The facts of the case are simple and in the main undisputed. Shortly
after the inauguration of Roosevelt as President, a treaty was
negotiated with Colombia for the building of a canal at Panama. It
provided for the lease to the United States of a strip six miles wide
across the Isthmus, and for the payment to Colombia of $10,000,000 down
and $250,000 a year, beginning nine years later. The treaty was promptly
ratified by the United States Senate. A special session of the Colombian
Senate spent the summer marking time and adjourned after rejecting the
treaty by a unanimous vote. The dominant motive for the rejection was
greed. An attempt was first made by the dictatorial government that held
the Colombian Congress in its mailed hand to extort a large payment from
the French Canal Company, whose rights and property on the Isthmus were
to be bought by the United States for $40,000,000. Then $15,000,000
instead of $10,000,000 was demanded from the United States. Finally an
adroit and conscienceless scheme was invented by which the entire
rights of the French Canal Company were to be stolen by the Colombian
Government. This last plot, however, would involve a delay of a year or
so. The treaty was therefore rejected in order to provide the necessary
delay.

But the people of Panama wanted the Canal. They were tired of serving
as the milch cow for the fattening of the Government at Bogota. So they
quietly organized a revolution. It was a matter of common knowledge that
it was coming. Roosevelt, as well as the rest of the world, knew it and,
believing in the virtue of being wise in time, prepared for it. Several
warships were dispatched to the Isthmus.

The revolution came off promptly as expected. It was bloodless, for the
American naval forces, fulfilling the treaty obligations of the United
States, prevented the Colombian troops on one side of the Isthmus
from using the Panama Railroad to cross to the other side where the
revolutionists were. So the revolutionists were undisturbed. A republic
was immediately declared and immediately recognized by the United
States. A treaty with the new Republic, which guaranteed its
independence and secured the cession of a zone ten miles wide across the
Isthmus, was drawn up inside of two weeks and ratified by both Senates
within three months. Six weeks later an American commission was on the
ground to plan the work of construction. The Canal was built. The "half
century of discussion" w