and method of construction. As the debate progressed in Congress the advocates of a route by way of the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua came to open issue with the friends of the Panama route, who were headed by Senator Hanna and President Roosevelt. Unable to command a vote in Congress for either route, it was agreed in June, 1902, that the President should have authority to select the route.

Early in 1903 Hay signed with the Colombian Minister, Herran, an agreement authorizing the United States to take over the French concession at Panama, and to control the zone through which the canal should run. There had already been excitement and dismay among the owners of the French company because of a recommendation from a commission of engineers headed by Rear-Admiral John G. Walker that the extortionate price demanded by the canal company for its property made it preferable for the United States to turn from Panama and build at Nicaragua. The French company immediately discovered that forty million dollars would be a suitable price instead of one hundred and twenty millions. The Walker commission changed its recommendation accordingly, and the signature of the Hay-Herran Treaty was regarded as removing the last of the diplomatic obstacles. In the Senate, however, Senator Morgan, of Alabama, who believed in the Nicaragua route, led a filibuster that prevented ratification in the current session. The President immediately called a special session of the Senate in March, 1903, at which the Hay-Herran Treaty was ratified.

There was no satisfaction with the treaty in Colombia, where the opponents of the Administration that had negotiated it charged variously that ten millions cash and an annuity of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year was not a sufficient price for the right of way; that it was unconstitutional to grant the exclusive jurisdiction over the canal zone involved in the treaty; and that it was President Marroquin's intention to appropriate the sum for private purposes rather than to turn it into the Treasury.

For one reason or another action by the Colombian Congress was delayed throughout the summer of 1903, and that body adjourned in the end of October permitting the treaty to die without action.

While Colombia delayed to pledge herself with reference to the canal, American opinion fretted, and the French owners of the concession despaired, because in 1904 their rights would lapse and the unfinished enterprise would revert to the ownership of Colombia in accordance with the terms of their contract. In the autumn President Roosevelt prepared a message for Congress recommending the seizure of the canal zone by the United States on the ground that the work contemplated was in the interests of "collective civilization." About the same time he wrote a private letter expressing a wish that the State of Panama would secede from Colombia and negotiate directly for the canal rights, but declared that his official position debarred him from acting toward this end.

Revolution

The French Canal Company was already acting in the same direction. Its agent, Bunau-Varilla, visited Washington and learned that if public disorder arose on The the isthmus, the United States would regard it Panama as its duty under a treaty with New Granada (Colombia) of 1846 to intervene to maintain order, even though this intervention should restrain Colombia from suppressing her insurgents. This was as much as the inhabitants of Panama desired. On November 3, 1903, a quick and bloodless revolt took place, the independence of the isthmus was proclaimed, an American naval force prevented the landing of Colombian troops to put it down, and Roosevelt's message advocating seizure became unnecessary. A few days later the Republic of Panama was recognized at Washington, and by a treaty of November 18, 1903, conceded to the United States everything that Colombia had refused.

Roosevelt continued until his death to defend the equity of his treatment of Colombia. He acted immediately upon the new condition created by the Panama treaty, and in

Canal construction

the spring of 1904 began the work of actual construction of the canal. On the engineering side there was sharp difference of opinion respecting the merits of a sea-level canal or one with locks. The latter type was determined upon because of the less cost and shorter period required for construction. The French company had already done much of the preliminary excavation, but had learned little about sanitation in the tropics. Its European engineers and workmen had died like flies in the huts along the route of the canal. The sanitary renovation of the Zone was among the earliest of the American tasks and in this Colonel Gorgas applied what had been learned in Cuba, until the healthful conditions of the Zone became, in the opinion of Sir Frederick Treves, a triumph for preventive medicine.

The administrative control of construction was vexatious because the task called for executive direction, while Congress wished the control to be through a commission. One engineer after another resigned the task until finally George W. Goethals, a major in the regular army, was made chairman and chief engineer in 1907. The rest of the members of the commission were appointed by the President, subject to their promise never to disagree with the chairman; by which means the commission was turned into an executive agency. "Damn the law. I want the canal built," Roosevelt is said to have remarked to Goethals as he entrusted him with the task. Five times before 1910 Taft went to Panama to inspect the progress of the work of construction, and in 1906 Roosevelt himself established a new precedent for Presidents by leaving the territory of the United States in order to visit the work that he had so vigorously advanced.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (1909), and William I. Hull, The Two Hague Conferences and their Contribution to International Law (1908), contain a narrative of American participation at The Hague. In the American Journal of International Law (1907-) there may be found special articles on most aspects of current diplomatic

relations as well as texts of the basic documents. Joseph B. Bishop, The Panama Gateway (1913), is a popular account. There are many details in the writings of Philippe Bunau-Varilla, Panama: The Creation, Destruction, and Resurrection (1914), and The Great Adventure of Panama and its Relation to the World War (1920). Roosevelt's Autobiography is, of course, of value, as well as Root's addresses which have been collected under the title The Military and Colonial Policy of the United States (1916).

CHAPTER XXXVI

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

THE Sixtieth Congress, the last of the Rooseveit Administration, sat from 1907 to 1909. The acts passed and those

Political manners,

1900-1909

that it rejected indicated clearly the trend of events within the Republican Party as the time approached for another presidential election. The breach that had been healed in 1904, after the death of Hanna, was now wide open, as "stand-pat" Republicans strove to bring about the nomination of a conservative candidate, and to put an end to the period of executive action and interference with business. Manners as well as policies were involved in the breach. The aggressive assurance of Roosevelt alienated his enemies and was trying even to his friends. The rapidity with which he reached decisions and acted upon them startled and embarrassed many of his associates. The readiness with which he called men liars and asserted that all honest men agreed with him alienated within his own party many who would have preferred to act in harmony with him.

The succession in 1908 was not complicated by any prospect that Roosevelt would again be a candidate. During the campaign of 1904 there had been much mild discussion as to how he would stand with reference to the national tradition against three terms. Technically his first period as President was McKinley's term and not his own. On election night, after enough returns were in to indicate that his vote had run away from Judge Parker, and that his election was assured, he voluntarily answered the question in these words: "On the 4th of March next I shall have served three and a half years, and this three and a half years constitutes my first term. The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will