of the true owner; it seized by the strong hand of military power the rights which it was bound to protect; Colombia itself broke the bonds of union and destroyed the compact upon which alone depended its right to represent the owner of the soil. The question for the United States was, Shall we take this treaty from the true owner or shall we take it from the faithless trustee, and for that purpose a third time put back the yoke of foreign domination upon the neck of Panama, by the request of that Government which has tried to play toward us the part of the highwayman? There was no provision of our treaty with Colombia which required us to answer to her call, for our guaranty of her sovereignty in that treaty relates solely to foreign aggression. There was no rule of international law which required us to recognize the wrongs of Panama or the justice of her cause, for international law does not concern itself with the internal affairs of States. But I put it to the conscience of the American people who are passing judgment upon the action of their Government, whether the decision of our President and Secretary of State and the Senate was not a righteous decision.

By all the principles of justice among men and among nations that we have learned from our fathers and all peoples and all governments should maintain, the revolutionists in Panama were right, the people of Panama were entitled to be free again, the Isthmus was theirs and they were entitled to govern it; and it would have been a shameful thing for the Government of the United States to return them again to servitude.

It is hardly necessary to say now that our Government had no part in devising, fomenting, or bringing about the revolution on the Isthmus of Panama. President Roosevelt said in his message to Congress of January 4, 1904:

I hesitate to refer to the injurious insinuations which have been made of complicity by this Government in the revolutionary movement in Panama. They are as destitute of foundation as of propriety. The only excuse for my mentioning them is the fear lest unthinking persons might mistake for acquiescence the silence of mere selfrespect. I think proper to say, therefore, that no one connected with this Government had any part in preparing, inciting, or encouraging the late revolution on the Isthmus of Panama, and that save from the reports of our naval and military officers, given above, no one connected with this Government had any previous knowledge of the revolution except such as was accessible to any person of ordinary intelligence who read the newspapers and kept up a current acquaintance with public affairs.

The people of the United States, without distinction of party, will give to that statement their unquestioning belief.

All the world knew that there would be a rising by the people of Panama if the Colombian Congress adjourned without approving the treaty, as it did adjourn on the 31st of October. The newspapers of the United States were filled with statements to that effect, and our State and Navy Departments could not fail to be aware of it. They took the same steps they had always taken under similar circumstances to have naval vessels present to keep the transit open and protect American life and property. If any criticism is to be made upon their course, it is that there was too little rather than too much prevision and preparation. There was no naval vessel of the United States at the City of Panama, and there were no armed forces of the United States there when the rising occurred. There was one small vessel at Colon which was able to land a force of 42 marines and bluejackets; that was the entire force which the United States had on

the Isthmus at the time of the revolution. They were landed at Colon as our troops had many times before been landed, and they were landed under these circumstances: On the morning of November 3, the day of the rising at Panama, about 450 Colombian troops landed at Colon and their two generals proceeded by rail to the City of Panama, where they were arrested and placed in confinement by the insurgents, who had been joined by all the Colombian troops on the Isthmus except the 450 just landed, and who had a force of 1,500 men under arms. On the morning of the next day, the 4th of November, the remaining commander of this body of Colombian troops in Colon sent a notice to the American consul that if the officers who had been arrested by the insurgents in Panama the evening before were not released by 2 o'clock p. m. he would open fire on the town of Colon and kill every United States citizen in the place. There was then no American armed force of any description on the soil of the Isthmus. The Nashville was in the harbor. The American consul appealed to the commander of the Nashville for protection, and he landed the 42 marines and bluejackets. They took possession of the shed of the Panama Railroad Co., a stone building capable of defense, collected there the American men residing in Colon, sent the American women and children on board of a Panama Railroad steamer and a German steamer which were lying at the dock, and prepared to receive the threatened attack. The building was surrounded by the Colombian troops, and for an hour and a half this little force stood to its arms ready to fire and expecting to receive the threatened and apparently intended attack of ten times their number. Then cooler judgment prevailed with the Colombian officers, and the tension was relieved. On the following day a renewal of the threatening attitude of the Colombian troops led to a reoccupation of the railroad shed and a return of the women. and children to the steamers; but again the danger passed without conflict; and on the evening of the second day, the 5th of November, after conferences with the insurgent leaders, in which the American officers took no part, the Colombian troops boarded a Colombian ship and sailed away from the harbor of Colon, leaving no Colombian force on the Isthmus. The commander of the Nashville closes his report of these occurrences in these words:

I beg to assure the department that I had no part whatever in the negotiations that were carried on between Col. Torres and the representatives of the provisional government; that I landed an armed force only when the lives of American citizens were threatened, and withdrew this force as soon as there seemed to be no ground for further apprehension of injury to American lives and property; that I relanded an armed force because of the failure of Col. Torres to carry out his agreement to withdraw and announced intention to return; and that my attitude throughout was strictly neutral as between the two parties, my only purpose being to protect the lives and property of American citizens and to preserve the free and uninterrupted transit of the Isthmus.

Objection has been made that owing to American direction the Panama Railroad Co. refused to transport the 450 Colombian soldiers to Panama to attack the 1,500 insurgents in arms there, and that the officers of the American Government were directed to prevent any troops of either party from making the line of the railroad the theater of hostilities; but this was no new policy devised or applied for this occasion; and it was impartial as to both parties to the controversy. The insurgents were anxious that the transportation should be given,

when it was refused they asked for transportation for themselves to attack the Colombians in Colon, and that was refused. The year before a communication had been sent to the Commander of the Colombian forces and the commander of the insurgent forces on the Isthmus in these words:

U. S. S. "CINCINNATI," September 19, 1902.

DEAR SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the United States naval forces are guarding the railway trains and the line of transit across the Isthmus of Panama from sea to sea, and that no persons whatever will be allowed to obstruct, embarrass, or interfere in any manner with the trains or the route of transit. No armed men except forces of the United States will be allowed to come on or use the line.

All of this is without prejudice or any desire to interfere in domestic contentions of the Colombians.

Please acknowledge receipt of this communication.

With assurances of high esteem and consideration, I remain,
Very respectfully,

T. C. MCLEAN,
Commander, United States Navy, Commanding.

The policy embodied in this official notice of 1902 was the same policy followed in November, 1903, and none other; it was the outcome of the experience gained during the long course of warfare and the painful experinece of property destroyed and traffic suspended, which showed that if the rights of the United States on the Isthmus of Panama were to be protected they must be protected by the United States itself insisting that its right of way should not be made the field of battle, as it had been in 1885, when Colon was burned with the railroad terminals and wharves, when Panama was captured, track was torn up, cars were broken open, telegraph wires were cut and armored trains were a necessity. The warrant for the execution of that policy is the right of self-protection. The things done by our officers might not have been permissible in the territory of a country of strong and orderly government possessing and exercising the power to prevent lawless violence and to protect the lives and property of citizens and foreigners alike; but action of this character is, according to the universal rules obtaining among civilized nations, not only permissible, but a duty of the highest obligation in countries whose feeble governments exercise imperfect control in their own territory and fail to perform the duties of sovereignty for the protection of life and property. The armed force of American sailors who during the past few weeks have been protecting American life and property in the friendly capital of Korea have not been making war upon that power. The expeditionary force which marched to Peking under Chaffee in the summer of 1900, and carrying the capital of China by assault, rescued the resident of the American legation, was not making war upon that nation, which relies with just confidence upon our constant friendship. In that category of incapacity to protect the rights of others, Colombia has placed herself as to the Isthmus of Panama by the record of the past years. She could not maintain order upon the Isthmus because she did not seek to maintain justice; she could not command respect for her laws because she had abandoned the rule of law and submitted to the control of an arbitrary dictator. The right of selfprotection for American interests rested upon these facts emphasized and enforced by the grant of power in the treaty of 1846, and by Colombia's own appeals to the American Government to intervene for the maintenance of order.

It was not the neutral force of 42 marines and bluejackets, or anything that the American Government or American officers said or did, that led the 450 Colombians to retire from Colon; it was the fact that they found themselves alone among a hostile and unanimous people with an overwhelming insurgent force in arms against them which left no alternative but capture or retreat. The recognition of independence and the treaty with Panama are the real grounds of Colombia's complaint, and upon the justice of those acts America stands, fairly, openly, with full disclosure of every step taken and every object sought.

Upon the firm foundation of that righteous action, with the willing authority of the lawful owners of the soil, we will dig the canal, not for selfish reasons, not for greed of gain, but for the world's commerce, benefiting Colombia most of all. We shall not get back the money we spend upon the canal any more than we shall get back the money we have expended to make Cuba a free and independent Republic, or the money we have expended to set the people of the Philippines on the path of ordered liberty and competency for self-government. But we shall promote our commerce, we shall unite our Atlantic and Pacific coasts, we shall render inestimable service to mankind, and we shall grow in greatness and honor and in the strength that comes from difficult tasks accomplished and from the exercise of the power that strives in the nature of a great constructive people.

THE PANAMA CANAL.

[Editorial from the Outlook of October 7, 1911, by Theodore Roosevelt.]

No other great work now being carried on throughout the world is of such far-reaching and lasting importance as the Panama Canal. Never before has a work of this kind on so colossal a scale been attempted. Never has any work of the kind, of anything approaching the size, been done with such efficiency, with such serious devotion to the well-being of the innumerable workmen, and with a purpose at once so lofty and so practical. No three men in the service of any Government anywhere represent a higher, more disinterested, and more efficient type than the three men now at the head of this work the Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson; Col. Goethals, the man who is actually doing the digging; and Dr. Gorgas, who has turned one of the festering pestholes of the world into what is almost a health resort. In eighteen months or so the canal will probably be in a shape that will warrant sending small vessels through it to test its actual working. Under these circumstances, it is worth while to remember just how it was that America won for itself and the world the right to do a world job which had to be done by some one, and the doing of which by anyone else would have been not merely a bitter mortification but a genuine calamity to our people.

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 Panama 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.

The facts were set forth in full at the time in the two messages to which I have referred. I can only recapitulate them briefly, and in condensed form. Of course there was at the time, and has been since, much repetition of statements that I acted in an "unconstitutional" manner, that I "usurped authority" which was not mine. These were the statements that were made again and again in reference to almost all I did as President that was most beneficial and most important to the people of this country, to whom I was responsible, and of whose interests I was the steward. The simple fact was, as Í have elsewhere said, that when the interest of the American people imperatively demanded that a certain act should be done, and I had