Authors: Edmund Morris
120
Up Pennsylvania Avenue
The Washington Post
and Washington
Evening Star, 4
Nov. 1903. Myron T. Herrick had been elected Governor of Ohio in a convincing victory for Hanna Republicans. The result was an immediate resurgence of the Hanna for President movement among GOP conservatives.
The Washington Post, 5
Nov. 1903.
121
The White House
DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 330;
Story of Panama
, 397. At 12:10
P.M.
, Loomis ordered Ehrman to inform the captain of the gunboat
Bogotá
“plainly” that the United States, mindful of her responsibility to maintain peace
and free transit across the Isthmus, requested him to hold any future fire.
Foreign Relations 1903
, 232.
122
Commander Hubbard, by
Story of Panama
, 441, 656; John Hubbard to James Shaler, and copy to Eliseo Torres, 4 Nov. 1903 (TRP). The two-way effect of Hubbard’s order has been downplayed by historians seeking to blame the Roosevelt Administration for fomenting the separation of Panama (see Friedlander, “Reassessment”). While the ban on military movement undoubtedly strengthened the
junta
’s hold on Panama City, it worked to Colombia’s advantage in Colón. Rebel forces, which outnumbered Colonel Torres’s battalion three to one, were prevented from crossing and bloodily completing the work of revolution.
123
Torres reacted with
Story of Panama
, 441.
124
The mid-morning train
John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 5 Nov. 1903 (TRP);
Story of Panama
, 439, 441.
125
Torres went in
John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 5 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
126
“war against the”
Ibid., and 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
127
Undeterred, Torres’s
John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 5 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
128
IN WASHINGTON
,
the
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 437; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., to TR, 24 Oct. 1903, and White House appointment book, 4 Nov. 1903 (TRP). Privately, as an old soldier, Holmes admitted that he came “devilishly near to believing that might makes right.” For a revisionist view of the great Justice, see Albert W. Alschuler,
Law Without Values: The Life, Work, and Legacy of Justice Holmes
(Chicago, 2000), importantly countered by Jeffrey Rosen in
The New York Times Book Review
, 17 Dec. 2000.
129
In New York
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 324.
130
“With all the”
Story of Panama
, 446–47; Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 344–46. As things turned out, the rest of Bunau-Varilla’s money was neither sent nor needed. See Charles D. Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla: New Light on the Panama Canal Treaty,”
Hispanic-American Historical Review
46.1 (1966).
131
COLONEL TORRES
,
closeted
Story of Panama
, 443–44; John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 5 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
132
Colonel Shaler undertook
Story of Panama
, 444.
133
A state of unnatural
DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 342;
Foreign Relations 1903
, 237.
134
And in New York
Grenville and Young,
Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy
, 311. There is some evidence that TR, or at least Moody, had contemplated a punitive strike against Colombia nine days earlier. On 26 Oct. 1903, the Navy Department sent TR draft instructions for an attack on Cartagena by the Caribbean Squadron. Ibid., 310.
135
COLONEL HUBBARD WENT
John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
136
To popular relief
Story of Panama
, 452–57; DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 335.
137
Just then, at
7:05 Captain Delano (Officer Commanding,
Dixie)
to William H. Moody, 6 Nov. 1903 (TRP);
Story of Panama
, 458. The next morning, the
Atlanta
arrived, bringing United States strength in Colón to one thousand men. General Tovar and his staff were, under escort, sent back to Colombia on 12 Nov. Bishop,
Theodore Roosevelt
, vol. 2, 286.
138
ROOSEVELT’S CABINET MEETING
Washington Times
, 6 Nov. 1903;
Story of Panama
, 463, 467;
Foreign Relations 1903
, 239. The Frenchman’s appointment was officially upgraded to “minister plenipotentiary” that evening. Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 348–49.
139
There was no doubt
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 349.
140
Roosevelt and Hay
Friedlander, “Reassessment,” rejects suggestions by John Hay’s biographers that the Secretary was less than happy with TR’s Panama policy in 1903. He quotes, e.g., Hay to John Ford Rhodes, 8 Dec. 1903: “It is hard for me
to understand how anyone can criticize our action in Panama.… I had no hesitation as to the proper course to take, and have had no doubt of the propriety of it since.” Elihu Root was likewise supportive, insisting as late as 1931, “I have always felt that [Roosevelt’s] action was right.” Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 1, 403.
141
Questions were being
The Times
(London), 5 Nov. 1903.
142
Roosevelt did not feel
TR, “How the United States Acquired the Right to Dig the Panama Canal,”
Outlook
, 7 Oct. 1911; TR,
Autobiography
, 538. In 1887, the historian George Bancroft, revered by TR, had predicted that either an international consortium, or the United States alone, “as the power most interested” in safeguarding Panama as a neutral transit zone, would elbow Colombia aside and assume “whole control for the benefit of all nations.” DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 130.
143
Colombia was clearly
Parks,
Colombia and the United States
, 406. While TR pondered his recognition decision, he very likely heard from Senator Morgan the comment of a Colombian general, just before the treaty was rejected: “It is ridiculous for the Americans to be treating with Colombia now, when we have to wait only a few years, until the French concession expires, [to] make you pay seventy, eighty, or one hundred millions.” Qu. in F. F. Whitteken to John T. Morgan, 2 Nov. 1903 (JTM).
144
“most just and proper”
TR,
Works
, vol. 20, 485.
145
THE PEOPLE OF PANAMA
Story of Panama
, 463–64.
146
ROOSEVELT ADJOURNED
Straus,
Under Four Administrations
, 174–75. The question of American moral obligations had long plagued policymakers. As far back as 1864, Attorney General Edward Bates deplored the 1846 treaty, with its guarantee of Isthmian rights and sovereignty to “New Granada,” as a mockery of “the wise and cautious policy of the fathers of this Republic.” But since the treaty was a fait accompli, Bates felt that “honesty and good faith require us to fulfill it.” He hoped that the United States would never again commit herself to “such dangerous intermeddling in the affairs of foreign nations.” Qu. in Philander Knox, “Sovereignty over the Isthmus, as Affecting the Canal,” 1903 memorandum (PCK).
147
Straus suggested
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 648–49.
148
Roosevelt seized
Ibid. “Your ‘covenant running with the land’ idea worked admirably,” TR wrote Moore on 12 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
149
That evening
Story of Panama
, 469; copy of Hay statement, 7 Nov. 1903, in TRP.
150
Professor John Bassett
John Bassett Moore to Oscar Straus, 11 Nov. 1903; Straus,
Under Four Administrations
, 175. Notwithstanding accusations of unseemly haste, TR did not formally recognize Panama until 13 Nov. 1903. As Moore explained to the public, he at first “merely recognized
de facto
authorities on the spot.… It is not an uncommon thing to recognize and hold intercourse with such authorities, pending the determination of the question of formal recognition.” New York
Evening Post
, 11 Nov. 1903.
1
A man can be
Dunne,
Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy
, 179.
2
“This mad plunge”
New York
Evening Post
, 7 Nov. 1903.
3
“It is the most”
Ibid. It was probably around this time that TR, hearing that Villard was circulating a story about Kaiser Wilhelm’s ability to dismantle and reconstruct a complex Edison phonograph, ejaculated in his highest falsetto, “I
wish
that somebody would take Oswald Villard to pieces and forget to put him together again!” Villard,
Fighting Years
, 153.
4
“Nations must strike”
Albert H. Walker to New York
Evening Post
, 10 Nov.
1903, copy in PCK. For modern historical comment, supportive of TR’s Panama policy in 1903, see also Collin, “Big Stick,” 302–6, 312; Friedlander, “Reassessment”; and Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 97–105.
5
“Nothing that Alexander”
Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
6
However
, 75
Public Opinion
, 19 Nov. 1903;
Literary Digest
, 21 and 14 Nov. 1903; Washington
Evening Star
, 6 Nov. 1903.
7
South American reactions
“Latin American Views of Panama and the Canal,”
Review of Reviews
, Mar. 1904. See also John Patterson, “Latin American Reactions to the Panama Revolution of 1903,”
Hispanic America Historical Review
24 (1944), and E. Bradford Burns, “The Recognition of Panama by the Major Latin American States,”
Americas
26 (1969).
8
“We have converted”
Article by “Santander A. Galofre,” ca. Dec. 1903, sent to Philippe Bunau-Varilla (PBV).
9
In Europe, as in
The Times
, undated clipping in John Hay scrapbook (JH); Leipzig
Grenzboten
, qu. in
Literary Digest
, 26 Dec. 1903.
10
A British visitor
Henry W. Lucy,
Sixty Years in the Wilderness
(London, 1924), 214.
Historical Note:
TR’s difficulties with public opinion in the aftermath of the Panama Revolution were complicated by a brief, but intense, war scare on the Isthmus. The concentration of United States warships continued as planned until, by 15 Nov., two walls of American armor effectively denied Colombia sea access to her former department. Panama City was defended by the
Boston
(7 Nov.),
Marblehead
(10 Nov.),
Concord
(10 Nov.), and
Wyoming
(13 Nov.). Several of these gunboats patrolled the new Republic’s coasts, extending the limits of protection to both eastern and western borders. Colombia, meanwhile, sent a special mission to Panama, under General Rafael Reyes, with a view toward settling differences and reuniting. The
junta
refused to let Reyes land at Colón, whereupon John Hay asked that he be given “a courteous reception and considerate hearing” offshore. On 19 Nov., Reyes met with
junta
representatives aboard a French steamer. He offered them many concessions humiliating to his government, but they declared the Panama revolution to be “irrevocable.” Reyes sailed north to plead, equally vainly, for an indemnity from Washington. On 3 Dec., reports that Colombian forces were advancing into Panama reached the White House. Secretary Moody ordered the
Prairie
from Guantánamo to Colón with a detachment of Marines to complement the
Dixie
’s. On 15 Dec., another detachment from the
Atlanta
tracked down a force of two thousand Colombian soldiers in Darien. Moody responded with further deployments. These actions provoked such antiwar and anticanal sentiment on Capitol Hill that TR, alarmed, ordered a radical change in policy on 21 Dec. Overriding both Moody and Root, he confined American and naval activities on the Isthmus to the canal zone only, and insisted on unaggressive behavior. “If there should come a brush with Colombia, I want to be dead sure that Colombia fires first.” (TR to Moody, 21 Dec. 1903 [TRP]). By the new year, Panama’s own defenses were strong enough for further reduction of United States forces. Sporadic threats of Colombian invasion continued through Jan. 1904, but when Commander Hubbard of the
Nashville
visited Cartagena on the thirty-first, he was received with resigned goodwill. Bogotá, it seemed, had accepted the inevitable. For detailed accounts, see DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, chap. 15, and Nikol and Holbrook, “Naval Operations.” The latter conclude: “The Navy was used by [the] Roosevelt Administration as a defensive weapon, not aggressively,
in the ‘taking’ of Panama. The Administration made it clear to the Colombians that the Navy was defending Panama’s coast and the Transit and then left it up to Colombia to force the issue.”
11
ON 13 NOVEMBER
White House diary (TRP); the most scholarly assessment of Bunau-Varilla’s brief ministry is Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.”
12
“It is necessary”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 366. For the texts of the formal exchanges, see
Foreign Relations 1903
, 245–46.