integral and important part of our national policy."

And if we now admit Great Britain to exactly the same participation in privileges without the obligations originally demanded what becomes of such policy as was so persistently upheld?

Why did not Senator Root in fairness quote from the communication from Mr. Blaine to Mr. Lowell, November 19, 1881, in which Mr. Blaine objected to the perpetuity of the Treaty on the ground that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

gave the same right through the Canal to a warship bent upon an errand of destruction to the United States coasts, as to a vessel of the American Navy sailing for their defense, and that the United States demanded for its own defense the right to use only the same prevision as Great Britain so emphatically employed in respect of the Suez route, by the possession of strategic and fortified post and otherwise, for the defense of the British Empire.

No one doubts but that the United States would have made a treaty exchanging an agreement for equal treatment through the Canal for absolute control of the Canal as a war power about that time.

But Lord Granville was not ready to acquiesce in any concession.

President Arthur, December, 1881, in strong language stated the position of the United States as follows:

Meanwhile this Government learned that Colombia had proposed to the European powers to join in a guarantee of the neutrality of the proposed Panama Canal— a guarantee which would be in direct contravention of our obligations as the sole guarantor of the integrity of Colombian territory and of the neutrality of the Canal itself. My lamented predecessor felt it his duty to place before the European powers the reasons which make the prior guarantee of the United States indispensable, and for which the interjection of any foreign guarantee might be regarded as a superfluous and unfriendly act.

Senator Root quotes statements made by Mr. Blaine in 1881 and Mr. Cass in 1857, thirty-three and fifty-six years ago and says that it was such self-denying and solemn assurance that the United States sought a notification of the Clayton-Bulwer Convention and entered into the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty with the clause continuing the principle of Clause VIII which embodied the declarations of equality and the clause establishing the rule of equality taken from the Suez Canal Convention.

Even Senator Root must confess that Article VIII of the Clayton-Bulwer Convention covers neutrality as well as equal treatment and the careful pruning of the Suez Canal rules of every reference to equal treatment certainly shows how far afield Senator Root has had to go to found his

case.

His case rests largely upon the fact that under

the conditions existing in 1850 and for a number of years after the necessary capital had perforce to come from Europe and hence we were making as sure that we should preserve all rights possible.

What was thought adequate up to the eighties was totally inadequate in 1900. I do not charge misquotation at all but certainly we see numerous examples of intentionally misleading quotation similar to picking one rule out of an article and giving it all the force it would have if it were unlimited and unqualified.

No one can follow Senator Root in his claim that President Roosevelt's statement that we were carrying on a great work in the interest of mankind gives rise to an argument that we could not profit as a people generally as well as through specific collection of tolls. We do not debate the passage of the Canal but hold it free to the use of all nations upon equal terms, except such as will extend to us reciprocal advantages for special privileges as will be done when the people understand the simple problems involved.

Why did not Senator Root in his contentions respecting coasting trade citing long ago intentions of the United States quote the clearly expressed attitude of this country as enunciated in the message of President Hayes when Mr. Evarts was Secretary of State:

The policy of this country is a Canal under American

control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this control to any European power or to any combination of European powers. The Canal would be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and virtually a part of the coast line of the United States.

I have looked in vain for any renunciation of this stand. To argue that Great Britain through our agreeing to neutralize a canal, still has an overlordship of territory under our sovereignty, putting our territory under the servitude of a foreign power is to destroy our sovereign rights on the Isthmus. Senator Root flouts this sovereignty in his Senate speech of January 21, 1913, saying of the Canal Zone:

It is not our territory except in trust.

The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty does not bear out this statement. Article III of that treaty between Panama and the United States says:

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, powers and authority within the zone mentioned, which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said lands and water are located, to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority.

And under Article XIV covering the payment of the fixed sum of $10,000,000.00 and an annual payment after nine years of $250,000.00 we find:

But no delay or difference of opinion under this article

or any other provisions shall affect or interrupt the full operation and effect of this convention in all other respects.

As regards the grant of land in the Zone, Justice Brewer decided that such a grant necessarily carried the fee title as it entirely excluded the rights, present or reversionary, of any other proprietor. If the United States has all the rights, power and authority within the Zone, which its sovereignty of the Zone could possess, and is to exercise these powers in perpetuity to the entire exclusion of the enjoyment by the Republic of Panama of any such rights, power or authority, it is manifest that there is but one sovereign over the Zone and that it is the United States.

Jefferson in doubt as to the Constitutional right to take over the Louisiana Purchase was given an opinion by Chief Justice Marshall as follows:

The Constitution confers absolutely upon the Government of the Union the powers of making war and of making treaties; consequently, that Government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty.

And if we wish British endorsement we find in the protest of Sir Edward Grey:

Now that the United States has become the practical sovereign of the Canal, His Majesty's Government do