 potentiary of the United States the following: 
 
 Pursuant to orders given by the President of the United 
 States of America for the creation of ports and establish- 
 ment of customs regulations in the canal zone, the governor 
 of said zone has forthwith declared as ports of entry the 
 section denominated La Boca, wherein he has, in conse- 
 quence, thought fit to assume, disregarding the Republic of 
 Panama, the prerogatives of sovereign of the port, entering 
 and clearing vessels, establishing and collecting port dues 
 and, finally, adopting measures tending to the establishment 
 in the canal zone of the customs system of the United States. 
 In a similar fashion the postal tariff and postage stamps of 
 the United States have been made obligatory within the 
 limits of the canal zone, and it appears the belief was enter- 
 tained that the United States could, at its option, establish 
 in the canal zone a monetary system different from any 
 adopted by the Republic of Panama. 
 
 Such proceeding and intentions are, undoubtedly, the 
 result of the interpretation given by the United States of 
 America to the treaty concluded with Panama on the 18th 
 
 429 
 
APPENDICES 427 
 
 of November, 1903, on points such as those of vital impor- 
 tance for the growing Republic and as said interpretation 
 clashes with the opinion of the government of Panama in 
 what concerns the treaty itself and points at issue, the 
 undersigned, in the name of the President of the Republic, 
 respectfully invites his excellency the envoy extraordinary 
 and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to ex- 
 change views in connection with the measures recently 
 adopted in the canal zone, so as to convey to the treaty, by 
 mutual accord, such interpretation as is found more to con- 
 form to the spirit and letter of its stipulations. 
 
 Although the Republic of Panama when negotiating with 
 the United States the treaty of the 18th of November, 1903, 
 could not offer any obstacle whatsoever to the wishes and 
 convenience of the United States, it did observe, neverthe- 
 less, with pleasure, when approving without restrictions 
 said treaty, that the United States had waived in favour of 
 the Republic of Panama that which was neither needed by 
 the United States nor by the canal enterprise, but which for 
 the Republic constitutes the most effective guaranty of its 
 existence — in other words, fiscal and economical sovereignty 
 within and without the canal zone. 
 
 This point is of great importance because it is really a 
 fact that a nation can cede part of its territory and sov- 
 ereign rights in connection therewith, without materially 
 affecting its proper existence, in surrendering life itself, and 
 this very life, without the corresponding nourishment, is 
 thereby doomed to sure death. From this it follows that 
 the treaty concluded with the United States amply provides, 
 on the one hand, for all requirements of the canal enter- 
 prise, and, on the other hand, it fully provides for the 
 perpetual existence of the Republic of Panama. 
 
 The said Republic thus agreed to surrender a strip of land 
 of the required size, and boundaries to be excavated for a 
 canal and to be eventually used by the shipping communi 
 eating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the zone thus 
 surrendered was ceded to the government of the United 
 States, in perpetuity for "the construction, maintenance, 
 operation, sanitation, and protection of said canal." (Arti- 
 cle II of the treaty.) - 
 
 Whatever was considered indispensable by the United 
 States to secure perpetually the canal enterprise was readily 
 granted by the Republic of Panama. By such concession the 
 canal zone, properly speaking, was comprised in the grant, 
 
428 APPENDICES 
 
 and such lands and waters without the zone as would be 
 found necessary, the islands of Perico, Naos, Culebra, and 
 Flamenco, and moreover, the rights, power, and authority 
 (as per Article III of the treaty) which the United States 
 '^shall have and exercise as if it were sovereign of the terri- 
 tory wherein said land and waters are located," entirely 
 precluding the Republic of Panama in the exercise of such 
 sovereign rights, power, or authority. 
 
 But the general, and so to speak, the universal phase of 
 these concessions of sovereignty, has, to judge from the 
 treaty, two conceptions, one conditional and the other excep- 
 tional, both indispensable to the existence of the Republic of 
 Panama. 
 
 These two points are those which the undersigned believes 
 have been disregarded by the authorities of the canal zone, 
 by means of the measures set forth at the commencement of 
 this memorandum. 
 
 According to the clause in question, referred to in Article 
 II of the treaty, "the cities of Panama and Colon and 
 adjacent ports which are included in the described zone 
 shall not be considered as comprised in this concession." 
 
 This provision has an object further than that of indicat- 
 ing the material possession of said cities and ports. The 
 evident object of that provision tends to insure and safe- 
 guard the very existence of the Republic of Panama, reserv- 
 ing to it in perpetuity the aforesaid cities and ports as fiscal 
 resources, wherefrom to derive the most effective means of 
 subsistence. 
 
 The canal zone, bfefore being ceded to the United States 
 and subsequent to its cession, forms part of the region where- 
 from importation and exportation take place and is the 
 central spot between the two seas. The very existence of 
 the Republic is derived from there; hence it was necessary 
 to reserve that spot, although in other respects ceded to the 
 United States. 
 
 Such is, in the opinion of the undersigned, the reason and 
 the object why from the canal zone the cities of Panama 
 and Colon are set apart and the ports adjacent thereto, 
 virtually leaving the zone without jurisdictional ports. 
 
 Hence the right of levying and collecting maritime taxes, 
 etc. (without regard to the exceptions provided in the treaty 
 referring to all shipping and otherwise everything connected 
 with the canal enterprise,) has iji variably been a prerogative 
 of the Republic of Panama, and the Republic claims it by 
 
APPENDICES 429 
 
 virtue of the spirit and letter of the treaty concluded on 
 the 18th of November, 1903. 
 
 Not only that, the Republic claims the acknowledgment 
 to the full extent of its economical and fiscal sovereignty 
 within the canal zone, not only because it considers it has a 
 right according to the treaty, but that its very existence and 
 future depend on it. The fact stands, therefore, that Pan- 
 ama, being the original owner of the canal zone, clearly 
 reserved what it did not expressly surrender. ^ 
 
 The sovereign right of levying taxes within the zone does 
 not appear by any of the stipulations of the treaty to have 
 been expressly surrendered to the United States. On the 
 contrary, the right is implicitly acknowledged by Clauses X 
 and XIII, wherein are specified the effects that cannot be 
 subject to taxes. It follows therefore, that other effects are 
 liable to taxation. In other words, national taxes and con- 
 tribution take effect in the canal zone in so far as not 
 expressly excepted by said Articles X and XI 1 1. 
 
 This being the case, the fact of excluding from the canal 
 zone, by order of the authorities there, the postal tariff and 
 postage stamps of the Republic of Panama, is, to say the 
 least, improper, inasmuch as such proceedings aft'ect, in a 
 marked manner, a source of revenue from which it expects 
 brilliant results in the near future. 
 
 Finally, and as logical understanding of the meaning of 
 a treaty whereby the fiscal and economical sovereignty is 
 assured to the Republic, it considers that the rights which 
 it so clearl}^ and expressly reserved to itself have not been 
 taken into proper consideration. 
 
 The foregoing are the ideas w^hich have been considered 
 as proper to submit to his excellency the envoy extraordi- 
 nary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of 
 America as a true expression of the feeling of the national 
 government in order to serve as the basis of interpretation of 
 the treaty of the 18th of November, 1903, in a matter of 
 such vital importance for the Republic of Panama. 
 
 ToMAS Aeias. 
 
APPENDIX X 
 
 The Revised Executive Order 
 
 The following is the text of the new administrative or 
 executive order, made by the United States Secretary of 
 War as a result of a long controversy with the Panaman 
 Government, during his visit to Panama in 1904. 
 
 Panama, December 3, 1904. 
 
 By the direction of the President it is ordered, that, sub- 
 ject to the action of the Fifty-eighth Congress, as contem- 
 plated by the act of Congress approved April 28, 1904 : 
 
 Section 1. No importation of goods, wares, and merchan- 
 dise shall be entered at Ancon or Cristobal, the terminal 
 ports of the canal, except such goods, wares, and merchandise 
 as are described in Article XIII of the treaty between the 
 Republic of Panama and the United States, the ratifications 
 of which were exchanged on the 26th day of February, 1904, 
 and except goods, wares and merchandise in transit across 
 the Isthmus for a destination without the limits of said 
 Isthmus, and except coal, and crude mineral oil for fuel 
 purposes to be sold at Ancon or Cristobal, to sea-going 
 vessels, said coal and oil to be admitted to those ports free 
 of duties for said purposes : 
 
 Provided, however, that this order shall be inoperative, 
 first, unless the Republic of Panama shall reduce the ad 
 valorem duty on imported articles described in the class 2 
 of the act of the National Convention of Panama, passed 
 July 5, 1904, and taking effect October 12, 1904, from 15 per 
 centum to 10 per centum and shall not increase the rates of 
 duty on the imported articles described in the other sched- 
 ules of said act except on all forms of imported wines, 
 liquors, alcohol, and opium, on which the Republic may fix 
 higher rates; second, unless Article 38 of the Constitution 
 of the Republic of Panama as modified by Article 146 thereof, 
 shall remain in full force and unchanged, so far as the 
 importation and sale of all kinds of merchandise are con 
 cerned; third, unless the consular fees and charges of the 
 
 430 
 
APPENDICES 431 
 
 Republic of Panama in respect to entry of all vessels and 
 importations into said ports of Panama and Colon shall be 
 reduced to 60 per cent, of the rates now in force ; and, fourth, 
 unless goods imported into the ports of Panama and Colon, 
 consigned to and destined for any part of the canal zone 
 shall not be subjected in the Republic of Panama to any 
 other direct or indirect impost or tax whatever. 
 
 Section 2. In view of the proximity of the port of Ancon 
 to the port of Panama and of the port of Cristobal to the 
 port of Colon, the proper customs or port official of the canal 
 zone shall, when not inconsistent with the interest of the 
 United States at the instance of proper authority of the 
 Republic of Panama, permit any vessel entered at or cleared 
 from the ports of Panama and Colon together with its cargo 
 and passengers under suitable regulations for the transit of 
 the imported merchandise and passengers to and from the 
 territory of the Republic of Panama to use and enjoy the 
 dockage and other facilities of the ports of Ancon and Cris- 
 tobal respectively, upon payment of proper dockage dues 
 to the owners of said dock. 
 
 Provided, however, that reciprocal privileges as to dock- 
 age and other facilities at Panama and Colon, together with 
 suitable arrangement for transit of imported merchandise 
 and passengers to and from the territory of the canal zone, 
 shall be granted by the authorities of the Republic of Pan- 
 ama when not inconsistent with its interests, to any vessel, 
 together with its cargo and passengers, entered at or cleared 
 from the ports of Ancon and Cristobal; provided, however, 
 that nothing herein contained shall affect the complete ad- 
 ministrative, police and judicial jurisdiction of the two 
 governments over their respective ports and harbours, except 
 -as hereinafter provided in Section 6. 
 
 Provided, also that vessels entering or clearing at the port 
 of Panama shall have the absolute right freely to anchor and 
 lade and discharge their cargoes by lighterage from and to 
 Panama at the usual anchorage in the neighbourhood of the 
 islands of Perico, Flamenco, Naos, and Culebra, though 
 included in the harbour of Ancon under the provisional 
 delimitation as amended under Section 5 hereinafter, and in 
 use the said waters of said harbour for all lawful com- 
 mercial purposes. 
 
 Section 3. All manifests and invoices and other docu- 
 ments in respect to vessels or cargoes cleared or consigned 
 for or from the ports of Panama and Colon shall, as hereto- 
 
432 APPENDICES 
 
 fore, be made by the officials of the Republic of Panama. All 
 manifests, invoices, and other documents in respect to the 
 vessels and cargoes cleared or consigned for or from the 
 ports of Ancon or Cristobal shall be made by officials of 
 the United States. 
 
 Section 4. No import duties, tolls, or charges of any kind 
 whatsoever shall be imposed by the authorities of the canal 
 zone upon goods, wares, and merchandise imported, or upon 
 persons passing from the territory of the Republic of Pan- 
 ama into the canal zone; and Section 5 of the Executive 
 Order of June 24, 1904, providing that duties on importa- 
 tions into the canal zone are to be levied in conformity with 
 such duties as Congress has imposed upon foreign merchan- 
 dise imported into ports of the United States, is hereby 
 revoked; but this order shall be inoperative unless the 
 authority of the Republic of Panama shall grant by proper 
 order, reciprocal free importations of goods, wares, and 
 merchandise and free passage of persons from the territory 
 of the canal zone into that of the Republic of Panama. 
 
 Section 5. The provisions of this order also shall not be 
 operative except upon the condition that the delimitation of 
 the cities and harbours of Colon and Panama, signed on the 
 15th day of June, 1904, by the proper representatives of the 
 governments of the Republic of Panama and of the canal 
 zone, shall be provisionally in force; and while the same 
 shall remain in force, with the consent of both parties 
 thereto, the provisional delimitation shall include not only 
 the terms set forth in writing thereof, but also the following, 
 viz. : that the harbour of Panama shall include the maritime 
 waters in front of said city to the south and east thereof, 
 extending 3 marine miles from mean low-water mark, except 
 the maritime waters lying westerly of a line drawn from a 
 stake or post set on Punta Mala through the middle island 
 of the three islands known as Las Tres Hermanas, and ex- 
 tending 3 marine miles from mean low-water mark on Punta 
 Mala, which waters shall be considered in the harbour of 
 Ancon. 
 
 Section 6. This order also shall be inoperative unless the 
 proper governmental authorities of the Republic of Panama 
 shall grant power to the authorities of the canal zone to 
 exercise immediate and complete jurisdiction in matters of 
 sanitation and quarantine in the maritime waters of the 
 ports of Panama and Colon. 
 
 Section 7. The Executive Order of June 24, 1904, concern- 
 
APPENDICES 433 
 
 ing the establishment of post offices and postal service in 
 the canal zone, is modified and supplemented by the follow- 
 ing provisions : 
 
 All mail matter carried in the territory of the canal zone, 
 to or through the Republic of Panama, to the United States 
 and to foreign countries, shall bear the stamps of the Repub- 
 lic of Panama, properly crossed by a printed mark of the 
 canal zone government, and at rates the same as those 
 imposed by the government of the United States upon its 
 domestic and foreign mail matter, exactly as if the United 
 States and the Republic of Panama for this purpose were 
 common territory. The authorities of the canal zone shall 
 purchase from the Republic of Panama such stamps as the 
 authorities of the canal zone desire to use in the canal zone 
 at 40 per centum of their face value ; but this order shall be 
 inoperative unless the proper authorities of the Republic 
 of Panama shall by suitable arrangement with the postal 
 authorities of the United States provide for the transporta- 
 tion of mail matter between post offices on the Isthmus of 
 Panama and post offices in the United States at the same 
 rates as are now charged for domestic postage in the United 
 States, except all mail matter lawfully franked and inclosed 
 in the so-called penalty envelopes of the United States gov- 
 ernment, concerning the public business of the United 
 States, which shall be carried free, both by the govern- 
 ments of Panama and of the canal zone ; provided, however, 
 that the zone authorities may, for the purpose of facilitating 
 the transportation of through mail between the zone and 
 the United States in either direction, inclose such through 
 mail, properly stamped or lawfully franked, in sealed mail 
 pouches, which shall not be opened by the authorities of the 
 Republic of Panama in transit, on condition that the cost 
 of transportation of such mail pouches shall be paid by the 
 zone government. Buicroft UbnuQp 
 
 Section 8. This order also shall not be operative unless 
 the currency agreement made at Washington June 20, 1904, 
 by the representatives of the Republic of Panama and the 
 Secretary of War of the United States, acting with the 
 approval of the President of the United States, for the es- 
 tablishment of a gold standard of value in the Republic of 
 Panama and proper coinage, shall be approved and put into 
 execution by the President of the Republic of Panama, pur- 
 suant to the authority conferred upon him by law of the 
 Republic of Panama No. 84, approved June 20, 1904; and 
 
434 APPENDICES 
 
 unless the President of the Republic of Panama, in order 
 that the operation of the said currency agreement in secur- 
 ing and maintaining a gold standard of value in the Republic 
 of Panama may not be obstructed thereby, shall, by virtue of 
 his authority, conferred by law No. 65, enacted by the 
 National Assembly of Panama on June 6, 1904, abolish the 
 tax of 1 per cent, on gold coin exported from the Republic of 
 Panama. 
 
 Section 9. Citizens of the Republic of Panama at any time 
 residing in the canal zone shall have, so far as concerns the 
 United States, entire freedom of voting at elections held in 
 the Republic of Panama and its provinces or municipalities, 
 at such places outside of the canal zone as may be fixed by 
 the Republic and under such conditions as the Republic may 
 determine; but nothing herein is to be construed as intend- 
 ing to limit the power of the Republic to exclude or restrict 
 the right of such citizens to vote as it may be deemed 
 judicious. 
 
 Section 10. The highway extending from the eastern lim- 
 its of the city of Panama, as fixed in the above mentioned 
 provisional delimitation agreement of June 10, 1904, to the 
 point still farther to the eastward where the road to the 
 Savannahs crosses the zone line (which is 5 miles to east- 
 ward of the centre axis of the canal), shall be repaired and 
 maintained in a serviceable condition at the cost and expense 
 of the authorities of the canal zone ; and also in like manner 
 the said road from the said eastern limits of the city of Pan- 
 ama to the railroad bridge in the city of Panama shall be 
 repaired at the cost of the authorities of the canal zone. But 
 this order shall not be operative unless the Republic of Pan- 
 ama shall waive its claim for compensation for the use in 
 perpetuity of the municipal buildings located in the canal 
 zone. 
 
 Section 11. The United States will construct, maintain, 
 and conduct a hospital or hospitals, either in the canal zone 
 or in the territory of the Republic, at its option, for the 
 treatment of persons insane or afflicted with the disease of 
 leprosy, and the indigent sick, and the United States will 
 accept for treatment therein such persons of said classes as 
 the Republic may request; but this order shall not be oper- 
 ative unless, first, the Republic of Panama shall furnish 
 without cost the requisite lands for said purposes if the 
 United States shall locate such hospital or hospitals in the 
 territory of the Republic, and, second, unless the Republic 
 
APPEKDICES 435 
 
 shall contribute and pay to the United States a reasonable 
 daily per capita charge in respect of each patient entering 
 upon the request of the Republic, to be fixed by the Secretary 
 of War of the United States. 
 
 Section 12. The operation of this executive order and its 
 enforcement by officials of the United States on the one hand, 
 or a compliance with and performance of the conditions of 
 its operation by the Republic of Panama and its officials on 
 the other, shall not be taken as a delimitation, definition, 
 restriction, or restrictive construction of the rights of either 
 party under the treaty between the United States and the 
 Republic of Panama. 
 
 This order is to take effect on the 12th day of December, 
 1904. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 Wm. H. Taft, Secretary of War. 
 
APPENDIX XI 
 Data op Existing Ship Canals 
 
 SUEZ 
 
 The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean and Red seas, 
 extending from Port Said on the former to Suez on the 
 latter, and is at sea level, without locks of any kind. Its 
 total length is 104.08 miles, as follows: Channel of road- 
 stead at Port Said, 1.86 miles; Entrance channel of outer 
 harbour, 1.24; Port Said Harbour, 2.48; Lake Timsah, 1.24; 
 Large Bitter Lake, 9.32; Channel of Suez Roadstead, 1.55; 
 Canal proper, including Small Bitter Lake, 86.37. The canal 
 was authorised by the Egyptian government in 1856, and con- 
 firmed by the Sultan of Turkey in 1866. The concession runs 
 to November, 1968. Work was begun on the canal in 
 1860, and it was opened to commerce in 1869. The orig- 
 inal excavation amounted to 80,000,000 cubic yards, 
 chiefly of sand but with some strata of rock two or 
 three feet thick. The original depth was 25 feet, the bot- 
 tom width 72 feet, and the surface width from 196 to 
 328 feet, according to the character of the soil composing 
 the walls. The deepest cutting was about 80 feet, to the 
 bottom of the canal. In 1895 it was enlarged to a depth of 
 31 feet, and to a width of 108 feet at the bottom and 420 
 feet at the top. This work increased the total excavation 
 to 98,000,000 cubic yards. The original cost was about |90,- 
 000,000, which was increased by the work of enlargement to 
 1102,500,000. At the present time the canal is being further 
 enlarged, so as to have a depth of a little more than 34 feet. 
 The authorised draught of vessels passing through it is, how- 
 ever, only 27 feet. The speed of vessels is limited to 10 kilo- 
 metres, or 5.4 knots, an hour. The average time of passage 
 is 18 hours. The entire canal is lighted with electricity, and 
 vessels pass through at night as well as by day. A current 
 is caused by the tides, sometimes in one direction and some- 
 times in the other, seldom exceeding a knot an hour. Sta- 
 tistics of traffic through the canal in the years stated are 
 as follows: 
 
 436 
 

 
 APPENDICES 
 
 437 
 
 Year 
 
 No. of Vessels 
 
 Net Tonnage 
 
 Receipts 
 from Tolls 
 
 1869 
 1870 
 1895 
 1900 
 1904 
 
 10 
 
 486 
 3,434 
 3,441 
 4,237 
 
 
 6,576 
 436,609 
 
 8,448,383 
 
 9,738,152 
 
 13,401,835 
 
 £ 2,178 
 
 206,273 
 
 3,124,148 
 
 3,624,944 
 
 4,616,034 
 
 The British Government purchased shares in the canal 
 amounting to £4,000,000, the value of which in March, 1905, 
 was £30,857,755. Despite repeated reductions of tolls, the 
 yearly dividends on the shares show a tendency to exceed 
 the maximum permitted, of 25 per cent. In 1904 they were 
 141 francs on each ordinary share of 500 francs, and 117.50 
 francs on the Actions de Jouissance. In 1893 tolls were 
 reduced to 9 francs a ton, in 1903 to 8.50 francs a ton, and 
 in 1905 to 7.75 francs a ton. 
 
 KAISER WILHELM (kIEL) 
 
 The Kaiser Wilhelm or Kiel Canal, constructed by the 
 German Government, begun in 1887 and completed in 1895, 
 connects the Baltic and North seas, across the northern part 
 of Germany. It is a sea-level canal, with locks at the ends 
 to control the influx of the tides. It is 61 miles long, 29.5 
 feet deep, and 72 feet wide at the bottom, with a number of 
 much wider "turn-outs" at which vessels may pass each 
 other. The total excavation was 100,000,000 cubic yards, 
 and the cost was |40,000,000. Statistics of traffic follow: 
 
 Year 
 
 No. of Vessels 
 
 Total Tonnage 
 
 Total Revenue 
 from Tolls 
 and Towing 
 
 1896 
 1900 
 1904 
 
 16,834 
 26,279 
 32,038 
 
 1,505,983 
 
 3,488,767 
 4,990,287 
 
 AMSTERDAM 
 
 1213,356 
 430,768 
 574,651 
 
 The Amsterdam or North Sea Canal, giving access to the 
 inland city of Amsterdam from the North Sea, was con- 
 structed by the private North Sea Canal Company, and after- 
 ward purchased and enlarged by the government of the 
 Netherlands. It is a sea-level canal, or really 14 inches below 
 sea level, with tide locks at the ends^ and is 15.5 miles long. 
 
438 APPENDICES 
 
 Its depth is 27.9 feet, which is now being increased to 32.2 
 feet. The width at the bottom is 115 feet and at the sur- 
 face 164 feet. It was begun in 1865 and opened in 1876. 
 The cost was $15,000,000, but this was reduced to |10,000,- 
 000 by the sale of lands filled in and reclaimed from the sea. 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 The Manchester Ship Canal, connecting the inland city of 
 Manchester, England, with the Atlantic Ocean by way of 
 the Mersey River and the harbour of Liverpool, was con- 
 structed by a private company, and was begun in 1887 and 
 was opened to traffic on January 1, 1894. It is a lock canal, 
 35 1-2 miles long, with five reaches at various levels. Begin- 
 ning at tidewater, there is a tidal reach of 21 miles. The 
 second reach, of 7 1-2 miles, is at an elevation of 16 1-2 feet ; 
 the third, of 2 miles, is 16 feet higher; the fourth, of 3 1-4 
 miles, is 15 feet above the third ; and the fifth, of 1 3-4 miles, 
 is 13 feet above the fourth. Thus the elevation of the Man- 
 chester terminal above the outlet at Liverpool is 60 1-2 feet. 
 The depth of the canal is 26 feet. The width varies. For 
 28 miles the bottom width is 120 feet, with occasional "turn- 
 outs" of 180 feet. For 4 miles the bottom width is 170 feet 
 and is now being increased to 200 feet. The surface width 
 varies from 175 to 230 feet. The total amount of excavation 
 was about 45,000,000 cubic yards, of which one-fourth was 
 sandstone. The cost was |75,000,000. The time required 
 for passage is from five to eight hours. Statistics of traffic 
 are as follows : 
 
 Year 
 
 No. of Vessels 
 
 Tonnage 
 
 Tons of Freight 
 
 Receipts 
 
 1894 
 1895 
 1896 
 1900 
 
 4,551 
 4,761 
 5,156 
 5,362 
 
 720,425 
 
 879,204 
 1,094,837 
 1,492,320 
 
 CORINTH 
 
 925,659 
 1,358,875 
 1,826,237 
 3,060,516 
 
 £ 94,656 
 136,759 
 179,834 
 .290,474 
 
 The Corinth Canal, connecting the Gulf of Corinth with 
 the Gulf of JEgma. and affording a short cut from the Adri- 
 atic and Mediterranean seas to the iEgean Sea and the Dar- 
 danelles, was begun by a private company in 1884 and was 
 opened for traffic in 1893. It is a perfectly straight canal, 
 at sea level, without locks. It lacks 100 yards of being four 
 
APPENDICES 439 
 
 miles long, and is 26 1-4 feet deep. At the bottom it is 69 
 feet wide, and at the surface of the water only 80 1-4 feet, 
 the banks being much steeper than those of any other canal. 
 The total excavation was 15,000,000 cubic yards, a large part 
 of which was granite, and clay so hard as to require blasting. 
 For 2 1-2 miles there is a cut of great depth, measuring at 
 the centre, to the bottom of the canal, 286 feet, or about the 
 depth that would be required at Culebra to make the Pan- 
 ama canal at sea level. The cost of the Corinth Canal was 
 about 15,000,000. There are strong currents in the canal, 
 and steamers not under the best of control frequently graze 
 the side walls, sometimes with much force. 
 
 CRONSTADT 
 
 A ship canal connects Cronstadt, on the Gulf of Finland, 
 with St. Petersburg. It is about six miles long, with a bay 
 channel of ten miles. Its depth is 20 feet and its width from 
 220 to 350 feet. Its cost was about $10,000,000. 
 
 WELLAND 
 
 The Welland Canal, connecting Lake Erie with Lake 
 Ontario, was constructed in 1883, and was enlarged in 1871 
 and again in 1900. It is 27 miles long, and has twenty-five 
 locks, with a total elevation of 327 feet. It is 27 feet deep, 
 and has cost |24,000,000. 
 
 ST. MARY^S PALLS 
 
 The St. Mary's Falls (Sault Sainte Marie) canals connect 
 Lake Superior with Lake Huron, around the falls of the St. 
 Mary's Kiver, and are two in number, one belonging to the 
 United States and one to Canada. The United States canal 
 was built in 1853-55 by the State of Michigan, at a cost of 
 11,000,000. It was enlarged in 1870-81 by the United States 
 Government, and in 1882 was transferred entirely from State 
 to Federal control. In 1887-96 it was again enlarged. It 
 is now a little more than a mile long, 160 feet wide, and 25 
 feet deep, but the depth of the two locks is only 17 and 22 
 feet respectively. The lift of the locks varies from 16 to 20 
 feet. The total cost of the canal and locks to 1904 was more 
 than $6,000,000. Statistics of traffic follow: 
 
440 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 Tonnage of 
 
 Year 
 
 No. of Vessels 
 
 Vessels 
 
 1855 
 
 Not reported 
 
 106,296 
 
 1860 
 
 a u 
 
 403,657 
 
 1865 
 
 997 
 
 409,062 
 
 1870 
 
 1,828 
 
 690,826 
 
 1875 
 
 2,033 
 
 1,259,534 
 
 1880 
 
 3,503 
 
 1,734,890 
 
 1885 
 
 5,380 
 
 3,035,937 
 
 1890 
 
 10,557 
 
 8,454,435 
 
 1895 
 
 17,956 
 
 16,806,781 
 
 1900 
 
 19,452 
 
 22,315,834 
 
 1904 
 
 16,120 
 
 24,364,138 
 
 The Canadian Canal at St. Mary's Falls was built by the 
 Canadian government in 1888-95. It is a mile and one-eighth 
 long, 22 feet deep, and 150 feet wide. Its total cost has been 
 nearly |4,000,000. Statistics of traffic follow : 
 
 Freight 
 Year No. of Vessels Registered Tonnage Tonnage 
 
 1900 3,003 2,160,490 2,018,999 
 1903 4,353 4,737;580 5,502,185 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbot, Gen. Henry L., member of 
 Board of Advisory or Consulting 
 Engineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Achurra, Captain, 165. 
 
 Acosta, Jos6 de, 33. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 72. 
 
 Africa, circumnavigated by Mene- 
 laus, 2. 
 
 Agua Dulce, 228; Gen. Huertas at, 
 252. 
 
 Ahorca Lagarto, 229. 
 
 Airian. M., on Caledonian Bay 
 route, 70. 
 
 Aizpuru, Rafael, 176. 
 
 Aizpuru, revolutionist, 95. 
 
 Albemarle, Duke of, Governor of 
 Jamaica, 52. 
 
 Alceda, Dionysius, quoted, 34. 
 
 Alfonso V, King of Portugal, 6. 
 
 Allen, Horatio. Nicaragua canal 
 promoter, 47. 
 
 Almirante Bay, 218. 
 
 Alvarez, Felix, 165. 
 
 Amador, Antonio, 152. 
 
 Amador, Manuel, (Guerrero), Chair- 
 man of Panama Council, 158; 
 appeals to Colombian govern- 
 ment, 161; plans revolution, 163; 
 member of Junta, 163; mission 
 to United States, 165; calls on 
 W. N. Cromwell and John Hay, 
 166; "Desanimado," 167; calls 
 on Lindo, 167; finds Bunau- 
 Varilla, 168; " Esperanzas," 169; 
 second visit to Hay, 169; re- 
 turns to Panama, 170; Secretary 
 of Treasury, 176, 209; Commis- 
 sioner to United States, 182; 
 first President of Panama, 213; 
 Huertas's letter to, 239; consults 
 Lee, 242, 248; consults Barrett, 
 248; demands Huertas's resigna- 
 tion, 249; letter to Huertas, 251 ; 
 
 disbands army, 253; receives 
 Secretary Taft, 259; aids in sani- 
 tation of Panama, 332; portrait, 
 164, 209. 
 
 Amador, Raoul A., 248. 
 
 America, early voyages to, 1; mis- 
 taken for Asia, 2; legendary map 
 of, 4; eliminated by Toscanelli, 
 9; believed by Columbus to be 
 Asia, 10. 
 
 America, Central, visited by Co- 
 lumbus, 13; becomes independ- 
 ent of Spain, 44; seeks construc- 
 tion of canal, 44, 47; union 
 dissolved, 47; origin of British 
 claims in, 51; British aggres- 
 sions upon, 53, 56. 
 
 America, South, discovered by Co- 
 lumbus, 12; becomes independ- 
 ent of Spain, 43. 
 
 '^American Committee," organized 
 by De Lesseps, 84; its activities, 
 84.^ 
 
 American Policy on the Isthmus, 
 72; established by Grant and 
 Hayes, 73; strongly stated by 
 Hayes, 81; Edmunds's resolution 
 concerning, 96; confirmed in 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 119; 
 policy toward Panama revolution, 
 187; precedents for, 190; justi- 
 fied by domestic obligations, 191; 
 by legal obligations to Colombia, 
 192; by equity to Colombia, 199; 
 by law and equity to other na- 
 tions, 203; unselfish and benevo- 
 lent, 205; policy toward Huer- 
 tas's revolutionary attempt, 254; 
 controversy with Panama, 256; 
 Secretary Taft's mission of re- 
 adjustment, 256, 268; appealed 
 to, by Liberal Directorate, 273; 
 questions concerning, 275; Secre- 
 441 
 
442 
 
 INDEX 
 
 tary Root's Btatement, 278; 
 vicious libels upon, 341; future 
 duties and responsibilities, 352; 
 labour problems, 353; justice re- 
 quired, 360; firmness, 362, and 
 tact, 362. 
 
 Amerigo Vespucci, calls America 
 the ''New World," 15; clings to 
 Columbus's errors, 15; explora- 
 tions, 16; America named for 
 him, 17; first European to reach 
 mainland of America, 17; ac- 
 companies Ojeda, 18; explores 
 Atrato River, 19. 
 
 Ammen, Daniel, Rear Admiral, 
 Canal Commissioner, 73; at in- 
 ternational Engineering Congress, 
 78. 
 
 Amphion, British cruiser, 179. 
 
 Amsterdam ship canal, data of, 437. 
 
 Ancon Hill, 226. 
 
 Andagoya,Govemor of Panama, 33. 
 
 Anson, Lord, at Panama, 224. 
 
 Antigua, Nuestra Senora de, 
 founded by Ojeda, 21. 
 
 Antilles, discovered by Cartha- 
 ginians, 3; explored and named 
 by Columbus, 11. 
 
 Antioquia, province of, 153. 
 
 Anton Point, 225. 
 
 Antonelli, Batista, 33. 
 
 Appleton, Nathan, 78. 
 
 Arango, Belisario, 162. 
 
 Arango, Fernando, 164. 
 
 Arango, Jos6 Agustin, 152. 
 
 Arango, Jos6 Agustin, Jr., 152; 
 leader of revolution, 162; mem- 
 ber of Junta, 163; member of 
 Executive Board of Republic, 
 176, 209; portrait, 164. 
 
 Arango, Jos6 Agustin, 3rd, 162, 175. 
 
 Arango, Ricardo Manuel, 162, 176. 
 
 Argentina, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Arias, F. Agustin, 176. 
 
 Arias, Ricardo, joins revolution, 
 164; member of Junta, 166; 
 portrait, 164. 
 
 Anas, Tomas, joins revolution, 164; 
 member of Junta, 166; member 
 of Executive Board of Republic, 
 176, 209; Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, 213; removal demanded 
 by Huertas, 238; offers resigna- 
 tion, 242; succeeded by Guardia, 
 243; portrait, 164^ 
 
 Aristotle, geographical theories of, 
 2, 8; on discovery of Antilles and 
 Mexico, 3. 
 
 Army of Panama, disbandment 
 upon, 248; terms of disband- 
 ment, 253; disbandment ef- 
 fected, 254. 
 
 Arosemena, Antonio, 152. 
 
 Arosemena, Carlos C., 163; mem- 
 ber of Junta, 163; Commissioner 
 to United States, 182; portrait, 
 164. 
 
 Arosemena, Fabio, 176. 
 
 Arosemena, Justo, 153. 
 
 Arosemena, Pablo, President of 
 State of Panama, deposed and 
 imprisoned, 156; votes against 
 ratifying treaty, 158; President 
 of Constitutional Convention, 
 209; First Designate, 213; 
 speech at State banquet to Taft, 
 262; speech at Cathedral Plaza, 
 264; supports Dr. Porras, 272; 
 appeals to United States, 273; 
 visits Washington, 278. 
 
 Arthur, Chester A., President, 92, 
 110, 200. 
 
 Arton, Panama corruptionist, 97. 
 
 Asia, sought by Columbus, 1; an- 
 cient theories of, 2; Toscanelli's 
 map of, 6; errors concerning, 
 8,9. 
 
 Aspinwall, see Colon. 
 
 Astor, John Jacob, 114. 
 
 Atlanta, U, S. cruiser, at Colon, 179. 
 
 Atlantic Ocean, '*Sea of Dark- 
 ness," 1; highway from Europe 
 to Asia, 1; early theories of, 2. 
 
 Atrato River, discovered by Bas- 
 tidas, 19; explored by Amerigo 
 Vespucci and La Cosa, 19; canal 
 route forbidden by Philip II, 
 34; alleged natural waterway, 
 34; canal routes surveyed, 69, 
 70; Selfridge's survey, 74. 
 
 Austria, Emperor of, arbitrator, 89. 
 
 Austria-Hungary, recognizes Pana- 
 ma, 186. 
 
 Avila, Gil Gonzalez de, exploits of, 
 27; treaty with Nicarao, 28; 
 seized by Christopher de Olid, 30. 
 
 Avila, Juan Arias de, son of Pe- 
 drarias, 27. 
 
 Avila, Pedro Arias de, see Pe- 
 drarias^ 
 
INDEX 
 
 443 
 
 Azores, 6, 8. 
 Azua River, 13. 
 Azuero, province of, 153. 
 
 Badajos, Gonsalvo de, 26. 
 
 Bahamas, mistaken by Columbus 
 for Philippines, 10. 
 
 Bahia Honda, 224. 
 
 Bailey and Bates survey, 47. 
 
 Bailey, Stephen, 62. 
 
 Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, first 
 visits Isthmus with Bastidas, 21; 
 flight from Hispaniola to Golden 
 Castile, 21; quarrel with En- 
 ciso, 22; Governor of Golden 
 Castile, 22; crosses Isthmus and 
 discovers Pacific Ocean, 23; ex- 
 plorations, 23; made Adelan- 
 tado, 24; builds first ships on 
 Pacific, 25; arrested by Pizarro, 
 25; judicially murdered by Pe- 
 drarias, 25. 
 
 Barrett, John, American Minister 
 to Panama, 215; discusses at- 
 tempted revolution with Amador, 
 248; encourages Amador, 249; 
 warns Huertas, 249; advises and 
 aids in disbandment of army, 
 253; dinner to Taft at Panama, 
 263. 
 
 Bastidas, Rodrigo, at Darien, 18; 
 explorations, 19. 
 
 Bastimentos, Isla de, see Provi- 
 sion Island. 
 
 Bastimentos Point, 223. 
 
 Batele Point, 225. 
 
 Bates, Lindon W., plans for canal, 
 294. 
 
 Bayamo River, 217, 226. 
 
 Bay Islands, visited by Columbus, 
 13. 
 
 Bayoneta Island, 227. 
 
 Beaupr6, A.M., American Minister 
 at Bogota, 143; dispatch to Hay, 
 144; deceived by Colombian 
 Government, 144; reports Amer- 
 ican recognition of Panama, 182. 
 
 Beers, J. R,, aids Panaman revolu- 
 tion, 162. 
 
 Belcher, Edward, canal plans, 47. 
 
 Belen River, 14. 
 
 Belgium, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Belize, occupied by England, 35, 
 51, 54; called "British Hondu- 
 ras/' 56. 
 
 Belly, Felix, canal promoter, 65. 
 Beniski, canal promoter, 45. 
 Bennington, gunboat, at Panama, 
 
 248. 
 Berosius, quoted by Galvano, 2. 
 Bertoncini, C. F., 288. 
 Biddle, Nicholas, at Nicaragua and 
 
 Bidlack, B.A.,' on Treaty of 1846, 
 202. 
 
 Bigelow, Poultney, on "Our Mis- 
 management at Panama," 345; 
 his meagre opportunities for in- 
 vestigation, 345; answered by 
 Chief Engineer Stevens, Secre- 
 tary Taft, and Governor Magoon, 
 346; his lampoon upon the 
 American army, 348. 
 
 Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, Secretary 
 to Canal Commission, 315. 
 
 Black, W. M., 286. 
 
 Blaine, James G., Secretary of 
 State, opposes De Lesseps's 
 schemes, 87; proposes Pan- 
 American Congress, 88; his tac- 
 tical blunder, 88; moves for 
 abrogation of Clayton-Bulwer 
 Treaty, 89; his letter to Lowell, 
 90. 
 
 Blanco, Cape, 27. 
 
 Bluefields, 56. 
 
 Boca de Chiriqui, 220. 
 
 Boca del Drago, 218. 
 
 Boca del Toro, IJnited States takes 
 possession of, 84; province of, 
 212; strait and town of, 218. 
 
 Boca San Pedro, 223. 
 
 Bogotd, gunboat, fires on Panama, 
 175. 
 
 Bogotd, negotiations at, 130-149; 
 Mosquera's entry into. 154; re- 
 lations of Panama with, 155; 
 oppression of Panama, 158; new 
 law for Panama enacted, 159. 
 
 Bohio Dam, site of, 229, 231, 290; 
 proposed lake, 231. 
 
 Bohio Soldado, 229. 
 
 Bolivar, province of, 154; com- 
 missioners from, to Panama, 183. 
 
 Bolivar, Simon, frees Colombia 
 from Spain, 44, 150; canal plan, 
 45. 
 
 Bona Island, 225. 
 
 Bona Speranza, see Cape of Good 
 Hope. 
 
444 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Borico Point, 27. 
 
 Borland, Solon, mission to Cen- 
 tral America, 63. 
 
 Boston, cruiser, at Panama, 179; 
 orders to commander of, 188- 
 189; second visit to Panama, 
 248. 
 
 Bourdiol, M., on Caledonian Bay- 
 route, 70. 
 
 Boyaca, province of, 154, 156. 
 
 Boyd, Federico, joins revolution, 
 164; member of Junta, 166; 
 member of Executive Board of 
 Republic, 176; Commissioner to 
 United States, 182, 209; Sec- 
 ond Designate, 279; portrait, 
 164. 
 
 Brava Point, 224, 227. 
 
 Brazil, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Brid, Demetrius H., 176, 209. 
 
 Brin, Juan, 209. 
 
 Bristow, Joseph L., report on 
 Panama Railroad, 307. 
 
 British Honduras, see Belize. 
 
 Brito, proposed canal terminus, 
 62. 
 
 Brooke, Lieutenant, 286. 
 
 Brujas Point, 222. 
 
 Brunet, M., receiver of Panama 
 Company, 108. 
 
 Buccaneers on Isthmus, 34; Walker, 
 63. 
 
 Buchanan, James, on British claims 
 in Central America, 55; sends 
 Hise to Nicaragua, 58; mission 
 to England, 63; alarmed at 
 British plans at Panama, 68; 
 sends surveyors to Isthmus, 70. 
 
 Buchanan, William I., American 
 Minister to Panama, 215; action 
 for sanitation, 327. 
 
 Buena Vista, 229. 
 
 Bulwer, Sir Henry, negotiates treaty 
 with J. M. Clayton, 60. 
 
 Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, his career, 
 167; joins revolution at Ama- 
 dor's request, 168; wishes to 
 negotiate treaty, 168; Panaman 
 Minister to United States, 182, 
 215; makes treaty, 182; plans 
 for "Straits of Panama," 293. 
 
 Buppan Bluff, 220. 
 
 Burica Point, 223. 
 
 Burr, William H., Canal Commis- 
 sioner, 283; member of Board of 
 
 Advisory or Consulting Engi- 
 neers, 316, 319. 
 
 Cabesa Cattiva, Gulf of, 13. 
 
 Cab fares in Panama, 381. 
 
 Calabebora River, 217. 
 
 Caledonian Bay, 35; Wafer's re- 
 port, 36; Paterson's colony, 36; 
 failure of, 37; survey by Milla, 
 38; various schemes, 68-71; 
 survey by Selfridge, 74; site of, 
 223; description, 227, 371. 
 
 Calvo, Bartholome, 153. 
 
 Cambuta River, 217. 
 
 Camergo, Sergius, 156. 
 
 Cana River, 220. 
 
 Canal, see Nicaragua, Panama, 
 Ship, etc. 
 
 Canal Commission, appointed by 
 Grant, 73; Ludlow's, 113; Ad- 
 miral Walker's first, 113; 
 Walker's second, 116; report 
 of 1900, 120; third commission 
 appointed, 282; President's in- 
 structions to, 283; organiza- 
 tion of work, 285; need of re- 
 organization, 297; reorganiza- 
 tion effected, 299; President's 
 orders to new Commission, 300; 
 further changes, 315; reports 
 on plan of canal, 321; delay in 
 sanitation, 329; improved con- 
 ditions in Canal Zone, 336- 
 339. 
 
 Canal Zone, first proposed by W. 
 H. Seward, 73; value of, 101; 
 asked of Colombia by United 
 States, 151; acquired from 
 Panama, 182, 214; Panaman 
 dissatisfaction over, 256; Gen- 
 eral Davis appointed Governor, 
 283; government organized, 285; 
 Magoon made Governor, 300; 
 sanitation, 328-336 (see Sani- 
 tation); improved conditions 
 of life and work, 336; reading 
 rooms, clubs, etc., established, 
 336; commissary stores, 337; 
 gambling abolished, 338; Civil 
 Service rules, 339; eight-hour 
 law, 339; Governor's proclama- 
 tion, 419; first Administrative 
 Order, 423; Panaman protest, 
 426; revised Executive Order, 
 430, 
 
INDEX 
 
 445 
 
 Canary Islands, discovered by Lewis 
 of Cerda, 3. 
 
 Canaz, Jose, 44. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, early reports 
 of, 4. 
 
 Caperosa, islands of, 13. 
 
 Cape Verde, discovered by Hes- 
 perus, 2; by Henry the Navi- 
 gator, 8. 
 
 Caribbean Sea, navigated by Col- 
 umbus, 11. 
 
 Carmen Messias, 229. 
 
 Caro, Miguel A., 158. 
 
 Carreta Point, 218. 
 
 Carthagena, founded by Ojeda, 20; 
 province declares independence, 
 152. 
 
 Carthagena, steamship, brings Co- 
 lombian troops to Colon, 172; 
 abandons them there, 178. 
 
 Cartier, Jacques, 28. 
 
 Casaya Island, 227. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, Secretary of State, 
 warns France from Nicaragua, 
 66; on American rights in Pana- 
 ma, 204. 
 
 Castellon, Francisco, seeks French 
 aid at Nicaragua, 49. 
 
 Castilla del Oro, see Golden Cas- 
 tile. 
 
 Castle Choco, 221. 
 
 Catalina River and Hills, 221. 
 
 Cathay, see China. 
 
 Cauca, province rebels, 153. 
 
 Cauro Pomt, 218. 
 
 Cebaco Island, 224. 
 
 Ceron, Alvaro de Saavedra, pro- 
 poses Panama Canal, 31; voyage 
 to the Moluccas, 31; death, 32. 
 
 Cerro Horquita, 216. 
 
 Cerro Picacho, 216. 
 
 Cerro Santiago, 216. 
 
 Ceylon, identified with Taprobane, 
 7. 
 
 Chagres River, visited by Colum- 
 bus, 13; surveyed for canal, 33; 
 Lull and Menocal report on, 74; 
 description, 217, 221; menace 
 to canal, 295. 
 
 Chagres, town of, 221. 
 
 Cham6 Point, 225; Island, 225. 
 
 Changami Island, 225. 
 
 Charles II and Mosquito King, 52. 
 
 Charles V, orders search for Strait, 
 29; orders canal built, 32. 
 
 Chepo River, 217, 226 
 
 Chevalier, Michael, 67. 
 
 Chiapes, native chief of Panama, 
 23, 26. 
 
 Chiari, R. Jos6 Maria, 176. 
 
 Childs, O. W., surveys Nicaragua 
 route, 62. 
 
 Chiman River, 217, 226; village, 
 226. 
 
 China, sought by Columbus, 2; 
 missionaries to, 4; Toscanelli's 
 map, 6; sought by Columbus, 
 10; recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Chinese labour, 355. 
 
 Chirica Mola, 220. 
 
 Chiriqui Lagoon, visited by Colum- 
 bus, 14; canal survey at, 71; 
 Chiriqui Improvement Company, 
 71; United States takes posses- 
 sion of, 84; description, 219. 
 
 Chiriqui, Province of, 153, 212. 
 
 Chiriqui River, 217. 
 
 Chorrera, river and city, 225. 
 
 Chucuito, gunboat, 175. 
 
 Chucunaque River, 217. 
 
 Church, Roman Catholic, at Pana- 
 ma, 212. 
 
 "Churchill's Voyages," quoted, 52. 
 
 Cibao, mistaken by Columbus for 
 Japan, 11. 
 
 Cipango, see Japan. 
 
 Circuit of the globe, reckoned by 
 Toscanelli, 8; by Galvano, 9. 
 
 Civil Service rules in Panama, 
 339. 
 
 Clarendon, Earl of, 55; denies 
 American demands, 63. 
 
 Clark, Aaron, 47. 
 
 Clark, Captain, of Oregon, 115. 
 
 Clay, Henry, Secretary of State, 
 sympathizes with canal project, 
 44. 
 
 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, negotiated, 
 61; ratified, 62; abrogation 
 threatened, 63, 75, 87; Blaine's 
 negotiations over, 87-92; his 
 tactical blunder, 88; Granville's 
 reply, 91; Frelinghuysen's argu- 
 ment, 92; Granville's reply, 93; 
 challenged by Frelinghuysen- 
 Zavala Treaty, 110; Senate asks 
 President to abrogate or modify, 
 117; first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty 
 dealing with, 118; abrogated 
 and superseded by second Hay- 
 
446 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Pauncefote Treaty, 119; text, 
 393. 
 
 Clayton, John M., Secretary of 
 State, sends Squier to Nicaragua, 
 59; negotiations with Great 
 Britain, 60. 
 
 Clement, Carlos, 164. 
 
 Clement VI, Pope, 3. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, President, \^ith- 
 draws Frelinghuysen - Zavala 
 Treaty, 110; repudiates Ameri- 
 can canal policy, 110. 
 
 Climate of Panama, 233. 
 
 Clinton, DeWitt, 45. 
 
 Coaita Point, 221. 
 
 Coatzocoalcos River, explored by 
 Cortez, 29. 
 
 Code, Province of, 212; River, 217, 
 221; Hills, 221. 
 
 Coiba Island, 224. 
 
 Colombia, becomes independent of 
 Spain, 44; gives Gorgoza canal 
 concession, 76; De Lesseps's in- 
 trigues, 83; warned by United 
 States, 84; extortionate prac- 
 tices on French, 103; extends 
 canal concession, 108; United 
 States canal negotiations with, 
 130-149; terms of protocol, 131; 
 republic in a bad way, 133; 
 covets canal purchase price, 133; 
 German influences in, 134; revo- 
 lution, 137; double dealing to- 
 ward United States, 142; Con- 
 gress meets, 144; extortionate 
 demands, 146; juggling proposals, 
 147; lets treaty lapse, 147; 
 negotiations with United States 
 ended, 149; early history of Re- 
 public, 150; first Constitution, 
 151; Constitution of 1832, 151; 
 Constitution of 1843, 152; Con- 
 stitution of 1853, 153; amended 
 Constitution, 153; Mosquera's 
 revolution, 154; present name 
 adopted, 155; Constitution of 
 1863, 155; coup d'Stat by Nunez, 
 156; condition described by 
 Marroquin, 159; inability to 
 deal with Panama revolution, 
 180; no serious effort made, 
 181; protests against American 
 policy in Panama, 183; relations 
 with Panama, 186; General 
 Reyes becomes President, 186; 
 
 list of revolutions in, 193; limits 
 of power under Treaty of 1846, 
 197; inequity of conduct toward 
 Panama ^ 199, and toward United 
 States, 200; Treaty of 1846, 
 391. 
 
 Colon, city of, railroad terminal, 
 57; looted and burned, 95. 
 
 Colon Bay, 222. 
 
 Colon, Province of, 212. 
 
 Colonization in Panama, needed, 
 354; Chinese, 355; negroes, 356; 
 Russians, Jews, Boers, Ameri- 
 cans, 357; Spanish and Italians, 
 358. 
 
 Columbia, cruiser, at Colon, 257. 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, founder of 
 Isthmian canal enterprise, 1; 
 geographical theories, 2; corre- 
 spondence with Toscanelli, 5; 
 recent researches concerning, 5; 
 estimates of distance from Eu- 
 rope to China and Japan, 9; 
 discovery of and delusions con- 
 cerning America, 10; reports 
 visit to India, 11; among the 
 Antilles, 11; seeking the Golden 
 Chersonesus, 12; visits Trinidad 
 and Gulf of Paria, 12; seeks 
 "Secret of the Strait," 12; ex- 
 plores Central America, Panama, 
 and Darien, 13-15; persists in 
 errors, 15. 
 
 Columbus, Diego, ill treated by 
 King of Spain, 20. 
 
 Columbus Island, 218. 
 
 Commissary Stores in Canal Zone, 
 336. 
 
 Companies: Central America and 
 United States Atlantic and Pa- 
 cific Canal, 45; "Compania de 
 Transito de Nicaragua," 58; 
 American Atlantic and Pacific 
 Canal, 58; Accessory Transit, 
 58; Honduras Interoceanic, 63; 
 Central American Transit, 66; 
 Maritime Canal, 67, 97, 111; 
 Chiriqui Improvement, 71; "La 
 Soci6t6 Civile Internationale du 
 Canal Interoceanique," 76; Uni- 
 versal Interoceanic Canal, 80; 
 Provisional Interoceanic Canal, 
 80; New Panama Canal, 109; 
 Nicaragua Construction, 112, 113; 
 Grace-Eyre-Gragin Syndicate, 
 
INDEX 
 
 447 
 
 114; Panama Canal Company 
 of America, 122. 
 Concha, Jose V., opposes American 
 canal plan, 132; under German 
 influence, 136; quits office and 
 goes to Europe, 139. 
 Concord, gunboat, at Panama, 179. 
 Condamine, Charles M. de la, advo- 
 cates Nicaragua canal, 38. 
 Congress, International Engineer- 
 ing, or Scientific, organized by 
 De Lesseps, 77; its composition, 
 78; Committee on Route, 79; 
 adopts Panama scheme, 80. 
 
 Congress of Panama, 40. 
 
 Congress, Pan-American, see Pan- 
 American Congress. 
 
 Congress, United States, non-com- 
 mittal resolutions on canal, 47; 
 resents De Lesseps' s scheme, 80; 
 appropriation for control of Pana- 
 ma route, 84; declines to aid 
 Eads's scheme, 86; requests 
 abrogation of Clayton-Bulwer 
 Treaty, 87; action against De 
 Lesseps company, 97; charters 
 Maritime Canal Company, 111; 
 great canal controversy in, 112; 
 provides canal commissions, 112; 
 attitude toward Clayton-Bulwer 
 Treaty, 117; final canal debate, 
 125; Spooner bill adopted, 128; 
 Marroquln's letter to Senate, 
 183; controversy over purchase 
 of canal supplies, 303; adopts 
 lock plan for canal, 325; text of 
 Isthmian Canal Law or Spooner 
 bill, 400. 
 
 Constitution of Panama, provisions 
 of, 209; on Legislature, 210; 
 on Executive, 211; on Judiciary, 
 211; on Enactment of Laws, 21 1 . 
 
 Consuls at Panama protest against 
 bombardment, 176. 
 
 Contadora Island, 227. 
 
 Contreras, Alonzo de, 30. 
 
 Cordillera de Bando, 216; of Vera- 
 guas, 221. 
 
 Cordova, Francisco Hernandez de, 
 28. 
 
 Corea recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Corinth canal, data of, 438. 
 
 Corozal, 230. 
 
 Corral, Miguel de, 38. 
 
 Cortez, Hernando, in Mexico, 29; 
 
 seeks "Secret of the Strait," 29; 
 explores Tehuantepec, 29; letter 
 to Charles V, 29; writes of Cali- 
 fornia, 30; thorough exploration 
 of coasts, 30. 
 Cosa, Juan de, 18; death, 20. 
 Costa Rica, visited by Columbus, 
 14 ; acquiescence in British agres- 
 sioas, 56; plans for canal, 62; 
 gives concession to Maritime 
 Canal Company, 112; recognizes 
 Panama, 186. 
 
 Cottu, Baron, 97. 
 
 Cramer, Augustin, 38. 
 
 Craven, T. A., surveys Atrato 
 region, 70. 
 
 Crawl Cay Channel, 219. 
 
 Crimmins, John D., 114. 
 
 Cristobal, port of, 228. 
 
 Crocodiles, River of, see Chagres. 
 
 Cromwell, William Nelson, counsel 
 for New Panama Canal Company, 
 146; Amador's visit to, 166; dis- 
 approves revolution, 166; goes 
 to Paris, 167; visits Panama 
 with Taft, 257; address at State 
 banquet, 262; relations to 
 Wallace's retirement, 308. 
 
 Cronstadt canal, data of, 439. 
 
 Cuba, mistaken for Japan, 10; 
 recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Cubanacan, mistaken for Kublai 
 Khan, 11. 
 
 Cucalon, P., 176. 
 
 Culebra Cut, 231; work in, 290; 
 Island, 225; village, 230. 
 
 Cundinamarca, Province of, 154, 
 156. 
 
 Currency, of Colombia, depreciated, 
 213; new, of Panama, 213. 
 
 Dams, see Bohio, Gamboa, Gatun. 
 
 Darien canal route, first proposed, 
 32; surveys, 74, 75; last des- 
 perate proposal of, 127. 
 
 Darien del Sur, Gulf of, 227. 
 
 Darien, Gulf of, visited by Colum- 
 bus, 14; River of, 18; Ojeda's 
 explorations, 18. 
 
 Dauchy, W. E., 287. 
 
 David, City of, 220, 223, 228; 
 River, 223. 
 
 David, Edward, raid at Nicaragua, 
 35. 
 
 Davila, see Avila and Pedrarias, 
 
448 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Davis, Carlton E., 288. 
 
 Davis, C. H., Rear-Admiral, on 
 Nicaragua and Panama routes, 
 71. 
 
 Davis, C. K., Senator, on first Hay- 
 Pauncefote Treaty, 118. 
 
 Davis, George W., General, Canal 
 Commissioner, 282; Governor of 
 Canal Zone, 283; inaugural proc- 
 lamation, 285, 419; member and 
 chairman Board of Advisory or 
 Consulting Engineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Denmark, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 De Soto, Hernando, 28. 
 
 Diaz, Domingo, General, joins 
 revolution, 164; appeals to 
 United States, 273; visits Wash- 
 ington, 278; Third Designate, 
 279. 
 
 Diaz, Pedro A., joins revolution, 
 164. 
 
 Dixie, troopship, at Colon, 179. 
 
 Dolphin, dispatch boat, at Colon, 
 257. 
 
 Dominguez, Alcides, 176. 
 
 Dose, H. F., 285. 
 
 Drake, Francis, in South Sea, 34. 
 
 Drexel, Morgan & Co., 84. 
 
 Dreyfus case, 168. 
 
 Duartis Point, 224. 
 
 Duran, F. Mutis, Governor of 
 Panama, 137, 161. 
 
 Earthquakes, 233; possible effect 
 on canal, 295. 
 
 Ecuador, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Edmunds, George F,, Senator, canal 
 policy, 96. 
 
 Ehle, Boyd, 285. 
 
 Ehrman, Felix, reports on revolu- 
 tion, 181. 
 
 Ehrman, Henry, 158. 
 
 Eiffel, G., contractor at Panama, 
 95; fined and imprisoned, 97. 
 
 Eight Hour law, 339. 
 
 Eminent Domain, international, 
 205. 
 
 Emperador, see Empire. 
 
 Empire, United States headquar- 
 ters at, 99, 229. 
 
 Enciso, Martin Ferdinand de, 20; 
 first Spanish book about America, 
 21 ; Governor of Golden Castile, 
 22; quarrel with Balboa, 22. 
 
 Endicott, Mordecai T., Rear-Ad- 
 
 miral, Canal Commissioner, 300; 
 favours sea-level plan, 321. 
 
 Engineering, see Panama Canal 
 
 Engineers, Board of Advisory or 
 Consulting, appointed, 316; Presi- 
 dent's instructions to, 317; re- 
 port of majority, for sea-level 
 canal, 319; report of minority, 
 for lock canal, 319. 
 
 Ernst, Oswald H., Colonel, Canal 
 Commissioner, 300; resigns, 315. 
 
 Escobedo, Fernando de, 35. 
 
 Escoces Point and Harbor, 223. 
 
 Escudo de Veraguas, 220. 
 
 Espinar, J. D., Governor of Pana- 
 ma, 151. 
 
 Espinosa, Caspar de, acquits Bal- 
 boa, 25. 
 
 Espinosa, Gonzalez Gomez, 27. 
 
 Esf)inosa, Manuel, B., joins revolu- 
 tion, 164; member of Junta, 
 166; portrait, 164. 
 
 Espriella, F. V. de la, Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, 176, 209; Minis- 
 ter of Finance, 213; replies to Lib- 
 eral Directorate, 276; consulted 
 on sanitation, 327. 
 
 Estiva Island, 225. 
 
 Europe, early attitude of, toward 
 world, 1. 
 
 Evarts, William M., Secretary of 
 State, 82, 200. 
 
 Evening Post, New York, letter in, 
 quoted, 178. 
 
 Excavation, French errors in, 106. 
 
 Executive of Panama, 211. 
 
 Fabrega, Francisco de, 153. 
 Fabrega, Julio J., Minister of Public 
 
 Instruction, 209; Minister of 
 
 Justice, 213. 
 Falcmar's survey at Panama, 45. 
 Fever, see Sanitation. 
 Field, Cyrus W., 78. 
 Filos, F., 273. 
 Fish, Hamilton, Secretary of State, 
 
 negotiations with Great Britain 
 
 and Nicaragua, 75. 
 Flag of Panama, 213. 
 Flamenco or Flamingo Island, 
 
 225. 
 Fonseca, Bay of, 28; British^ 
 
 American rivalry for, 60. 
 Fonseca River, 217. 
 Fontane, Marius, 97. 
 
INDEX 
 
 449 
 
 Foraker, J. B., Senator, on first 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 119. 
 
 Formosa, 6. 
 
 France, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Frelinghuysen, Frederick T., Secre- 
 tary of State, succeeds Blaine, 
 92; replj. to Lord Granville, 92; 
 argument against Clayton-Bul- 
 wer Treaty, 92; negotiates treaty 
 with Nicaragua, 109. 
 
 French schemes in Nicaragua, 65; 
 at Panama, 75; "Old Imperial- 
 ists," 76; American warnings 
 against, 83; causes of failure at 
 Panama, 99-107. See also Les- 
 
 Frenchman's Creek, 220. 
 Frijoles, 229. 
 
 Froude, J. A., description of Pana- 
 ma, under De Lesseps, 94. 
 Fruit Trade at Boca del Toro, 219. 
 Fuerth, Ignacio, 158. 
 
 Galisteo, Manuel, surveys Nica- 
 ragua route, 38. 
 
 Gallinas, Cape, 18. 
 
 Galvano, Antonio, history of early 
 voyages and discoveries, 2; geo- 
 graphical theories, 9; account of 
 Columbus's last voyage, 13; 
 Ojeda's and Bastidas's discov- 
 eries, 18, 20; Pedrarias, 24, 26; 
 Cortez, 30; Ceron and the canal 
 routes, 32. 
 
 Gama, Vasco da, 2. 
 
 Gambling in Canal Zone prohibited, 
 339. 
 
 Gamboa, 229 ; dam at, 290. 
 
 Gamboa, Ramon, 153. 
 
 Ganges River, Columbus's quest of, 
 14. 
 
 Garachine, Point, 227. 
 
 Garay, Jos^ de, canal promoter, 67. 
 
 Garella, Napoleon, 48. 
 
 Garfield, James A., President, 87; 
 death, 92. 
 
 Gatun, 228; proposed dam, 230, 
 290. 
 
 George, Frederick, Mosquito Prince, 
 55. 
 
 Germary, interested and influential 
 in Colombia, 134; recognizes 
 Panama, 186. 
 
 Gillette, Cassius W., plan for canal, 
 294. 
 
 Gisbome, Lionel, at Caledonian 
 Bay and Panama, 68. 
 
 Glass, Henry, Rear-Admiral, or- 
 ders to, 188; action for sanita- 
 tion, 327. 
 
 Gobernador Island, 224. 
 
 Goethe, J. W., on Humboldt's 
 canal schemes, 42; prophesies 
 construction of canal by United 
 States, 42; on England at Suez, 
 43. 
 
 Golden Castile, governed by Ni- 
 cuesa, 20; by Balboa, 22; by 
 Pedrarias, 24. 
 
 Golden Chersonesus, 7. 
 
 Golfito, United States coaling sta- 
 tion, 84; River, 217. 
 
 Gomara, F. L. de, on Columbus's 
 last voyage, 13; on Ojeda's and 
 Bastidas's discoveries, 18; on 
 Gil Gonzalez de Avila's exploits, 
 27; on Cortez, 30; on Ceron and 
 the canal routes, 32; appeal to 
 Charles V for canal, 33. 
 
 Goodrich, C. F., Rear-Admiral, 248, 
 249. 
 
 Gorgas, W. C, Sanitary Officer of 
 Canal Zone, 285; begins work, 
 288; methods of dealing with 
 yellow fever, 331; school of sani- 
 tation, 333; success achieved, 334; 
 offers reward for case of fever, 
 335. See Sanitation. 
 
 Gorgona, 229. 
 
 Gorgoza, canal promoter, 75; gets 
 concession, 76. 
 
 Grace, William R., 114. 
 
 Grace-Eyre-Cragin Syndicate, 114; 
 concession cancelled, 117. 
 
 Gracias k Dios, Cape, 13. 
 
 "Graft" at Panama, 100. 
 
 Granada sacked by L'Olonnais, 35. 
 
 Granadine Confederation, see Col- 
 ombia, 
 
 Grant, U. S., President, canal policy, 
 73; appoints Canal Commission, 
 73. 
 
 Granville, Lord, effective reply to 
 Blaine, 91; reply to Freling- 
 huysen, 93. 
 
 Great Britain, interested in Hon- 
 duras and Nicaragua, 51; prac- 
 tical seizure of Mosquito Coast, 
 53; scheme to acquire all Central 
 America, 56; seizure of Tigre 
 
450 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Island and Bay of Fonseca, 60; 
 treaty with Nicaragua, 64; arbi- 
 tration with Nicaragua, 89; re- 
 pl;y to Blaine, 91; first Hay- 
 Pauncefote Treaty, 118; second 
 Hay-Pa uncefote Treaty, 119; 
 offer of aid at Colon, 179; recog- 
 nizes Panama, 186; text of 
 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 393; of 
 H^y-Pauncefote Treaty, 398. 
 
 Great Khan, missions to, 4; Colum- 
 bus accredited to, 10; Columbus's 
 errors concerning, 11. 
 
 Grey town, bombarded by United 
 States, 63; work on canal there, 
 112. 
 
 Grijalva, Juan de, 28. 
 
 Grunsky, Carl E., Canal Commis- 
 sioner, 283. 
 
 Guanico Point, 224. 
 
 Guardia, Francisco de la, 158. 
 
 Guardia, Santiago de la. Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs and War, 243; 
 plot against, 247; attends re- 
 view, 248; letter to Huertas, 
 252. 
 
 Guardia, Santiago de la. President 
 of State of Panama, 154. 
 
 Guatemala, asks Pope to build 
 canal, 48. 
 
 Guerard, Adolph, member of Board 
 of Advisory or Consulting En- 
 gineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Guerrero, see Amador. 
 
 Guizot's advocacy of canal at 
 Panama, 48. 
 
 Gulf of Mexico, 7; explored by 
 Pineda, 28. 
 
 Hains, Peter C, General, Canal 
 Commissioner, 300. 
 
 Hanno of Carthage, voyage to 
 Arabia, 2. 
 
 Harper, A. C, 286, 287. 
 
 Harrisse, H., Columbian researches, 
 5. 
 
 Harrod, Benjamin, Canal Commis- 
 sioner, 283, 300. 
 
 Hatfield, Chester, canal surveys, 74. 
 
 Hay, John, Secretary of State, 
 negotiates treaty with Great 
 Britain, 118, 119; negotiates 
 treaty with Colombia, 140; warns 
 Colombian government, 146; 
 Amador's visit to, 166, 169; 
 
 American policy stated, 169; 
 declines dealings with revolu- 
 tionists, 169; negotiates treaty 
 with Panama, 182; describes 
 Treaty of 1846 as a covenant 
 which "runs with the land," 196. 
 
 Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty, made, 
 182; text, 408. 
 
 Hay-Herran Treaty, 140; opposed 
 to Bogotd, 142; lapses, 147. 
 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, made, 118, 
 119; text, 398. 
 
 Hayes, Rutherford B., President, 
 canal policy, 73; rebuffs De 
 Lesseps, 81; message on canal, 
 81; his strenuous policy, 82. 
 
 Hecker, Frank T., Canal Commis- 
 sioner, 283; resigns, 299. 
 
 Henry III of Castile, 4. 
 
 Henry the Navigator, 2, 8. 
 
 Hepburn bill, 126. 
 
 Herodotus, geographical theories 
 of, 7. 
 
 Herran, Tomas, Colombian charg6 
 d'affaires at Washington, 139; 
 negotiates treaty for canal, 140; 
 reports Amador's doings, 167. 
 
 Herrera, Tomas, Panaman patriot, 
 151; ''Chief of State," 152. 
 
 Herz, Cornelius, 97. 
 
 Hesperides, West Indies so called, 2. 
 
 Hesperus, King of Spain, dis- 
 coveries of, 2. 
 
 Heuer, W. H., 75. 
 
 Hiemra, 13. 
 
 Higueras, Cape, 13. 
 
 Hise, Elijah, mission to Nicaragua, 
 58; work repudiated, 62. 
 
 Hispaniola, Columbus at, 13. 
 
 Hitchcock, Hiram, 112. 
 
 Honduras, British aggressions upon, 
 59. 
 
 Honduras, British, see Belize. 
 
 Honduras, Cape, 13. 
 
 Hospitals, French management of, 
 104. 
 
 Hotel rates in Panama, 381. 
 
 Huasacualco, see Coatzacoalcos. 
 
 Hubbard, John, keeps peace at 
 Colon, 178. 
 
 Huertas, Esteban, in revolution, 
 164; receives Colombian officers, 
 173; arrests them, 174; com- 
 mander in chief of Panaman 
 army, 180; attempts revolution, 
 
INDEX 
 
 451 
 
 238; letter to Amador demand- 
 ing resignations of Ministers, 239; 
 "Order of the Day," 244- rails 
 against Victoria, 247; plans to 
 seize Amador and Guardia, 247; 
 retirement determined upon, 248; 
 resignation demanded, 249; pro- 
 tests, 249; letter of resignation, 
 249; letter to Guardia refusing 
 pension, 251; accepts pension 
 and retires, 252; under sus- 
 picion, 252. 
 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, visits 
 the Isthmus, 39; proposes nine 
 canal routes, 39; on Nicaragua, 
 40; on Panama. 40; on plan of 
 canal, 41; on Darien route, 41; 
 credits ''legend of the Strait," 
 41; on tidal levels, 46; on effect 
 of canal on Gulf Stream, 46; let- 
 ter to Salomon, 48. 
 
 Humidity at Panama, 235. 
 
 Humphreys, A. A., 73. 
 
 Hunter, Henry W., member of 
 Board of Advisory or Consulting 
 Engineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Hutin, M., President of New French 
 Canal Company, correspondence 
 with Admiral Walker, 122. 
 
 Hylacomylus, see Waldseemiiller. 
 
 Ilacomilus, see Waldseemiiller. 
 Independent, New York, P. Bige- 
 
 low's article in, 345. 
 India, early voyages to, 2; Ptolemy's 
 
 theories of, 7; Columbus's quest 
 
 of, 10. 
 Indian Ocean, supposed by Ptolemy 
 
 to be land bound, 7. 
 Indies, West, called Hesperides, 2; 
 
 discovered by Hesperus, 2; by 
 
 Carthaginians, 3. 
 Innocent IV, Pope, 4. 
 Isidore of Seville, geographical 
 
 theory, 2. 
 Isla del Rey, 227. 
 Islands of Colombia, of the Isthmus, 
 
 or of the King, 227. 
 Italy, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 Iturralde, Mateo, 158. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, President, or- 
 ders canal surveys at Nicaragua, 
 47. 
 
 Jamaica, Columbus at, 13; seized by 
 
 English, 35. 
 Japan, called Cipango, 6; sought 
 
 by Columbus, 10; recognizes 
 
 Panama, 186. 
 Jeffries, H. O., 165. 
 Jeremy, Mosquito King, 52. 
 Jewett, Hugh J., 80. 
 Jicaro Island, 224. 
 Jiminez, Pastor, joins revolution, 
 
 164. 
 John, Friar, of Piano Carpini, 8. 
 Johnson, M. O., 288, 289. 
 Juan, George, 38, 46. 
 Judiciary of Panama, 211. 
 Juera River, 224. 
 Junta, revolutionary, formed, 163; 
 
 reorganized, 166. 
 
 Kaiser Wilhelm canal, data of, 
 437. 
 
 Kelly, Frederick, directs canal 
 route surveys, 69. 
 
 Kiel canal, data of, 437. 
 
 King, Y. P., United States Minister 
 to Colombia, quoted, 157. 
 
 Knox, Philander C, Attorney- 
 General, investigations in Paris, 
 130. 
 
 Kublai Khan, Columbus's error 
 concerning, 11. 
 
 La Boca, 226. 
 
 Labour Problems at Panama, 353; 
 Chinese considered, 355. 
 
 Lacroisade, Dr., health statistics, 
 327. 
 
 Lagarde, Ernest, 285. 
 
 Landlords in Panama, 380. 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 119. 
 
 Las Cascades, 229. 
 
 La Trinchera, 342. 
 
 Lawrence, Abbott, denounces Brit- 
 ish claims on Mosquito Coast, 60. 
 
 Lee, Joseph, Secretary of American 
 Legation at Panama, consulted 
 by Amador, 242; warns revolu- 
 tionists, 243; effect of his warn- 
 ing, 247; midnight appeal to 
 him, 248; renews warnings, 248; 
 aids in disbanding army, 253. 
 
 Lefevre Ernest T., 163. 
 
 Legislature of Panama, 210. 
 
 Le Jeune, Major, brings troops to 
 Ancon, 249. 
 
452 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Leon, city of, sacked, 35. 
 
 Leon, Jos4 Maria Vives, 158. 
 
 Leon XIII, steamship, 180. 
 
 Leones, Island of, 224. 
 
 Lesseps, Charles de, 97. 
 
 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, seeks con- 
 cession at Nicaragua, 72; sends 
 Wyse to Panama, 76; organizes 
 International Engineering Con- 
 gress, 77; inaugurates work at 
 Panama, 80; at Washington ai d 
 New York, 81; intrigues witn 
 Colombia, 83; change of tone, 
 84; organizes "American Com- 
 mittee," 84; returns to France, 
 85; begins work on canal, 94; 
 "Le Grand Fran^ais," 95; over- 
 whelmed with disaster, 97; death, 
 98. 
 
 Lewis of Cerda, voyage to the 
 Canaries, 3. 
 
 Lewis, Samuel, 162, 176. 
 
 Lime Point, 218. 
 
 Limon Bay, 14, 222. 
 
 Linares, Enrique, 176. 
 
 Lindo, Joshua, 167. 
 
 Lion Hill, 229. 
 
 Lisa, Point, 225. 
 
 List, Charles, 285. 
 
 Lloyd's survey at Panama, 45. 
 
 L'Olonnais, raids Granada, 35. 
 
 Lopez, Ramon Valdez, joins revo- 
 lution, 164. 
 
 Los Indios River, 217, 221. 
 
 Los Santos, Province of, 212; City 
 of, 225, 228. 
 
 Louis, St., King of France, 4. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, Blaine's 
 letter to, 90. 
 
 Ludlow, William, Canal Commis- 
 sioner, 113. 
 
 Lull, E. P., surveys at Nicaragua, 
 72, 74; Panama, 74; San Bias, 
 75. 
 
 McClellan, George B., 80. 
 
 MacFarland, Walter, 75. 
 
 Macham, adventures and discover- 
 ies of, in Madeira, 3. 
 
 Machico, haven of, 3. 
 
 Machinery, experimental and im- 
 perfect, used by French, 105; 
 preservation of, 106. 
 
 McKay, Oscar M., 176. 
 
 Madeira, discovered by Macham, 3. 
 
 Magdalena, Province of, 154, 166. 
 
 Magellan, Strait of, called "Drag- 
 on's Tail," 4, 9; discovered, 28. 
 
 Magoon, Charles E., United States 
 Minister to Panama, 215; visits 
 Isthmus with Taft, 257; in- 
 fluence in Panama politics, 279; 
 Counsel to Canal Commission, 
 283; Canal Commissioner and 
 Governor of Canal Zone, 300; 
 Minister to Panama, 300; ad- 
 mirable qualifications for place, 
 303; undertakes sanitation of 
 Canal Zone, 330; success of his 
 policy, 334; improves conditions 
 of life and work in Canal Zone, 
 336; refutes P. Bigelow's charges, 
 346. 
 
 Maine, battleship at Panama, 179. 
 
 Mala, Cape, 224. 
 
 Malaria, see Sanitation. 
 
 Mamei, 229. 
 
 Managua, Lake, 28. 
 
 Manchester Ship Canal, data of, 
 438. 
 
 Mandeville, Sir John, 7. 
 
 Mandingo route, 34. 
 
 Mangalee River, 221. 
 
 Mangi or Mangu, see China. 
 
 Manuel, J., 176. 
 
 Manzanillo Island and Bay, 222, 
 223; Point, 223. 
 
 Map, of America, seen by Don Peter, 
 4; ToscaneUi's, 5; Ptolemy's, 
 7; Columbus's, 10; on globe of 
 Orontius Finaeus, 16; Hima- 
 boldt on early maps, 16; Wald- 
 seemiiller's, 16; Central Amer- 
 ican Canal Routes, 41; Republic 
 of Panama, 216; Panama Canal 
 Route, 228; Trade Routes com- 
 pared, 385, 
 
 Marble, Cape of, 13. 
 
 Marco Polo, reports of, followed by 
 Toscanelli, 6, 7. 
 
 Marcy, William L., negotiations 
 with Great Britain, 63. 
 
 Mariato Pomt, 224. 
 
 Marroquin, Jos6 Manuel, acting 
 President of Colombia, 133; atti- 
 tude toward Hay-Herran Treaty, 
 142; describes state of Colombia, 
 159; extraordinary letter to 
 United States Senate, 183, re- 
 pels American intriguer, 341, 
 
INDEX 
 
 453 
 
 Martinez, Ferdinand, 6. 
 
 Martinez, Manuel, 175. 
 
 Martinez, Orondaste, 165. 
 
 Martins, see Martinez, Ferdinand. 
 
 Matachin, 229. 
 
 Mayflower, naval yacht, at Pana- 
 ma, 179. 
 
 Melendez, Porfirio, 165. 
 
 Mendez, Manuel M., 176. 
 
 Mendoza, Carlos A., joins revolu- 
 tionists, 164; Minister of Jus- 
 tice, 176, 209; Third Designate, 
 213; supports Dr. Porras, 272. 
 
 Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, 30. 
 
 Menelaus, legendary voyage to 
 India, 2. 
 
 Menocal, A. G., surveys at Nicara- 
 gua, 72, 74; at Panama, 74; at 
 San Bias, 75; at International 
 Engineering Congress, 78; in 
 Nicaragua Company, 80; sur- 
 veys Nicaragua route, 111. 
 
 Mercado, Louis de, 26. 
 
 Maxico, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Michler, Nathaniel, surveys Atrato 
 region, 70. 
 
 Milla, Manuel, surveys Caledonian 
 Bay route, 38. 
 
 Miller, Warner, 112. 
 
 MUls, D. O., 114. 
 
 Mindi, 228. 
 
 Miraflores, 230. 
 
 Mitchell, Henry, 75. 
 
 Monkey Hill, 228. 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, disputed by 
 Great Britain, 63; enforced 
 against France, 67; defied by 
 De Lesseps, 80; discussed by 
 Frelinghuysen, 92; and by 
 Granville, 93; violated by first 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 118. 
 
 Montezuma, aids in search for 
 Strait, 29. 
 
 Monti jo. Gulf of, 224. 
 
 Moody, W. H., Secretary of Navy, 
 orders intervention in Panama, 
 137; orders concerning revolu- 
 tion, 178. 
 
 Morales, Eusebio A. joins revolu- 
 tion, 164; Secretary of State, 
 176, 209; appeals to United 
 States, 273; visits Washington, 
 278. 
 
 Morales, Caspar, 26. 
 
 Morantes, Christopher, 28. 
 
 Morazan, President of Central 
 America, orders canal survey, 
 47. 
 
 Morgan the Buccaneer, sacks Pana- 
 ma, 26, 35; and Porto Bello, 
 35. 
 
 Morgan, John T., Senator, 112, 126. 
 
 Moro, Gaetano, survey at Tehuan- 
 tepec, 67. 
 
 Morro Puercos, 224. 
 
 Morton, Levi P., 80, 114. 
 
 Moscoes, see Mosquito Indians. 
 
 Mosquera, Tomas C. de, negotiates 
 with Panama, 152; leads revo- 
 lution, 154; President of United 
 States of New Granada, 154. 
 
 Mosquitia, see Mosquito Coast. 
 
 Mosquito Coast, visited by Colum- 
 bus, 14; first war on, 47; British 
 relations with, 51; practical 
 British seizure of, 53; declared 
 autonomous by Emperor of Aus- 
 tria, 89. 
 
 Mosquito Indians, origin of, 51. 
 
 Mosquitoes, see Sanitation. 
 
 Mulatas Islands, visited by Colum- 
 bus, 14; description, 223. 
 
 Murillo, Manuel, 154. 
 
 Murphy, Dominic I., 283. 
 
 Naos Island, 225. 
 
 Napoleon, Louis, plans Nicaragua 
 canal, 49; pamphlet on the sub- 
 ject, 49; plans renewed, 65; 
 final defeat, 67. 
 
 Nashville, gunboat, at Colon, 171; 
 lands marines, 178; cruise to 
 Porto Bello, 179, orders to com- 
 mander of, 188. 
 
 National Assembly of Panama, 210. 
 
 Navy Bay, 222. 
 
 Nelson, Lord, at Nicaragua, 38, 54. 
 
 New Andalusia, governed by Ojeda, 
 20. 
 
 New Granada, gives canal conces- 
 sion to French speculator, 48; 
 Treaty of 1846, 391. See also 
 Colombia. 
 
 New Spain, discovered by Cartha- 
 ginians, 3. See Mexico. 
 
 "New World," origin of phrase, 15 
 
 New York, cruiser, at Panama, 248. 
 
 Nicaragua, described by Louis 
 Napoleon as centre of New 
 World, 49; relations with Mos- 
 
454 
 
 INDEX 
 
 quito Indians, 51; British ag- 
 gressions in, 53; treaty with 
 Great Britain, 64; French in- 
 trigues in, 66; refuses De Lesseps 
 a concession, 72; arbitration 
 with Great Britain, 89; negotia- 
 tions over canal, 114; arbitra- 
 tion with canal company, 117; 
 recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Nicaragua Canal: Route proposed, 
 32; advocated by Condamine, 
 38; surveyed by Galisteo, 38; 
 canal ordered by Congress of 
 Central American States, 45; 
 United States orders survey, 47; 
 Louis Napoleon's pamphlet on, 
 49; Oersted's route, 62; Childs's 
 survey, 62; Belly's scheme, 65; 
 De Lesseps seeks concession, 72; 
 Hatfield's surveys, 74; Lull and 
 Menocal's, 74; MacFarland and 
 others, 75; unanimously favoured 
 by President Grant's commis- 
 sion, 75; rivalry with Panama, 
 109; survey by Menocal, 111; 
 work begun in 1890, 112; failure 
 of enterprise, 112; efforts at 
 resuscitation, 113; arbitration 
 results adversely to Maritime 
 Company, 117; cost estimated by 
 third Canal Commission, 120; 
 route favoured by third Canal 
 Conmiission, 121; Hepburn bill 
 approving route, 126; final de- 
 feat, 128. 
 
 Nicaragua, Lake, first heard of by 
 Pedrarias, 26; discovered by 
 Gil Gonzalez de Avila, 27; ex- 
 plored by Edward David, 35; 
 visited by Lord Nelson, 38. 
 
 Nicarao, chief of Nicaragua, 28. 
 
 Nichols, A. B., 285. 
 
 Nicuesa, or Niquesa, Diego de. 
 Governor of Golden Castile, 20; 
 at Darien and Veraguas, 21; 
 death, 21. 
 
 Nino. Andrea, 28. 
 
 Nobl?, Alfred, member of Board of 
 Advisory or Consulting Engi- 
 neers, 316, 319. 
 
 Nombre de Dios, visited by Colum- 
 bus, 13; by Ojeda, 21; site of 
 city, 223 
 
 North American Review, quoted, 73. 
 
 North Sea, Caribbean so called, 13. 
 
 North Sea Canal, data of, 437. 
 
 Nueva Andalusia, see New Anda- 
 lusia. 
 
 Nunez, Rafael, Governor of Pana- 
 ma, 153; President of Colombia, 
 156; coup d'etat, 156; repudiates 
 debts, 157. 
 
 Oakes, John C, 317. 
 
 Obaldia, Jos4 de, 152-154. 
 
 Obaldia, J. Domingo, mission to 
 Bogotd, 161; Governor of Pana- 
 ma, 162; arrested by revolu- 
 tionists, 175; Second Designate, 
 213; Minister to United States, 
 215; at Panama with Taft, 257; 
 First Designate, 279. 
 
 Obarrio, Nicanor de, 158; joins 
 revolution, 164; member of 
 Junta, 166; Secretary of War and 
 Navy, 176, 209, 249; portrait, 
 164. 
 
 Obispo, 229. 
 
 Oceans, supposed difference in 
 levels, 46. 
 
 Ochoa, Lopez, 28. 
 
 Oersted, Ajidreas, surveys of, 62. 
 
 Official Gazette, Panama, quoted, 
 158. 
 
 Ojeda, Alfonso, or Alonzo, visits 
 Venezuela or Darien, 18; Gov- 
 ernor of New Andalusia, 20; 
 Galvano's account of, 20; dis- 
 aster at Carthagena, 20; builds 
 first town on mainland, 21; 
 death, 21. 
 
 Oldman, Mosquito King, 52. 
 
 Olid, Christopher de, treason against 
 Cortez, 30. 
 
 Ordaz, Diego, 29. 
 
 Oregon, battleship, voyage of, in 
 1898, 115. 
 
 Orillac, Raoul, 163. 
 
 Orinoco, steamship, 180. 
 
 Orontius Finaeus, 16. 
 
 Ortega, Gerardo, joins revolution, 
 164. 
 
 Ortiz, General, 165. 
 
 Ospina, General, quoted, 178. 
 
 Ospina, President of Colombia, 153. 
 
 Otero, Quijano, quoted, 150. 
 
 Otoque Island, 225. 
 
 Outlook, The, London, P. Bigelow's 
 article in, lampooning American 
 army, 348. 
 
INDEX 
 
 455 
 
 Oviedo, Gonsalvo Ferdinand de, 
 quoted by Galvano, 2. 
 
 Pacheca Island, 227. 
 
 Pacific Ocean, Thinae placed in, 7; 
 eliminated by Toscanelli, 9; dis- 
 covered by Balboa, 23. 
 
 Padilla, gunboat, 175. 
 
 Paitillo Point, 226. 
 
 Palmer, A H., 45. 
 
 Palmerston, Lofd, policy in Cen- 
 tral America, 57. 
 
 Panama, Bay of, 225, 226. 
 
 Panama, Canal: First proposed by 
 Cortez and Ceron, 31; ordered 
 by Charles V, 32; forbidden by 
 Philip II, 33; routes surveyed, 
 68, 70, 71, 74; Wyse's conces- 
 sion, 76; adopted by French com- 
 pany, 77; inaugurated by De 
 Lesseps, 80; work begun, 94; 
 story of, 94-96; final disaster, 
 96; efforts at reorganization, 108; 
 new company formed, 109; cost 
 estimated by American commis- 
 sion, 120; disapproved by 
 American commission, 121; nego- 
 tiations of New Panama Canal 
 Company with American com- 
 mission, 122; crisis in affairs, 
 124; company offers to sell 
 for $40,000,000, 125; purchase 
 recommended, 125; route pre- 
 scribed by Spooner bill, 126; 
 finally adopted, 128; right of 
 French company to sell, 130; 
 company's anxiety over Colom- 
 bia's conduct, 145; description 
 of route, 230; work begun by 
 Americans, 280; appointment of 
 Commission, 282; organization 
 of work, 285; Wallace chief en- 
 gineer, 286; engineering prob- 
 lems, 290; four plans considered, 
 291; Wallace favours sea-level, 
 293; plans of Bunau Varilla, 
 293; plans of Bates and Gillette, 
 294; advantages of sea-level 
 plan, 295; reorganization of 
 commission, 299; controversy 
 over purchase of supplies, 303; 
 retirement of Wallace, 308; 
 Stevens appointed chief engin- 
 eer, 315; changes in commission, 
 315; Board of Advisory or Con- 
 
 sulting Engineers appointed, 316; 
 instructions to, 317; reports, 319; 
 report of Stevens, 320; reports 
 of commission, 321; Taft's 
 recommendations, 322; Presi- 
 dent's recommendations, 324; 
 lock-canal plan adopted by Con- 
 gress, 325; lampoons and libels, 
 340; Poultney Bigelow's attack, 
 345; labour problems, 353; com- 
 mercial importance of canal, 384; 
 text of canal law, 400; text of 
 canal treaty, 408. 
 
 Panama, City of, old, founded by 
 Pedrarias, 26; destroyed by 
 Morgan, 26, 35. 
 
 Panama, City of: site, 225; water 
 supply, 289; sewers, 289; im- 
 pressions of, 370; approach to 
 374; streets, 375; parks, 376 
 slums, 376; buildings, 376 
 drinking habits of people, 377 
 Sunday in, 379; shops and shop 
 ping, 380; landlords and their 
 ways, 380; hotel rates, 381; cab 
 fares, 381; society, 382; com- 
 mercial importance, 384. 
 
 Panama, geographical and physical 
 features of, 215; extent and 
 situation, 215; boundaries, 216 
 population, 216; mountains 
 216; rivers, 217; coasts, 217 
 geology, 231; earthquakes, 233 
 climate, 233; seasons, 234; tem 
 perature, 234; humidity, 235 
 rainfall, 236; lampoons and 
 libels upon, 343; general im- 
 pressions of, 370. 
 
 Panama, Isthmus of: Visited by 
 Columbus, 14; crossed by Balboa, 
 23; route to California, 57; Louis 
 Napoleon's description of, 77; 
 insurrections and revolutions on, 
 193; protection of transit across, 
 195; topography of, 230; geo- 
 logical peculiarities, 232; lam- 
 poons upon, 343; colonists 
 needed, 354. 
 
 Panama, Province of, 212. 
 
 Panama Railroad, on Lloyd- 
 Falcmar route, 46; construc- 
 tion of, 57; use denied to bellig- 
 erents, 177, 196; shares pur- 
 chased by IJnited States, 306, 
 
 Panama, Republic of. Organized. 
 
456 
 
 INDEX 
 
 176; Executive Board and Minis- 
 try, 176; Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, 177; recognized by- 
 United States, 182; recognized 
 by other nations, 186; Constitu- 
 tional Convention, 186; American 
 policy toward, 187; constitu- 
 tional government organized, 
 209; salient features of Con- 
 stitution, 209; Legislature, or 
 National Assembly, 210; Ex- 
 ecutive, or President, 211; 
 Judiciary, 211; lawmaking, 211; 
 division and organization of 
 Provinces, 212; Roman Catholic 
 church in, 212; first Administra- 
 tion, 213; flag, 213; new cur- 
 rency, 213; endowment instead 
 of debt, 214; diplomatic relations 
 with United States, 215; at- 
 tempted revolution, 238; con- 
 troversy with United States, 256; 
 Taft's mission and its results, 
 256-268; political dissensions, 
 269 (see also Politics in Panama); 
 general elections of 1906, 279; 
 Magoon, Minister to, 300; action 
 for sanitation, 327; colonists 
 needed, 354; not to be ''Ameri- 
 canized," 364; worthy of study, 
 366; trade methods in, 366; 
 agricultural and other resources, 
 373; commercial importance, 
 384; text of Declaration of In- 
 depe dence, 405; text of First 
 Administrative Order of United 
 States in Canal Zone, 423; 
 Panaman protest, 426; revised 
 Executive Order, 430. 
 Panama Revolution, 150-186; 
 warnings of, 150, 160; planned 
 by Arango, 162, and Amador, 
 163; Junta formed, 163; many 
 recruits, 164; a Panaman and 
 not an American movement, 165; 
 need of expedition and absence 
 of violence, 170; crisis precipi- 
 tated, 172; Colombian generals 
 arrested, 174; Provisional Gov- 
 ernment organized, 176; Colom- 
 bian troops baffled, 177; shipped 
 for home, 180; American policy, 
 187; crazy fictions about, 341; 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 text, 405. 
 
 Panama, State of: F. Mutis Duran, 
 governor, 137; insurrection in, 
 137; United States intervention, 
 137; original union* with Colom- 
 bia, 151; declares independence, 
 151; rejoins Colombia, 152; 
 "sovereign federal State," 153; 
 relations with Bogotd, 155; be- 
 trayed and oppressed by Colom- 
 bia, 156; ratifies new constitu- 
 tion, 158; continued protests, 
 159; new law at Bogotd, 159; 
 insurrections and revolutions in, 
 193. 
 
 Pan-American Congress, first, 44; 
 second, called by Blaine, 88; 
 third, approves American canal 
 policy, 125. 
 
 Paraiso, 230. 
 
 Paria, Gulf of, discovered by Co- 
 lumbus, 12. 
 
 Parida Island, 223. 
 
 Parisa, native chief, 27. 
 
 Parita, bay and city, 225. 
 
 Parsons, William Barclay, Canal 
 Commissioner, 282; member of 
 Board of Advisory or Consulting 
 Engineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Paterson, William, plants colony 
 in Darien, 36; canal scheme, 37; 
 failure of enterprise, 37. 
 
 Paterson's Point, 223. 
 
 Patterson, C. P., 73. 
 
 Paul, Felipe F., 158. 
 
 Pauncefote, Lord, 118. 
 
 Pearl Islands, discovered by Balboa, 
 23; riches of, 26; description, 
 226; Taft's party visits, 264; 
 memorable visit to, 386. 
 
 Pearson, Sir Weetman, builds rail- 
 road at Tehuan tepee, 68. 
 
 Pedrarias, "Timour of the Indies," 
 24; Governor of Golden Castile, 
 24; cruelties, 24; murders Bal- 
 boa, 25; founds city of Panama, 
 26; explorations and conquests, 
 26; plans canal at Nicaragua, 
 32; death, 32. 
 
 Pedro Gonzalez Island, 227. 
 
 Pedro Miguel, 230. 
 
 Pedro River, 220. 
 
 Pelado River, 226. 
 
 Pensacola, Taft starts from, 257; 
 historic significance of, 257. 
 
 Perez y Soto, Panaman representa- 
 
INDEX 
 
 457 
 
 tive in Colombian Congress, 
 161. 
 
 Perico Island, 225. 
 
 Persia, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Peru, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Peter, King of Aragon, 3. 
 
 Peter Martyr, speaks of "New 
 World," 15; on Pedrarias, 24, 26. 
 
 Peter, Prince of Portugal, travels 
 of, 4. 
 
 Phelps, S. L., 80. 
 
 Philip II, orders surveys for canal, 
 33; forbids canal, 33. 
 
 Philip III, orders surveys of Atrato 
 River route, 34. 
 
 Philippine Islands, indicated by 
 Toscanelli, 6. 
 
 Pico Robaldo, 216. 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, negotiations with 
 Great Britain, 63. 
 
 Pillars of Hercules, 2, 4, 
 
 Pilon de Miguel de la Borda, 221. 
 
 Pineda, Alvarez, 28. 
 
 Pinzon, Arias Perez, 6. 
 
 Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, 6. 
 
 Pinzon, Vincente Yanez, explora- 
 tions, 19. 
 
 Pizarro, Francisco, at Uraba with 
 Ojeda, 21; succeeds Ojeda, 21; 
 arrests Balboa, 25. 
 
 Pliny, geographical theories of, 2, 
 8. 
 
 Politics in Panama, 269; Dr. 
 Porras, 270; Liberal Directorate 
 appeals to United States, 273; 
 bitter attack upon Panaman gov- 
 ernment, 274; Espriella's reply, 
 276; Liberal leaders visit Wash- 
 ington, 278; Secretary Root's 
 reply to their appeal, 278; Gov- 
 ernor Magoon's influence, 279. 
 
 Polk, James K., President, sends 
 Hise to Nicaragua, 58; makes 
 offer for Tehuan tepee route, 67; 
 on Treaty of 1846, 202. 
 
 Ponce, Fernando, 27. 
 
 Popo Island and mountain, 219. 
 
 Population of Panama, 216, 354. 
 
 Porras, Belisario, friends plan revo- 
 lution, 238; calls on Lee, 242; 
 receives warning, 243; speaks at 
 State banquet, 262; record as a 
 revolutionist, 270; opposed revo- 
 lution of 1903, 270; anti-Ameri- 
 can sentiments, 270; Liberal 
 
 leader, 270; declared not to be 
 a citizen, 271 ; denounces court's 
 decision, 272; appeals to United 
 States, 273; visits Washington, 
 278. 
 
 Porto Bello, visited by Columbus, 
 13; by Bastidas, 19; sacked by 
 Morgan, 35; description, 222. 
 
 Portugal, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Prescott, H. G., 172. 
 
 Press, subsidizing of, 84. 
 
 Provinces of Panama, 212; funds 
 for public works apportioned to, 
 214. 
 
 Provision Island, 218; Point, 221. 
 
 Ptolemy, geographical theories of, 
 followed by Toscanelli, 5; loca- 
 tion of Thinae, 7; errors of, 7; 
 followed by Waldseemiiller, 16. 
 
 Puercos Point, 224. 
 
 QuEBRANCHA, Mountains of, 222; 
 
 River, 229. 
 Quellennec, Eugen, member of 
 
 Board of Advisory or Consulting 
 
 Engineers, 316, 319. 
 Quibo Island, 224 (see Coiba). 
 Quintero, Manuel, V,, 209; Minister 
 
 of Public Works, 213. 
 Quisai, 9, 11. 
 Quisqueya, 11. 
 
 Raia Point, 224. 
 
 Rainfall at Panama, 236. 
 
 Randolph, Isham, member of Board 
 of Advisory or Consulting En- 
 gineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Raspadura, Ravine of, 41, 69. 
 
 Reading Rooms established in Canal 
 Zone, 336. 
 
 Reclus, Armand, surveys on Isth- 
 mus, 76. 
 
 Recognition of Panama, by United 
 States, 182; by other govem- 
 ents, 186; principles involved, 
 198; contrasted with recognition 
 of Confederate States, 201. 
 
 Reed, Thomas B., Speaker, opposes 
 canal legislation, 116. 
 
 Reinach, Baron Jacques, 97. 
 
 Retreat, Haven of, visited by 
 Columbus, 13. 
 
 Revolutions, see Colombia, and 
 Panama Revolution. 
 
 Reyes, Rafael, Colombian Commis- 
 
458 
 
 INDEX 
 
 sioner to Panama, 183; fruitless 
 efforts, 184; visits United States, 
 184; extraordinary offer to 
 United States, 184; President of 
 Colombia, 186. 
 
 Riggs, George W., 80. 
 
 Rincon Point, 221. 
 
 Rio Colorado, opened, 35. 
 
 Rio Francisco, visited by Columbus, 
 13. 
 
 Rio Grande (Caribbean), visited 
 by Columbus, 13. 
 
 Rio Grande (Pacific), 217, 225. 
 
 Ripley, Joseph, member of Board 
 of Advisory or Consulting En- 
 gineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Roatan, visited by Columbus, 13. 
 
 Robert, Charles Frederick, Mosquito 
 King, 56. 
 
 Robert, Mosquito Prince, 55. 
 
 Robinson, Monroe, 45. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, President: 
 Completing Columbus's work, 1; 
 signs Spooner bill, 128; receives 
 Panaman Minister, 182; com- 
 ments on Colombian offer, 185; 
 on Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty, 
 192, 214; on insurrections in 
 Panama under Colombian rule, 
 193; on American policy in 
 Panama, 206; news of his re- 
 election received at Panama, 247; 
 energetic work for canal, 282; 
 appoints third Canal Commis- 
 sion, 282; instructions to Com- 
 mission, 283; reorganizes Com- 
 mission, 299; orders to Commis- 
 sion, 300; appoints Board of 
 Advisory or Consulting Engin- 
 eers, 316; instructions to, 317; 
 recommends lock canal, 324; on 
 gossip and libels, 349. 
 
 Root, Elihu, Secretary of State, re- 
 plies to appeal of Liberals, 278. 
 
 Royal Geographical Society, 68. 
 
 Rubruquis, William of, 4. 
 
 Russia, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Ruysch's map of the world, 16. 
 
 Sab ANA River, 227. 
 Saboga Island, and village, 227. 
 St. Lorenzo, Castle of, 221. 
 St. Mary's Falls canal, data of, 439. 
 St. Michael, Gulf of, 23, 227; Island 
 of, 227. 
 
 St. Thomas, Island of, discovered 
 by Hesperus, 2. 
 
 Salomon & Co., 48. 
 
 Sambu River, 217. 
 
 San Bias canal route, 70, 75. 
 
 San Bias, Mountains, 216; Point, 
 223; Gulf, 223; Indians, 223. 
 
 San Carlos, Fort, stormed and re- 
 built, 35. 
 
 Sanclemente, President, deposed, 
 133. 
 
 San Cristoval Bay, 223. 
 
 Sandoval, Gonzalo de, 29. 
 
 Sanitation, French neglect of, 103; 
 need of, 288; Gorgas begins work, 
 288; delays and obstructions, 
 297; the fight with fever, 326; 
 Humboldt's errors, 326; Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt's orders, 326; 
 French mortality statistics, 327; 
 outbreak of yellow fever in Canal 
 Zone, 328; causes of the trouble, 
 329; Magoon's vigorous action, 
 330; methods of work, 331; 
 success, 334; offer of reward for 
 case of fever, 335; favourable 
 vital statistics of Panama, 335. 
 
 San Jose Island, 227. 
 
 ban Juan River Nicaragua, 28; 
 diverted by Escobedo, 35. 
 
 San Juan River, Panama 225. 
 
 San Miguel, Gulf of, 23, 227. 
 
 San Pablo River, 217, 224. 
 
 San Pedro River, 217. 
 
 San Salvador, Island of, mistaken 
 by Columbus for East Indies, 
 10. 
 
 Santa Maria River, 217. 
 
 Santana, 229. 
 
 Santander, Province of, 154, 156. 
 
 Santiago River, 217, 224; City of, 
 228. 
 
 Santo Domingo, Columbus's errors 
 about, 11. 
 
 Sault Ste. Marie canals, data of, 439. 
 
 Scruggs, William L., history quoted, 
 34. 
 
 Seasons, see Climate, 234. 
 
 "Secret of the Strait," sought by 
 Columbus, 12; by Bastidas, 19; 
 by Gil Gonzalez de Avila, 27; by 
 De Cordova, De Soto, Morantes, 
 Pineda, Ochoa, De Grijalva- 
 Verrazzano, Cartier, and Magel, 
 Ian, 28; byCortez, 29; doubts of 
 
INDEX 
 
 459 
 
 its existence, 30; revived by 
 Gorgoza, 75. 
 Selfridge, T. O., surveys, 74; at 
 International Engineering Con- 
 gress, 78. 
 
 Seligman, J. & W., 84. 
 
 Seneca, geographical theories, 2, 8. 
 
 Seward, William H., Secretary of 
 State, policy toward Isthmus, 72, 
 192, 195. 
 
 Sewers in Panama, 289. 
 
 Shaler, J. R., 172. 
 
 Shanton, G. R., 285. 
 
 Sharpe, Captain, freebooter at 
 Panama, 35. 
 
 Sherman, John, 113. 
 
 Ship Canals, data of, 436. 
 
 Shonts, Theodore P., Canal Com- 
 missioner, 300; Chairman of 
 Commission, 300; on purchase 
 of supplies, 304. 
 
 Shops and shopping in Panama, 
 380. 
 
 Shufeldt, R. W., surveys, 74. 
 
 Siam, recognizes Panama, 186. 
 
 Sloane, Sir Hans, quoted, 52. 
 
 Snow shovels at Panama, 100. 
 
 Society in Panama, 382. 
 
 Solis, Juan Diaz de, explorations, 19. 
 
 Sosa, Pedro J., 158. 
 
 South Sea, 13 (see Pacific Ocean). 
 
 Spain, first interested in discov- 
 eries, 3; seeks to construct canal, 
 43; loses American colonies, 43; 
 American war with, delays canal, 
 115. 
 
 Spooner bill, 126; becomes law, 128; 
 text of, 400. 
 
 Spooner, John C, Senator, 126. 
 
 Sprattling, L. W., 285. 
 
 Squier. E. G., mission to Nica- 
 ragua, 59; his work disavowed, 
 61. 
 
 Steams, Frederick P., member of 
 Board of Advisory or Consulting 
 Engineers, 316, 319. 
 
 St'^phens, John L., recommends 
 Nicaragua route, 48. 
 
 Stevens, John F., chief engineer, 
 315; Canal Commissioner, 316; 
 favours lock canal, 317; refutes 
 P. Bigelow's charges, 346. 
 
 Strabo, geographical theories, 2. 
 
 Strain, Isaac C, surveys, 69. 
 
 *' Straits of Panama " proposed, 294. 
 
 Strom, C. J., 288. 
 
 " Stultiloquentia," 340. 
 
 Suez Canal, data of, 436. 
 
 Sunday in Panama, 379. 
 
 Sweden and Norway, recognize 
 
 Panama, 186. 
 Switzerland, recognizes Panama, 
 186. 
 
 Taboga Island, 225. 
 
 Taboguilla Island, 225. 
 
 Taft, William H., Secretary of War: 
 Mission to Panama in 1904, 256; 
 starts from Pensacola, 257; cor- 
 dial reception at Panama, 258; 
 significant address to President 
 Amador, 259; conferences with 
 Panama government, 260; ad- 
 dress at State banquet, 261; 
 warning against revolutions, 261; 
 success of mission announced, 
 264; reception and address at 
 Cathedral Plaza, 264; apparent 
 reference to Huertas episode, 
 265; results of mission, 265; 
 second visit to Panama, 273; 
 receives Liberal Directorate, 273* 
 suggestions concerning Canal 
 Commission, 298; embodied in 
 President's orders, 300; order 
 concerning purchase of supplies, 
 303; recommends purchase of 
 railroad shares, 306; interview 
 with Wallace, 308; demands 
 his resignation, 310; reconmiends 
 appointment of Board on Ad- 
 visory or Consulting Engineers, 
 316; recommends lock canal, 
 322; scathing reply to P. Bige- 
 low, 346; protests against cam- 
 paign of lies, 350; on justice to 
 Panama, 360; text of first Ad- 
 ministrative Order, 423; of Re- 
 vised Executive Order, 430. 
 
 Taprobane, identified with Ceylon, 
 7. 
 
 Tararequi, Island of, discovered, 26. 
 
 Tavemilla, village of, 229; Plain of, 
 231. 
 
 Taylor, Zachary President sends 
 Squier to Nicaragua, 59. 
 
 Tehuantepec, canal route proposed, 
 32; surveyed by Cramer and 
 Corral, 38; Mexican scheme, 67; 
 
460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ofifer of United States, 67; sur- 
 veyed by Shufeldt, 74. 
 
 Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, dis- 
 covered, 28; explored by Cortez, 
 2 
 
 Tehuantepec railroad, proposed by 
 J. B. Eads, 68, 85; built by 
 Pearson, 68. 
 
 Temperature, 234. 
 
 Terraba Point, 218. 
 
 Thierry, Baron, 45. 
 
 Thinae, 6-9. 
 
 Thompson, Richard W., 84. 
 
 Tiburon, Cape, 223. 
 
 Tides, delusions concerning, 46. 
 
 Tiger Channel, 220. 
 
 Tiger Hill, 229. 
 
 Tiger's Head, 221. 
 
 Tigre Island, British-American ri- 
 valry for, 60. 
 
 Tincuazer, Eugen, member of Board 
 of Advisory or Consulting En- 
 gineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Tobey, E. C, 285, 288. 
 
 Tolima, State of, 154. 
 
 To ro Point, 222. 
 
 Torres, Colonel, at Colon, 172; 
 efforts to reach Panama, 
 177. 
 
 Toscanelli, Paolo, map and letter, 
 5, 6; geographical theories, 5-7, 
 reckons circuit of globe, 8. 
 
 Totten, Colonel, report on Panama 
 canal route, 70. 
 
 Tovar, General, at Panama, 172. 
 
 Trade routes compared, 384. 
 
 Trautwine, J. C, surveys Atrato 
 region, 69. 
 
 Treaties: Anglo-Spanish of 1670, 
 51; Aix-la-Chapelle, 53, Paris, 
 1763, 53; Versailles, 54; A glo- 
 Spanish of 1786, 54; United 
 States-New Granada, 57; Rise's 
 with Nicaragua, 58; Squier's 
 with Nicaragua, 59; Clayton- 
 Bulwer, 61; British-Nicaraguan, 
 64; United States — Colombian, 
 71; Dickinson-Ayon,72; Freling- 
 huysen-Zavala, 109; first Hay- 
 Pauncefote, 118; second Hay- 
 Pauncefote, 119; Hay-Herran, 
 140; Hay-Bunau Varilla, 182. 
 (For texts, see Appendices, pp. 
 391, 393, 398 408.) 
 
 Trent., steamship. 345. 
 
 Trinidad, discovered by Columbus, 
 
 12. 
 Tumaco, or Tumaccus, friend of 
 
 Balboa, 24. 
 Turr, Etienne, 76. 
 Tuyra River, discovered by Pe- 
 
 drarias, 26; described, 217. 
 
 Ulloa, Antonio de, 38. 
 
 United States, Goethe's prophecy 
 concerning, 42; interest in Isth- 
 mian canal, 47; resolution by 
 Congress, 47; terms proposed 
 to Colombia for canal, 131; at- 
 titude toward German schemes, 
 136; knowledge of impending 
 revolution, 171; preparations to 
 fulfil treaty obligations, 171; 
 recognizes Panama, 182; policy 
 toward Colombia and Ptoama, 
 187. See also American Policy 
 and Congress. 
 
 Uraba, Gulf of, discovered by Ojeda 
 and Bastidas, 18; town, built by 
 Ojeda, 21. 
 
 Urava Island, 225. 
 
 Valdez, Antonio A., 175. 
 
 Valdez, Hector, 165. 
 
 Valiente Point, 220; Peak, 220. 
 
 Valladolid Island, 225. 
 
 Vallarino, Dario, 176. 
 
 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, organizes 
 company at Nicaragua, 58. 
 
 Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 45. 
 
 Vatican Library, legendary manu- 
 script in, 6. 
 
 Vela, Cabo de la, 18. 
 
 Velasco, Ferdinand de. Governor of 
 Golden Castile, surveys Atrato 
 River route, 34. 
 
 Velasquez, Diego, 30. 
 
 Venado Island, 224. 
 
 Venezuela, mistaken by Columbus 
 for Garden of Eden, 12; visited 
 by Ojeda, 18. 
 
 Veraguas, visited by Columbus, 13; 
 by Nicuesa, 21; Province of, 
 united with Panama, 152; Pana- 
 man Province of, 212. 
 
 Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 28. 
 
 Vespucci see Amerigo. 
 
 Victoria, Nicolas, J,, 209; Minister 
 of Justice and Public Instruc- 
 tion, 213; removal demanded by 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 Huertas, 238; offers resignation, 
 242; denounced by Huertas, 247. 
 
 Vignaud, Henry, Columbian re- 
 searches, 5. 
 
 Volcan de Chiriqui, 216. 
 
 Wafer, Lionel, reports on Cale- 
 donian Bay route, 36. 
 
 Waldseemiiller, Martin, map of 
 world, 16; suggests name of 
 America, 16. 
 
 Walker, John G., Rear-Admiral, 
 head of Canal Commission, 113; 
 makes report, 116; head of sec- 
 ond Commission, 116; visits 
 Panama with Taft, 257; Chair- 
 man of third Commission, 282. 
 
 Walker, the Filibuster, 63. 
 
 Walker, Patrick, Regent of "Mos- 
 quitia," 56. 
 
 Wallace, John F., Chief Engineer of 
 canal, 286; plans of work, 286; 
 organization of staff, 287; early 
 embarrassments, 288; engineer- 
 ing problems, 290; four plans 
 considered, 291; favours sea level, 
 293; Canal Conmiissioner, 300; 
 retirement from Commission, 307; 
 interview with Taft, 308; Taft's 
 criticism of him, 309; his reply, 
 311; statement to Congress 
 314; objections to Cromwell, 315. 
 
 Water Cay, 219. 
 
 Water Supply, 289; delay in, 298. 
 
 Webb, William H., gets concession 
 in Nicaragua, 66. 
 
 Welcker, J. W., member of Board 
 of Advisory or Consulting En- 
 gineers, 316, 319. 
 
 Welland Canal, data of, 439. 
 
 Werweer, General, 45. 
 
 West Indies, see Indies. 
 
 William of Rubruquis, 4, 8. 
 
 Winslow, Lanier & Co., 84. 
 
 Wyoming, monitor, at Panama, 179. 
 
 Wyse, Lucien N. B., explor s Isth- 
 mus, 76; gets concession from 
 Colombia at Panama, 76; nego- 
 tiations in Nicaragua and New 
 York, 77; sent to Colombia in 
 1890. 108. 
 
 Xaquator River, 32. 
 
 YcAZA, Eduardo, joins revolution, 
 
 164. 
 Yellow Fever, see Sanitation. 
 
 Zachrisson, Carlos R., V, joins 
 
 revolution, 164. 
 Zavala, General Joaquin, 109. 
 Zipangu, see Japan.