In taking the oath of office at Buffalo, Roosevelt promised to
continue President McKinley's policies. And this he set about
doing loyally. He retained McKinley's Cabinet,* who were working
out the adjustments already agreed upon. McKinley was probably
the best-natured President who ever occupied the White House. He
instinctively shrank from hurting anybody's feelings. Persons who
went to see him in dudgeon, to complain against some act which
displeased them, found him "a bower of roses," too sweet and soft
to be treated harshly. He could say "no" to applicants for office
so gently that they felt no resentment. For twenty years he had
advocated a protective tariff so mellifluously, and he believed
so sincerely in its efficacy, that he could at any time hypnotize
himself by repeating his own phrases. If he had ever studied the
economic subject, it was long ago, and having adopted the tenets
which an Ohio Republican could hardly escape from adopting, he
never revised them or even questioned their validity. His
protectionism, like cheese, only grew stronger with age. As a
politician, he was so hospitable that in the campaign of 1896,
which was fought to maintain the gold standard and the financial
honesty of the United States, he showed very plainly that he had
no prejudice against free silver, and it was only at the last
moment that the Republican managers could persuade him to take a
firm stand for gold.
* In April, 1901, J. W. Griggs had retired as Attorney-General
and was succeeded by P. C. Knox; in January, 1902, C. E. Smith
was replaced by H. W. Payne as Postmaster-General.
The chief business which McKinley left behind him, the work which
Roosevelt took up and carried on, concerned Imperialism. The
Spanish War forced this subject to the front by leaving us in
possession of the Philippines and by bequeathing to us the
responsibility for Cuba and Porto Rico. We paid Spain for the
Philippines, and in spite of constitutional doubts as to how a
Republic like the United States could buy or hold subject
peoples, we proceeded to conquer those islands and to set up an
American administration in them. We also treated Porto Rico as a
colony, to enjoy the blessing of our rule. And while we allowed
Cuba to set up a Republic of her own, we made it very clear that
our benevolent protection was behind her.
All this constituted Imperialism, against which many of our
soberest citizens protested. They alleged that as a doctrine it
contradicted the fundamental principles on which our nation was
built. Since the Declaration of Independence, America had stood
before the world as the champion and example of Liberty, and by
our Civil War she had purged her self of Slavery. Imperialism
made her the mistress of peoples who had never been consulted.
Such moral inconsistency ought not to be tolerated. In addition
to it was the political danger that lay in holding possessions on
the other side of the Pacific. To keep them we must be prepared
to defend them, and defense would involve maintaining a naval and
military armament and of stimulating a warlike spirit, repugnant
to our traditions. In short, Imperialism made the United States a
World Power, and laid her open to its perils and entanglements.
But while a minority of the men and women of sober judgment and
conscience opposed Imperialism, the large majority accepted it,
and among these was Theodore Roosevelt. He believed that the
recent war had involved us in a responsibility which we could not
evade if we would. Having destroyed Spanish sovereignty in the
Philippines, we must see to it that the people of those islands
were protected. We could not leave them to govern themselves
because they had no experience in government; nor could we dodge
our obligation by selling them to any other Power. Far from
hesitating because of legal or moral doubts, much less of
questioning our ability to perform this new task, Roosevelt
embraced Imperialism, with all its possible issues, boldly not to
say exultantly. To him Imperialism meant national strength, the
acknowledgment by the American people that the United States are
a World Power and that they would not shrink from taking up any
burden which that distinction involved.
When President Cleveland, at the end of 1895, sent his swingeing
message in regard to the Venezuelan Boundary quarrel, Roosevelt
was one of the first to foresee the remote consequences. And by
the time he himself became President, less than six years later,
several events--our taking of the Hawaiian Islands, the Spanish
War, the island possessions which it saddled upon us--confirmed
his conviction that the United States could no longer live
isolated from the great interests and policies of the world, but
must take their place among the ruling Powers. Having reached
national maturity we must accept Expansion as the logical and
normal ideal for our matured nation. Cleveland had laid down that
the Monroe Doctrine was inviolable; Roosevelt insisted that we
must not only bow to it in theory, but be prepared to defend it
if necessary by force of arms.
Very naturally, therefore, Roosevelt encouraged the passing of
legislation needed to complete the settlement of our relations
with our new possessions. He paid especial attention to the men
he sent to administer the Philippines, and later he was able to
secure the services of W. Cameron Forbes as Governor-General. Mr.
Forbes proved to be a Viceroy after the best British model and he
looked after the interest of his wards so honestly and
competently that conditions in the Philippines improved rapidly,
and the American public in general felt no qualms over possessing
them. But the Anti-Imperialists, to whom a moral issue does not
cease to be moral simply because it has a material sugar-coating,
kept up their protest.
There were, however, matters of internal policy; along with them
Roosevelt inherited several foreign complications which he at
once grappled with. In the Secretary of State, John Hay, he had a
remarkable helper. Henry Adams told me that Hay was the first
"man of the world" who had ever been Secretary of State. While
this may be disputed, nobody can fail to see some truth in
Adams's assertion. Hay had not only the manners of a gentleman,
but also the special carriage of a diplomat. He was polite,
affable, and usually accessible, without ever losing his innate
dignity. An indefinable reserve warded off those who would either
presume or indulge in undue familiarity His quick wits kept him
always on his guard. His main defect was his unwillingness to
regard the Senate as having a right to pass judgment on his
treaties. And instead of being compliant and compromising, he
injured his cause with the Senators by letting them see too
plainly that he regarded them as interlopers, and by peppering
them with witty but not agreeable sarcasm. In dealing with
foreign diplomats, on the other hand, he was at his best. They
found him polished, straightforward, and urbane. He not only
produced on them the impression of honesty, but he was honest. In
all his diplomatic correspondence, whether he was writing
confidentially to American representatives or was addressing
official notes to foreign governments, I do not recall a single
hint of double-dealing. Hay was the velvet glove, Roosevelt the
hand of steel.
For many years Canada and the United States had enjoyed
grievances towards each other, grievances over fisheries, over
lumber, and other things, no one of which was worth going to war
for. The discovery of gold in the Klondike, and the rush thither
of thousands of fortune-seekers, revived the old question of the
Alaskan Boundary; for it mattered a great deal whether some of
the gold-fields were Alaskan--that is, American-or Canadian.
Accordingly, a joint High Commission was appointed towards the
end of McKinley's first administration to consider the claims and
complaints of the two countries. The Canadians, however, instead
of settling each point on its own merits, persisted in bringing
in a list of twelve grievances which varied greatly in
importance, and this method favored trading one claim against
another. The result was that the Commission, failing to agree,
disbanded. Nevertheless, the irritation continued, and Roosevelt,
having become President, and being a person who was
constitutionally opposed to shilly-shally, suggested to the State
Department that a new Commission be appointed under conditions
which would make a decision certain. He even went farther, he
took precautions to assure a verdict in favor of the United
States. He appointed three Commissioners--Senators Lodge, Root,
and Turner; the Canadians appointed two, Sir A. L. Jette and A.
B. Aylesworth; the English representative was Alverstone, the
Lord Chief Justice.
The President gave to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the
Supreme Court, who was going abroad for the summer, a letter
which he was "indiscreetly" to show Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour,
and two or three other prominent Englishmen. In this letter he
wrote:
'The claims of the Canadians for access to deep water along any
part of the Alaskan Coast is just exactly as indefensible as if
they should now suddenly claim the Island of Nantucket ....
'I believe that no three men [the President said] in the United
States could be found who would be more anxious than our own
delegates to do justice to the British claim on all points where
there is even a color of right on the British side. But the
objection raised by certain Canadian authorities to Lodge, Root,
and Turner, and especially to Lodge and Root, was that they had
committed themselves on the general proposition. No man in public
life in any position of prominence could have possibly avoided
committing himself on the proposition, any more than Mr.
Chamberlain could avoid committing himself on the question of the
ownership of the Orkneys if some Scandinavian country suddenly
claimed them. If this claim embodied other points as to which
there was legitimate doubt, I believe Mr. Chamberlain would act
fairly and squarely in deciding the matter; but if he appointed a
commission to settle up all these questions, I certainly should
not expect him to appoint three men, if he could find them, who
believed that as to the Orkneys the question was an open one.
'I wish to make one last effort to bring about an agreement
through the Commission [he said in closing] which will enable the
people of both countries to say that the result represents the
feeling of the representatives of both countries. But if there is
a disagreement, I wish it distinctly understood, not only that
there will be no arbitration of the matter, but that in my
message to Congress I shall take a position which will prevent
any possibility of arbitration hereafter; a position . . . which
will render it necessary for Congress to give me the authority to
run the line as we claim it, by our own people, without any
further regard to the attitude of England and Canada. If I paid
attention to mere abstract rights, that is the position I ought
to take anyhow. I have not taken it because I wish to exhaust
every effort to have the affair settled peacefully and with due
regard to England's honor.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 209, 210.
In due time the Commission gave a decision in favor of the
American contention. Lord Alverstone, who voted with the
Americans, was suspected of having been chosen by the British
Government because they knew his opinion, but I do not believe
that this was true. A man of his honor, sitting in such a
tribunal, would not have voted according to instructions from
anybody.
Roosevelt's brusque way of bringing the Alaska Boundary Question
to a quick decision, may be criticised as not being judicial. He
took the short cut, just as he did years before in securing a
witness against the New York saloon-keepers who destroyed the
lives of thousands of boys and girls by making them drunkards.
Strictly, of course, if the boundary dispute was to be submitted
to a commission, he ought to have allowed the other party to
appoint its own commissioners without any suggestion from him.
But as the case had dragged on interminably, and he believed, and
the world believed, and the Canadians themselves knew, that they
intended to filibuster and postpone as long as possible, he took
the common-sense way to a settlement. If he had resolved, as he
had, to draw the boundary line "on his own hook," in case there
was further pettifogging he committed no impropriety in warning
the British statesmen of his purpose. In judging these
Rooseveltian short cuts, the reader must decide whether they were
justified by the good which they achieved.
Of even greater importance was the understanding reached, under
Roosevelt's direction, with the British Government in regard to
the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. By the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, the United States and Great
Britain agreed to maintain free and uninterrupted passage across
the Isthmus, and, further, that neither country should "obtain or
maintain to itself any control over the said ship-canal," or
"assume or exercise any dominion . . . over any part of Central
America." The ship canal talked about as a probability in 1850
had become a necessity by 1900. During the Spanish-American War,
the American battleship Oregon had been obliged. to make the
voyage round Cape Horn, from San Francisco to Cuba, and this
served to impress on the people of the United States the really
acute need of a canal across the Isthmus, so that in time of war
with a powerful enemy, our Atlantic fleet and our Pacific fleet
might quickly pass from one coast to another. It would obviously
be impossible for us to play the role of a World Power unless we
had this short line of communication. But the conditions of
peace, not less than the emergencies of war, called for a canal.
International commerce, as well as our own, required the saving
of thousands of miles of distance.
About 1880, the French under Count De Lesseps undertook to
construct a canal from Panama to Aspinwall, but after half a
dozen years the French company suspended work, partly for
financial reasons, and partly on account of the enormous loss of
life among the diggers from the pestilent nature of the climate
and the country. Then followed a period of waiting, until it
seemed certain that the French would never resume operations.
American promoters pressed the claims of a route through
Nicaragua where they could secure concessions. But it became
clear that an enterprise of such far reaching political
importance as a trans-Isthmian canal, should be under
governmental control. John Hay had been less than a year in the
Department of State when he set about negotiating with England a
treaty which should embody his ideas. In Sir Julian Pauncefote,
the British Ambassador at Washington, he had a most congenial man
to deal with. Both were gentlemen, both were firmly convinced
that a canal must be constructed for the good of civilization,
both held that to assure the friendship of the two great branches
of the English-speaking race should be the transcendent aim of
each. They soon made a draft of a treaty which was submitted to
the Senate,,but the Senators so amended it that the British
Government refused to accept their amendments, and the project
failed. Hay was so terribly chagrined at the Senate's
interference that he wished to resign. There could be no doubt
now, however, that if the canal had been undertaken on the terms
of his first treaty, it would never have satisfied the United
States and it would probably have been a continual source of
international irritation. Roosevelt was at that time Governor of
New York, and I quote the following letter from him to Hay
because it shows how clearly he saw the objections to the treaty,
and the fundamental principles for the control of an Isthmian
canal:
Albany, Feb. 18, 1900
'I hesitated long before I said anything about the treaty through
sheer dread of two moments--that in which I should receive your
note, and that in which I should receive Cabot's.* But I made up
my mind that at least I wished to be on record; for to my mind
this step is one backward, and it may be fraught with very great
mischief. You have been the greatest Secretary of State I have
seen in my time--Olney comes second--but at this moment I can
not, try as I may, see that you are right. Understand me. When
the treaty is adopted, as I suppose it will be, I shall put the
best face possible on it, and shall back the Administration as
heartily as ever, but oh, how I wish you and the President would
drop the treaty and push through a bill to build AND FORTIFY our
own canal.
* Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who also opposed the first treaty.
'My objections are twofold. First, as to naval policy. If the
proposed canal had been in existence in '98, the Oregon could
have come more quickly through to the Atlantic; but this fact
would have been far outweighed by the fact that Cervera's fleet
would have had open to it the chance of itself going through the
canal, and thence sailing to attack Dewey or to menace our
stripped Pacific Coast. If that canal is open to the warships of
an enemy, it is a menace to us in time of war; it is an added
burden, an additional strategic point to be guarded by our fleet.
If fortified by us, it becomes one of the most potent sources of
our possible sea strength. Unless so fortified it strengthens
against us every nation whose fleet is larger than our own. One
prime reason for fortifying our great seaports, is to unfetter
our fleet, to release it for offensive purposes; and the proposed
canal would fetter it again, for our fleet would have to watch
it, and therefore do the work which a fort should do; and what it
could do much better.
'Secondly, as to the Monroe Doctrine. If we invite foreign powers
to a joint ownership, a joint guarantee, of what so vitally
concerns us but a little way from our borders, how can we
possibly object to similar joint action, say in Southern Brazil
or Argentina, where our interests are so much less evident? If
Germany has the same right that we have in the canal across
Central America, why not in the partition of any part of Southern
America? To my mind, we should consistently refuse to all
European powers the right to control in any shape, any territory
in the Western Hemisphere which they do not already hold.
'As for existing treaties--I do not admit the "dead hand" of the
treaty making power in the past. A treaty can always be honorably
abrogated--though it must never be abrogated in dishonest
fashion.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 339-41.
Fortunately, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, remained
benevolently disposed towards the Isthmian Canal, and in the
following year he consented to take up the subject again. A new
treaty embodying the American amendments and the British
objections was drafted, and passed the Senate a few months after
Roosevelt became President. Its vital provisions were, that it
abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States
full ownership and control of the proposed canal.
This was the second illustration of Roosevelt's masterfulness in
cutting through a diplomatic knot. Arrangements for constructing
the Canal itself forced on him a third display of his dynamic
quality which resulted in the most hotly discussed act of his
career.
The French Canal Company was glad to sell to the American
Government its concessions on the Isthmus, and as much of the
Canal as it had dug, for $40,000,000. It had originally bought
its concession from the Government of Colombia, which owned the
State of Panama: At first the Colombian rulers seemed glad, and
they sent an accredited agent, Dr. Herran, to Washington, who
framed with Secretary Hay a treaty satisfactory to both, and
believed, by Mr. Hay, to represent the sincere intentions of the
Colombian Government at Bogota. The Colombian politicians,
however, who were banditti of the Tammany stripe, but as much
cruder as Bogota was than New York City, suddenly discovered that
the transaction might be much more profitable for themselves than
they had at first suspected. They put off ratifying the treaty,
therefore, and warned the French Company that they should charge
it an additional $10,000,000 for the privilege of transferring
its concession to the Americans. The French demurred; the
Americans waited. Secretary Hay reminded Dr. Herran that the
treaty must be signed within a reasonable time, and intimated
that the reasonable time would soon be up.
The Bogotan blackmailers indulged in still wilder dreams of
avarice; like the hasheesh-eater, they completely lost contact
with reality and truth. In one of their earlier compacts with the
French Company they stipulated that, if the Canal were not
completed by a certain day in 1904, the entire concession and
undertaking should revert to the Colombian Government. As it was
now September, 1903, it did not require the wits of a political
bandit to see that, by staving off an agreement with the United
States for a few months, Colombia could get possession of
property and privileges which the French were selling to the
Americans for $40,000,000. So the Colombian Parliament adjourned
in October, 1903, without even taking up the Hay-Herran Treaty.
Meanwhile the managers of the French Company became greatly
alarmed at the prospect of losing the sum which the United States
had agreed to pay for its rights and diggings, and it took steps
to avert this total loss. The most natural means which occurred
to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a revolution in
the State of Panama. To understand the affair truly, the reader
must remember that Panama had long been the chief source of
wealth to the Republic of Colombia. The mountain gentry who
conducted the Colombian Government at Bogota treated Panama like
a conquered. province, to be squeezed to the utmost for the
benefit of the politicians. There was neither community of
interest nor racial sympathy between the Panamanians and the
Colombians, and, as it required a journey of fifteen days to go
from Panama to the Capital, geography, also, added its sundering
influence. Quite naturally the Panamanians, in the course of less
than half a century, had made more than fifty attempts to revolt
from Colombia and establish their own independence. The most
illiterate of them could understand that, if they were
independent, the money which they received and passed on to
Bogota., for the bandits there to spend, would remain in their
own hands. An appeal to their love of liberty, being coupled with
so obvious an appeal to their pockets, was irresistible.
Just what devices the French Company employed to instigate
revolution, can be read in the interesting work of M.
Bunau-Varilla, one of the most zealous officers of the French
Company, who had devoted his life to achieving the construction
of the Trans-Isthmian Canal. He was indefatigable, breezy, and
deliberately indiscreet. He tells much, and what he does not tell
he leaves you to infer, without risk of going astray. Mr. William
Nelson Cromwell, of New York; the general counsel of the Company,
offset Varilla's loquacity by a proper amount of reticence.
Bunau-Varilla hurried over from Paris, and had interviews with
President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, but could not draw them
into his conspiracy. The President told him that, at the utmost,
he would only order American warships, which were on the Panama
coast, to prevent any attack from outside which might cause
bloodshed and interfere with the undisturbed passage across the
Isthmus, a duty which the United States was pledged to perform.
The French zealot-conspirator freely announced that the
revolution at Panama would take place at noon on November 3d. It
did take place as scheduled without violence, and with only the
accidental killing of a Chinaman and a dog. The next day the
Revolutionists proclaimed the Republic of Panama, and on November
6th the United States formally recognized its existence and
prepared to open diplomatic relations with it. The Colombian
Government had tried to send troops to put down the rebellion,
but the American warships, obeying their orders to prevent
bloodshed or fighting, would not allow the troops to land.
As soon as the news of these events reached Bogota, the halls of
Parliament there resounded with wailing and gnashing of teeth and
protests, and curses on the perfidious Americans who had connived
to free the Panamanians in their struggle for liberty. The
mountain bandits perceived that they had overreached themselves.
Instead of the $10,000,000 which their envoy Herran had deemed
sufficient; instead of the $40,000,000 and more, which their
greed had counted on in 1904, they would receive nothing. The
Roosevelt Government immediately signed a contract with the
Republic of Panama, by which the United States leased a zone
across the Isthmus for building, controlling, and operating, the
Canal. Then the Colombians, in a panic, sent their most
respectable public man, and formerly their President, General
Rafael Reyes, to Washington, to endeavor to persuade the
Government to reverse its compact with the Panama Republic. The
blackmailers were now very humble. Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, who was
counsel for Colombia, told me that General Reyes was authorized
to accept $8,000,000 for all the desired concessions, "and," Mr.
MacVeagh added, "he would have taken five millions, but Hay and
Roosevelt were so foolish that they wouldn't accept."
The quick decisions of the Administration in Washington, which
accompanied the revolution in Panama and the recognition of the
new Republic, were made by Roosevelt. I have seen no evidence
that Mr. Hay was consulted at the last moment. When the stroke
was accomplished, many good persons in the United States
denounced it. They felt that it was high-handed and brutal, and
that it fixed an indelible blot on the national conscience. Many
of them did not know of the long-drawn-out negotiations and of
the Colombian premeditated deceit; others knew, but overlooked or
condoned. They upheld strictly the letter of the law. They could
not deny that the purpose of the Colombians was to exact
blackmail. It meant nothing to them that Herran, the official
envoy, had drawn up and signed a treaty under instructions from
Marroquin, the President of Colombia, and its virtual dictator,
who, having approved of the orders under which Herran acted,
could easily have required the Colombian Parliament to ratify the
treaty. Perfervidly pious critics of Roosevelt pictured him as a
bully without conscience, and they blackened his aid in freeing
the Panamanians by calling it "the Rape of Panama." Some of these
persons even boldly asserted that John Hay died of remorse over
his part in this wicked deed. The fact is that John Hay died of a
disease which was not caused by remorse, and that, as long as he
lived, he publicly referred to the Panama affair as that in which
he took the greatest pride. It is only in the old Sunday-School
stories that Providence punishes wrongdoing with such commendable
swiftness, and causes the naughty boy who goes skating on Sunday
to drown forthwith; in real life the "mills of God grind slowly."
Roosevelt always regarded with equal satisfaction the decision by
which the Panama Canal was achieved and the high needs of
civilization and the protection of the United States were
attended to. He lived long enough to condemn the proposal of some
of our morbidly conscientious people, hypnotized by the same old
crafty Colombians, to pay Colombia a gratuity five times greater
than that which General Reyes would have thankfully received in
December, 1903.
Persons of different temperaments, but of equal patriotism and
sincerity, will probably pass different verdicts on this incident
for a long time to come. Mr. Leupp quotes a member of Roosevelt's
Administration as stating four alternative courses the President
might have followed. First, he might have let matters drift until
Congress met, and then sent a message on the subject, shifting
the responsibility from his own shoulders to those of the
Congressmen. Secondly, he might have put down the rebellion and
restored Panama to Colombia; but this would have been to subject
them against their will to a foreign enemy--an enormity the
Anti-Imperialists were still decrying in our holding the
Philippines against the will of their inhabitants. Thirdly, he
might have withdrawn American warships and left Colombia to fight
it out with the Panamanians--but this would have involved
bloodshed, tumult, and interruption of transit across the
Isthmus, which the United States, by the agreement of 1846, were
bound to prevent. Finally, he might recognize any de facto
government ready and willing to transact business--and this he
did.*
* Leupp, 10-11.
That the Colombian politicians, who repudiated the treaty Herran
had framed, were blackmailers of the lowest sort, is as
indisputable as is the fact that whoever begins to compromise
with a blackmailer is lured farther and farther into a bog until
he is finally swallowed up. Americans should know also that
during the summer and autumn of 1903, German agents were busy in
Bogota. and that, since German capitalists had openly announced
their desire to buy up the French Company's concession, we may
guess that they did not urge Colombia to fulfill her obligation
to the United States.
Many years later I discussed the transaction with Mr. Roosevelt,
chaffing him with being a wicked conspirator. He laughed, and
replied: " What was the use? The other fellows in Paris and New
York had taken all the risk and were doing all the work. Instead
of trying to run a parallel conspiracy, I had only to sit still
and profit by their plot--if it succeeded." He said also that he
had intended issuing a public announcement that, if Colombia by a
given date refused to come to terms, he would seize the Canal
Zone in behalf of civilization. I told him I rather wished that
he had accomplished his purpose in that way; but he answered that
events matured too quickly, and that, in any case, where swift
action was required, the Executive and not Congress must decide.