any sign of abating have tended to grow more nu-
merous and more serious in the immediate past;
fifth, that the control of Colombia over the Isthmus
of Panama could not be maintained without the
armed intervention and assistance of the United
States. In other words, the Government of Co-
lombia, though wholly unable to maintain order on
the Isthmus, has nevertheless declined to ratify a
treaty the conclusion of which opened the only
chance to secure its own stability and to guarantee
permanent peace on, and the construction of a canal
across, the Isthmus.
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 3 last took place m
Panama. This great enterprise of building the m-
teroceanic canal can not be held up to gratify the
whims, or out of respect to the governmental impo-
tence 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
And State Papers 707
territory. The possession of a territory fraught
with such pecuhar capacities as the Isthmus in ques-
tion carries with it obhgations to mankind. The
course of events has shown that this canal can not
be built by private enterprise, or by any other nation
than our own ; therefore it must be built by the
United States.
Every effort has been made by the Government of
the United States to persuade Colombia to follow a
course which was essentially not only to our inter-
ests and to the interests of the world, but to the
interests of Colombia itself. These efforts have
failed ; and Colombia, by her persistence in repulsing
the advances that have been made, has forced us. for
the sake of cxur own honor, and of the interest and
well-being, not merely of our own people, but of the
people of the Isthmus of Panama and the people of
the civilized countries of the world, to take decisive
steps to bring to an end a condition of affairs which
had become intolerable. The new Republic of Pan-
ama immediately offered to negotiate a treaty with
us. This treaty I herewith submit. By it our inter-
ests are better safeguarded than in the treaty with
Colombia which was ratified by the Senate at its
last session. It is better in its terms than the trea-
ties offered to us by the Republics of Nicaragua and
Costa Rica. At last the right tO' begin this great
undertaking is made available. Panama has done
her part. All that remains is for the American Con-
gress to do its part and forthwith this Republic will
enter upon the execution of a project colossal in its
7o8 Presidential Addresses
size and of wellnigh incalculable possibilities for the
good of this country and the nations of mankind.
By the provisions of the treaty the United States
guarantees and will maintain the independence of the
Republic of Panama. There is granted to the United
States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control
of a strip ten miles wide and extending three nauti-
cal miles into the sea at either terminal, with all
lands lying outside of the zone necessary for the
construction of the canal or for its auxiliary works;
and with the islands in the Bay of Panama. ^ The
cities of Panama and Colon are not embraced in the
canal zone, but the United States assumes their
sanitation and, in case of need, the maintenance of
order therein; the United States enjoys within the
granted limits all the rights, power, and authority
which it would possess were it the sovereign of the
territory to the exclusion of the exercise of sovereign
rights by the republic. All railway and canal prop-
erty rights belonging to Panama and needed for the
canal pass to the United States, including any prop-
erty of the respective companies in the cities of
Panama and Colon ; the works, property, and person-
nel of the canal and railways are exempted from tax-
ation as well in the cities of Panama and Colon as
in the canal zone and its dependencies. Free im-
migration of the personnel and importation of sup-
plies for the construction and operation of the canal
are granted. Provision is made for the use of mili-
tary force and the building of fortifications by the
United States for the protection of the transit. In
And State Papers 709
other details, particularly as to the acquisition of the
interests of the New Panama Canal Company and
the Panama Railway by the United States and the
condemnation of private property for the uses of the
canal, the stipulations of the Hay-Herran treaty are
closely followed, while the compensation to be given
for these enlarged grants remains the same, being
ten millions of dollars payable on exchange of ratifi-
cations ; and, beginning nine years from that date, an
annual payment of $250,000 during the life of the
convention.
Theodore Roosevelt.
White House,
December /, 190^.
MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO
HOUSES OF CONGRESS ON JANUARY 4, 1904
To the Senate and House of Repiesentatk'cs:
I lay before the Congress for its information a
statement of my action up to this time in executing
the act entitled "An act to provide for the construc-
tion of a canal connecting the waters of the xA-tlantic
and Pacific Oceans," approved June 28, 1902.
By the said act the President was authorized to
secure for the United States the property of the
Panama Canal Company and the perpetual control
of a strip six miles wide across the Isthmus of
Panama. It was further provided that "should the
President be unable to obtain for the United States
a satisfactory title to the property of the New
7IO Presidential Addresses
Panama Canal Company and the control of the
necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia . . .
within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms,
then the President" should endeavor to provide for
a canal by the Nicaragua route. The language
quoted defines with exactness and precision what
was to be done, and what as a matter of fact has
been done. The President was authorized to go to
the Nicaragua route only if within a reasonable
time he could not obtain "control of the necessary
territory of the Republic of Colombia." This con-
trol has now been obtained ; the provision of the act
has been complied with; it is no longer possible
under existing legislation to go to the Nicaragua
route as an alternative.
This act marked the climax of the effort on
the part of the United States to secure, so far as
legislation was concerned, an interoceanic canal
across the Isthmus. The effort to secure a treaty -
for this purpose with one of the Central American
republics did not stand on the same footing with
the effort to secure a treaty under any ordinary con-
ditions. The proper position for the United States
to assume in reference to this canal, and therefore
to the governments of the Isthmus, had been clearly
set forth by Secretary Cass in 1858. In my Annual
Message I have already quoted what Secretary Cass
said; but I repeat the quotation here, because the
principle it states is fundamental:
While the rights of sovereignty of the States oc-
cupying this region (Central America) should al-
And State Papers 711
ways be respected, we shall expect that these rights
be exercised in a spirit befitting the occasion and the
wants and circumstances that have arisen. Sover-
eignty has its duties as well as its rights, and none
of these local governments, even if administered
with more regard to the just demands of other na-
tions than they have been, would be permitted, in a
spirit of Eastern isolation, to close the gates of in-
tercourse on the great highways of the world, and
justify the act by the pretension that these avenues
of trade and travel belong to them and that they
choose to shut them, or, what is almost equivalent,
to encumber them with such unjust relations as
would prevent their general use.
The principle thus enunciated by Secretary Cass
was sound then and it is sound now. The United
States has taken the position that no other govern-
ment is to build the canal. In 1889, when France
proposed to come to the aid of the French Panama
Company by guaranteeing their bonds, the Senate
of the United States in executive session, with only
some three votes dissenting, passed a resolution as
follows :
That the Government of the United States will
look with serious concern and disapproval upon any
connection of any European government with the
construction or control of any ship canal across the
Isthmus of Darien or across Central America, and
must regard any such connection or control as in-
jurious to the just rights and interests of the United
States and as a menace to their welfare.
712 Presidential Addresses
Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty it was explicitly
provided that the United States should control, po-
lice and protect the canal which was to be built,
keeping it open for the vessels of all nations on
equal terms. The United States thus assumed the
position of guarantor of the canal and of its peace-
ful use by all the world. The guarantee included
as a matter of course the building of the canal.
The enterprise was recognized as responding to an
international need ; and it would be the veriest trav-
esty on right and justice to treat the governments
in possession of the Isthmus as having the right
in the language of Mr. Cass, "to close the gates of
intercourse on the great highways of the world, and
justify the act by the pretension that these avenues
of trade and travel belong to them and that they
choose to shut them."
When this Government submitted to Colombia
the Hay-Herran treaty three things were, therefore,
already settled.
One was that the canal should be built, ihe
time for delay, the time for permitting the attempt
to be made by private enterprise, the time for per-
mitting any government of anti-social spirit and ot
imperfect development to bar the work, was past.
The United States had assumed in connection with
the canal certain responsibilities not only to its own
people but to the civilized world, which imperatively
demanded that there should no longer be delay in
beeinning the work.
Second. While it was settled that the canal
And State Papers 713
should be built without unnecessary or improper
delay, it was no less clearly shown to be our pur-
pose to deal not merely in a spirit of justice but in
a spirit of generosity with the people through whose
land we might build it. The Hay-Herran treaty, if
it erred at all, erred in the direction of an over-
generosity toward the Colombian Government. In
our anxiety to be fair we had gone to the very verge
in yielding to a weak nation's demands what that
nation was helplessly unable to enforce from us
against our will. The only criticisms made upon
the Administration for the terms of the Hay-Herran
treaty were for having granted too much to Colom-
bia, not for failure to grant enough. Neither in
the Congress nor in the public press, at the time
that this treaty was formulated, w^as there complaint
that it did not in the fullest and amplest manner
guarantee to Colombia everything that she could
by any color of title demand.
Nor is the fact to be lost sight of that the rejected
treaty, while generously responding to the pecuniary
demands of Colombia, in other respects merely pro-
vided for the construction of the canal in conformity
with the express requirements of the act of the Con-
gress of June 28, 1902. By that act, as heretofore
quoted, the President was authorized to acquire from
Colombia, for the purposes of the canal, "perpetual
control" of a certain strip of land; and it was ex-
pressly required that the "control" thus to be ob-
tained should include "jurisdiction" to make police
and sanitary regulations and to establish such judi-
14— Vol. XIV
714 Presidential Addresses
cial tribunals as might be agreed on for their en-
forcement. These were conditions precedent pre-
scribed by the Congress; and for their fulfilment
suitable stipulations were embodied in the treaty.
It has been stated in public prints that Colombia
objected to these stipulations, on the ground that
they involved a relinquishment of her "sovereign-
ty" ; but in the light of what has taken place, this
alleged objection must be considered as an after-
thought. In reality, the treaty, instead of requiring
a cession of Colombia's sovereignty over the canal
strip, expressly acknowledged, confirmed, and pre-
served her sovereignty over it. The treaty m this
respect simply proceeded on the lines on which all
the negotiations leading up to the present situation
have been conducted. In those negotiations the ex-
ercise by the United States, subject to the para-
mount rights of the local sovereign, of a substantial
control over the canal and the immediately adjacent
territory, has been treated as a fundamental part oi
any arrangement that might be made. It has formed
an essential feature of all our plans, and its neces-
sity is fully recognized in the Hay-Pauncefote
treaty. The Congress, in providing that such con-
trol should be secured, adopted no new principle,
but only incorporated in its legislation a condition
the importance and propriety of which were uni-
versally recognized. During all the years of nego-
tiation and discussion that preceded the conclusion
of the Hay-Herran treaty, Colombia never inti-
mated that the requirement by the United States of
And State Papers 715
control over the canal strip would render unattain-
able the construction of a canal by way of the Isth-
mus of Panama; nor were we advised, during the
months when legislation of 1902 was pending be-
fore the Congress, that the terms which it em-
bodied would render negotiations with Colombia
impracticable. It is plain that no nation could con-
struct and guarantee the neutrality of the canal with
a less degree of control than was stipulated for in
the Hay-Herran treaty. A refusal to grant such
degree of control was necessarily a refusal to make
any practicable treaty at all. Such refusal there-
fore squarely raised the question whether Colombia
was entitled to bar the transit of the world's traffic
across the Isthmus.
That the canal itself was eagerly demanded by
the people of the locality through which it was to
pass, and that the people of this locality no less
eagerly longed for its construction under American
control, are shown by the unanimity of action in the
new Panama Republic. Furthermore, Colombia,
after having rejected the treaty in spite of our pro-
tests and warnings when it was in her power to
accept it, has since shown the utmost eagerness to
accept the same treaty if only the status quo could
be restored. One of the men standing highest in
the official circles of Colombia, on November 6, ad-
dressed the American minister at Bogota, saying
that if the Government of the United States would
land troops to preserve Colombian sovereignty and
the transit, the Colombian Government would "de-
7i6 Presidential Addresses
Clare martial law; and, by virtue of vested consti-
tutional authority, when public order is disturbed,
[would] approve by decree the ratification of the
canal treaty as signed ; or, if the Government of the
United States prefers, [would] call extra session of
the Congress— with new and friendly members-
next May to approve the treaty." Having these
facts in view, there is no shadow of question that
the Government of the United States proposed a
treaty which was not merely just, but generous to
Colombia, which our people regarded as erring, if
at all, on the side of overgenerosity ; which was
hailed with delight by the people of the immediate
locality through which the canal was to pass, who
were most concerned as to the new order of things,
and which the Colombian authorities now recogmze
as being so good that they are willing to promise
its unconditional ratification if only we will desert
those who have shown themselves our friends and
restore to those who have shown themselves un-
friendly the power to undo what they did. I pass
by the question as to what assurance we have that
they would now keep their pledge and not again re-
fuse to ratify the treaty if they had the power ; for,
of course, I will not for one moment discuss the
possibility of the United States committing an act
of such baseness as to abandon the new Republic
of Panama.
Third Finally the Congress definitely settled
where the canal was to be built. It was provided
that a treaty should be made for building the can^l
And State Papers 717
across the Isthmus of Panama ; and if, after reason-
able time, it proved impossible to secure such treaty,
that then we should go to Nicaragua. The treaty
has been made; for it needs no argument to show
that the intent of the Congress was to ensure a
canal across Panama, and that whether the repub-
lic granting the title was called New Granada,
Colombia, or Panama mattered not one whit. As
events turned out, the question of "reasonable time"
did not enter into the matter at all. Although, as
the months went by, it became increasingly im-
probable that the Colombian Congress would ratify
the treaty or take steps which would be equivalent
thereto, yet all chance for such action on their part
did not vanish until the Congress closed at the end
of October; and within three days thereafter the
revolution in Panama had broken out. Panama
became an independent state, and the control of the
territory necessary for building the canal then be-
came obtainable. The condition under which alone
we could haA^e gone to Nicaragua thereby became
impossible of fulfilment. If the pending treaty with
Panama should not be ratified by the Senate this
would not alter the fact that we could not go to
Nicaragua. The Congress has decided the route,
and there is no alternative under existing legislation.
When in August it began to appear probable
that the Colombian Legislature would not ratify
the treaty, it became incumbent upon me to con-
sider well what the situation was and to be ready
to advise the Congress as to what were the various
yiS Presidential Addresses
alternatives of action open to us. There were sev-
eral possibilities. One was that Colombia would
at the last moment see the unwisdom of her posi-
tion. That there might be nothing omitted, Secre-
tary Hay, through the minister at Bogota, repeat-
edly warned Colombia that grave consequences
might follow from her rejection of the treaty. Al-
though it was a constantly diminishing chance, yet
the possibility of ratification did not wholly pass
away until the close of the session of the Colombian
Congress.
A second alternative was that by the close of the
session on the last day of October, without the rati-
fication of the treaty by Colombia and without any
steps taken by Panama, the American Congress on
assembling early in November would be confronted
with a situation in which there had been a failure
to come to terms as to building the canal along the
Panama route, and yet there had not been a lapse
of a reasonable time — using the word reasonable in
any proper sense — such as would justify the Ad-
ministration going to the Nicaragua route. This
situation seemed on the whole the most likely, and
as a matter of fact I had made the original draft
of my Message to the Congress with a view to its
existence.
It was the opinion of eminent international jurists
that in view of the fact that the great design of our
guarantee under the treaty of 1846 was to dedicate
the Isthmus to the purposes of interoceanic transit,
and above all to secure the construction of an inter-
And State Papers 719
oceanic canal, Colombia could not under existing
conditions refuse to enter into a proper arrange-
ment with the United States to that end, without
violating the spirit and substantially repudiating the
obligations of a treaty the full benefits of which
she had enjoyed for over fifty years. My intention
was to consult the Congress as to whether under
such circumstances it would not be proper to an-
nounce that the canal was to be dug forthwith;
that we would give the terms that we had offered
and no others; and that if such terms were not
agreed to we would enter into an arrangement with
Panama direct, or take what other steps were need-
ful in order to begin the enterprise.
A third possibility was that the people of the
Isthmus, who had formerly constituted an independ-
ent state, and who until recently were united to
Colombia only by a loose tie of federal relationship,
might take the protection of their own vital interests
into their own hands, reassert their former rights,
declare their independence upon just grounds, and
establish a government competent and willing to do
its share in this great work for civilization. This
third possibility is what actually occurred. Every
one knew that it was a possibility, but it was not
until toward the end of October that it appeared to
be an imminent probability. Although the Admin-
istration, of course, had special means of knowledge,
no such means were necessary in order to appreciate
the possibility, and toward the end the likelihood,
of such a revolutionary outbreak and of its success.
720 Presidential Addresses
It was a matter of common notoriety. Quotations
from the daily papers could be indefinitely multi-
plied to show this state of affairs ; a very few will
suffice. From Costa Rica on August 31 a special
was sent to the Washington "P'ost," running as fol-
lows :
San Jose, Costa Rica,
August 5/
Travelers from Panama report the Isthmus alive
with fires of a new revolution. It is inspired, it is
believed, by men who, in Panama and Colon, have
systematically engendered the pro-American feeling
to secure the building of the Isthmian Canal by the
United States.
The Indians have risen, and the late followers of
Gen. Benjamin Herrera are mustering in the moun-
tain villages, preparatory to joining in an organized
revolt, caused by the rejection of the canal treaty.
Hundreds of stacks of arms, confiscated by the
Colombian Government at the close of the late rev-
olution, have reappeared from some mysterious
source, and thousands of rifles that look suspic-
iously like the Mausers the United States captured
in Cuba are issuing to the gathering forces from cen-
tral points of distribution. AVith the arms goes
ammunition, fresh from factories, showing the
movement is not spasmodic, but is carefully planned.
The government forces in Panama and Colon,
numbering less than 1,500 men, are reported to be
a little more than friendly to the revolutionary spirit.
They have been ill paid since the revolution closed,
And State Papers 721
and their only hope of prompt payment is another
war.
General Huertes, commander of the forces, who
is ostensibly loyal to the Bogota Government, is said
to be secretly friendly to the proposed revolution.
At least, all his personal friends are open in denunci-
ation of the Bogota Government and the failure of
the Colombian Congress to ratify the canal treaty.
The consensus of opinion gathered from late ar-
rivals from the Isthmus is that the revolution is com-
ing, and that it will succeed.
A special despatch to the Washington "Post,"
under date of New York, September i, runs as
follows :
B. G. Duque, editor and proprietor of the "Pana-
ma Star and Herald," a resident of the Isthmus
during the past twenty-seven years, who arrived to-
day in New York, declared that if the canal treaty
fell through a revolution would be likely to follow.
"There is a very strong feeling in Panama," said
Mr. Duque, "that Colombia, in negotiating the sale
of a canal concession in Panama, is looking for prof-
its that might just as well go to Panama herself.
"The Colombian Government, only the other day,
suppressed a newspaper that dared to speak of inde-
pendence for Panama. A while ago there was a
secret plan afoot to cut loose from Colombia and
seek the protection of the United States."
In the New York "Herald" of September 10 the
following statement appeared :
722 Presidential Addresses
Representatives of strong interests on the Isthmus
of Panama, who make their headquarters in this
city, are considering a plan of action to be under-
taken in co-operation with men of similar views in
Panama and Colon to bring about a revolution and
form an independent government in Panama opposed