Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/415

Rh lessly set by President Roosevelt may not come home to roost.

In the fourth place, in doing all this he flagrantly violated the provisions of a solemn treaty, the treaty of 1846, in which Colombia guarantees to the Government and citizens of the United States free transit across the isthmus from sea to sea, and as compensation for the favors and advantages received, “The United States guarantee, in the same manner, the rights of sovereignty and property which New Granada now has and possesses over the said territory.” “Guarantee” is a strong word, and there can be no doubt as to what was “guaranteed” by the United States in this treaty; it was “the rights of sovereignty and property possessed by Colombia over the territory of Panama.” This guarantee was glaringly violated by President Roosevelt's coöperation with the rebels of Panama in destroying the sovereignty of Colombia over that territory.

His principal excuse is that we had to keep open the transit across the isthmus, which might easily have been done without excluding Colombian troops from Panama; that the civilization of the age demanded the building of the canal; that the rejection of the Hay-Herran Treaty by Colombia obstructed this work of civilization; that if President Roosevelt had not acted as he did our chances of building the canal “would have been deferred certainly for years, perhaps for a generation or more,” for there would have been “ceaseless guerilla warfare and possibly foreign complications.” President Roosevelt has a way of picturing to a credulous public horrible things which would have inevitably happened if he had not done what he did, or that certainly will happen unless we let him do what he wishes to do. (So also in the case of the Philippines.)

But this excuse for his conduct in the Panama case is