arrived I had not the slightest precise hint as to a revolution being started, though the press dispatches made probable that the state of discontent on the Isthmus would burst out at the first instance; third, that Mr. Cromwell was absolutely kept in strict ignorance of what was happening between Amador and myself; fourth, that the leaders of the movement, Amador, Arango, and others, considered Mr. Cromwell as having betrayed them, as is shown by the letter of Arango of the 14th of September, 1903 (p. 649). Therefore they did not take him a second time into their confidence until he succeeded after the victory, due to other influences, in obtaining his pardon and in making his peace with them on November 17, 1903.

Mr. Cromwell was kept absolutely ignornat of everything until then. Of course, he was infinitely displeased to have been in France or on sea when these important and decisive events were being prepared. He could not say as he did under any pretense whatever of the Spooner bill that he had inspired the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty nor that he made the establishment of the new Republic a success.

This short sketch of events being established and the state of mind of Mr. Cromwell being known, let us see what happened with the ratification of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty, and let us proceed to the

FIFTH DEMONSTRATION OF AN ABSOLUTE LACK OF VERACITY IN MESSRS. SULLIVAN AND CROMWELL'S PLEA FOR FEES, SHOWING, IF FINALLY CORROBORATED, MOST REPREHENSIBLE ACTS OF A TREASONABLE CHARACTER, COMMITTED BY MEN CLOSE TO MR. CROMWELL, WHO USED HIS NAME AS THEIR AUTHORITY.

On page 239 of the Story of Panama we can read the following sentence in the plea for fees:

"We were relied upon to devote ourselves to the ratification of the treaty between the United States and Panama as we had already done for the Hay-Herran treaty, and we devoted ourselves to this task during the six following weeks."

The plea for fees observes a delicate care in not mentioning by whom Mr. Cromwell was relied upon to obtain the ratification. Was it the ratification at Panama? The provisional government had only to depend on themselves for it. Was it the ratification by the United States? It was the matter of the Republican Senators who had approved the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty before it was signed on the 18th of November, 1903.

However, if Mr. Cromwell had been willing to help, he undoubtedly would have come to the Panama legation and given me information.

As I said before, I never saw him but once, and that was on the day following the signature of the treaty.

To judge the varacity of the above statement, let us look into the facts.

I had the most serious reasons to believe that Colombia was intriguing on the Isthmus to prepare a counter revolution. The best way for it was to prepare the minds there to the idea that the treaty I had signed had been made without any regard to the Panama patriotism by a foreigner.

I had to foresee the loose or fiery talk which so often brings the Spanish-Americans out of their senses when the great words of honor and patriotism are handled in order to deceive them. The only measure I could take to prevent any possible reversal of public opinion was to have the treaty ratified as rapidly as possible after its arrival and to have it returned immediately to me.

The provisional government assented to an immediate ratification.

I had only to provide for the means of transporting it back.

Unfortunately the steamer on the regular schedule of the Panama Railroad for the line Colon-New York was leaving at noon when the steamer bringing the treaty was scheduled to arrive in the morning. The time was insufficient even for reading the treaty.

Very often, for the slightest reasons, the time of departure of the steamers was postponed for a few hours.

It was usual and nothing of any importance could result from the postponement of the departure for 24 hours.

I did not doubt that a simple request to the Panama Railroad, as the owner of the steamers, would be immediately satisfied. The quasi totality of the shares of the Panama Railroad being the property of the canal company, its agents had for immediate duty toward the principal shareholder of their company as well as citizens of the United States to satisfy my demand, which was made in the interest of a ratification which it was the interest of the canal company and of the United States to help. Mr. Cromwell was then the real head of the Panama Railroad. He was the general representative in America of the canal company. The vice-president of the railroad was Mr. Drake, the confidential man of Mr. Cromwell.

On page 645 of the Story of Panama this fact known to everybody of the close and intimate relations of Mr. Drake with Mr. Cromwell is thus set forth in the compilation of facts by Earl Harding (Exhibit K):

"Judge Gudger declares that neither he nor Mr. Cromwell discussed the revolutionary situation. On the other hand Prescott was talking nothing but revolution to Vice President Drake. He knew Capt. Beers's cables to Cromwell were transmitted through Drake, so he freely discussed the plans."

Though there are several and extremely grave errors in Mr. Earl Harding's compilation of facts what he says there must be believed as a fact. Very likely it is extracted from testimony and is completely in harmony with everything known and testified to under oath during the World's inquiry on the Isthmus. There is scarcely any doubt that what Mr. Drake did was with the consent of Mr. Cromwell.

For these various reasons I expected that my demand for detention of the Yucatan, the steamer leaving in the morning of the day of the arrival of the treaty in Colon, would be immediately satisfied. It was refused.

It was an act made so obviously with the intention of detaining the treaty unduly that it so much more raised my suspicion about a conspiracy toward the rejection of the treaty by Panama.

I immediately requested my government to ratify the treaty as soon as received and to put it into the hands of the United States consul general on the Isthmus.

I parried thus the suspected efforts toward the same movement which lost the HayHerran treaty in Bogota-first enthusiasm, then coldness, then hatred.

Very likely the easily inflammable matter which is public opinion in contact with tropical oratory might have put the provisional Government in an impossible state if I had let the things go.

However I was so much struck by the inadmissible attitude of the Panama Railroad that I thought necessary to keep it on record.

On the 3d of December, 1903, I sent an official letter to the Secretary of State. It denounced the strange attitude of the officers of the Panama Railroad.

It gives the text of my telegram sent from Washington on the 28th of November, 1903, at 2.45 p. m., to the president of the Panama Railroad requesting the detention of the Yucatan with the view of "getting back duly ratified the canal treaty." It shows how I left on the same day from Washington for New York and waited there the 29th and the first part of the 30th without receiving an answer. I reproduce hereafter a part of this letter in order to show what happened in the rest of the 30th of November and on the 1st of December:

"Having received no advice until 3 o'clock I tried several times to get Mr. Drake, vice president of the company, by telephone, but without success, and finally went to his office about 4 o'clock. To my great surprise I learned from him that not even the slightest move had been made to comply with my request. Mr. Drake tried to demonstrate to me that it was something of great difficulty, that such a decision could not be taken without the approval of a committee, whose usual date of meeting was the following day. Finally he agreed that as soon as possible he would see the president, Mr. Simmons, and Mr. Cromwell, both of whom were indisposed and remained in their houses. I expressly stated to Mr. Drake that I was ready to take officially the pledge to reimburse the company for any material losses that such delay might cause from any point of view, and to facilitate the question of delay I stated that perhaps 24 hours would be sufficient, instead of 36 hours, which I had previously determined. We finally separated with the express pledge on his part to send me a telegram to the Waldorf-Astoria the same afternoon or early in the evening as soon as the decision would be taken. I left Mr. Drake, in spite of the excessive courtesy he displayed, without the slightest doubt about the intentions of his company, and I immediately went to the next telegraph office to inform the Department of State of the situation and to request the help of the American authority in Colon. Owing to the advanced hour of the day and not knowing whether you had yet come back to Washington, Mr. Secretary, I addressed to Hon. Francis B. Loomis, Assistant Secretary of State, the following telegram at 4.10 p. m., November 30:

I find here unexpected reluctance on the part of the Panama Railroad Co. to delay 24 hours departure of steamer Yucatan in order to bring back treaty duly ratified. I telegraphed my Government to employ all means available to detain ship time necessary even if Panama Railroad does not send express orders. I would respectfully request you to give similar instructions to the American authorities at

Colon.'

1 Capt. Beers is an employee of the Panama Railroad who was chosen by the revolutionists to go to the United States in order to know if they could find a support there. He went to his superior officers, Drake and Cromwell.

"An hour later, fearing that my previous dispatch would seem incomplete to the State Department, I wired again to Mr. Loomis, Assistant Secretary of State, the following additional dispatch:

"I beg to inform you that the City of Washington, carrying treaty, is expected to arrive at Colon at 9 a. m. to-morrow (Tuesday), and that the Yucatan is scheduled to leave same port at noon. I requested the Panama Railroad Co., to whom these ships belong, to defer departure Yucatan 24 hours after arrival City of Washington.' About the same time I had sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Panama the corresponding suggestions.

"I received the answer from the State Department at 9 p. m.: "Have wired your suggestion to Admiral Walker.'

"From the Panama Railroad, in spite of the express assurances given to me by Mr. Drake of sending me a message in the afternoon or early in the evening, nothing came, neither that evening nor the following morning, and only at 12.15 p. m., after the scheduled sailing time of the Yucatan from Colon, the following telegram was delivered for me at the Waldorf Astoria:

"P. BUNAU-VARILLA, Minister,

'Waldorf-Astoria, New York.

66 NEW YORK, December 1, 1903.

"Replying to your telegram of 28th ultimo and interview with Vice President Drake yesterday, the decision has been reached that it will be inexpedient to comply with your request.

"J. EDWARD SIMMONS, "President Panama Railroad Co.'

"About half an hour after I met Mr. Drake on board the steamer Seguranca, where I had been to take leave of the delegation of the Panama Government. He tried to explain to me in behalf of the president of the company the signification of the word 'inexpedient.' I paid but little attention to what he had to say.

"The attitude of this company under such grave circumstances I fail to explain from any logical point of view. The interests of the Republic of Panama, as expressed by the only official authority having the right to speak in their behalf in this country, and the obvious interest of the New Panama Canal Co., of which the Panama Railroad is a property, should have led anybody, I think, to find it expedient to comply with my request.

"I do not care to allude to a third and more important kind of interest for American citizens. I have no quality to speak about it, but it seems to me that the directors of any corporation, the world over, when they have to take a decision bearing on a question of national policy, invariably guide their action after the convenience of their Government has been respectfully and tactfully consulted."

The Department of State acknowledged receipt of my letter of complaint on the 9th of December, 1903, in the following terms:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, December 9, 1903.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your note of 3d instant stating that the Panama Railroad Co. had declined to detain the steamship Yucatan long enough to receive the ratification by your Government of the canal treaty. Accept, sir, the renewed assurance of my highest consideration.

FRANCIS B. LOOMIS,
Acting Secretary.

But since then the inquiry made by the World has brought out a document of capital importance. It is necessary to restrain one's indignation not to qualify it as it deserves. It explains the inconceivable attitude of the officers of the Panama Railroad, as set forth in the official letter of which I just gave extracts and which must be filed in the State Department. And this document is signed by an American citizen, who says he has the support of Mr. Cromwell.

It is a cablegram reproduced on page 428 of the Story of Panama, dated November 30, 1903, 6.10 p. m.

It must be borne in mind that, according to my letter to the State Department, my conversation with Mr. Drake took place the same day between 3 and 4.10 p. m., and that he saw me the following day and tried to explain to me that Mr. Edward Simmons had found it "inexpedient" to detain the Yucatan.

The cablegram is signed by Mr. Drake, who, as my letter to the State Department shows, had promised me a couple of hours before to see immediately Mr. Cromwell and to inform me in the afternoon or early in the evening of the decision taken about the detention of the Yucatan, requested by me on account of a great public interest.

79669-13-3

It is addressed to Beers, his agent on the Isthmus for political questions and the former intermediary agent between Mr. Cromwell and the revolutionists; to the very same man to whom Mr. Arango recommends Mr. Amador to send his cables in his letter of September 14, 1903; to the very same man who Mr. Amador told me at his first visit had been sent to see Drake and Cromwell in order to get help to start a revolution. This telegram, if true, entails a crushing responsibility on him who signed it and at the same time on him who is said in it to give his support to it. If this telegram is a forgery, why have not yet the two persons interested raised a cry of indignation when it was made public on the 16th of February, 1912, before a committee of Congress and printed since in the Government Printing Office?

BEERS, Panama:

NEW YORK, November 30, 1903-6.10 p. m.

1

Several cables urging immediate appointment of Pablo Arosemena have been sent to the Junta (provisional government) since Friday. We are surprised that action has not taken place and suppose it is only because minister of the Republic of Panama is trying to disturb the Junta by cabling that there is great danger that Washington will make a trade with Reyes and withdraw warships and urge his retention because of his alleged influence with President Roosevelt and Senators. This is absolutely without foundation. Mr. Cromwell has direct assurances from President Roosevelt, Secretary Hay, Senator Hanna, and other Senators that there is not the slightest danger of this. Evidently the minister's pretense of influence is grossly exaggerated. We have the fullest support of Mr. Cromwell and his friends who have carried every victory for us for past six years. Junta evidently does not know that objection exists in Washington to the minister of Panama, because he is not a Panaman but a foreigner, and initially has displeased influential Senators regarding character of former treaty. He is recklessly involving Republic of Panama in financial and other complications that will use up important part of indemnity. Delegates here are powerless to prevent all this, as minister of Republic of Panama uses his position of minister to go over their heads. He is sacrificing the Republic's interests and may at any moment commit Republic of Panama to portion of the debts of Colombia, same as he signed a treaty omitting many points of advantage to Republic of Panama, and which would have been granted readily, without waiting for delegates, who were to his knowledge within two hours of arrival. With discretion inform Junta and cable me immediately synopsis of situation and when will Junta appoint Pablo Arosemena. Answer to-day if possible.

DRAKE.

This denunciation, ridiculous in fact as much as perfidious in intention, would only regard me if the treaty had been ratified then. It would not be worth mentioning if I had been alone interested. But its importance is capital if we think that the treaty was to arrive on the following day in Colon, and that, owing to the refusal of detaining the Yucatan, it was likely to remain eight days on the Isthmus subject to criticisms and discussions.

As the telegram distinctly said that a more advantageous treaty would have been readily granted to Panama it was the most explicit incitation to respect the treaty. The odious misrepresentations as to the character of the man who had signed it on behalf of Panama, with the request for his immediate recall, was another way of rendering its ratification impossible. Had the provisional government yielded to this double pressure the treaty would undoubtedly have been rejected. Panama would have witnessed the same course of events which Bogota had with the Hay-Herran treaty.

If this telegram is not a forgery it shows an act from an officer of the Panama Railroad, an American citizen, against the acts of the American Government in a foreign country. It is a traitor's work against the interests of his employers, the New Panama Canal Co., the owners of the stock of the Panama Railroad, and a traitor's work against the interests and the policy of the United States, whose diplomatic efforts in a foreign country it tried to thwart."

If the document is true it is the demonstration of something grave. I sincerely hope that Mr. Drake will exonerate himself in demonstrating that the telegram in question is a forgery. I hope he will show that he did not send it while according to his promises he was consulting with Mr. Cromwell about the detention of the Yucatan. The fact in any case will remain that the Yucatan sailed against my pressing requests, and this one fact would be sufficient to establish the lack of veracity of the plea for fees.

It is inconceivable that Mr. Cromwell should not have been consulted on this excessively important subject by Mr. Drake, his confidential man, between the

To the place of minister plenipotentiary I filled then in Washington.

arrival of my telegram on the 28th of November and the refusal of my request on the 1st of December, 1903. If Mr. Drake can not show the telegram to be a forgery it is also obvious that he did not send it without Mr. Cromwell's consent and approval. It seems, therefore, established beyond doubt that, contrary to what the plea for fees asserts, Mr. Cromwell's activities were not exerted in favor of the ratification by Panama.

Were Mr. Cromwell's activities exerted toward the ratification of the Hay-BunauVarilla treaty by the United States Senate?

During the months of November, December, 1903, and January, 1904, many speeches were pronounced in the Senate in order to prevent the ratification, but not one could exhibit a fault in the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty against the interests of the United States.

As the enemies of the treaty seemed to be powerless to obtain the rejection of a convention, which its own fiercest adversaries proclaimed to be the best one ever offered to the Senate for ratification, a new system of warfare began.

One of the two signers was proclaimed to be an adventurer and a scoundrel, whose character was such that it was the duty of the Senate to reject the treaty on account of the supposed infamy of one of its authors.

This campaign began with an article of the World entitled "Panama revolution a stock gambler's plan to make millions," and was followed three days after by a series of scurrilous articles in the Evening Post.

The World's article appeared on Sunday, January 17, 1904, and occupied on the top of the front page six columns out of eight of the paper. It was a whole cloth fabricated story of a syndicate of which I was said to be the head in order to speculate on the difference in value of the Panama securities before and after the revolution. The hundred thousand dollars which I advanced to the new Republic after it was formed were said to have been furnished by this syndicate.

This wicked invention was mixed with very precise details about the inception of the revolution.

Fortunately for me, being devoted since many years to the resurrection of the great work of Panama and to its vindication, I had made it a law for me to avoid the interference with my efforts of anything in the form of material interests. I had subscribed in the formation of the new company $110,000 in 1894, because it was at this time a necessity to create it in order to avoid the cancellation of the Panama concession by Colombia. I was bearer then (in 1894) of a certain number of bonds the value of which was at the time I received them less than $15,000 and which had been transferred to me in settlement of accounts by a third party. Since 1894 I had not made fo. my interest any single purchase of any Panama securities, either directly or indirectly, either personally or as associate with any syndicate. The same reserve had been observed by all the members of my family as far as I can know. This strong base of my actions made me very indifferent to this abominable invention.

A curious fact struck me as well as the persons who knew about the incidents before the revolution. The details of events preceding the revolution were very precise and accurate; only one name of those mixed with it was absent; it was that of Mr. Cromwell. The lack of reference to him pointed toward the origin of this paper.

I instructed my lawyers, Messrs. Pavey & Moore, to institute legal proceedings in order to know from where the paper had come.

As the World had shown that it was not of bad faith by soon dropping the whole story, I decided to drop also the legal proceedings.

The question remained: "Who had instigated the article?" The general rumor in Washington pointed in the same direction. An officer general of the Navy, well posted in canal matters, affirmed to me that he knew the name and he pronounced it before me.

The direction from which it came is now well known. We find it on page 680 of the "Story of Panama:" "The facts were brought to the World by Jonas Whitley of

of Panama came up.

I made in the fall of 1901 a purchase of $20,000 Panama securities, but it was not for my interest. Here is how it came. After a luncheon at the Cafe Anglais with prominent men of affairs, the question In spite of the recommendation by the Isthmian Canal Commission of the Nicarauga Canal, I maintained that Panama would finally win. One of my friends, Mr. Albert Dehaynin, a witty and caustic man, said: "Bunau-Varilla is the defender of the lost cause. He is the "Kruger of Panama." This allusion to the fruitless endeavors of the President of the Transvaal piqued me. "Now, Dehaynin," I said, "you understand as a banker only figures and market quotations. I am going to buy for $20,000 Panama bonds; you will see in a few years if I am a Kruger of Panama or not. But as I have decided not to derive any profit from my endeavors, if I am not a Kruger the profit will be either for remunerating the legal work or the employees who have faithfully served me or for paying for publicity for making the truth known. If I am a Kruger, I shall be penalized by the loss."

I acted later as I said: not 1 farthing of this went to my credit. There is still to-day $4,000 in the hands of the bank who purchased and sold the securities: Ferdinand Meyer & Co., now S. Grunberg & Co. I intend to devote it to the publication of the real and complete History of Panama since its inception.