Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
Rumor had been general that if the treaty was not ratified by the Colombian Government, the State of Panama would secede from Colombia, sign the treaty, and thus secure the ten millions. In consequence of these rumors, which threatened transportation across the Isthmus, American war vessels were dispatched to Panama and to Colon. On November 3, 1902, the Republic of Panama was established.
The past tense is used advisedly, for that project was now entirely off, much to the secret delight of Captain Scraggs, who, if the hero of one naval engagement, was not anxious to take part in another. In Panama the freebooters of the Maggie II learned that during Mr. Gibney's absence on his filibustering trip the Colombian revolutionists had risen and struck their blow.
August 17, 1903, the Colombian Senate rejected this treaty, and, October 18, the government of that country proposed another, involving the payment by us of $25,000,000 instead of $10,000,000. If we offered this, would not the price rise to $30,000,000 or more? Papers in the United States argued for a revolution in Panama. The isthmus, it was urged, was in time nearer to Washington than to Bogota.
The report of the Panama Canal Committee of the Colombian Senate on October 14, 1903, on the proposed treaty with the United States, proposed that all consideration of the matter should be postponed until October 31, 1904, when the next Colombian Congress would have convened, because by that time the new Congress would be in condition to determine whether through lapse of time the French company had not forfeited its property and rights.
By which it may be gathered that linguistic ability on the Zone is on a par with that in other U. S. possessions. Of the seven of us assigned to plain-clothes duty on this strip of seventy-two nationalities there was a Colombian, a gentleman of Swedish birth, a Chinaman from Martinique, and a Greek, all of whom spoke English, Spanish, and at least one other language.
It was further provided that the products of the soil and industry of Colombia should be admitted to the canal zone subject only to such duty as would be payable on similar products of the United States under similar conditions, and Colombian mails were to have free passage through the canal zone on payment of such duties or charges as were laid on the mails of the United States.
The great cities, like Lima, Cusco, Puña, might be utterly destroyed; and it was not to be expected that the Colombian troops, so recently driven away by the Peruvian government, would come to the assistance of their enemies in peril.
The Canal was built. The "half century of discussion" which Roosevelt foresaw is now more than a third over, and the discussion shows no sign of lagging. But the Panama Canal is in use. Was the President of the United States justified in preventing the Colombian Government from fighting on the Isthmus to put down the unanimous revolution of the people of Panama? That is precisely all that he did.
However, before the meeting of the Colombian Congress in November, 1913, which was expected to confirm the concession, Lord Cowdray, the president of Pearson & Son, withdrew the contract, alleging as his reason the opposition of the United States.
I have described how he closed the dispute over the Alaskan Boundary, over our joint control with England over the Isthmus of Panama, and how he circumvented the attempt of the Colombian blackmailers to block our construction of the Canal. We must now glance at a matter of almost equal importance our relations with Germany.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking