route and to report on the same to the President on or before November 1, Doc. No. 279, 54th Congress, 1st sess., p. 11):

17

1895 (H.

"May 7, 1895. Board of engineers sail from Mobile for their inspection of the canal

route.

May 13, 1895. The board of engineers arrived at Greytown.

"May 21, 1895. The board of engineers left Greytown for inspection of the canal route.

"June 24, 1895. The board of engineers arrived at New York.

"October 31, 1895. The board of engineers submitted their report to the President. (H. Doc. No. 279, 54th Cong., 1st sess.)"

Nothing further is said in the chronology except for the transmission to Congress of the report which had been submitted to the President on the 31st of October previous. The board had then completed their task before the 1st of November, 1895, as the law required for the date of the report. There could be, there was no other action of the board after that.

With these two independent and corroborative documentary statements all doubt is removed. The plea for fees cynically displaces the events, so as to make appear as a consequence of Mr. Cromwell's activities what is materially anterior to their beginning.

But it does not limit itself to displace the real date of Ludlow's report; it withdraws any allusion to its contents as regards Nicaragua.

Any man will understand why, when he has read on pages 58 and 59 of the Isthmian Canal Commission's report, already quoted above (S. Doc. 54, 57th Cong, 1st sess.), the following summing up:

"The Nicaragua Canal Board found it impracticable within the time fixed in the law and with the limited means appropriated for the accomplishment of its work to make a full and thorough examination of the route and obtain the necessary data for the formation of a final project of a canal, and in the report a recommendation was included that there be further explorations and observations, so as to collect the information and data regarded as essential to the comprehension of the fundamental features of the canal problem, which should decide the final location and cost of work.

"In accordance with the views of the board there was included in the sundry civil appropriation act which was approved June 4, 1897, an appropriation to continue the

surveys.

*

*

The law according to which the Ludlow Board was formed (see same p. 58 of the Isthmian Canal Commission's report above quoted) "was adopted in the Senate for the purpose of ascertaining the feasibility, permanence, and cost of the construction and It is therefore obvious that the declaracompletion of the canal through Nicaragua.' tion of the board as to the necessity of further explorations for ascertaining certain essential data before answering the question made by the legislator as to the feasibility and cost absolutely paralyzed any attempt of passing the Nicaragua bill through Congress before such explorations were made.

The exhibition in the plea for fees of the conclusion arrived at by the Ludlow Board would have made obviously futile and ridiculous all the talk inserted in the plea for fees referring to the imaginary victories won by Mr. Cromwell in the battles against the defenders of the Nicaragua bill in Congress during that period. The titles which the plea for fees places upon this inflated and imaginary stuff-"Recapitulation of work done in 1896-Result no legislation for Nicaragua that year.-1896-1897. Attack and defeat of the Nicaragua legislation"—would have been obviously shown to sum up a pure fiction.

The plea for fees after disfiguring the history by materially tampering with the dates is thus shown further to disfigure it by withholding and keeping concealed the essential fact which dominates all the situation, and this fact is the opinion of the Ludlow Board as expressed in their report signed before the beginning of Mr. Cromwell's activities. I do not think there may be found anywhere a more flagrant and obvious disfiguration of truth.

These facts demonstrate:

First. The lack of veracity of Mr. Cromwell's plea for fees when it says that in 1896, when he began his work, the Ludlow Board was then engaged in the work of surveying and preparing their report. They had made their report before November, 1895, prior to any of his activities.

Second. The lack of veracity of Mr. Cromwell's plea for fees when it withholds in his description of events the findings of said report of the Ludlow Board, and thereby conceals from the reader's eye the paralyzing action this report had on all Nicaragua legislation in 1896 and the first part of 1897 until the appropriation for new explorations were made according to its recommendations.

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Third. The lack of veracity of Mr. Cromwell's plea for fees when he substitutes the imaginary cause of his efforts to the real one which is the report of the Ludlow Board. The consequence of this demonstration is that a document found to be so absolutely deficient in veracity as to material facts registered by official documents is the most unfit base for writing the history of Panama. This opinion will be further confirmed by the other examples I shall give of this lack of veracity.

SECOND DEMONSTRATION OF AN ABSOLUTE LACK OF VERACITY ON A GIVEN POINT IN MESSRS. SULLIVAN & CROMWELL'S PLEA FOR FEES.

In the autumn 1898 and in the winter of 1898-1899 the adoption of Nicaragua by the Congress of the United States seemed highly probable. The session, however, ended without seeing passed by the House the Nicaragua bill already voted by the Senate. Why did this extraordinary fact take place? What determined the stoppage of the Nicaragua bill in the House when nearly the unanimity of members were for a canal at Nicaragua?

Here is the explanation given by the plea for fees. On page 179 of the Story of Panama can be found the chapter of the plea for fees entitled, "A vote for Nicaragua is prevented in the House." It begins by the sentence "As a result of the support we gave to this plan, the efforts of the Nicaragua party failed, and this party seeing itself incapable despite its efforts to bring its bill to a vote, etc.'

What is the force of this party which is, according to the plea for fees, incapable of bringing its bill to a vote on account of Mr. Cromwell's supposed support to another plan? The plea for fees describes this party on page 178 under the title, "The situation in the House is favorable to Nicaragua.' It says: "An enthusiastic and large majority of the House was openly pledged to Nicaragua. The result of a vote in the House was absolutely certain if a vote were taken."

Who were the leaders of that Nicaragua party the plea for fees tells us on page 176 under the title "December, 1898-March 4, 1899, session of Congress." It speaks in the following terms: "Two bills were pending before Congress, one in each House, and they were backed by the official recommendation of the President in his message, and the Maritime Canal Co., with its officials and shareholders, nearly all important figures in politics, was ready in its own interests to furnish anything that might be lacking, if anything was lacking, to the zeal of the ever-active partisans of Nicaragua in Congress led by Senator Morgan in the Senate and Representative Hepburn in the House."

On page 178 the plea for fees further speaks of the two leaders of the common cause of Nicaragua: "Mr. Hepburn was the most earnest and most able champion of Nicaragua in the House, he having ability, power, and vigor on a par [in the original text, correspondant, which means corresponding] with the capable leader of this cause in the Senate, Senator Morgan."

I may be allowed to make a third quotation of the plea for fees, to show distinctly what it pretends the attitude of Representative Hepburn was and what efforts he was ready to make in association with Senator Morgan for promoting the passage of the Nicaragua bill, efforts which the plea for fees pretends to have been baffled by Mr. Cromwell's activities. On page 165 of the Story of Panama we read this passage of the plea for fees: "The chairman of this committee was Senator Morgan, whose stubbornness in favor of Nicaragua was only equaled by his continued efforts in favor of this project * * * In the House of Representatives everything bearing upon the canal was first sent to the Committee on Interstate Commerce. The chairman of this committee was Mr. Hepburn, a man whose entire energy and every attainment was devoted to the success of the Nicaragua bill in Congress."

There we have a graphic description of the situation: Two most able leaders working for the same cause, followed by enthusiastic majorities in each House, have deposited the necessary bill. The plea for fees describes the success of the bill in the Senate on page 178 and we can read in the headline, "The Nicaragua bill is passed in the Senate almost unanimously," and further down that it was speedily passed by a vote of 48 to 6 on January 21, 1899, and was at once sent to the House.

Then we witness, according to the plea for fees, a most unique spectacle sufficiently described by the above extract. It is that of an enthusiastic and large majority in the House led by a most earnest and most able champion of Nicaragua and becoming absolutely incapable of arriving to vote the bill which has already passed the Senate. How can such an extraordinary fact take place? The plea for fees modestly answers: "It was the result of the support we gave to another plan” (p. 179), and the other plan as well as the support to it is said to be Mr. Cromwell's. If that were true, Mr. Cromwell's activities undoubtedly would justify any fees he claims for the influence which the plea for fees pretends his firm had over public men in political life. It is not

only the influence on one man, either Mr. Hay or Mr. Hanna, it is the influence over a whole body of legislators, over a majority enthusiastically devoted to the bill which Mr. Cromwell fights. In spite of the number of its members and of their enthusiasm the majority is held at bay by Mr. Cromwell's only power, according to the plea for fees.

Fortunately for the historical truth, a House of Representatives does not die as a man. It does not carry away to the grave the memory of facts. Its memory is permanent; it lies in its records.

Let us look at the records of the House on this point. What do we see in the report of February 13, 1899 (55th Cong., 3d sess., H. Rept. No. 2104), made by Mr. Hepburn and entitled: "Maritime Canal Co. of Nicaragua." We must expect to see in this document, if we believe the plea for fees, an energetic effort made by the most able leader of Nicaragua in the House in order to complete there the work done by the capable leader of Nicaragua in the Senate, whose power and vigor corresponded to his own. We must find the application of Mr. Hepburn's entire energy devoted to this Nicaragua bill in Congress. We must also find in this document a trace of the backing which Maritime Canal Co. is ready to give, according to the plea for fees, as we have seen.

This is what we must expect if the plea for fees is truthful.

We have there fair and correct occasion of testing again the veracity of the document chosen as the base of the Story of Panama by Mr. Hall. If the test fails for the third time, it shows that the so-called document is fanciful and does not deserve the slightest credence.

We find that the test fails entirely. Far from recommending the adoption of the Senate bill for Nicaragua, the report is simultaneously aggressive against the bill itself and the Maritime Canal Co. Instead of the backing of the company it deserves its ferocious enmity.

On page 3 of the report of Mr. Hepburn the following can be read:

"The Senate bill, for which your committee recommended a substitute, proposes to amend the charter of the Maritime Canal Co., and then reorganizes the company by appointment of a majority of the board of directors by the President of the United States, and then uses that corporation as its agent for constructing and operating the canal. This corporation is created by the United States. It is a creature of the Government. After creating it the Government proposes by the Senate bill to inject itself into the corporation, and thus masquerading it proposes to do a work that it is in every way capable of doing in its own proper person. For what purpose should the Government thus convert itself into a corporation? * It becomes

*
*

a person, artificial person, and takes the position of equality with citizens. As a corporation it may be sued in its own courts and may be fined for contempt by its own judicial servants."

The report thus continues severely attacking the Senate bill and the Maritime Canal Co. of Nicaragua.

There we find the real reason of the impossibility for the Senate bill to open its way through the House.

There the bill finds a lion in the path. It is not Mr. Cromwell's support of another plan. Such an obstacle at first glance appears as unlikely as it would be dishonorable for an enthusiastic majority of any parliament, if it were true.

The real lion in the path is precisely Col. Hepburn.

His entire energy, far from being devoted to the success of the Nicaragua bill in Congress (see p. 165), as is the fictitious assertion of the plea for fees, is in reality devoted on the contrary to the annihilation in the House of the bill as the Senate sent it. He is for a Nicaragua Canal built directly by the Government when the other leader, Mr. Morgan, with his Senate followers, is for a Nicaragua Canal built by a company. The internal strife is intense. Mr. Hepburn calls a masquerade the Morgan proposition and refuses to pass such a bill through the House.

There is the insurmountable obstacle, the memory of which is engraved in the public documents, and which the Senate bill met on its way through the House.

This capital fact is carefully concealed in the plea for fees. Not only is there no trace of it, but assertions to the contrary are inserted in it. It is done with an amazing atidacity, as has been found in the preceding case, where the obvious tampering of the date of Ludlow's report and a similar suppression of the findings of his report were demonstrated.

As to Mr. Cromwell's supposed idea which the plea for fees says has thwarted the efforts of Mr. Hepburn and of his enthusiastic majority (p. 180), the truth is much more simple.

In face of the deadlock created by the inimical and irreconcilable attitude of the two leaders of either faction of the Nicaragua party, something had to be done before the end of the session.

What was done was the creation of a new commission for studying for the last time all the solutions of the isthmian problem. It was in line with the letter written some months before, on the 18th of November, 1898, by the president of the New Panama Canal Co. to the President of the United States. It was in line with the thought of all the people who knew the superiority of Panama over Nicaragua. They were a very small number in those days, but the publication I had made in 1892 (Panama, P. Bunau Varilla; Mason, editeur) had contributed to enlighten their minds. Among them was the eminent man who honored me by his deep and sincere friendship from 1886 till the day of his death in 1911, John Bigelow, who was termed the "grand old man of America" or "the first citizen of New York." Another was Lieut. Commander Baker, United States Navy, who was detailed at the Paris Exposition of 1900. He became my friend during the years he spent in Paris to prepare the exposition, and at the same time an enthusiastic supporter of Panama. Both these friends of mine spent the winter of 1898-99 in Washington and pressed upon those whom they met in high political circles that Panama was, contrary to the general opinion, worth being examined before selecting finally Nicaragua.

Mr. John Bigelow, who had been the ambassador to France sent by Lincoln, had in these remote days, as secretary of legation in Paris, Col. John Hay, who had been before the assassination of Lincoln the President's personal secretary. He had kept ever since the most cordial relations with his brilliant former subordinate.

On the 1st of December, 1898, when the arrival in Washington of the delegates of the New Panama Canal Co. bearing the letter of the 18th of November was announced, Mr. John Bigelow wrote me a letter, from which I extract the following:

"I have no special interest in either enterprise (Panama or Nicaragua). "You have satisfied me that nature anticipated our old friend de Lesseps, in providing for a waterway across this continent at the Isthmus (of Panama), and nowhere else. * * *

"About two weeks ago I wrote to Mr. Hay, our Secretary of State, recommendingas he would be consulted about the President's annual message at the opening of Congress-that the President should say what he thought fit about the importance of a transcontinental waterway, but not to commit himself to the Nicaragua route until he had taken the same measures to investigate the Panama route that he had taken to investigate the Nicaraguan."

It is this idea expressed by Mr. John Bigelow to Mr. Hay before even the new Panama Canal Co. had made the first step toward the American government which matured some months afterwards. The suggestion was followed when it became visible that the session was going to end before anything could be done for Nicaragua. This paralysis was created by the Morgan and the Hepburn factions dividing the Nicaragua party as we have seen.

This gives the true explanation of the decision taken at the end of the session and which the plea for fees explains by a chapter (p. 180) entitled as follows: "We obtain the passage of a bill appointing a new commission to examine the Panama route and report thereon, as also on the other canal routes (Mar. 3, 1899), and by this means we prevent the final passage of the Nicaragua bill."

We know that the last assertion is absolutely fictitious; we know that it is due to the stubbornness of both Morgan and Hepburn. We know also that the plea for fees has carefully withheld any reference to the fight between two irreconcilable enemies and presented them as associating their common efforts for the passage of the Nicaragua bill.

No clearer adulteration of facts established by official documentation could be imagined.

These facts related with the second important point demonstrate:

First. The lack of veracity of Messrs. Sullivan and Cromwell's plea for fees when it speaks of Mr. Hepburn as of "a man whose entire energy and every attainment was devoted to the success of the Nicaragua bill in Congress" (p. 165) and conceals the real fact that he was stubbornly opposed to the passage through the House of the Nicaragua Senate bill devised by Mr. Morgan.

Second. The lack of veracity of Messrs. Sullivan and Cromwell's plea for fees when it describes, on page 176, Senator Morgan, Representative Hepburn with their respective following and the Maritime Canal of Nicaragua as working with enthusiasm for a common cause at a time when the deepest division existing between them separated their party into two warring factions. The lack of veracity consists in the deceitful system of speaking of their common aim, which was a canal at Nicaragua, and of withholding any reference to the war waging on the question of its construction. Hepburn

The letter to Mr. Hay was therefore written before the letter of the President of the New Panama Canal Co. in Paris to the President of the United States in Washington.

wished a law ordering it to be made by the United States and Morgan by the Maritime Canal Co.

Third. The lack of veracity of Messrs. Sullivan and Cromwell's plea for fees when it conceals the aggressive report of Mr. Hepburn February 13, 1899, against the Morgan bill and the Maritime Canal Co. as set forth in House Report No. 2104, Fifty-fifth Congress, third session, which forms an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of the Morgan Nicaragua bill.

The lack of veracity consisting in concealing this report is explained by the fictitious claim of the plea for fees that the obstacle to the passage of the Morgan bill through the House was Mr. Cromwell's activities thus expressed: “As a result of the support we gave to this plan the efforts of the Nicaragua party failed and this party being incapable to bring its bill to a vote, etc. (p. 179).

* *

The consequence of this demonstration is exactly the same as that of the one referring to the first point. It shows again that a document found to be so absolutely deficient in veracity as to material facts registered by official documents is the most unfit base for writing the history of Panama. This will be further confirmed by the other examples I shall give of this lack of veracity.

THIRD DEMONSTRATION OF AN ABSOLUTE LACK OF VERACITY ON A GIVEN POINT IN MESSRS. SULLIVAN & CROMWELL'S PLEA FOR FEES.

The point I am going to examine is that of Mr. Cromwell's dismissal from the company's service.

It is a good point to probe the veracity of the plea for fees. If it is truthful it will state the fact in a few words. It will exhibit how afterwards on Mr. Hanna's request he was taken back again in spite of the company's reluctance.

Let us see how the plea of fees translates the fact. On page 196 there is a heading telling the story in these terms: "July 1, 1901, January 27, 1902-Our instructions are to cease all activity." Under this heading one can read: "For the period from July 1, 1901, to January 22, 1902, we have no responsibility as during that period the company for reasons it deemed sufficient ordered the cessation of all activity in the United States and took over the management of the affair, relieving us of all responsibility during that period."

On page 198 we further see under the heading "1902-January 27, resumption of our activities." we read what follows: "The above résumé shows only too clearly that the situation of the cause of Panama at this moment was in truth dangerous and desperate. In these circumstances the company cabled to Mr. Cromwell asking him to resume his former connection and activity as general counsel of the company in charge of the matter."

Who would think after reading such a relation of events that Mr. Cromwell ever was dismissed from the service and taken back thanks to the influence of his friend Mr. Edward Simmons over Senator Hanna? The reader believes that Mr. Cromwell simply received instructions to take the attitude of silent expectation, and that the company in despair when their situation became desperate cabled him to be active again.

This is the most complete disfiguration of facts which could be produced.

In fact. Mr. Cromwell was politely dismissed from the service by the following letter:

[Translations.]

PARIS, June 19, 1901.

DEAR SIR: We have the honor of informing you that in the meeting of June 14 last our committees have esteemed that in the actual situation there was a necessity for the company to manage directly all their business in the United States without the employment of any intermediate agent. It has, therefore, been decided that your situation as counsel of the company in the United States would come to an end on the date of June 30 next.

We address you the thanks of the company to the care you have taken of their business.

Please, etc.

HUTIN.

There is a positive lack of veracity in translating such a letter by: Our instructions are to cease all activity.

There is an equal and obvious lack of veracity in stating also that, the situation being desperate, the company cabled to Mr. Cromwell to resume this activity which he had been, as he says, instructed to suspend.

At the end of January, 1902, for the first time the victory of Panama was dawning and rendered at last material by an extremely weighty fact. The most important