pendent state, like a second Texas. Such a state
would have a hard time of it between Colombia on



314 JOHN HAY

one side and Costa Rica on the other." To follow
scrupulously the terms of the Spooner Law, which
gave President Roosevelt no authority to accept
amendments without the approval of the American
Senate, was the feeling of the State Department.
"We are very sorry, but really we can't help it if
Colombia does n't want the Canal on our terms,"
summed up this feeling, even after Mr. Hay was
assured that the Panamanians intended to secede in
case Colombia threw over the treaty.

The Colombians miscalculated in assuming that
the United States had fixed irrevocably on the
Panama route. Mr. Roosevelt was authorized, if they
did not ratify within a reasonable time, to strike a
bargain with Nicaragua. When they realized that
he might do this they became panicky, like a spec-
ulator who sees his margin-based fortune about to
evaporate. It is rumored that they offered to ratify
the treaty if the New Canal Company would pay
them clandestinely eight, or even only five, of the
extra millions they demanded. The company re-
fused, although later there was a suspicion that it
was ready to pay up if it could be guaranteed that
a second demand and a third would not follow.
What Colombian could insure against that?

For the New Canal Company as well as for
Colombia the need of a settlement pressed. The



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 315

company stood to lose forty millions by Colombia's
double-dealing — a loss which Mr. Cromwell did
everything to avert. Through his agent, Senor
Mancini, he kept in touch with the politicians at
Bogota; through Mr. Farnham, or by telephone,
he communicated with the State Department at
Washington ; while various trusted emissaries worked
for him on the Isthmus. Late in the summer Mr.
Cromwell made a flying trip to Paris to confer with
the officers of the company there. Still, through
occasional rifts in the curtain we see the Panaman-
ians being encouraged in their desire for freedom.
That desire was so far from being secret that, in
August, when the Colombian Government appointed
Senator Obaldia Governor of Panama, he announced
that "in case the department found it necessary to
revolt to secure the Canal he would stand by
Panama." j

Things were at this pass when a new character
broke his way into the drama — M. Philippe Bunau-
Varilla, a Frenchman who had worked on the
Isthmus with the old De Lesseps Company. A
somewhat picturesque personage was M. Varilla, to
whom the earth seemed like a school globe which he,
the teacher, made to revolve at his pleasure. He
was fired with the mission of seeing the Canal com-
pleted by the Panama route. So he hurried from



3i6 JOHN HAY

Paris to New York, where he got in touch with Dr.
Manuel Amador Guerrero, a conspirator-patriot
from Panama, whom he despatched to the Isthmus
on October 20. Varilla visited Washington, and on
October 9 called on the President, to whom he
reported that the only way out in Panama was a
revolution. A week later (October 16) he saw Secre-
tary Hay, and when he repeated his prediction of a
revolution, the Secretary replied that American war-
ships had orders to proceed to the Isthmus in case
there was a disturbance there. From that time for-
ward M. Varilla imparted to every one that the
revolution would come off on November 3. ,
( President Roosevelt states that it was not the
urgency of M. Varilla which moved him, but the
visit of two American officers (Captain Humphrey
and Lieutenant Murphy) who, having been to the
Isthmus, reported to him what they saw there. They
"had discovered," he says, "that various revolu-
tionary movements were being inaugurated, and
that a revolution certainly would occur, probably
immediately after the closing of the Colombian
Congress at the end of October, but probably not
before October 20. . . ." This was known on the
Isthmus.

"After my interview with the army officers
named, on October 16, I directed the Navy Depart-



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 317

ment to issue instructions to send ships to the
Isthmus so as to protect American interests and
the lives of American citizens if a revolutionary out-
break should occur." ^

Throughout October Mr. Hay seems to have had
less and less communication with the Isthmus and
Bogota, whereas the activity of President Roosevelt
increased.

On November 2, he ordered the Nashville, Boston,
and Dixie to keep the transit across the Isthmus free,
to "prevent landing of any armed force, either gov-
ernment or insurgent, at any point within fifty miles
of Panama." Such orders were by no means novel:
similar ones had been issued during many previous
upheavals, as late as 1901.

The revolution "happened" on November 3 —
bloodless so far as the combatants were concerned,
although one Chinaman and one dog were accident-
ally killed. On November 4 the Republic of Pan-
ama was proclaimed ; on the 6th the United States
recognized it.

A few days later M. Bunau-Varilla returned to
Washington as the accredited envoy of the new
Republic, with full powers to conclude a treaty. In
a letter to his daughter, Mrs. Payne Whitney,
Secretary Hay describes what happened : —
1 Metropolitan Magazine, February, 191 5.



3i8 JOHN HAY

To Mrs. Helen Hay Whitney

Washington, November 19, 1903.

As for your poor old dad, they are working him
nights and Sundays. I have never, I think, been so
constantly and actively employed as during the last
fortnight. Yesterday morning the negotiations with
Panama were far from complete. But by putting on
all steam, getting Root and Knox and Shaw to-
gether at lunch, I went over my project line by line,
and fought out every section of it; adopted a few
good suggestions: hurried back to the Department,
set everybody at work drawing up final drafts —
sent for Varilla, went over the whole treaty with
hin, explained all the changes, got his consent, and
at seven o'clock signed the momentous document in
the little blue drawing-room, out of Abraham Lin-
coln's inkstand, and with C 's pen. Varilla

had no seal, so he used one of mine. (Did I ever
tell you I sealed the Hay-Herbert Treaty with Lord
Byron's ring, having nothing else in the house?)

So that great job is ended — at least this stage of
it. I have nothing else; will come up before Thanks-
giving.

When the Colombians at last comprehended that
they had overreached themselves, they made a



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 319

desperate effort to propitiate the United States.
They sent General Rafael Reyes, their most respect-
able public man and former president, to Washington
to beg the Government to reconsider. He engaged
as his counsel Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, than whom
none was more resourceful or adroit. According to a
trustworthy statement he was authorized to say
that Colombia, for eight million dollars, would let
bygones be bygones and concede everything.

On December 4, 1903, Mr. Hay wrote to the
President : —

"Can you receive Reyes to-morrow, Saturday?
If so, at what hour? Permit me to observe the sooner
you see him, the sooner we can bid him good-bye.

." I have a complaint to make of Root. I told him
I was going to see Reyes. He replied, * Better look
out. Ex- Reyes are dangerous.' Do you think that,
on my salary, I can afford to bear such things?"

Mr. Hay had more than one interview with Gen-
eral Reyes, and on December 24, 1903, he reported
to the President.

To President Roosevelt

General Reyes called yesterday. Said he was
candidate for Presidency of Colombia.

I could give him no positive assurances of what he
could accomplish. I left no doubt in his mind, how-



320 JOHN HAY

ever, that we regarded the establishment of the
Republic of Panama as an accomplished fact which
we would neither undo ourselves nor permit any out-
side parties to overthrow; that we had made the
treaty with Panama on grounds which we thought
right, and to which we still adhere; that the treaty
was going to be ratified and carried into effect; but
that, these facts being accepted by Colombia, we
should then use our utmost influence to bring about
a satisfactory state of things between the two Repub-
lics and ourselves; that^ as to negotiating with Co-
lombia without regard to the existence of Panama,
it was out of the question.

He then handed me a written memorandum of
complaints and grievances, which is the result of
MacVeagh's work for the last fortnight. It is very
long, some twenty-two typewritten pages, in Span-
ish. It attacks and impeaches our action all along
the line with considerable energy, but with the usual
Spanish courtesy of manner, which, I imagine, shows
the hand of the translator more than the author, and
ends by asking the submission of all pending ques-
tions to The Hague. I at once sent the document to
the State Department to be translated, with orders
that it be submitted to you as soon as it is written out.

Responsibility for the dynamic solution of the



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 321

Panama Question rested entirely with the President,
who seems not even to have informed Secretary Hay
and the Cabinet officers of his acts. As early as
October 10 he wrote confidentially to Dr. Albert
Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews, that, as "there

. was absolutely not the slightest chance of securing
by treaty" [from Colombia], the alternatives were
to accept the inferior Nicaragua route or to take

, the Panama territory by force. ..." I cast aside the
proposition at this time to foment the secession of
Panama. Whatever other Governments can do, the
United States cannot go into the securing, by such
underhand means, the cession." What followed we
need no longer conjecture. M. Bunau-Varilla laid
the train for the explosion; the arrival of American
warships created the condition by which the revo-
lution must succeed. ,

Although Secretary Hay did not take part in the
actual revolution, he immediately announced his
approval of it, and he never qualified — much less
withdrew — this approval. Among his papers, I have
found no hint that he felt remorse — as has been
alleged — for the crime ; nor can I believe that any
regrets secretly preyed upon him and shortened his
days. If testimony has any weight, his own confi-
dential statements should be preferred to the sur-
mises of persons who never knew him.



322 JOHN HAY

To Senator George F. Hoar

January ii, 1904.

The President tells me that in a letter to him you
refer to a newspaper publication to the effect that,
in discussing the subject of the coming revolution in
Panama with a Mr. Duque, on his informing me that
the revolution was to take place on the 23d of Sep-
tember, I had said to him that that was too early, and
it ought to be deferred. I now find the same state-
ment copied from the Evening Post in a speech by
Senator Morgan in the Senate.

It seems rather humiliating to be obliged to refer
to such a story, but, since you mentioned it to the
President and since it seems to have made some im-
pression upon your mind, I venture to say to you,
confidentially, that I never saw Mr. Duque but once,
that I never saw him alone, and that nothing in the
remotest degree resembling this printed conversation
was ever said by either of us.

When members of the Yale Faculty wrote protest-
ing against the iniquity of the "rape of Panama,"
he wrote the following letter, to which Secretary
Root sent a counterpart, declaring even more em-
phatically the need of action on the Isthmus, and
his belief that the action taken was right.



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 323

i
To Professor George P. Fisher

Washington, January 20, 1904.

Your letter of the 19th of January has given me
great pleasure. I can even congratulate myself on
the unexpected and unaccountable action of some
of your colleagues which has procured me so agree-
able a letter. I shall take pleasure in bringing it to
the notice of the President.

Some of our greatest scholars, in their criticisms of
public life, suffer from the defect of arguing from
pure reason, and taking no account of circumstances.
While I agree that no circumstances can ever jus-
tify a Government in doing wrong, the question as
to whether the Governm.ent has acted rightly or
wrongly can never be justly judged without the
circumstances being considered. I am sure that if
the President had acted differently when, the 3d of
November, he was confronted by a critical situation
which might easily have turned to disaster, the
attacks which are now made on him would have been
ten times more virulent and more effective. He must
have done exactly as he did, or the only alternative
would have been an indefinite duration of bloodshed
and devastation through the whole extent of the
Isthmus. It was a time to act and not to theorize, and
my judgment at least is clear that he acted rightly.



324 JOHN HAY

Among the stern censors of the "crime" was
James C. Carter, then the leader of the American
Bar. Of his criticisms Mr. Hay wrote to a col-
league : —

To Secretary Elihu Root

March 12, 1904.

How on earth a fair-minded man could prefer that
the President should have taken possession of the
Isthmus, mailed hand, and built a canal in defiance of
the Constitution, the laws, and the treaties, rather
than the perfectly regular course which the Presi-
dent did follow, passes my comprehension. And that
he should persist in this view after reading your
speech^ only adds to the mystery. I have not hitherto
spoken to you about that admirable address, I be-
lieve, but as a work of art, as a piece of oratory, and
history, I think it is incomparable. And, as a legal
argument, better lawyers than I think it is without
a flaw. Carter could not have read it with an open
mind and persist in his error. I frankly confess my-
self unable to add anything to the unanswerable
demonstration which you have made of the case.

Finally, Mr. Loomis, who was Assistant Secretary
of State under Mr. Hay, gives his testimony in a
letter to me dated June 15, 1915: —

1 "The Ethics of the Panama Question." Address before The
Union League Club of Chicago, February 22, 1904,



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 325

" I think ... I can possibly be of slight assistance
in so far as the matter of Mr. Hay's connection with
the Panama revolution is concerned. If Mr. Hay
were alive you would probably enjoy his comment
upon those ' good people ' who assure you * that he
died of remorse for his share in the rape of Panama.'
People who think and say things of that sort he par-
ticularly detested.

"I am sure that you find no trace of remorse in
any of his letters or anywhere else, for the sufficient
and solid reason that he felt no such remorse and
therefore could not have expressed it. I had very
many talks with Mr. Hay about the Panama revolu-
tion and what followed and what preceded it. I
spent two hours with him or more on the last after-
noon he was in Washington and I recall distinctly
that in one conversation on that occasion he spoke
with pride and satisfaction of what had been done
in Panama."

Not all the critics condemned him. To Mr.
Rhodes, the historian, he sent this grateful reply: —

To James Ford Rhodes

Washington, D.C, December 8, 1903.

I thank you for breaking an occasional lance for us
in the headquarters of Mugwumpery. When I think
of how many mistakes I have made which have



326 JOHN HAY

escaped notice, I ought not to be dissatisfied with
being lambasted in an occasional case where I have
done right. It is hard for me to understand how any
one can criticize our action in Panama on the
grounds upon which it is ordinarily attacked. The
matter came on us with amazing celerity. We had
to decide on the instant whether we would take
possession of the ends of the railroad and keep the
traffic clear, or whether we would stand back and
let those gentlemen cut each other's throats for an
indefinite time, and destroy whatever remnant of our
property and our interests we had there. I had no
hesitation as to the proper course to take, and have
had no doubt of the propriety of it since.

When Mr. Hay negotiated a treaty with the infant
Republic of Panama as to the building of the Canal,
he met with denunciation from an unexpected quar-
ter. Senator Morgan broke loose in violent letters,
one of which he addressed to the President of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To President H. S. Pritchett

December 28, 1903.

I return herewith General Morgan's letter. . . .
He is in such a state of mind in regard to the Canal
that if you should answer everything he said cate-



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 327

gorically, contradicting him with his own public
utterances, it would have no effect on him. As he
admits in paragraph 3, page i, he is as much the
author of the present Canal Treaty as I am. Not
only did I embody in it all his amendments to the
Herran Treaty, but I went further than he has ever
done in getting the proper guaranties for jurisdiction
over the Canal. A year ago he wrote me a series of
earnest and impassioned letters, which he afterward
embodied in articles in some of the religious periodi-
cals, denouncing the Government of Colombia as
the sum of all iniquities, and saying that we were
violating every law human and divine in favor of
the Government of Colombia against the Liberals
of Panama, insisting that it was our bounden duty to
aid them in attaining their liberty. How can you
argue with a man whose prejudices are so violent
and so variable as this?

Reviewing the transaction after a dozen years,
Mr. Roosevelt says in a private letter to me dated
July 2, 1915: —

"To talk of Colombia as a responsible Power to
be dealt with as we would deal with Holland or Bel-
gium or Switzerland or Denmark is a mere absurdity.
The analogy is with a group of Sicilian or Calabrian
bandits; with Villa and Carranza at this moment.



328 JOHN HAY

You could no more make an agreement with the
Colombian rulers than you could nail currant jelly
to a wall — and the failure to nail currant jelly to a
wall is not due to the nail ; it is due to the currant
jelly. I did my best to get them to act straight.
Then I determined that I would do what ought to
be done without regard to them. The people of Pan-
ama were a unit in desiring the Canal and in wishing
to overthrow the rule of Colombia. If they had not
revolted, I should have recommended Congress to
take possession of the Isthmus by force of arms;
and, as you will see, I had actually written the first
draft of my Message to this effect. When they re-
volted, I promptly used the Navy to prevent the
bandits, who had tried to hold us up, from spending
months of futile bloodshed in conquering or en-
deavoring to conquer the Isthmus, to the lasting
damage of the Isthmus, of us, and of the world. I
did not consult Hay, or Root, or any one else as to
what I did, because a council of war does not fight;
and I intended to do the job once for all."

To sum up. So far as I know, the apologists of the
Colombians have never brought forward a single
fact that palliates, much less excuses, the acts of the
dominant ring at Bogota from the beginning to the
end of this affair. That ring was moved by the in-



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 329

stinct of blackmailers, one of the lowest of human
instincts, because it combines fraud and cowardice.
By the Treaty of 1846 the Colombians were bound
to grant a charter for an Isthmian canal; and the
price to be paid by the United States for this charter
was to be settled by mutual agreement. They broke
that obligation in refusing to accept the terms
which their agent, Dr. Herran, negotiated ; yet those
terms must have been communicated to him from
Bogota, and the Government which sent them must
have thought at the time of sending that they were
ample. It went further and showed no intention of
making any other proposal. Again, the Bogota ring
broke faith in arbitrarily changing the date of the
expiration of the French company's concession from
1910 to 1904. How exorbitant their demands were,
and how shameless they were themselves, appeared
when, having lost Panama, they offered to sell out
to the United States for eight million dollars, and
even for five million, all the rights for which in their
greed they had demanded twenty-five million. At
the end of October, with the truculence of black-
mailers who suppose they have their victim at their
mercy, they demanded the twenty-five millions; but
by the middle of December they were begging for
five.

Although their action was odious, we must ask



330 JOHN HAY

whether blackmailers have no rights, even when
they deny the rights of others. Must we not keep
faith even with the faithless? The laws of each civil-
ized state recognize that the rights of individuals
may be set aside by the State for the prosecution of
works of great public importance; but this law of
eminent domain in international affairs does not
exist. When we were building the transcontinental
railways we should never have allowed a tribe of
Modocs, or of Apaches, who happened to occupy
territory through which the line was to go, to block
the construction ; if they had attempted to resist we
should have driven them off. So if some villages
of Cretins had stood at the Swiss entrance of the
Simplon Tunnel, they would have been removed.
In such cases the proper action is self-evident. But
where shall we draw the line between right action
and injustice and brutality? How shall we escape
from justifying the shockingly cynical treatment of
Inferior by Superior peoples? Evidently, each case
must be decided on its merits. Morally, the Colom-
bians were Cretins, but with the rapacity of wild
Indians. The Canal which the American Govern-
ment planned was for the benefit of the entire world.
Should the blackmailing greed of the Bogota ring
stand in the way of civilization? I believe there
is only one answer to this question — blackmailers



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 331

must not be tolerated; but I believe also that it is
so important that respect for legality should never
be undermined that it would have been better if the
United States had openly given notice that they in-
tended to take the Canal Zone rather than to have
it appear that they were conniving at a conspiracy.
Our action in Panama had of course nothing in com-
mon with such international crimes as the German
destruction of Belgium in 1914. That was a deliber-
ate, atrocious act of a nation which had reverted
to the war code of barbarians. It could not be de-
fended on the plea that a Superior People was
assimilating an Inferior People, for the Belgians
were as "superior" as the Germans. The only justi-
fication which the Germans offered was that it was a
military necessity for their own selfish aggrandize-
ment. Until there is some international tribunal to
apply the law of eminent domain where it is needed,
we shall probably find selfishness the test or meas-
ure which determines our judgment in such matters.
We cannot allow the specious plea that a State may
do ill that good may follow. Atrocity condemns
itself.



CHAPTER XXX

THEODORE ROOSEVELT SKETCHED BY JOHN HAY

JOHN HAY had the unique fortune of serving
President Lincoln as Private Secretary and
President Roosevelt as Secretary of State. He was
a youth when he lived in the White House with
Lincoln; he had passed threescore when, after
McKinley's death, he accepted Roosevelt's urgent
invitation to continue at the head of the State
Department. Having assembled elsewhere the ex-
tracts from his diaries and letters in which he
portrays the intimate life of Lincoln carrying the
burden of the Civil War, I propose to present here
the pieces, bit by bit, which make up his mosaic
portrait of Roosevelt.

John Hay had known Theodore Roosevelt's fa-
ther, his senior by only seven years, in Washington
at the time of the war, and afterwards when Hay
was on the editorial staff of the Tribune and lived
in New York. No doubt he watched intently the
early career of Theodore, who, within two years of
his graduation from Harvard in 1880, came to be
known throughout the country by his work as a re-
former in the New York Assembly.



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 333

Thereafter, Mr. Roosevelt soon enjoyed a na-
tional reputation. In 1889, on being appointed by
President Harrison a member of the National Civil
Service Commission, he removed to Washington,
where he quickly made a place apart for himself,
mixing cheerily with all sorts of men, equally at home
with Cabinet officers and cowboys, surprising some,