America and the canal title

Front matter

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Table Of Contents

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Preface i

CHAPTER

Preface

In this book the writer shows that the Roosevelt Administration in 1903 collaborated with a small party of separatists on the Isthmus, Bunau- Varilla acting as intermediary, for the purpose of devising a plan to wrest the Canal Zone and littoral from the Republic of Colombia by force, and that it gave assurance to these separatists that it would protect secession in Panama. It did actually do the latter. In doing so, it ( i ) violated international law, (2) violated the Treaty of 1846, and (3) rent asunder a sister republic.

The critical reader will want to know how the damaging evidence found in this book that is not in the nature of an original official document was obtained. This has, of course, a bearing on Its credibility. It was obtained through rogatory proceedings, instituted by the New York World on the Isthmus while preparing its defense for libel in an action brought against it by the Federal Government. It is, therefore, sworn testimony in part wrenched from unwilling witnesses in a court of record. This testimony corroborates the inferences suggested by official documents pub- Hshed by our Government.

It is the mature judgment of the writer that in the conferences between the Roosevelt Administration and the separatists the following were the important provisions that were agreed to :

1. The separatists were to persuade ($, $) the military and political representatives of Colombia on the Isthmus to cooperate in the secession of the Province of Panama, and, in addition, they were to arrange to take over its civil government.

2. Our Government was to recognize the new republic not later than forty-eight hours after the Declaration of Independence, and to prevent Colombia from landing troops on the Isthmus to restore her sovereignty.

It is proper that we should offset this sweeping indictment of our then Administration with an excerpt from an article by Roosevelt which appeared in The Outlook on October 7, 191 1 :

On December 7, 1903, and again on January 4, 1904, as President of the United States, in messages to the two Houses of Congress, I set forth in full and in detail every essential fact connected with the recognition of the Republic of Panama, the negotiation of a treaty with that Republic for building the Painama Canal, and the actions which led up to that negotiation — actions without which the canal could not have been built, and would not now have, been even begun. Not one important fact was omitted, and no fact of any importance bearing upon the actions or negotiations of the representatives of the United States not there set forth has been, or ever will be, discovered, simply because there is none to discover. It must be a matter of pride to every honest American, proud of the good name of his country, that the acquisition of the canal and the building of the canal, in all their details, were as free from scandal as the public acts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

It is a matter of keen disappointment to well-informed Americans of high character that there is no resemblance at all between the public acts of George Washington and of Abraham Lincoln on the one hand and those of the Roosevelt Administration in the taking of the Canal Zone, on the other hand. Of no public act of either Washington or Lincoln can anything like the following be said :

I am interested in the Panama Canal because I started it. If I had followed traditional, conservative methods I would have submitted a dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to Congress, and the debate on it would have been going on yet ; but i took the canal zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

The writer has included in the appendix that portion of the micssage of December 7, 1903, which deals with the events on the Isthmus, and the entire message of January 4, 1904. Roosevelt has stated in the first excerpt above that they contain the final word on the subject — all that is knowable and all that will ever be known. The writer hopes that before reading this book the reader will carefully study Roosevelt's full statement in these messages.

Inasmuch as Roosevelt's article in the Metropolitan Magazine for February, 191 5, entitled: "The Panama Blackmail Treaty," is presumably his complete statement against ratification of the pending treaty with Colombia, the writer felt that its incorporation in the appendix of this book was required in order to give as fully as possible the other side of the controversy. He, therefore, requested permission to reproduce it. The following inconclusive letter from the Managing Editor of the magazine is the only communication received in reply :

Replying to yours of July 24th, in which you request permission to reprint from the Metropolitan Magazine Colonel Roosevelt's article on "The Panama Blackmail Treaty," I am unable to give you that permission without first consulting Colonel Roosevelt. As soon as he returns from the West I will take the matter up with him and let you know.

The writer intended to set over against his own statement the full statement of Roosevelt. Permission to reproduce the mentioned article not having been granted Roosevelt's side of the controversy is not fully stated.

President Wilson, in an address delivered before the Chamber of Commerce of the United States on February 3, 191 5, stated the method employed by the writer in the examination of our title to the Canal Zone. It is contained in the following excerpt :

I agreed with a colleague of mine in the cabinet the other day that we had never before in our lives attended a school to compare with that we were now attending for the purpose of gaining a liberal education.

Of course, I learn a great many things that are not so, but the interesting thing about that is this : Things that are not so do not match. If you hear enough of them, you see there is no pattern whatever; it is a crazy quilt. Whereas, the truth always matches, piece by piece, with other parts of the truth. No man can lie consistently, and he cannot lie about everything if he talks to you long. I would guarantee that if enough liars talked to you, you would get the truth ; because the parts that they did not invent would match one another, and the parts that they did invent would not match one another. Talk long enough, therefore, and see the connections clearly enough, and you can patch together the case as a whole.

A great mass of evidence was sifted in order to penetrate through plausible falsehoods to basal facts. The sifted evidence was marshaled and carefully weighted. It is reproduced largely in the form of quotations with the connecting nexus in the form of inferences and conclusions supplied by the writer. It is the first comprehensive account in book form of the events connected with our acquisition of the Canal Zone.

The conclusions expressed are based on the quotations found here and there throughout the book. Moreover, they are not always solely based on the quotations in connection with which the conclusion is expressed. Viewed thus broadly the writer is convinced that every conclusion is warranted. It was his purpose :

Nothing [to] extenuate,

Nor to set down aught in malice.

The data bearing on the taking of the Canal Zone by our Government are widely scattered, and, therefore, inaccessible to the general reader. Those which, so to speak, mirror this chapter of our history are assembled in this book, which thus makes them accessible to the public.

The significant facts have been assembledv and sifted in our search to determine whether we have a clear title to the Canal Zone. They unmistakably show that it was taken by force. The payments to our partner in crime do not clear the title of its stain. It is stolen. Gilding the politteal crime with the gloss of fine words does not remove the national disgrace.

This is a subject on which one is not warranted in expressing an opinion unless he has critically examined the available evidence. Only the person who has a message and can present it without prejudice is entitled to ask audience. Therefore, he who speaks on the subject should state his credentials. In this instance, credentials take the form of political affiliations. The writer voted for Roosevelt for Vice-President in 1900 (in Wisconsin), supported him for President in 1904 (in New York), and in the Republican primary of 19 1 2. After the Republican convention at Chicago he joined the Progressive Party and is now a member of that party.

The writer's interest in Roosevelt dates from the picturesque support that the latter gave to Senator Edmunds for President in the Republican national convention of 1884. At the time, Roosevelt was featured in the west as a young Lochinvar of the east valiantly fighting the battle of political righteousness. His vigorous support of Edmunds won the writer's boyhood fancy.

It now seems that there had grown up in the west a Roosevelt myth commencing with the convention named, which he attended as one of the big four of New York. His conduct always seemed to be in harmony with exalted moral purpose. Social well-being seemed to be the goal toward which he steered with unerring precision. This was the writer's estimate of Roosevelt when the repeal of the tolls-exemption provisions of the Panama Canal Act became a national issue.

A critical study of the financial policy that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty imposes on the United States in the management of the Panama Canal, and that is imposed on the country by the nature of the enterprise, coupled with an exhaustive study of the method employed to secure the Canal Zone, convinced the writer that the attitude of Roosevelt was foreign to the requirements of national honor.

It may be urged that citations which justify the course pursued by the Roosevelt Administration have been omitted from this volume. The following excerpt from the pen of Secretary Hay is typical :

Any charge that this Government, or any responsible member of it, held intercourse, whether official or unofficial, with agents of revolution in Colombia, is utterly without justification.

Equally so is the insinuation that any action of this Government, prior to the revolution in Panama, was the result of complicity with the plans of the revolutionists.

The Department sees fit to make these denials, and it makes -them finally.

Roosevelt cites the following from Secretary Hay as of controlling importance :

The action of the President in the Panama matter is not only in the strictest accordance with the best precedents of our public policy, but it was the only course he could have taken in compliance with our treaty rights and obligations.

These statements of the late lamented Secretary Hay have not survived the scrutiny of historical criticism. All communications of similar character have crumbled before the searchlight of truth and historical method for separating truth and falsehood.

William Roscoe Thayer published in Harper's Magazine for July, 191 5, a sympathetic article on the connection of the Roosevelt Administration with the Isthmian events in the fall of 1903, which resulted in our securing the Canal Zone. The following excerpts are apropos:

From the moment of Mr. Roosevelt's accession the State Department felt a new impelling force behind it: the Secretary still conducted the negotiations, but the creation and decision of policy came to rest more and more with the President.

In no case was this so true as in that of the Panama Canal. In the earlier stages Mr. Roosevelt gave directions which Mr. Hay carried out; before the end, however, the President took the business into his own hands ; and he has ever since frankly assumed entire responsibihty for the achievement. . . .

Throughout October Mr. Hay seems to have had less and less communication with the Isthmus and Bogota, whereas the activity of President Roosevelt increased.

Responsibility for the dynamic climax to this solution of the Colombia-Panama struggle rested entirely with the President, who seems not always to have informed Secretary Hay and the Cabinet officers of his acts.

The writer reached the same conclusion by a comparative study of the diplomatic and other correspondence of the Roosevelt Administration of the period in question. This investigation led him to conclude that Secretary Hay did not know the facts connected with the Isthmian disturbance in 1903. This makes it clear that the certification made by Secretary Hay, of the correctness of the conduct of the President, is based upon belief and not upon knowledge.

In this book we deal only with the principal events connected with our acquisition of the Canal Zone. A detailed and chronological statement of them can be found with only incidental analysis and interpretation, in "The Story of Panama'' by Henry N. Hall, staff correspondent of the New York World, This comprehensive statement of facts constitutes Mr. Hall's testimony before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of

Representatives from January 26 to February 20, 1912, and has been printed as an official document.

The citations in this book whose source is not indicated in connection with their presentation are taken from the ''Diplomatic History of the Panama CanaF' (official document), "The Story of Panama" (official document) and other official documents, including the Congressional Record.

This book is the by-product of another work dealing with the Panama Canal finances, tolls, accounts and underlying treaties. The amount of space required to cover all these matters turned out to be such that it was necessary to abandon the original plan and treat this one phase of the question as an independent though related study. The part of the original plan that had already been worked out was, therefore, pigeon-holed to enable the writer to complete the present work. The other section of the work as originally planned will be published later under the title: "America and the Canal Tolls."

This book contains more or less repetition. Fundamental principles and important documents are involved in the consideration of a question like this, and, as they have a bearing on the various standpoints from which the question was considered, repetition was inevitable. It would not have been desirable to have avoided it entirely if it could have been done. All minds are not equally mature and so it may well be that the method of here a little and there a little from different standpoints is the way of correct understanding. As the writer aimed to instruct as well as to explain official documents and secondary evidence, repetition became a vital part of his method.

Some of the citations and arguments which show that there was no revolution on the Isthmus in the fall of 1903 also show that the Treaty of 1846 was violated and that the Canal Zone was taken by force. Therefore, some of the repetition may be more apparent than actual as the same data and arguments were used to show different contentions.

Acknowledgments are due to President Jose V. Concha of the Republic of Colombia for a cablegram in which he gives an official version of a memorandum he, as Minister of the Colombian Legation, handed to our Government in 1902 in which it was provided that the annuity to be paid to Colombia for the canal concession was to be determined by arbitration if it could not be determined by diplomacy ; to Senor Francisco Escobar, Consulado General De Colombia, in New York, for the cablegram from President Concha of Colombia printed on page 35, for several valuable pamphlets, and for having informed the writer of the existence of important official documents and how to gain access to them; to Roberto Ancizar, Secretary of the Colombian Legation at Washington, for verification of two official documents, for a copy of a Colombian official document not yet printed and for several valuable pamphlets; to Henry N. Hall, for an official copy of 'The Story of Panama" comprising his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs; and to Leander T. Chamberlain for excerpts taken from his pamphlet, "A Chapter in National Dishonor," some of which were adapted to fit into our line of argument without direct acknowledgment. Special acknowledgment is due my colleague, James L. Bahret, for valuable editorial suggestions. The author was prevented through lack of strength from carrying out all of them.

The author is solely and alone responsible for the material incorporated and the views expressed in this book. He received encouragement from Seiior Francisco Escobar of the Colombian Consulate in New York. The Colombian Legation at Washington was indifferent. The writer's suggestion that it secure for him, if possible, two official documents not published and furnish a better translation of an excerpt from a Colombian official communication were ignored. This is merely stated for the purpose of focusing responsibility for the contents of this book on the author.

During the final revision of the manuscript the writer was ordered by his physician not to do intensive work. Therefore the book is not as well integrated as it would otherwise have been and repetition appears that would have been eliminated. It is believed that these defects in the story of the taking of the Canal Zone by the Roosevelt Administration as herein narrated are merely formal, and that they do not impair its scientific value.

Joseph C. Freehoff.

Saranac Lake, N. Y.

November 15, 1915

Chapter I Clear the Enterprise of Every Stain

Construction of the Panama Canal was completed in the summer of 19 14. Slides now and then interrupt transit. Removal of these slides merely adds to the cost of the canal as a commercial enterprise.

Our Government "took" the Canal Zone from Colombia at the point of the bayonet. It was unwilling to pay the price determined by due process of law. Our title is, therefore, stolen. This stain on the enterprise will remain until unstinted reparation has been made to the despoiled owner — Colombia. Concerning the construction of the canal and our seizure of the Canal Zone, the New York World said in an editorial in the winter of 1912:

It is the greatest feat of construction ever undertaken by any government. The manner in which this work has been done under the direction of Colonel Goethals is one of the engineering triumphs of all history. Every American citizen should be proud of it.

When the canal is thrown open to the commerce of the world there should be no blot on the record. There should be nothing for the American people to explain or to apologize for. . . .

The full story of . . . [the] Panama transaction is yet to be told — the Washington lobby, the framing of the treaty which Colombia rejected, the organization and financing of a Panama revolution in New York City, the part played by the United States Government in this conspiracy. . . .

The seizing of the Canal Zone did more to arouse the hostility of South American repubHcs against the United States than anything else that has happened since they won their independence. While Colombia's demand for justice remains unsatisfied this country will always be an object of suspicion on the part of its South American neighbors. . . .

The important thing is that this international scandal be disposed of for all time before the canal is opened and that no stain be left on the American title.

Congress owes it to the country and the country owes it to itself.

In the enactment of the Panama Canal Act in 19 1 2, Congress placed another stain on the enterprise. The tolls-exemption provisions of that act scrapped the commercial provisions of the Hay- Pauncefote treaty. Due primarily to the exalted moral purpose of President Wilson, the tolls-exemption provisions of the Panama Canal Act were repealed in 19 14, with the result that the Hay- Pauncefote treaty was restored as our guide in the management of the canal. Instead of this treaty being now a scrap of paper, it is a worldview design — snatched from the scrap heap and restored as the vital instrument in canal administration. It was rescued on the way to the political graveyard in which are interred the remains of our Treaty of 1846, and over which hovers a troubled American conscience. Only reparation to Colombia can bring relief. Ratification of the pending treaty with Colombia by the Senate will restore American honor and remove from our flag an otherwise ineffaceable stain.

The Hay-Pauncef ote treaty is a solemn engagement whose meaning is self-evident. Besides, we have documentary evidence which establishes that meaning beyond a reasonable doubt. Willis Fletcher Johnson, an able newspaper man, interviewed Secretary Hay as to the bearing of this treaty on our intercoastal trade. This was before the construction of the treaty became the subjectmatter of political controversy. Therefore, the opinion expressed in this interview, if properly corroborated, absolutely establishes its meaning. The interview is published in official documents and reads :

I asked Colonel Hay plumply if the treaty meant what it appeared to mean on its face, and whether the phrase "vessels of all nations," was intended to include our own shipping, or was to be interpreted as meaning "all other nations." The Secretary smiled, half indulgently, half quizzically, as he replied:

"All means all. The treaty was not so long that we could not have made room for the word 'other' if we had understood that it belonged there. 'All nations' means all nations, and the United States is certainly a nation."

That was the understanding between yourself and Lord Pauncefote when you and he made the treaty? I pursued.

"It certainly was," he replied. "It was the understanding of both Governments, and I have no doubt that the Senate realized that in ratifying the second treaty without such an amendment it was committing us to the principle of giving all friendly nations equal privileges in the canal with ourselves. That is our Golden Rule."

The views of the then Secretary of State are corroborated by our Ambassador to Great Britain at the time, Joseph H. Choate, who in an address before the Chamber of Commerce of the City of New York on February 13, 19 13, said :

It is true that I had something to do with the negotiation of this treaty. In the summer of 1901 — you will remember that this treaty was ratified by the Senate in December, 1901 — I was in England until October, and was in almost daily contact with Lord Pauncefote, who on his side represented Lord Lansdowne, the foreign secretary, and was also in very frequent correspondence with Mr. Hay, our Secretary of State, under whom I was acting. As the lips of both of those diplomatists and great patriots, who were each true to his own country and each regardful of the rights of the other, are sealed in death, I think it is quite proper that I should say what I believe both of them, if they were here, would say to-day — that the clause in the Panama Canal bill exempting coastwise American shipping from payment of tolls is in direct violation of the treaty.

I venture to say that in the whole course of the negotiations of this particular treaty, no claim, no suggestion, was made that there should be any exemption of anybody.

Even more convincing are the views expressed by the late President McKinley. They are found in a letter from Secretary Hay to Senator Cullom, of which the following is an excerpt :

The President was not only willing but desirous that 'Hhe general principle" of neutralization referred to in the preamble of this treaty should be applicable to this canal now intended to be built, notwithstanding any change of sovereignty or of international relations of the territory through which it should pass.

The views of President McKinley are ''the general principle'' with the meaning that the negotiators of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty attached to it. In a letter dated August 20, 1901, Ambassador Choate stated its meaning as it was understood at the time the treaty was negotiated. It was in effect —

That the parties constructing or owning the canal shall impose no other charges or conditions of traffic than are 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.

The foregoing was corroborated by Henry White, Secretary of our Embassy in Great Britain during the negotiations of the Hay-Pauncefote treaties. Mr. White wrote a letter to Senator McCumber in which he told what Secretary Hay understood the treaty to mean relative to free transit for our intercoastal trade. The vital part of the letter reads :

( 1 ) That the exemption of our coastwise shipping from the payment of tolls was never suggested to, nor by, any one connected with the negotiation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaties in this country or in England;

(2) That from the day on which I opened the negotiations with Lord Salisbury for the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty until the ratification of the Hay- Pauncefote treaty, the words "all nations" and ''equal terms" were understood to refer to the United States as well as to all other nations, by every one of those, whether American or British, who had anything to do with the negotiations whereof the treaty last mentioned was the result.

Henry White had at the date of writing the above a more minute knowledge of the negotiations leading up to the agreement on the Hay- Pauncefote treaty than any other person. His statement is, therefore, final and conclusive as to the meaning of that instrument

It does not take much erudition to know what the negotiators intended the Hay-Pauncefote treaty to mean — to know what the Hay-Pauncefote treaty actually does mean. It means what its negotiators intended it to mean. It was clearly the intent of the negotiators that the charge for the commercial use of the Isthmian Canal which was to be constructed should be non-discriminatory and without distinction of flag. This is confirmed by the inclusion of this sentence in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty:

Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be

JUST AND equitable.

Appreciating the fact that the Panama Canal is a public utility, our public vessels are entitled to free transit, because they are either engaged in maintenance or in maneuvers to acquire the efKiciency required for its protection. The public vessels of the Republic of Panama pass through free as an offset to rent. Similarly, the public vessels of Colombia will pass through free if the treaty with Colombia now pending in the Senate is ratified. This will be part of the compensation incurred to secure a clear title to the Canal Zone.

All the commercial traffic through the canal must pay a non-discriminatory rate. The United States, as the owner of the canal, is entitled to a reasonable return on its investment — a principle that applies in the regulation of national, state,, and municipal utiHties, that is, domestic utilities. It is empowered to collect this amount from the traffic using the canal, but is compelled to collect it by imposing a reasonable and non-discriminatory rate. Realizing that this is what the foregoing sentence of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty means, the careful student of public utilities and of our domestic policy in relation thereto needs only to see this sentence of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty in order to know that free transit for our intercoastal shipping is prohibited by that instrument.

It is now clear that a solemn engagement and the nature of the enterprise prohibit free transit to our coastwise shipping. In a state paper worthy of the occasion. President Wilson, therefore, asked the Congress to repeal the tolls-exemption provisions of the Panama Canal Act. We give it in full below :

Gentlemen of the Congress : I have come to you upon an errand which can be very briefly performed, but I beg that you will not measure its importance by the number of sentences in which I state it. No communication I have addressed to the Congress carried with it graver or more far-reaching implications as to the interest of the country, and I come now to speak upon a matter with regard to which I am charged in a particular degree, by the Constitution itself, with personal responsibility.

I have come to ask you for the repeal of that provision of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 19 12, which exempts vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States from payment of tolls, and to urge upon you the justice, the wisdom, and the large policy of such a repeal with the utmost earnestness of which I am capable.

In my own judgment, very fully considered and maturely formed, that exemption constitutes a mistaken economic policy from every point of view, and is, moreover, in plain contravention of the treaty with Great Britain concerning the canal concluded on November 18, 1901. But I have not come to urge upon you my personal views. I have come to state to you a fact and a situation. Whatever may be our own differences of opinion concerning this much debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty; its language we accepted, if we did not originate it; and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret with a too strained or refined reading the words of our own promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a voluntary withdrawal from the position everywhere questioned and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for generosity and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesitation.