ma. We are primarily
concerned with the part which Roosevelt played in certain international
occurrences, of which the Panama incident was not the least interesting
and significant. In after years Roosevelt said laconically, "I took
Panama." In fact he did nothing of the sort. But it was like him to
brush aside all technical defenses of any act of his and to meet his
critics on their own ground. It was as though he said to them, "You
roundly denounce me for what I did at the time of the revolution which
established the Republic of Panama. You declare that my acts were
contrary to international law and international morals. I have a
splendid technical defense on the legal side; but I care little about
technicalities when compared with reality. Let us admit that I did
what you charge me with. I will prove to you that I was justified in so
doing. I took Panama; but the taking was a righteous act."

Fourteen years after that event, in a speech which he made in
Washington, Roosevelt expressed his dissatisfaction with the way in
which President Wilson was conducting the Great War. He reverted to what
he had done in relation to Panama and contrasted his action with the
failure of the Wilson Administration to take prompt possession of two
hundred locomotives which had been built in this country for the late
Russian Government. This is what he said:

"What I think, of course, in my view of the proper governmental policy,
should have been done was to take the two hundred locomotives and then
discuss. That was the course that I followed, and to which I have ever
since looked back with impenitent satisfaction, in reference to the
Panama Canal. If you remember, Panama declared itself independent and
wanted to complete the Panama Canal and opened negotiations with us. I
had two courses open. I might have taken the matter under advisement and
put it before the Senate, in which case we should have had a number of
most able speeches on the subject. We would have had a number of very
profound arguments, and they would have been going on now, and the
Panama Canal would be in the dim future yet. We would have had half a
century of discussion, and perhaps the Panama Canal. I preferred that
we should have the Panama Canal first and the half century of discussion
afterward. And now instead of discussing the canal before it was built,
which would have been harmful, they merely discuss me--a discussion
which I regard with benign interest."