Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris Read Free Book Online Page B

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 PEOPLE OF PANAMA HAVE, BY AN APPARENTLY UNANIMOUS MOVEMENT, DISSOLVED THEIR POLITICAL CONNECTION WITH THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA AND RESUMED THEIR INDEPENDENCE. WHEN YOU ARE SATISFIED THAT A DE FACTO GOVERNMENT, REPUBLICAN IN FORM, AND WITHOUT SUBSTANTIAL OPPOSITION FROM ITS OWN PEOPLE, HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED IN THE STATE OF PANAMA, YOU WILL ENTER INTO RELATIONS WITH IT .
    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’!!”



CHAPTER 32
One Long Lovely Crackling Row

    MR. DOOLEY
Well, I see Congress has got to wurruk again
.
MR. HENNESSY
Th’ Lord save us fr’m harm
.
    ON 3 NOVEMBER 1908 , Edith Roosevelt was dismayed to hear that Pine Knot had fallen to William Jennings Bryan.
    The fake telegram was sent by her husband, radiant over the election of William Howard Taft as twenty-seventh President of the United States. He regarded the vote as a vindication of his own record, and a guarantee of four more years of Rooseveltism. “We have beaten them to a frazzle!” The next morning, he arrived in the Executive Office in high good humor. James Garfield and Captain Butt were waiting to see him. “You army officers and politicians who still have futures before you may continue the