Reaction to Roosevelt’s Panama Policy

The building of the canal, the bringing of Panama under an American protectorate, the tacit acquiescence of all the world in American action, the refusal of any great Power to protest or to encourage Colombia to thwart American ambition were all gratifying to American amour proper.

Continuing USA Acquires Rights to Build the Panama Canal,
with a selection from Article in Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 20 by A. Maurice Low published in 1914. This selection is presented in 2 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in USA Acquires Rights to Build the Panama Canal.

Time: 1903

President Roosevelt’s action in so promptly recognizing the new Republic, and entering into full diplomatic relations with it before the adoption of a constitution or the election of a president, met with general approval, although it aroused some opposition, principally among his political opponents, who accused him of having connived at the revolution for the purpose of obtaining the canal, an end which did not justify the means. But public opinion as a whole supported the President. For more than half a century the American people had cherished the hope of an isthmian canal; the Spanish – American War had shown them that it was a military as well as a political and commercial necessity; and when Colombia was finally induced to negotiate a treaty, it seemed as if these hopes were at last to be realized and the dream of visionaries translated into substantial achievement. But there was another reason why the majority of the American people sanctioned the course of the President without caring to split hairs too finely. The building of the canal, the bringing of Panama under an American protectorate, the tacit acquiescence of all the world in American action, the refusal of any great Power to protest or to encourage Colombia to thwart American ambition were all gratifying to American amour proper. Furthermore, it was another recognition by the world of the Monroe Doctrine and the hegemony of the United States in North America.

The action of the United States in making it possible for Panama to gain and maintain her independence was a stern object lesson to all South America. The people noticed that the United States was tired of the continual unseemly brawling which is the Latin-American idea of government. The Isthmus of Panama is one of the world ‘ s great highways, and it was a highway made dangerous and difficult to travelers because of never-ending revolution. The material interests of the United States, the interests of all the world, made it necessary that peace and security should prevail where before only disorder and danger existed. In reality the United States, and not Panama, will now be the sovereign Power on the Isthmus. Many thoughtful Americans have long believed that the United States, for its own protection, must be the “overlord” of all Central America. The treaty with Panama is the first step, and a long step, toward that goal.

President Roosevelt in his annual message to Congress which met in regular session December 7, 1903, discussing the canal, used this language: “For four hundred years the canal across the isthmus has been planned. For two-score years it has been worked at. When made, it is to last for the ages. . . . Last spring a treaty concluded between the representatives of the Republic of Colombia and of our Government was ratified by the Senate. This treaty was entered into at the urgent solicitation of the people of Colombia, and after a body of experts, appointed by our Government specially to go into the matter of the routes across the isthmus, had pronounced unanimously in favor of the Panama route. In drawing up this treaty every concession was made to the people and to the Government of Colombia. . . . . In our scrupulous desire to pay all possible heed, not merely to the real but even to the fancied rights of our weaker neighbor, who already owed so much to our protection and forbearance, we yielded in all possible ways to her desires in drawing up the treaty. Nevertheless, the Government of Colombia not merely repudiated the treaty, but repudiated it in such a manner as to make it evident by the time the Colombian Congress adjourned that not the scantiest hope remained of ever getting a satisfactory treaty from them. The Government of Colombia made the treaty, and yet when the Colombian Congress was called to ratify it the vote against ratification was unanimous. It does not appear that the Government made any real effort to secure ratification.”

The President gave a list of the revolutions in Panama since 1850 — fifty-three in fifty-three years — and added: “In short, the experience of more than 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. . . . The control, in the interest of commerce and traffic of the whole civilized world, of the means of undisturbed transit across the Isthmus of Panama, has become of transcendent importance to the United States. We have repeatedly exercised this control by intervening in the course of domestic dissension, and by protecting the territory from foreign invasion. . . . 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 November 3rd 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 governmental 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 private enterprise, or by any other nation than our own; therefore, it must be built by the United States”

The treaty was at once submitted to the Senate, and after some delay was ratified in January, 1904.

A. Maurice Low begins here. Chauncey M. Depew begins here.

More information here and here, and below.

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