Theodore Rex (71 page)

COLONEL HUBBARD WENT
ashore early on Thursday, 5 November, to find the
tiradores
(rendered irritable by mosquito bites) about to re-enter town. Torres said he had to be ready for the orders of General Tovar, due when his envoys arrived on the mid-morning train. Hubbard, infuriated, once more landed Marines, mounted cannons around the depot, and sent American women and children to safety. The
Nashville
resumed its sweep of the waterfront.

To popular relief, the envoys brought no orders, written or oral, from General Tovar. He declined to command from the depths of a jail cell; he merely expressed confidence that Colonel Torres “would always do his duty.” Chief Meléndez, scenting capitulation, reappeared at Torres’s elbow. The colonel blustered bravely all day; then, shortly before sunset, he agreed to accept an “indemnity” of eight thousand dollars advanced by Colonel Shaler. The money was counted out in cash. For another thousand dollars’ credit (guaranteed by Colonel Hubbard), the captain of the Royal Mail Company steamship
Orinoco
agreed to transport the
tiradores
home. Torres plodded aboard with his sacks of American gold. Four hundred and sixty men and thirteen women followed him up the gangplank. Shaler sent a farewell gift of two cases of champagne.

Just then, at 7:05
P.M.
, the
Dixie
arrived in Colón harbor. It docked rapidly, undeterred by a violent rainstorm, and disgorged four hundred Marines. But their services were not needed. The
Orinoco
was already under way, and the Panamanian flag rose above Casa Meléndez.

ROOSEVELT’S CABINET MEETING
on the morning of Friday, 6 November, was devoted exclusively to Panama. Hay and Moody presented their latest consular dispatches, inaccurately reporting peace, stability, and rejoicing all over the Isthmus. A cable from Arango, Boyd, and Arias confirmed that
“Señor
Philippe Bunau-Varilla” had been appointed their “envoy extraordinary” in Washington, “with full powers to conduct diplomatic and financial negotiations.” (For Bunau-Varilla, sitting on his money in New York, that title was not yet good enough.)

There was no doubt what the
junta
wanted: diplomatic recognition of the Republic of Panama.
Roosevelt and Hay were willing to extend such courtesy, now that the entire width of the Isthmus had been secured. The delicate question was when. A prompt announcement might forestall any attempt by Colombia to reclaim the Isthmus with a much larger military force. Panama, organized and recognized, could legitimately ask for American aid in repelling “foreign” invaders—and seven American warships were on hand to comply. All the same, there was such a thing as indecent haste.
Questions were being asked in British newspapers about Commander Hubbard’s denial of transit rights to the
tiradores
.

Roosevelt did not feel the world as a whole would long deplore their repatriation to Barranquilla. All his readings in history and geography, all his thrusting Americanism, “every consideration of international morality and expediency,” told him that after four hundred years of dreams and twenty years of planning, the Panama Canal’s time had come.
Colombia was clearly guilty of fatal insolence. Panama deserved the thanks—and support—of other self-determinant nations for her “
most just and proper revolution.”

Shortly before lunch, the Cabinet meeting broke up. Hay returned to the State Department and cabled a message to Consul Ehrman in Panama City.

The time was 12:51
P.M.;
the infant republic had been in existence not quite sixty-seven hours.

ROOSEVELT ADJOURNED TO LUNCH.
One of his guests was Oscar Straus, whose understanding of international law, commerce, and diplomacy increasingly impressed him. Musing aloud, Roosevelt wondered about the validity of the 1846 treaty, in that it had been contracted with New Granada. Did American obligations to an extinct federation still apply in 1903?

Straus suggested that the treaty was contracted only with the legitimate “holders” of the Isthmus. American rights related to the territory, which was unchangeable. “Our claim must be based upon what is known in law as ‘a covenant running with the land.’ ”

Roosevelt seized upon the words with delight.
That evening, an announcement of provisional recognition of Panama, issued by the Secretary of State, quoted Straus’s dictum. Hay was careful to add the phrase
as lawyers say
, and equally careful to eschew any reference to himself. His first words were, “The action of the President in the Panama matter,” and he identified Theodore Roosevelt no fewer than sixteen times in the next twenty paragraphs. “The imperative demands of the interests of civilization required him to put a stop … to the incessant civil contests and bickerings which have been for so many years the curse of Panama.”

Professor John Bassett Moore was pleased to see some of his own language in the announcement, and sent Straus a note of mutual congratulation. “Perhaps, however, it is only a question … of the ‘covenant running
away
with the land’!!”

AFTER TWENTY-TWO
years in politics, Theodore Roosevelt was used to critical noise, but the uproar following the recognition of Panama threatened even his robust eardrums. Loudest of all were the cries of Oswald Garrison Villard in the New York
Evening Post
.

If Villard meant the strictures of Abraham Lincoln against secession, Roosevelt could cite an earlier principle, fought for by George Washington. Panamanians now, as Americans then, were tired of paying taxes to a remote, autocratic government that invested nothing in return. He would have counted himself “criminal, as well as impotent,” had he not defended the revolution. But a time to reply would come. For the moment, his protesters had the floor.

In tones approaching libel, Villard denounced the “indecent haste” with which Roosevelt had betrayed trust, “just for a handful of silver.” Colombia had not rated so much as a warning:

Villard’s attacks continued for several days, until even the doubtful demurred. “I rather hope you will continue to pitch in to Roosevelt,” one reader wrote, “[but] as a matter of constitutional and international law, he was fully justified in all he did last week.” Colombia had received ample warning—from Panamanians, if not from Roosevelt. She had been too cowardly, or too corrupt, to fight. Roosevelt was bound to recognize her usurper, as other Presidents had accepted the obsolescence of New Granada. Nor could he be blamed for moving quickly, along with Britain, France, and Germany: “
Nations must strike when irons are hot.”

Anti-imperialists, who had been starved of an issue since the end of the Philippines war, would not be quieted. “
Nothing that Alexander or Nero ever did had a coarser touch of infamy,” William Henry Thorpe wrote in
The Globe
. “And all the depredations of England in Ireland, in Africa, or India have been gentlemanly compared with this sleek and underhanded piece of national bank robbery.” The Chicago
Chronicle
worried about “the distrust which we shall hereafter inspire among South and Central American countries.” Homer Davenport, cartoonist for the
New York American
, sketched a majestic eagle with a tiny, isthmus-shaped animal dangling from its claw.

However, 75 percent of the nation’s more conservative (if less strident) newspapers supported Roosevelt. “Colombia has simply got what she deserved,” the
Pittsburgh Times
commented, in words echoed by many. The
Chicago Tribune
agreed with John Hay that “the action of the President … was the only course he could have taken in compliance with our treaty rights and obligations.” Roosevelt’s new vision of the Isthmus, said the
Baltimore American
, would “inure to the advantage of the whole world.” Democratic and independent editors vied with Republican ones for expressions of relief and satisfaction, albeit qualified. “Even if the United States fomented the revolution,” the
Buffalo Express
remarked, “it acted in the interests of the governed.”

South American reactions turned out to be surprisingly muted, with fears of “a foreign protectorate” in Panama tempered by pleasure at the prospect of a new commercial age. Very few newspapers saw evidence of United States involvement in the revolution. “The change is to be welcomed, no matter how it has been brought about,” said the Chilean
Times
. Even in Bogotá,
El Relator
published a litany of Colombia’s sins against her separated citizens:

In Europe, as in the United States, there was a preponderance of praise over dismay.
The Times
of London called Roosevelt’s attitude “studiously correct,” and expressed little sympathy for Colombia, “the most corrupt and retrograde republic in Central America—which is saying a good deal.” Conservative newspapers in both Britain and France marveled that the legislators of Bogotá had tried to milk a treaty that would have brought one fifth of the world’s trade to their shores. Only in Germany was fear expressed of Roosevelt the “master” expansionist. “He is the type of advancing Americanism, as clever as he is unscrupulous, as powerful as he is sly.”

The President himself remained unruffled by all the fuss.
A British visitor to the White House on 11 November found him absorbed in
Tittlebat Titmouse
.