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The refusal of Colombia properly to respond to our sincere and earnest efforts to come to an agreement, or to pay heed to the many concessions we have made, renders it in my judgment necessary that the United States should take immediate action on one of two lines: either we should drop the Panama canal project and immediately begin work on the Nicaraguan canal, or else we should purchase all the rights of the French company, and, without any further parley with Colombia, enter upon the completion of the canal which the French company has begun.
The good will of Colombia toward our country has been testified anew by the cordial extension of facilities to the Nicaraguan Canal Commission in their approaching investigation of the Panama Canal and other projected routes across the Isthmus of Darien. Toward the end of October an insurrectionary disturbance developed in the Colombian Republic.
Yet even as these plans are made, the Sandinista regime knows the tide is turning, and the cause of Nicaraguan freedom is riding at its crest. Because of the freedom fighters, who are resisting Communist rule, the Sandinistas have been forced to extend some democratic rights, negotiate with church authorities, and release a few political prisoners.
With the exception of the Nicaraguan representative, the judges upheld the contention of the plaintiffs that the defendant had no right to make any such concessions without previous consultation with Costa Rica, Salvador, and Honduras, since all three alike were affected by them.
In a dispatch to the Nicaraguan chargé, December 1, 1909, Secretary Knox said: Since the Washington conventions of 1907, it is notorious that President Zelaya has almost continuously kept Central America in tension or turmoil; that he has repeatedly and flagrantly violated the provisions of the conventions, and, by a baleful influence upon Honduras, whose neutrality the conventions were to assure, has sought to discredit those sacred international obligations, to the great detriment of Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala, whose governments meanwhile appear to have been able patiently to strive for the loyal support of the engagements so solemnly undertaken at Washington under the auspices of the United States and Mexico.
It was said, however, that many of the poorer natives were willing to fight against the Chamorristas, the aristocratic Nicaraguan faction originally opposed to Patricio Rivas and the Liberals, now in arms against General Walker, but that they made miserable soldiers outside of a barricade, and General Walker had no arms to throw away upon them.
It seems he was our captain pro tem., and bore recommendations from the agent at San Francisco to a commission in the Nicaraguan service. He had made the voyage on the cabin side of the ship, and I saw him now for the first time.
Great Britain was threatening to force the payment of its claims and certain German interests, which were operating banana plantations in Costa Rica, were trying to secure from the Nicaraguan government a concession for the construction of a canal from the Great Lake to the Atlantic along the San Juan river.
Agreement as to this was not reached, and the point was waived by the act of the Nicaraguan Government in requesting the British consul to return the deposits to the merchants. Menacing differences between several of the Central American States have been accommodated, our ministers rendering good offices toward an understanding.
The friendship of the Nicaraguan Government and people, therefore, is of great importance to us from both a commercial and a military standpoint. It is likewise of importance to others. Italy undertook to gain Nicaragua's friendship when she joined the Japanese-Nazi line-up. First, she offered scholarships, with all expenses paid, for Nicaraguan students to study fascism in Italy.
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