THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF PANAMA THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF PANAMA Lieut. -Colonel Philippe Bunau-Varilla From a bust by Malvina Hoffman (1919) The Great Adventure of Panama Wherein Are Exposed Its Relation to the Great War and also the Luminous Traces of The German Conspiracies Against France and the United States By Philippe Bunau-Varilla former Chief Engineer of the French Panama Canal Company (1886-1886) Firtt Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the Republic of Panama to Wathington (1903-1904) Doubleday, Page & Company Garden City New York London 1920 HISTOBH COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN DEDICATION I dedicate this book to the great FERDINAND DE LESSEPS and to his eminent coadjutor, CHARLES DE LESSEPS, the Creators of the Panama Canal; to the great THEODORE ROOSEVELT and to his eminent coadjutors, JOHN HAY and FRANCIS B. LOOMIS, the Resurrectors of the Panama Canal, whose Franco-American work has been the cradle of the Victory won through the Franco-American Union over the treacherous Boches, 1 the Destructors of the Panama Canal Enterprise. PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA, Paris, September, 1919. 1 Iii this book, it has been thought justified to employ the word "Boche," instead of the word "German," when speaking of the brutal, immoral, and treacherous acts of Germany toward her friends or her neighbours. For a long time, in France, there has been a definite line drawn between the mean- ing of "Prussian" and that of "German," the difference being about the same as between "evil" and "good." It is the sincere hope of the author that Germany will understand how completely she has been dishonoured, not by her defeat, but by her participation in the Prus- sian infamies committed in the preparation for and in the conduct of the Great War. In the expectation that the new German generations shall redeem their nation's good name, the word "Boche" has been used instead of "German," whenever the German criminal methods in diplomacy and in war are exposed. 416489 PREFACE ON THE first page of his book, "Face to Face with Kaiserism," the Hon. James W. Gerard, former Ambassador of the United States to Germany, wrote on April 1, 1918: What I want especially to impress upon the people of the United States is that we are at war because Ger- many invaded the United States an invasion insidi- ously conceived and vigorously prosecuted for years be- fore hostilities began. My purpose hi writing this present book is to show that the German invasion was not limited to the United States, that the Boche insidious con- spiracies are and were always built up in all the countries of the earth; that in these conspiracies a constant use is made of the internal strifes about purely domestic affairs in order to prepare the ways of German military aggressions. In the diplomatic laboratories of the Wilhelm- strasse, the political opinions, religious divergen- cies, economic conflicts of the various nations vii vin Preface have been for many years carefully analyzed and systematically combined for the military use of Germany, just as in the chemical laboratories of the General Staff the various hydrocarbides have been carefully analyzed and systematically com- bined with oxygen and nitrogen for the same mili- tary use of Germany. The moral poisoned gases of the diplomatic laboratories have not been less efficient, nor less dangerous for Germany's victims, than the physi- cal ones of her chemical laboratories. I am going to expose to light a sector of this universal Boche system for utilizing the internal political passions of the various nations, in the interest of the German plans of aggression and conquest. I hope in doing this to call the vigilance of these various nations to the dangers of such German conspiracies in the future. It would be the greatest folly to think that an apparent change of government in Berlin really means the cessation of these dastardly plots. They form part of Prussia's policy since centuries; they will not be abandoned for what is thought by her to be a temporary reverse; they are in progress to-day and they will be in progress to-morrow Preface ix eveiy where, just with the same activity and brazen perfidy as they were before and during the World War. Is it not a sufficient demonstration of that statement to show Bernstorff, the Boche arch con- spirator and German Ambassador in the United States during the war, placed, after the so-called German revolution, in a leading and preponderant situation at the German Foreign Office in Berlin? I also hope, in publishing these extracts of the notes taken during my life's activities, to show to Colombia that the Boche conspiracies were the real origin of her sufferings in the Panama question; that Germany had succeeded in making her the catspaw during the Boche attempts to treacher- ously acquire the political and economical control of the great highway between the Atlantic and the Pacific. I hope that it will be the origin of a reaction in the Colombian mind and that Bogota will at last find out who has been her arch enemy, Germany, and who has always been her sincere friend, the United States. If Colombia was to be finally brought to stigmatize as traitors the Boche in- triguers who have led her blindly to obstruct the generous and civilizing undertaking of the United x Preface States at Panama, it would be the most felicitous event for the moral peace of this hemisphere. If Colombia could extend loyally her hand to the United States and to Panama and renew the cordial relations of old days, without accepting a sum of money which it does not behoove her dig- nity to receive, this would be the beginning of a new era in Central America. The capital and energy of American enterprise would soon develop in Colombia the hidden wealth of her gifted territory, and give a hundred times more than the amount of an unjustified indemnity for the secession of Panama. The writer of this book, who never ceased to be a sincere friend of Colombia, though having openly helped, as was his duty, the legitimate re- bellion of Panama against Colombia, would greet with intense joy such a reconciliation. It would be permanent and stable because it would not be based on the grant of a sum of money which, in the future action of the Boche at Bogota, would form a solid base for renewed calumnies against the United States. The Colombian statesmen who have served an anti-American policy in the Panama affair, when they believed sincerely that policy to be inspired Preface xi by the most patriotic principles, owe to their coun- try and to the world to condemn it now that it is demonstrated to have been "made in Germany," for the preparation of the greatest crime against Humanity. In acknowledging the error of the past and in opening the highway for inter- American friendship in the future, they will well serve the moral and substantial interests of their noble and beautiful country. No doubt shall remain, in the mind of a disin- terested reader, about the criminal conspiracies grafted by Germany on the financial and political questions raised by the Panama Canal enterprise, both against France and the United States. No doubt shall remain either about the fatal in- fluence these conspiracies would have had on the end of the World War if they had not been strenu- ously fought. The Great Adventure of Panama, which is the history of the struggle for the triumph of the French Panama Canal idea, is also that of the ef- forts to checkmate these conspiracies. It is, there- fore, intimately linked with the glorious war of 1914-1919. xii Preface It forms its antechamber, as the boche-inspired Mexican Adventure of Napoleon the Third formed the ante-chamber of the disastrous war of 1870-71. To understand well the bearing which the great Adventure of Panama had on the final defeat of Germany, it is necessary to examine first, minutely, what weapons Germany had prepared to assault France, and what weapons France had prepared to preserve her liberty and integrity. It is also necessary to examine, minutely, the main factors which decided the victory of civiliza- tion. The first chapters of this book deal almost ex- clusively with these preponderant factors of the great victory. They also show the always-men- acing " Occult Power of Germany." This obvious danger demonstrates the necessity of organizing to-morrow a powerful barrier against the re- currence of German crimes: the intimate de- fensive union of the three great western democra- cies, the United States, Great Britain, and France. PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA. November, 1919. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I THE TOOLS OF VICTORY CHAPTER II 17 THE ENCIRCLEMENT OF GERMANY'S ENEMIES BY THE DYE INDUSTRY CHAPTER III 24 PANAMA AND THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICA CHAPTER IV ; 35 THE OCCULT POWER OF GERMANY CHAPTER V . v | < ; / . . . * 49 THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY IN MEXICO (1861-63) PREPARING THE PROVOCATION OF 1870 CHAPTER VI '";. . ;. . . 60 THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY IN FRANCE, (1888-92), TO WRECK THE PANAMA CANAL, IN ORDER TO CREATE THE DEPRESSED STATE OF MIND NECESSARY FOR THE PREMEDITATED AGGRESSION xiii xiv Table of Contents PAGE CHAPTER VII 81 CAMPAIGN IN AMERICA AGAINST THE NICARAGUA CANAL TO COUNTERCHECK THE BOCHE CON- SPIRACY TO ANNIHILATE THE PANAMA CANAL CHAPTER VIII ........ 104 AMERICAN CONGRESS BETWEEN PANAMA AND NICARAGUA CHAPTER IX. 115 THE BOCHE INTRIGUES IN BOGOTA IN 1902 TO PREVENT THE ADOPTION OF PANAMA BY THE UNITED STATES CHAPTER X 143 VARIOUS TRACES OF BOCHE INTRIGUE IN BOGOTA FOR DEFEATING IN 1903 THE ADOPTION OF THE PANAMA CANAL BY THE UNITED STATES AFTER SHE HAD RESOLVED TO Do so AND SIGNED THE HAY-HERRAN TREATY CHAPTER XI 154 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S TESTIMONY RELATIVE TO THE BREAKDOWN THANKS TO A VERBAL ULTI- MATUM TO GERMANY AT THE END OF 1902 OF THE BOCHE-CAMOUFLAGED NAVAL AND DIPLO- MATIC OPERATIONS TO OBTAIN ON THE VENE- ZUELAN SHORES A MILITARY BASE COMMANDING THE PANAMA CANAL Table of Contents xv PAGE CHAPTER XII 160 THE AUTHOR'S TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE BREAKDOWN THANKS TO THE PANAMA REVOLU- TION, IN NOVEMBER, 1903 OP THE CONCEALED BOCHE DIPLOMATIC OPERATIONS TO OBTAIN FROM COLOMBIA: FIRST, THE REJECTION OF ANY TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES; SECOND, THE CONFISCA- TION IN THE AUTUMN OF 1904 OF THE FRENCH PANAMA CANAL COMPANY'S PROPERTIES AND CON- CESSIONS; THIRD, THE TRANSFER OF THESE PROPERTIES AND CONCESSIONS TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT MASQUERADING UNDER THE DIS- GUISE OF A "STRICTLY COLOMBIAN CORPORATION" CHAPTER XIII 260 CONCLUSION THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF PANAMA The Great Adventure of Panama CHAPTER I The Tools of Victory OF COURSE most people will think that the main cause of the Allies' victory was the heroism dis- played by their troops on French soil. Others will put on the same plane the elastic plasticity of America, England, and France promptly adapt- ing their physical and spiritual resources to the unexpected necessities of the war. It goes with- (out saying that these two great moral and intellec- tual factors played the master part in the drama. But, alone, they would have been insufficient. Outside of heroism Victory needed certain tools without which the most admirable outbursts of patriotism and of the spirit of sacrifice would have been in vain. We are living in a mechanical age in which the inventions of the engineer enormously extend the scope of man's action. However great and noble 3 \ Adventure of Panama may be the share of the soldier's spirit in the result of the battle, it may be stated that it is only a small fraction of the part played by certain mechan- isms, by what may be termed the "Tools of Victory." THE "75" WHIPS THE GEKMAN MACHINE GUN The principal tool that the Prussians had pre- pared to finish in 1914 the conquest of Europe, which they had begun in 1619, was the machine gun. To this deadly weapon they had assigned the task of wiping out the unprepared French le- gions. They relied on it to open to the triumphant Kaiser the highroad nach Paris, within a couple of weeks from the opening of hostilities. The first clash between German and French troops entirely justified the hopes laid on the ma- chine guns. In Alsace, in Lorraine, in Belgium at Charleroi and at Mons the French regiments were mown down as hay by a mowing machine. The perfection of the new weapon was equal to the perfection of the method with which it was em- ployed in order to obtain the highest efficiency. On certain battlefields one could see dead French soldiers fallen in regular alignments, to all appear- ance as if lying down ready to spring to their feet The Great Adventure of Panama 5 and storm the enemy's lines. Prussia had the machine gun ready for her aggression of 1914, as she had the needle-gun ready for her aggres- sions of 1866 and 1870. But on the other side France had prepared a magnificent weapon of defence, the famous "75" gun, the saviour of humanity. The military genius of Joffre inspired him to retire toward the Marne after the defeat of Char- leroi, which was entirely due to the German ma- chine gun. He withdrew the whole French army from contact with the deadly new weapon, and brought it back one hundred and fifty miles. He had resolved to meet the enemy in the valley of the Seine with an adequate volley of "75" shells. During the progress of this monumental move- ment, however, he modified this decision. He decided to stop the Boche before he should reach the valley of the Seine and to throw him back when passing the plateaux between the Marne and the Seine. There, on a gigantic front such as never had been seen before in any war, took place the historic duel between the German ma- chine gun and the French "75." The French "75" won; the machine gun was thoroughly beaten. The German hordes were 6 The Great Adventure of Panama thrown back not in one point but on all points: (a) east of Meaux, between the Marne and the Ourcq, by General Maunoury; (6) at Fere Cham- penoise, between the Marne and the Seine, by General Foch; (c) at Verdun, by General Sarrail; (d) at Nancy, by General de Castelnau. The "75" was everywhere triumphant. . It saved France; it saved civilization. It had beaten and repulsed the most famous German divisions, whipped the most illustrious German generals. It forced the Chief of the Imperial Staff, Von Moltke, to exclaim to his master these fateful words: "Majesty, the war is lost!" French heroism had obeyed Joffre's celebrated order of the sixth of September, 1914: At the moment when a battle is engaged on the re- sult of which rests the life of our country, it is im- portant to remind all that it is no longer time to look behind. All efforts must be employed to attack and drive back the enemy. A force which cannot advance any farther shall, no matter at what cost, retain the con- quered ground and be killed on tlie spot rather than to fall back. If every French soldier was not killed at his post; if, on the contrary, death mowed down the Ger- The Great Adventure of Panama 7 mans and forced them to look behind, it was due to the "75." To this magnificent creation of French mechanical genius must go out the grati- tude of the world. It was the great tool of the Victory in the First Battle of the Marne, the glorious mechanism that drove back the Boche from Meaux to Nancy in 1914. It was the great tool of Victory which held the Boche at bay before Verdun in 1916, before Amiens in 1918. It was the famous gun which finally drove back into Ger- many, broken and disrupted, the plague army which in 1914 had triumphantly violated the "scrap of paper," the very object of which had been the protection of Belgium by Germany. HOW FRANCE ACQUIRED THE "75" Toward the end of the decade following the war of 1870-71, French genius effected a radical trans- formation in the military value of the artillery. Turpin discovered melinite, the high explosive which was sufficiently stable to be employed in a shell. The high explosives hitherto known, such as dynamite, would have exploded in the gun, owing to the jerk caused by the impulsion trans- mitted by the combustion of the powder. Turpin discovered that picric acid, otherwise 8 The Great Adventure of Panama termed melinite, was the ideal body. Its force at the moment of explosion equalled that of dyna- mite and its stability was such that it remained unchanged during the critical instant of its passage through the gun. It was found, too, that melinite could be handled with perfect security. No risk attended the filling of the shells which, when fired, acquired almost instantaneously a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second. Turpin had solved the great military problem of showering on the enemy, by gunfire, unlimited quantities of high explosives enclosed in shells. But another great problem remained to be solved. Artillery without accuracy is the greatest of de- lusions. To accomplish a military result, to stop the advance of enemy troops, artillery must spray them, and the ground ahead of them, with shells. But these shells must spread death and terror not only by their explosion, but also by the rapidity and accuracy of their fall. And to discover a means to ensure such accuracy and rapidity of fire was the problem still to be solved. Prior to 1890 all guns were entirely displaced by the recoil. They had to be put back again in approximately the same place after each shot, and The Great Adventure of Panama 9 this necessitated a series of movements that had to be effected by the gunners. It is hardly neces- sary to say that, even during peace manoeuvres, a gun could never be replaced precisely in its previous position; but that, during a battle, under the enemy's fire, such an operation was always a pure chimera. Toward the end of the second decade following the war of 1870-71 various artillery staffs began to study the great problem of devising an automatic return of the gun to its original position after firing. The principle to be resorted to was soon devised. The solution consisted in establishing, between the gun proper and its carriage, as intermediary, an elastic appliance a sort of shock absorber. This elastic system was to store, while bringing the gun to a standstill, the momentum of the gun during its recoil. The automatic return of the gun to its original position, thanks to the elasticity of the recoil absorber, naturally followed. It was a simple restitution of a part of the energy absorbed during the recoil, the remainder of the energy being expended in heat and friction. This could be arrived at either by the employ- ment of springs, or by a system consisting of a combination of air and of a fluid matter such as 10 The Great Adventure of Panama water. It was the system known by the name of " hydro-pneumatic brake." In either case the carriage, which was to be anchored to the ground by a spade driven into it, was to remain immovable during the firing. The spring system, being the simplest, was easier to devise and construct but was also a very inferior solution. The absorption of the momen- tum of the recoiling gun could not be effected so as entirely to avoid jerks and, consequently, the slight displacement of the carriage and of the gun.* The combination of air and water the so-called hydro-pneumatic brake on the contrary, was a much more satisfactory invention. But there were, on the other hand, great practical drawbacks in its construction and operation. The Krupp's works at Essen initiated the experiments but, after many efforts, found it impracticable and rejected this device. French artillery officers, however, under the di- rection of Colonel Deport, conducted experiments along similar lines, and succeeded admirably. *In fact, to obtain the desired result it was necessary both (a) to transform into heat by the use of brakes a part of the energy of the gun during its recoil, and (b> to absorb by an elastic appliance the rest of that energy. The use of springs allowed only for the storage of energy but not for the elimination of a part of the momentum by the action of the brake. The Great Adventure of Panama 11 They evolved slowly but surely the marvellous weapon which was to save France and the world from the horrible yoke of brutal Prussian tyranny. When the gun was ready the question was: How will it be put in use in the French army? HOW PRESIDENT FAURE SAVED FRANCE, THANKS TO THE "75" The expense involved for equipping the artillery with the new field gun was about $100,000,000. To spend such a sum, or even a much smaller amount, it was necessary to open a debate in the House and in the Senate in order to get the credits. Such a debate could not but expose to world-wide pub- licity the masterpiece evolved in the laboratories of the French Ordnance Department. To obey the precepts of the Constitution would have been to place in jeopardy the very life of the nation. At that time the head of the French Govern- ment was not as is almost invariably the case a lawyer. He was a merchant, a business man, the head of a firm dealing in leather; he was Presi- dent Felix Faure. If the head of the State had been a lawyer he would certainly have been dominated by respect for the majesty of constitutional law. He would K> The Oreat Adventure of Panama have requested the Parliament to vote a statute authorizing the new artillery and to open the corresponding credits. His professional ethics would not have allowed him even to consider any other solution. But Felix Faure's professional conscience did not conceal from his eyes, behind the majestic garb of the Law, the exceptional and high respon- sibility thrown upon him by circumstances. To preserve France he violated the constitutional law. To save France he broke his primary and essential obligation to protect the Constitution and to enforce its laws. And Felix Faure thus accomplished the act which, a quarter of a century later, saved France and the world. No man deserves a greater tribute of gratitude from humanity than this one-time obscure mer- chant. The accidents of politics brought him to the highest office of France. His term of office at the Elysee was not conspicuous except for this single remarkable and extraordinary act. He violated his oath of ottkv in order to endow France with the weapon which later permitted her to beat back the German aggressor. Without that weapon or with a Germany possessing an identi- cal one France and the world would have The Great Adventure of Panama 13 become the martyred slave of the Teutonic Knights. In order to safeguard his honour Flix Faure took as witnesses of his action the members of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House. He summoned them to the Elyseo and bound them by oath not to reveal to any one what was going to happen. He then unfolded before his astonished audience his determination to spend one hundred million dollars of the public money without any authorization of the Parliament. Thus, without attracting the enemy's attention, was France en- sured the creation of that precious artillery which was eventually to be the safeguard of civilization. It may be added, to the honour of the members of the Committee of Ways and Means, that the secret was scrupulously kept, and only leaked out many years later when the "75" was accomplishing its providential task. The necessity to keep absolutely secret the de- cision to transform our field artillery is obvious, in view of the following facts : 1. Germany, a few years before, had recon- structed all her field artillery and created the 77- millimetre gun. It was mounted on the ordinary rigid carriage of old days. 14 The Great Adventure of Panama 2. The studies made in France and in Germany to obtain the elastic intermediary between the gun proper and the carriage could lead either to the inferior (but more simple) method of using steel recoil springs, or to the superior (and perfect) method of the hydro-pneumatic brakes. 3. As we know, the tentative application of the second method had failed at Essen but later suc- ceeded in the French arsenals. 4. The public discussion of the credits necessary for the new guns would certainly have shown to our enemies our technical success in the solution of the problem. It would have whipped their vanity. 5. They would have made new experiments and possibly succeeded where previously they had failed. Following in our footsteps they would have remade all their field artillery and acquired a position of equality with the French army on this vital point. The strict secrecy with which the "75" was adopted concealed the situation for a long time from the German eyes. Simultaneously a very clever ruse de guerre was carried out in order entirely to mislead the con- stantly spying Boche. The Great Adventure of Panama 15 A gun of our then-existing field artillery a 90-millimetre calibre with rigid carriage was transformed into a new type provided with steel recoil springs. It was the inferior system France wished Germany to adopt for her "77" field gun. The transformed field gun was carefully packed, covered with two successive strata of planks and cloth, all carefully sealed, and then shipped to the direction of the artillery at Nancy, France. During the night a German spy, conveniently and properly misled by clever agents of our counter-espionage, attached the car to a train leaving Nancy for Metz. The car and its sup- posedly precious contents never were returned and some weeks later it became known that Germany had decided to transform her "77" field gun with the simple system of steel recoil springs. The shark had swallowed the bait! This is how, about a quarter of a century in advance, the result of the great war was predeter- mined! Thus France got her marvellous weapon the "75". We shall speak later on of another creation of the French genius, the Panama Canal. It was begun approximately ten years before the "75" 16 The Great Adventure of Panama began to be studied. It had a vital part in de- veloping the political conditions which made it possible to feed the "75" hi powder and in high explosive shells. This is how France was saved from the impend- ing disaster of a German onrush. This also explains how Germany, abused by her own method of espionage, was cleverly enticed to adopt the secondary, the faulty method. CHAPTER II The encirclement of Germany's enemies by the dye industry THE romantic story of the adoption of the hydro-pneumatic brake for the "75" by France, and of the steel spring for the "77" by Germany is typically French. Resourcefulness, quickness of decision, scientific spirit, cleverness of action, devotion to duty in the highest sense of the word, all that is to be found in the preceding lines. In those that follow we shall see, on the opposite, the French faults. The incredible blindness of her administration, the complete lack of method, of system, and of initiative in a question of such capital importance is simply amazing. All the advance which the French genius, the spirit of self- sacrifice of her first magistrate had given her, was almost reduced to naught by the incredible tor- pidity of her government. We have seen that the invention of Turpin had made it possible to fill the shells of the "75" 17 18 The Great Adventure of Panama with a high explosive, melinite. France owed to the irradiating brains of her sons the possession of the best field gun and the best shell. She en- tered the war, which was unchained in 1914 by the criminal ambition of the Teutonic Knights, with about 4,000 "75" guns. She had some ammunition to begin with, but for the all-important melinite she had to get the greater part of her new supplies from sources outside of France. It may seem be- yond belief, but this source was Germany! This seems incredible, but it is a fact! The blindness of the French Administration, the deceiving songs of the pacifists as to the im- possibility of a European war, had gradually led France to get engulfed in the methodic and devilish entanglement of the German dyestuff industry. HYPOCRISY OF THE PEACEFUL DYE INDUSTRY The terrible situation in which France, as well as Great Britain and Russia, was placed by the lack of ammunitions after the earlier battles of the war is explained thus: "Who makes dyes to-day can to-morrow make high explosives with the same men, with the same plant, with the same materials, provided he disposes also of oxidized nitrogen." The Great Adventure of Panama 19 The dye industry and the high-explosive industry are so intimately connected as to be virtually one. In fact, melinite and trinitrotoluene are nothing but hydrocarbides, extracted from distilled coal tar, in which is incorporated oxidized nitrogen. Germany had established all over the world the monopoly of her apparently innocent dye industry. It was the scientific noose which was going to strangle all her enemies after the first months of war owing to the famine of explosives. The vile methods of warfare admirably con- densed by the celebrated Count Luxburg, the minister of Germany to Argentina suggesting neutral ships should be sunk "without leaving traces" were also followed in peace. The same men who enjoyed the hospitality of the United States, while depositing bombs with time fuses in the ships leaving the American wharves, were active during peace times also. The dye industry being for everybody, except Germany, a peaceful one, and, for Germany only, a war industry, it was protected against competition by German war methods. Whenever a non-German dye appeared either in France, Great Britain or America, immediately it was stifled under an avalanche of German goods. 20 The Great Adventure of Panama If, however, the competitor resisted the business pressure he was soon put out of commission by purely Boche trickery. Suitable additions of nocuous substances were made by criminal hands in the mills of the users of non-German dyes. Everybody was soon con- vinced that non-German dyes did not possess the standard qualities necessary for their industrial use. By this double method in time of peace dumping and sabotage the Boche acquired the practical monopoly of the dye industry. Free- trade nations were glad of it. The innocent economists and the candid pacifists were con- veniently misled while in fact the monopoly of the dye industry constituted the control of ex- plosives by Prussia. She alone was capable of making the explosives on a large scale, when she should decide to let loose her dogs of war and to complete the task which she had begun in 1619. This monopoly was to ensure her conquest of the world. Everybody remembers the universal complaints about the absence of dyes when the war was de- clared by Germany. Nobody, of course, remem- bers any complaint about the absence of explosives. It was, however, the very same question. The The Great Adventure of Panama 21 manufacture of dyes was the manufacture of explosives. The various nations abstained, nat- urally, from exposing their incredible blindness and the almost criminal neglect of their governments in not having taken, during peace, adequate pro- tective measures. Their stock of material for providing their artillery with high-explosive shells was practically just sufficient for the first weeks of the war. Germany alone was capable of the industrial effort necessary to furnish the large masses of explosives required for the war. She had of the plant, she had of the personnel, she had of the raw material. GERMANY'S DOMESTIC NITRATE SUPPLY She had also succeeded in freeing herself from the necessity of importing nitrates from Chili. Chili, on the contrary, was the only source open to Germany's blind enemies for obtaining the oxi- dized nitrogen which is the essential element of high explosive, or of gunpowder. Thanks to supreme technical efforts she had succeeded in devising the proper scientific and industrial methods to extract from the atmosphere the oxidized nitrogen necessary for the manufac- 22 The Great Adventure of Panama i ture of her explosives. It is safe to say that Germany alone among the nations at war could produce an unlimited quantity of explosives on her own soil and with products generated within her own frontiers. It may be added that her enemies would have been crushed in a few months under the strategic superiority resulting from such a monopoly if, thanks to the political conditions due to the Panama enterprise, they had not found an extended and helping hand in the United States.* France had no chemical factory capable of pro- viding what she needed to load her shells except in an insignificant proportion. She was, on the other hand, depending exclusively on the transportation to her harbours of the Chilean nitrates to obtain the indispensable oxidized nitrogen to make ex- plosives at home. The negligence of her govern- mental administration had condemned France to *Some time after this was written the Daily Mail (Paris edition) published on the 20th of August, 1919, the following: "Germany has solved the problem of the fixation of nitrogen as a commercial undertaking on a gigantic scale. In future from the point of agricultural fertilizers she is independent of any blockade. Furthermore, the plant used in the process can be turned at the shortest notice to the manufacture of high explosives." The above is the substance of a statement made to the Times on Monday by Dr. Edward C. Worden, the explosives chemical expert of the United States, Bureau of Aircraft Production, Washington, who has just returned to London from a tour of inspection of the chemical industry of Germany. The Great Adventure of Panama %3 an immediate lack of explosives a few weeks after the declaration of war. The same remarks apply to Great Britain. If the artfully engineered explosives famine in France, Great Britain, America, and Russia did not suffice to ensure Germany's triumph, even after her defeat at the Marne, humanity owes it entirely to the United States. CHAPTER III Panama and the influence of America IT WAS America's magnificent industrial power that broke the ring closed by Germany and helped France and Great Britain out of their almost desperate situation. Long before America drew her sword she had cooperated with the Allies in providing them with the most essential elements of the actual war: powder and explosives. This explains the des- perate efforts made by Germany to induce America to cease supplying war material to the Allies. Had Germany obtained that apparently natural and simple proof of absolute neutrality the war would have ended by the utter defeat of France, Great Britain, and Russia, before the end of 1914- It is practically certain that if the United States had adopted the principle of a neutrality entailing the non-delivery of war material, Chili would have followed. The only source of oxidized nitrogen would have been cut off, thus making impossible 24 The Great Adventure of Panama %5 the manufacture of any powder and of any explosive by the opponents of German tyranny. Why did America reject this request, presented as it was under such plausible colours and sustained by such a seductive argument? "Why," said the Boche spokesmen in the United States, "you have declared your intention of being sincerely neutral, yet, actually, you break that theoretical neutrality. You are furnishing implements of war to the combatants engaged on one side of the great contest, while those on the other side cannot receive anything! Is that neu- trality? Certainly not ! " PANAMA'S INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN NEUTRALITY This plausible argument would certainly have won over public opinion in the United States had it remained in 1914 what it had been during the last third of the nineteenth century. It appealed to the American sense of justice and fair play. It denounced at the same time a prima-facie injustice against a race counting in America twenty millions of representatives and in favour of a group of nations none of which enjoyed the sympathy of the United States. It is known that Great Britain was the object of 26 The Great Adventure of Panama a continuous and antagonistic propaganda by the powerful Irish element. Russia was the object of active and violent denunciations by the still more powerful Hebrew element which concen- trates on Russia the same energy of execrations which their ancestors in biblical times focussed on the Assyrian Empire. As for France, the great error of Napoleon III the foundation of the Mexican Empire in defiance of the Monroe Doc- trine had placed her in a bad position. She had lost in 1870 the sympathy if not the friendship of the United States. Naturally the always-active Ger- man propaganda was making constant use of these antagonistic dispositions of the various sections of American opinion against France, Great Britain, and Russia respectively. The result was the creation of an anti-Anglo-Franco-Russian and pro- German sentiment in the United States up to 1900. Had the war broken out at the end of the nine- teenth century there is no doubt that the Boche hypocritical predication for sincere neutrality would have succeeded. But in 1914-15, Boche diplomacy had been beaten in the United States. The conditions were no longer the same as in 1900. The propaganda against France had struck a gigantic obstacle: PANAMA! The Great Adventure of Panama %7 The great work of the inter-oceanic canal which was in France certainly given its quietus by Boche intrigue had been resurrected. Its failure had been made use of, in France, to destroy all confi- dence of the nation in herself, and, in America, to demonstrate that the French were a contemptible and decadent nation. But the resurrection of the Panama Canal enterprise by the American Gov- ernment had wiped out the traces of the Boche predications. Theodore Roosevelt had not only honoured the' French name in giving France credit for her great * accomplishment, but at the same time he had ex-- hibited the scandalous enormity of the injustice' done to the French honour in this matter. The - greatness, the disinterestedness, the generosity of the French mind, appeared to him and to the United States in their true light. A gradual and total inversion of the American sentiment for France was effected during the ten years which lapsed between 1904 and 1914. This space of time has for origin the moment I exchanged at Washington (26th of February, 1904) the ratifi- cations of the treaty which I had signed with the Secretary of State, Mr. Hay, on behalf of the Re- public of Panama, for the construction of the 28 The Great Adventure of Panama Canal. Its end is the day of the declaration of war (3rd of August, 1914) which is also the day of the passage of the first great ocean steamer from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Panama Canal. On that memorable day facts had spoken elo- quently on behalf of Franco-American mutual respect and friendship. There was no longer an ear to listen to the Boche predication about the decadence of France. If France had been attacked in 1900, the United States would have seen in this fact the sad but irremediable spectacle of the forced disappearance of an old, worn-out nation before a young and growing country. At that time the sympathy of America would have been for Germany against France, Great Britain, and Russia. In 1914, however, Panama had lifted from before "American eyes the veil which German propaganda 1 had lowered, and France was restored in America's ' affection and in her respect. The common enter- * prise of Panama in which the genius of each na- ' tion had played so important and so conspicuous a part had reunited the hearts of France and America. That friendship had an eloquent and powerful living expression. It was Theodore The Great Adventure of Panama 29 Roosevelt whose pro-Ally energy had its roots also in the Panama enterprise. Not only had Panama revived American regard for France but Germany's operations in the Carib- bean, the result of Panama, had begun to open American eyes to Germany's true character and intentions. It can, therefore, safely be asserted that Panama had a direct and most important effect upon the attitude of the United States during its neutrality and in its actual entering of the war. It helped very materially to maintain America in the frame of mind to furnish France with explosives, and also the Canal itself provided a means for the nitrates of Chile to reach the battlefront in France. To French genius France owes the creation of the "75"; she also owes to her genius the creation of the great international highway which, thanks to its resurrection by American hands, made possible the feeding of the "75." PANAMA AND AMERICA'S HELP The importance of the service rendered by America and the significance of the befriending influence of the Great Adventure of Panama may be judged by the following figures: 30 The Great Adventure of Panama During the war America furnished France with a quantity of powder about equal to that neces- sary for firing 250,000,000 shots with the "75" gun. This means a quantity of powder sufficient to use up 25,000 "75" guns, each one having fired 10,000 times. To conceive the enormous quantity of powder thus provided we must realize that when the war began we had scarcely 4,000 of these "75" guns and nobody supposed they could stand shooting more than 5,000 times. Of course the high explosives sent by America were in quantity proportionate with that of the gunpowder. It may be convenient also to recall that the Panama Canal which was closed almost a year during the war on account of the slides at Culebra has given passage to more than seven and a half billion pounds of nitrates. This makes about a billion pounds of nitrogen, the greater part of which went to the United States to be used in the powder and high-explosives mills. The foregoing will suffice to indicate the extraor- dinary importance of the part played by the Panama Canal in the providential defeat of the Germans. The good feelings for France, sown in The Great Adventure of Panama 31 the United States by the adoption and completion of the great work initiated by France, had pre- vented the prohibition of exports of war material. Later, because of the power of predication of Theodore Roosevelt, of his enthusiastic support, and of the development of admiration for the heroic resistance of France, the conception of a higher duty was built up in American hearts. The great Republic understood finally what Theodore Roosevelt has told her from the outset: that neutrality before crime was as much a moral as a physical suicide. She went to war with all her might. She made her power felt just at the moment when the German political gases had annihilated Russia, when the equilibrium of forces was consequently totally disturbed in our enemy's favour. She entered the active field of warfare when Germany seemed bound to triumph owing to the collapse of Russia; and her entrance on the battlefield turned the scales of fate. Both at the beginning and at the end of the great war Amer- ica's attitude determined the victory. In both cases that attitude resulted from the same cause: the moral link established between America and France by their common enterprise of Panama. The current of reciprocal confidence and good feel- 32 The Great Adventure of Panama ing which it created accomplished both these wonders, and saved the world. It seems therefore entirely justified to study from the point of view of the Great War the specific conditions of the adoption of Panama by the United States, and to trace the history of the series of facts which led to this historical decision which forms the culminating point of the Great Adventure of Panama as we shall see later on. It will be a most useful contribution to the his- tory of the world to show how the Franco-American friendship was almost completely destroyed by the foundation of the Mexican Empire. No less im- portant will be the history of the adoption of Panama by which this precious friendship was re- constituted. It will be for many people an in- teresting trip to follow the romantic events which led to that adoption. I invite them to witness with me the different phases of the Great Adventure of Panama after having understood the network of Boche intrigues in Mexico, in France, in Colombia, in the United States. They will learn to worship the name of the great citizen Theodore Roosevelt who with his eminent coadjutors John Hay and Francis B. Loomis cleverly, audaciously, led the ship of The Great Adventure of Panama 33 State to a safe harbour through the treacherous concealed mines laid in the channel by Germany. They will learn to despise the dullards, the hypocrites who speak of this Panama Revolu- tion the origin of the salvation of humanity as a "put-up job" or as a "staged affair." They will see that the Panama Revolution of November, 1903, was nothing but the legitimate expression of the right of a nation to dispose of herself. They will be convinced that the United States Government had no more hand in it than had the French Government, and that, therefore, if Colombia had a claim against Panama it was the claim of Shylock for the pound of flesh, a claim not receivable in court. In spite of the concealed, disguised, or open accusations against the Roosevelt policy, nothing has been brought for sixteen years to support the slightest shadow of a proof of complicity between the American Government and the Panama revo- lutionists. The Boches, who have been the most active accusers because they were the greatest sufferers of President Roosevelt's straightforward action, continue to pump lies into credulous ears. They remain faithful to their motto: "Truth is anything you can make people believe." 34 The Great Adventure of Panama WHAT DOES "l TOOK PANAMA" MEAN? The only straw at which their drowning calumny could clutch was the celebrated phrase: "I took Panama," which Theodore Roosevelt pronounced in California. When the sentence was reported by the papers I understood that it meant: "I took Panama because Panama offered herself in order to be protected against Colombia's tyranny and greed." Recently in speaking to a distinguished visitor to Oyster Bay William Morton Fullerton, the eminent writer on international problems Theo- dore Roosevelt explained the sentence in this familiar way: "I took Panama because Bunau- Varilla brought it to me on a silver platter." It is obvious that Theodore Roosevelt's own interpretation of his sentence harmonizes entirely with mine. It does not mean as the advocates of Colombia say: "I took Panama away from her mother country Colombia because the interests of the United States wanted it." It means : "I protected Panama, at her pressing request, from the tyran- nical greed of Colombia, because her preservation and the world's interests wanted it." CHAPTER IV The occult power of Germany BEFORE going into the history of the Boche con- spiracies centred around the Panama Canal, it is necessary to make the reader acquainted with the conspirator himself. Though every school in the world should teach the record of this dangerous enemy of mankind, very few people know even the principal elements of the astounding history of Prussia. Let us, for one moment, leave aside the pre- liminary period, the one buried in the darkness of the Middle Ages. Let us examine what took place in the last three centuries, and we will afterward cast a look on the preceding phase of German his- tory. This will show us what a formidable enemy Prussia is; it will show what powerful organization humanity has still to face, what precaution it has to take for its future protection and defence. The enemy who, since 1619, had successfully and persistently developed the plans which would have 35 36 The Great Adventure of Panama made him the master of Europe in 1919, if it had not been for the American intervention, is going to continue and to persist in spite of his temporary setback. To look for the key of the future let us investi- gate the past. We shall find it there. FIRST GROWTH OF THE PRUSSIAN OCTOPUS In 1619 just three centuries ago the Prussian octopus began to grow. Then George William I, a prince belonging to the House of Hohenzollern, became the first sovereign of the electorate of Brandenburg and of the Dukedom of Prussia (East Prussia), from that day on permanently united. We are going to review the successive increases of the Prussian octopus. The dates only will be mentioned, to avoid minute geographical details. THE SUCCESSIVE INCREASES OF PRUSSIA In 1648, twenty-nine years after the first in- crease, the second one takes place. In 1707-13-20 we find three new ones forming, so to say, one mass of increases. (The period separating the second increase from the beginning of the third mass of increases is fifty-nine years.) The Great Adventure of Panama 37 In 1772, after fifty-two years of apparent quie- tude, the fourth increase takes place. In 1793-95, twenty-one years later, the fifth in- crease is registered. In 1815, twenty years later, we find the gigantic step forward toward the west, which gives to Prussia the low Rhine valley. It is the sixth in- crease. Forty -nine years later, in 1864, we see the origin of the group of increases, which began by the ab- sorption of Schleswig-Holstein, and finished in 1871 by that of Alsace-Lorraine, after the expulsion, in 1866, of Austria out of Germany. This is the seventh increase. After forty-three years of preparation began the ferocious aggression of 1914, the attempt at the ' eighth and final increase. This onslaught aimed not merely as the preceding ones at the conquest of provinces belonging either to German princes or to neighbour nations, but at the conquest of Europe, and, soon after, of the rest of the world. This last and gigantic bandit's raid on friends' property has failed. It failed, thanks to Amer- ican intervention. It failed, thanks to the help- ing hand that, before her own participation in the struggle, the United States extended to 38 The Great Adventure of Panama France in furnishing her with explosives and other munitions of war. CAUSE OF THE EXPANSIONS OF PRUSSIA The resume just given shows that, after the first increase of Prussia, which took place three hundred years ago, a constant and permanent pressure was exerted by Prussia on her neighbours. It shows that after the quiescent periods which lasted never more than fifty -nine years and not less than twenty, a new expansion always took place. The maintenance of the same policy and the securing of similar results, during a period of 300 years, is a most extraordinary thing in the world's history. The permanence and the continuity of the phenomenon demonstrate that it is not the result of the action of the sovereign of an auto- cratic sovereign. If the autocratic sovereign had been the cause, the results would have been influenced by the variations, the unavoidable variations, of the char- acter of the successive generations in the same family. The permanence of the main features of the Prussian history demonstrates that the source of its political power did not flow from its sover- eigns, but from another centre of influence. The Great Adventure of Panama 39 THE CONTINUITY OF THE JUNKER OLIGARCHY This continuity indicates that the real sovereign was not the king or the emperor, but a permanent force such as a collective body only could consti- tute, because such organizations alone can remain young and active for centuries, and defy that which destroys energy or genius among individuals. It is certain that this permanent political entity- is an aristocratic oligarchy, the Junker oligarchy. The so-called Junker party is much more than a party; it is an essential a vital part of the form of government of Prussia. It is that part of the government which has made possible the conquest of Germany within 250 years, and almost that of Europe not to say of the world within 300 years. After the Crusades, the Teutonic Knights "of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem " received a papal brief giving them the mission to conquer and convert to Christianity the popula- tion living east of the Elbe, which was then, more or less, the oriental frontier of the Germanic race. The political power of the Teutonic Knights was broken by the Poles on the 15th of July, 1410, in the historical Battle of Tannenberg. This momen- tous victory placed Western Prussia, that is Danzig 40 The Great Adventure of Panama and the low valley of the Vistula, in Polish terri- tory. It made East Prussia, the last dominion of the Teutonic Knights, a vassal of the Polish kings. Almost entirely broken by this defeat the Teutonic Order subsisted, however, while looking for a new equilibrium. The Treaty of Peace of Cracow in 1525 registered the secularization of the Teutonic Order. Its Grand Master, Albert von Brandenburg, estab- lished the hereditary Dukedom of Prussia in what is now called East Prussia. The monastic order disappeared as a political entity, but all its con- stituent elements that is, the members of the Prussian aristocracy remained. These Junkers had been linked by the discipline of the Monastic Order they remained bonded together by national obligations when religious obligations had disappeared. One can say that the Junker oligarchy is nothing but the contemporary form of the old Monastic Government of the Teutonic Order and that it has never ceased to be the invisible government of Prussia. If one follows this line of thought it soon becomes apparent that a striking resemblance exists be- tween the actual systems of the Prusso-Germans The Great Adventure of Panama 41 and those of the Teutonic Order in the Middle Ages. It is, for instance, easy to trace the source of the cruelty with which the World War was conducted on the German side if one remembers that these cruelties formed part of the principles of warfare of the Teutonic Order. German historians record the work of the Teutonic Knights, in terms which strictly apply to the abominable conduct of the German armies in Belgium and in France. Schleicher says: Never was a pagan nation, good, brave, and generous, more maltreated by her new masters, the Teutonic Knights, than were the Borussians. The history of these fights to death may be cited as one of the most sinister episodes of humanity. It surpasses in duration and cruelty the history of the conquest of Mexico and of Peru. Ewerbeck wrote: Never was a pagan people exterminated under more atrocious conditions. Thirty years of death struggle, day after day, night after night, scarcely sufficed to break this small and energetic nationality. Does not this apply exactly to the recent cam- paigns of the Germans against the Herreros in 42 The Great Adventure of Panama Southwest Africa, where a pagan population of 800,000 souls was exterminated and reduced after a few years to 15,000 by the Prussian method of warfare, which is nothing but the application of the principles of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, six hundred years ago? THE FLAG OF THE UNDERTAKER It is easy also to understand why Prussia has on her flag the colours of the undertaker white and black; why her highest decorations are also marked with the undertaker's colours white and black. It is because these two sad and, when associated, ghastly looking colours were the colours of the cross that the Teutonic Knights wore on their breast. Prussia yesterday was marching ahead toward the conquest of the world under the flag that pre- ceded the Teutonic Knights in their conquest of the territories east of the Elbe. Having obtained, from the foregoing, a clear conception of the source of the continuous Prussian successes for three hundred years it is not out of place to quote here the celebrated phrase pro- nounced by the German patriot, Schleiermacher, in 1807, when Prussia seemed to be doomed for- The Great Adventure of Panama' 43 ever, when the Treaty of Tilsit cut from her all provinces west of the Elbe. He said : Germany is always there and her occult power is un- touched. He certainly meant: Prussia is always there and her occult power is untouched. We know now that the occult power resided in the occult government of the Junker oligarchy. The victories of Napoleon had broken Prussia's military force but had left untouched the occult power of the Junkers. We can say, to-day that the victories of the Allies in 1914-18 have had the same result, and that the Junker oligarchy is still untouched, just as in 1807. Prince Von Buelow, the former German Chan- cellor, hi a book written before the war, recom- mends every loyal German to engrave the sentence of Schleiermacher on his heart. I recommend to everyone who suffered from the sinister German aggression of 1914 to engrave after changing the word "Germany" to that of "Prussia" the very same sentence twice on his brain: once in order to obtain an interpretation of 44 The Great Adventure of Panama the past, once in order to obtain an interpretation of the future. When, with that sentence engraved on the brain, we look at the past, we better understand another recommendation of Prince Von Buelow to his countrymen: "The future of our history depends on the- manner in which the German mind will be influenced by Prussian monarchy." Of course, Prussian monarchy means Prussian government, and Prussian government means Junker government. But we must not attach an undue influence to the label placed on the bottle. It is the contents that must be carefully analyzed and examined. "SANCTA GERMANICA STUPIDITAS" This conception of the interior mechanism of the German Government explains also certain appar- ently unsolvable mysteries of the German politics. When you analyze the main points of the his- tory of the Great War you are struck by two dis- cordant series of facts. At first you cannot fail to be amazed by the won- derful and harmonic series of minute preparations made by the Prusso-Germans to secure victory within a few weeks after unchaining the war. The Great Adventure of Panama 45 If you overlook the moral infamy which these preparations demonstrate; if you observe only the regularity and the enormity of the spider's web thrown over the whole globe, you cannot but feel a certain admiration for the perfection and complete- ness of the job. You suspect the presence of a criminal genius, but, after all, of a genius. But if, on the other hand, you examine the de- cisions adopted by Germany at every critical phase of the war you are struck by an impression of unexampled stupidity. Germany had made incredible and successful ef- forts to obtain the monopoly of the explosives and the practical monopoly of the extraction of ni- trogen from the atmosphere. If England had not joined the war, Germany might have cut the trans- portation of the Chilean nitrates to France. This would have ended the war immediately, as no war could be continued without powder and high ex- plosives. The mastery of the sea was, for France, an indispensable condition of the possibility of fight- ing. Only England could ensure it. What did Germany do? She practically slapped England in the face by the invasion of Belgium; she virtually forced England to fight; she deprived 46 The Great Adventure of Panama her numerous supporters residing in the British Isles of any argument to prevent England from going to war. Germany, therefore, by an incon- ceivable stupidity, so acted as to force England to give to France the benefit of this mastery of the sea without which any sustained struggle was im- possible. After the first battle of the war it became ap- parent that the gigantic power of America, if thrown on one of the scales of fate, would deter- mine which side would win the victory. It seems to any reasonable being that, on the part of Germany, not a stone should have been left unturned to prevent a break in her relations with the United States. Yet, on the contrary, by a fatuity scarcely credible, every class of Boche crime was freely committed on the territory of the United States, and on the high seas, against the dignity of the great American republic. The most peaceable, the most neutral country would have been driven to exasperation by such treatment. The United States, it may confidently be affirmed, was pushed into the war by the German incurable stupidity. It is a fact that submarine warfare enabled Ger- many to sink a tonnage equal to about one half of The Great Adventure of Panama 47 the total mercantile marine of Great Britain; that is to say, one quarter of the total mercantile marine of the world. It is also a fact that this huge de- struction was effected by an insignificant number of submarine craft in actual fighting. The number of submarines at work not count- ing those coming from or returning to their base, those under repairs, etc. was estimated by the highest naval authorities of America and Great Britain at between eight and twelve. This esti- mate was confirmed by German testimony. What would have been the outcome of the war if Germany had understood, in 1904, the vital im- portance of the submersible, when it had just been created? What would have been the destiny of England if three hundred German submarines had blocked her access to the seas on the 5th of August, 1914? Fortunately the amazing shortsightedness of Germany prevented her from seeing the light at the proper moment. Von Tirpitz understood the sub- marine ten years too late! German war prepa- rations were complete for all land operations but were lacking for the one weapon which would have assured the Central Powers a complete and immediate mastery of the sea and would have 48 The Great Adventure of Panama practically strangled England at the very com- mencement of the war. These few facts show the intellectual character of the invisible government of Germany. Its action as often happens with collective, well-disciplined bodies is remarkably thorough, methodic, and complete, where a preparation of from twenty to fifty years is concerned, but it is absolutely lacking in these spontaneous flashes of intellectual light which make clearly visible for men of genius the horizons of the future in critical circumstances. A humorous Frenchman has said that if, in the great invasion of the Huns, led by Attila, Paris was protected by Sainte-Genevieve, France herself was protected, in the recent invasion of the Ger- mans, by a still more efficacious saint: "Sancta Germanica Stupiditas" To her the French, and consequently humanity, are indebted for the master blunders by which "German Stupidity" offset the results of a patiently, carefully, cun- ningly, treacherously prepared aggression, after half a century of constant endeavours, of the German superior sense of organization. CHAPTER V Boche conspiracy in Mexico (1861-63) preparing the provocation of 1870 IN ORDER to have a clear understanding of the reconciliation of America and France, through the medium of the Panama enterprise, it is necessary to understand how that precious friendship had been ruptured. There, also, we shall undoubtedly find the sly hand of the Boche. Of course Germany's accomplices will raise their hands toward the heavens and say as did the ninety-three German philosophers and scientists of 1914, the flower of German Intellectual Ser- vility: "Das ist nicht wahr." ("That is not true.") My answer to them is that where Boche in- terests call for the perpetration of an infamy, it is unhesitatingly committed, owing to the magnifi- cent organization of Prussia for such purpose. I may add that where no material proofs can be fur- nished, it is because these infamies are committed 50 The Great Adventure of Panama according to the principle of Count Von Luxburg, the eminent spokesman of the German system of di- plomacy by assassination, "without having traces." But I can add further that if the trail of a snake on a rock leaves no visible trace, it does, however, leave a smell; and that smell proves just as cer- tainly as if tangible evidence could be furnished, that the reptile has been there. This being explained, let us pass to the facts which determined almost a state of war between France and America in 1865. Examination of them will undoubtedly reveal the certitude that this lamentable state of things was brought about by Boche intrigues. In 1861, as everybody knows, the Civil War in the United States began. At the same time a punitive expedition was . organized by England, France, and Spam against Mexico, to enforce cer- tain claims for damages suffered in Mexico by citizens of these countries. THE MEXICAN EXPEDITION UNDER PRIM The expedition of these associated countries was placed Under a Spanish general named Prim. Very soon after Prim withdrew from Mexico with the Spanish and English forces. The Great Adventure of Panama 51 The French forces had been previously engaged in such a way as to render difficult their with- drawal without loss, if not of honour, at least of prestige. So the French remained. In 1863 when the United States were torn asunder by the terrible conflict between North and South and therefore unable to react a new phase opened. An empire was established in Mexico with an Austrian prince as ruler. Here we draw a very obvious inference of Boche diplomacy. BISMARCK VICARIOUSLY TESTS MONROE DOCTRINE In 1863, Bismarck was preparing a war against Austria which was to take place in 1866 and also a war against France which was to take place in 1870. Is it not an uncanny and striking fact that in the very same year the emperors of France and Aus- tria adopted a policy in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine? An empire of Mexico is created by the bayonets of France and the Emperor of Mexico is an archduke of Austria! Who will believe that the foundation of the Mexican Empire was not a creation of Bismarck's 52 The Great Adventure of Panama mind? Who will believe that this monumental absurdity of Napoleon Ill's government was not concocted and devised in Berlin? Who will doubt that Bismarck did not try thereby to weaken his future adversaries by making them enter into a conflict with the United States? Here, in the slight inflicted on the United States by the innocent but stupid diplomacy of Napoleon III, we have a first demonstration of a positive character of the Boche hand. It is the first scent disclosing the trail of the snake on the rock. PRIM AND THE BOCHE GERM OF WAR IN 1870 If we look a little further into the history of that period; if we look into the very origin of the war of 1870-71, we are struck by another fact. Again it points straight toward Berlin as the source of the Mexican Expedition. Everybody knows that Prussia always paves the way for her criminal wars by introducing a cause of intolerable friction, of which she pleads to be the innocent victim. Her wilfully credulous people can satisfy their inborn hypocritical patriotism by calling a cynical aggression by the name of "Defensive War." The cause of friction which permitted Prussia The Great Adventure of Panama 53 to launch the war of 1914, while professing to be forced to it by the Russian mobilization, was the ultimatum of Austria to Servia. Prince Lich- nowski, Dr. Muehlon, the ambassador of Bavaria to Berlin, the ambassador of Germany to Turkey, all have willingly or unwillingly certified that the crime was decided on July 5, 1914, in Berlin. The cause of friction which enabled Prussia to launch the war of 1870 was the not-less-infamous Hohenzollern candidature to the Spanish throne. Victory has since covered with its laurels the nu- dity of the crime then committed. But the his- torian can discover it just the same by citing the witnesses. The man who advanced this candidature was undoubtedly a puppet in Bismarck's hands. Whether he was conscious or unconscious of his vile part in the drama matters little. He was an explicit agent of Prussia whether intentional or un- intentional. He was the same Prim whom we know already, then a marshal and head of the provisional government of Spam. It is another ominous coincidence that he who acted for Bismarck's obvious policy in 1870 was Prim whom we saw, nine years earlier, command- ing the Mexican Expedition. 54 The Great Adventure of Panama Who can believe that the man who so dexterously served the Prussian interests in 1870 had not served them equally well in Mexico, in 1861? He then attached the French to Mexican soil by mili- tary operations. Who will not suspect that he was then serving Bismarck's intentions of throwing France later into an imbroglio with the United States? What use the Boche made, in America, of the stupid Mexican intervention of Napoleon III to support the Austrian prince is easy to conceive! The case was bad enough in itself, but it was made still infinitely worse by the simultaneous and con- venient culture of irritating microbes! GRANT'S FRIENDSHIP FOR GERMANY Inl 871, General Grant, President of the American Republic, gave an historical expression of the bad feelings generated against France by sending to Congress, ten days after the surrender of Paris to the Germans, a message extolling the friendship of the United States for the German Empire. He considered the constitution of the new empire as a replica of that of the United States. He wrote that in the German Empire the head of the State would have the power necessary for a defensive war The Great Adventure of Panama 55 but not the authority necessary for a war of con- quest!* It is clear that the terms employed in the message demonstrate the influence of the German propaganda. The President of the United States covers with his high authority and believes in the mendacious Boche statement of German love for peace and of German organization for fighting exclusively Defensive Wars. Victor Hugo replied by a beautiful piece of poetry which can be read in "L'Annee terrible" and which is entitled "Le message de Grant" ("Grant's message.") We can scarcely believe that such a situation has ever been created between the two nations which seem to have been always linked by the closest bonds of friendship. It is necessary to remember this historical fact in order to avoid similar dangers in the future and to keep the eyes open on the Boche. The Franco-American friendship, founded by the 'Extracts from the message of President Grant to the Senate and to the House of Representatives, dated February 7, 1871: "The union of the States of Germany into a form of government similar in many respects to that of the American Union, is an event that cannot fail to touch deeply the sympathies of the people of the United States. . . . "The local governments of these several members of the union are preserved, while the power conferred upon the chief imparts strength for the purposes of self-defence with- out authority to enter upon wart of conquest and ambition." 56 The Great Adventure of Panama common sacrifices of the soldiers of Washington and of Lafayette, seemed in 1871 eclipsed for- ever. It had disappeared behind the cloud of poisoned gases emitted by Prussian diplomacy. The same gases, about half a century later, were identi- fied during the Great War in the correspondence between Berlin and both Mexico and Tokio. That time the victim of the imbroglio, then in course of preparation, was to be the United States in order to keep her out of the European war. If these infamous conspiracies to stir up trouble between America and Mexico or Japan had been carried out "without leaving traces" of their origin, they could have been denied with charac- teristic German indignation; but, unfortunately for the plotters, the activities of the American police seized and exhibited the threads of the Boche spider's web! We can say to-day: "The same methods have always been in use for the promotion of Prussian politics." We can express the following recom- mendation for the future: In every internal or external difficulty involving a nation which is or may be antagonistic to Germany, look for the skilful and adroit Boche hand. You The Great Adventure of Panama 57 will always see it preparing and paving the way for the next German aggression. MEXICO THE ANTECHAMBER OF THE WAR OF 1870 The Boche triumph of 1870-71 was prepared by the Mexican Expedition of 1861 and the Mexican Empire of 1863. The momentous consequences of that expedition were twofold; one injuriously affected the exterior, the other the interior equili- brium of the French nation. It destroyed the friendship of America for France and shook the confidence of France in herself. When the United States emerged from the Civil War she turned against France and demanded the immediate withdrawal of her troops from Mexico. It was legitimate, it was justified after the commission of the stupid act of the French Emperor. This act had not been inspired by any unfriendliness to America, but it was represented as such by the active German propagandists working in the United States. The withdrawal of the French troops which were the only support of the fragile throne of Maximilian had the sinister consequence which everybody knows. This tragic episode practically dismantled the 58 The Great Adventure of Panama moral armature of France. She was, from that moment on, beaten in advance. She had lost the esteem of her historical friend. She felt that the dishonour of defeat was hanging on her. She had lost, with the sense of her moral integrity, her confidence in herself, that most indispensable element of victory. Boche psychology had won the war against France thanks to the Boche- suggested Mexican Expedition long before a gun was fired on the Rhine. Those who, like me, have seen with their eyes the catastrophe of 1870-71, never will forget the tragic spectacle. What remains engraved in my memory is the indescribable difference between what history showed us about the invasion of 1814 and what we saw during the invasion of 1870. Though ex- hausted by a war which had practically lasted a quarter of a century, France in 1814 had confidence in herself and was proud of herself. In 1870 she had lost both confidence and pride, thanks to the devilish campaign prepared before the actual war by the Boche intriguer. For the new aggression which Prussia had devised for the beginning of the nineteenth century Panama was to play the part that The Great Adventure of Panama 59 Mexico had played for preparing the aggression of 1870. The wrecking of the great enterprise and the cunning distillation in France of the most wicked accusations against every man holding a prominent position were meant to destroy the confidence of the nation in herself. War is the period of life of the societies of men, when the nervous system of collectivity works at the highest tension. If the centres of organiza- tion and of command have lost control of the parts of the body which normally obey, if these parts are no more disciplined, victory cannot result. Such was the fatal situation that the Boche had created in France over the Panama affair. He had utilized as he always cleverly does the mental weaknesses or intellectual errors of his enemies. Panama was to be the antechamber of the ag- gression planned for the beginning of the twentieth century as the Mexican Expedition had been the antechamber of the aggression of the second half of the nineteenth. Let us see how that scheme failed. CHAPTER VI The Boche conspiracy in France (1888-1892) to wreck the Panama Canal in order to create the depressed state of mind necessary for the premeditated aggression AFTER the collapse of the Panama enterprise in 1889, 1 saw clearly the vital importance for France of saving from final failure the great work under- taken. Its political importance always was in my mind, after the suspension of the work, very much beyond the limits of the interest it deserved as a gigantic industrial undertaking. When I saw, with unutterable sorrow, the de- struction of the enterprise by the very agencies that ought to have sustained and defended it Parliament, Press, Justice I constantly suspected that some nefarious and concealed influence was at work. I saw the havoc created by the most extraordinary display of fanaticism against French interests that France has ever seen developed on her own soil. I was convinced that France would die of her self-inflicted wounds were Panama not 60 The Great Adventure of Panama 61 saved from the infamous grave which political passion had opened at a foreign instigation. I was convinced that if France should passively witness the final collapse of what had cost her so much blood and so much gold, she would be during a long time incapacitated for a new war. And it was obvious that the war was coming and that Prussia was preparing the final act of the gradual conquest of the world begun in 1619. I always clearly and definitely saw that the fate of France was linked with that of Panama, because that enterprise was a part of her honour and of her heart. In the book I published in 1913, one year before the war: "Panama; The Creation, the Destruc- tion, the Resurrection,"* I wrote in the dedication to my children: No nation, any more than a man, can live without honour. It needs to materialize in the form of an absolute faith in a certain number of superior men. Otherwise no moral life is possible for it. Once calumny has persuaded a nation that she has been deceived in her ideal, that those whom she was wont to admire are only worthy of scorn, a great disaster has befallen her. This book, which gives the complete history of the Panama Canal, was published in French by Plon Nourrit & Cie., Paris, and in English by Constable & Co., Ltd., London, and Robert M. McBride & Co., New York. 62 The Great Adventure of Panama She is prostrated like a mother who has lost faith in the honour of her sons. It is this prostration which had seized France after the Mexican Expedition. It is in view of causing this same prostration that the intrigues of the Boche had led the weak-minded emperor, Napoleon III, into the wasps' nest of Mexico. France, once caught in the Mexican trap, had not been able to extricate herself without losing a part of her honour, that is to say of her very capacity of waging a victorious war. It is the same prostration which the sinister diplomacy of the Boche employed to seal the doom of the Panama Canal thirty years later. It certainly determined the failure of the Panama enterprise and later cunningly encouraged the de- velopment of political passions around the great fallen undertaking. THE MINE UNDER THE PANAMA COMPANY IN 1888 It is known that the financial fall of the Panama Canal was caused in 1888 by a criminal Bourse manoeuvre. The false news of the death of Ferdi- nand de Lesseps was wired all over France on the day of the great subscription of lottery bonds for The Great Adventure of Panama 63 720 million francs. The success of the subscrip- tion would have ensured the completion of the Canal in 1891, without the slightest doubt, accord- ing to the plans I had laid down and to the regular enforcement of the construction rules resulting from an experience extending over more than seven years. The subscription was stopped by the false news. Only a little more than a third of the necessary total was subscribed. The smews of the great undertaking had been suddenly cut and it soon after fell to the ground. There is little doubt that the reptilian funds of Germany were employed to cause a disaster which so well served the plan to weaken France for the German aggression then in course of preparation. It is still less doubtful that through the numer- ous channels which the Boche employed in Finance and Press he could sow calumny, fan the agitation, and bring it to an unexampled intensity. To be sure 99 per cent, of the men who in France played the detestable game of politics against their country's interests never knew what master they were serving. Spasmodically as much as stupidly they denounced Panama as a demonstrated im- possibility. It never entered their minds that they 64 The Great Adventure of Panama were destroying France for the benefit of the Kaiser of Germany and at his instigation. THE PART OF ERNEST JUDET IN 1892 During these nefarious ten years extending from 1889 to 1899 I tried by every conceivable means to open my country's eyes to what was so obviously clear to myself. In vain were my efforts. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, it became possible to lift the veil a little. The pressing need of a canal across the Central Amer- ican isthmus had been demonstrated by the voyage of the Oregon around South America from San Fran- cisco to Santiago de Cuba, during the Spanish War. Everybody, the world over, then supposed that the Nicaragua Canal the old American solution of the problem would be carried out. I determined thenceforth to centre my efforts toward the adoption of Panama by the United States. The task seemed impossible of achievement! After I had succeeded, after the great conception of French genius had been resuscitated, I was the object of renewed attacks from those who had assassinated it. The Great Adventure of Panama 65 The most bitter attack came from a journalist called Ernest Judet. He had always been held as the principal tool in the hands of those who effected the ruin of the Panama enterprise by bringing about the monstrous prosecution against its crea- tors, Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps. As Judet was indicted for high treason (on the 23rd of August, 1919), it is apropos here to reproduce the passages of the French editions of my book published in 1913, about the part he played in 1892. It will show an almost unknown page of the great international drama of which Panama was the centre. The prosecution against Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps was ordered, against the opinion and the report of the Attorney General of the Paris Court of Justice, by Minister of Justice Ricard, on the 15th of November, 1892. On page 131 of the French edition of my book appears the following sentence: Suddenly, on the 10th of November, 1892, on the eve of the day when M. Ricard answered the Attorney General in terms rendering the prosecution inevitable, a surprising article appeared in the Petit Journal. It was entitled: "We must see clear." On the same page appears also this footnote: 66 The Great Adventure of Panama There will be found in Appendix C the reprint from the Siecle of June 17, 1906, of a letter which I had di- rected a few days before, about this nefarious article of November 10, 1892, to its signatory M. Judet who, in 1906, had become director of the Eclair. I am now to reproduce the attack which M. Judet made in the Eclair against me for having rescued Panama and obtained its adoption by America. My letter exposing his sinister acts of 1892 follows. The indictment of Judet for high treason; the fact that he left France in the most anguishing part of the war just before the German attack of the 21st of March, 1918, against the British Fifth Army, and just before the begin- ning of the bombardment of Paris by long-range guns; the fact that he then took a permanent residence in Switzerland and never came back to the place of honour and danger (that is to France), give a striking actuality to the acts of Judet in 1892 as exposed by my letter of 1906 which follows. On June 9, 1906, the Eclair published the follow- ing article: THE BANKRUPTCY OF PANAMA There are dead that come back. I have read the following lines in a morning paper: The Great Adventure of Panama 67 About two hundred persons have met at a banquet, at the Elysee Palace Hotel, to celebrate the work accomplished at Panama by M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla and offer him a medal by Chaplain which has been very much admired. M. de Lanessan was presiding at this friendly banquet. The former minister pronounced a very eloquent speech in which he retraced the qualities of dogged energy thanks to which a Frenchman has been able to reconstitute, after twenty years of effort, an enterprise which had seemed to be lost forever. M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla expressed his thanks with deep emotion and exposed, with a clearness which very much impressed his audience, the plans which must, if the United States adopt them, definitively ensure the success of the Inter- oceanic Canal. It would be interesting to know the names of these two hundred persons who have given themselves the trouble of celebrating the greatest defeat of France since Fashoda. M. Phillipe Bunau-Varilla . . . was a remark- able engineer. It is even probable that his technical ideas on the cutting of the Isthmus of Panama are among the boldest and the most practical. So much the better for the United States if she adopts his system. From that point of view M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla is a good American. But nobody ought to speak decently of a French interest in this affair. We ought not to forget that at the end of 1903, the undertaking of Ferdinand de Lesseps, conceived and created by our nation, partly made with our money* could still remain our personal property. The Wash- ington Government grabbed it, thanks to a legerdemain, 68 The Great Adventure of Panama which left in the hands of the shareholders a ridicu- lous tip but which took away from them, with their capital, a property of inestimable value, which threw us away from the Isthmus, where we had planted our flag for Civilization and for Humanity. The history is not yet written of the scandalous intrigues which preceded the staged insurrection of Panama, the dismemberment of Colombia, and the formation of a REPUBLIC PROVIDENTIAL FOR MR. ROOSEVELT. It made a reality of the old dream of the Yankees. They wanted the military domination of the Isthmus the monopoly of the maritime canal which was to ensure them the supremacy in the world's competition from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They are the masters. France was beaten in that tragical comedy which was played at the cost of all her interests thanks to our interior party divisions through the surrender of our foreign policy. Now that we have been cast aside; now that the grab- bing has been consummated, why should we triumph if the Americans use for their exclusive advantage the works to be carried out in the places from where we are expropriated? It is easy to explain the historical reasons of the disaster, but how can we glorify an ir- reparable weakness? We must not at least present to foreign nations who deride us the spectacle of a retreat devoid of glory and of childish haste to transform it into a victory. There is more dignity in keeping silent, in studying, in patiently awaiting, some other revenge. ERNEST JUDET. The Great Adventure of Panama 69 Such was the hypocritical expression of opinion of the man who fourteen years earlier had signed the article which had killed the Panama enterprise and who eleven years later left France at the mo- ment of supreme danger, when the fact of going away to inhabit a foreign neutral country was a veritable civic desertion and who, to-day, indicted for high treason, has not come back to face the accusation. I answered this base article by the letter which follows, and wherein will be found exposed the "enemies of Panama," whom we may now call by their names: "the Boches." Paris, June 12, 1906. To M. ERNEST JUDET Chief Editor of the Eclair Paris. In the autumn of 1892 the destiny of the immortal conception of Panama was in the balance. Its develop- ment had been stopped for three years. It had been paralyzed when we were approaching the goal, when an effort of secondary importance remained to be made to secure to France the honour of having cut the two isthmuses of the planet and of having opened the eastern gate of the Pacific, as she had already done previously with its western gate. It was necessary to know whether the opinion of the 70 The Great Adventure of Panama people would be concentrated on this luminous aim, whether a new call for energies and interests would decide the scientific battle against the impossible, and give to France at the same time a property at least equal to that of Suez multiplied by three, that is a property of a value of two billion dollars. The judicial enquiry had, after various hesitations, determined in the mind of the magistrate, then occupy- ing the post of attorney general of the Court of Paris, the final opinion that no misdemeanour of any kind could be established against the management of the old Company. He assumed responsibility for this decision. This was putting an end to the period of anguish which had followed the stoppage of the work. This was permitting the bankers, the engineers, to resume the half-accomplished task and to finish it within three or four years. All those whom the honour of their country and the love of the French name were inspiring waited with anxiety for this hour of deliverance the hour of work and action. Those, on the contrary, for whom patriotism is but a vain and deceiving tag; the soldiers who throw down their weapons in the midst of the battle and leave the front to bring to trial a quartermaster who has not caused sugar and coffee to be issued in time; those were not willing that the bell calling them back to work should be rung; all these wanted to raise a hue and cry and engender a hysterical and monumental scandal. The Great Adventure of Panama 71 A minister of justice mortally wounded in its head the Panama undertaking by ordering a criminal prosecu- tion of its living symbol, the glorious but unfortunate Ferdinand de Lesseps. He substituted, at the same time, his personal de- cision for that of the responsible head of the prosecution, the Attorney General, his subordinate, and for that of the responsible head of the French policy, the Govern- ment of the Republic, his superior. But this minister needed for carrying out this act to be supported by what is usually called: public opinion. You were in these days, M. Judet, at the head of an organ of the press then enjoying unlimited power. It is this organ, the Petit Journal, which, in an article that has remained famous, gave to that minister the support necessary to write on the following day, on the llth of November, his letter to the Attorney General, which rejected this magistrate's conclusions, and ordered a prosecution which dishonoured the Standard of Panama and thereby destroyed all hope of ever seeing this great work completed by France. This nefarious article had for its prelude a deceiving and illusory appeal for the completion of the works. It was but a tricky and seducing piece of rhetoric which aimed at concealing from public indignation the real aim, the political aim. Such was your part at this historical moment! It is you who loaded the anarchist bomb which was to destroy the fortune of six hundred thousand honest people in order to give substance to the complaint of 72 The Great Adventure of Panama four share- or bond-holders; which was to plunge France into an unnamed anguish, to make of the word "Panama" a symbol of infamy, to wrap the noble his- tory of the glorious struggles on the Isthmus in the shroud of a contemptible legend made of the misdeeds of a few scoundrels emptying on the battlefield the pock- ets of the dead fallen from the ranks of the great and victorious army of Science which they followed like wolves. I have, sir, learned from my childhood to consider the service of France as the most enviable thing which may fill the career of a man, if that service consists in real facts and not in the emission of empty and sonorous words. I graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique with its motto engraved in the heart: "For Country, Science, and Glory." I have never for one minute stopped acting to dam that current of error which was carrying away, piece by piece, this precious structure cemented by the blood and the savings of our country this current which you had let loose. I have acted by every means that a man can use by the speech, by the pen, by the deeds. While yet there was time, in the spring of 1901, when it still would have been possible, by a rapid and supreme effort, to open the Canal before the time limit granted by the concessionary laws that is before the autumn of 1904 I published two appeals to the Nation one in April, one in May, 1901, in order to show her the truth and the way. The Great Adventure of Panama 73 I published these appeals in all the newspapers of France, and paid for their publication as if they had been simple advertisements. The most important press organ at the head of which you then were published them as did the other papers. If the prelude of your article of 1892 had been sincere, you would have acted then, but the hand which was editing the first page of the paper was not offered to the hand which, on the last page, was begging help and sup- port for salving the gigantic moral and material French interest at the supreme and last hour when it was still physically possible, which salvation ought to have made every French heart beat with enthusiasm. Nobody dared to advance at my side on this lake of mud which had been formed by the unchained tor- rent of human wickedness. I continued my solitary work and in December, 1901, in a third appeal also printed in the daily papers I showed that only one road remained open: that of the sale to the United States. Your paper this time also published my appeal, and again the first page remained dumb to the appeals of the last page. You persisted in your silence. This silence was intended to continue to conceal the crime against France, committed in 1892. You thought then that this corpse would never speak, which you are sur- prised to see emerging from the grave that you dug for it. My inexorable determination and my unshakable fidelity have illumined again the life of the child of French genius at the moment when it seemed to be ex- 74 The Great Adventure of Panama tinguished forever, and I have been happy enough to .secure its adoption by the great sister republic beyond ! the Atlantic. It may be convenient for you, sir, in order to forget your responsibilities, to affect to-day a patriotic sorrow and to depict the victory in America of the French idea of Panama over the American idea of Nicaragua as a prearranged comedy. Why did you not so describe it, if you thought it so, when the battle was going on? What would a man of good faith think of this asser- tion when reading the conclusions, in 1876, of the in- vestigations undertaken by the American Government at the end of seven years of surveys and explorations in all parts of the Isthmus? He would see there that among all the inter-oceanic highways the Nicaraguan one is proclaimed by the Commission formed in 1869 by President Grant as the one presenting least difficul- ties and the greatest facilities both for construction and for operation. This was written at a time when the field was en- tirely free; when the initial elementary conception, which was later on to be transformed into the Panama undertaking, was not yet born in the brain of the Geographic Society of Paris; and when, consequently, no rivalry could be accused of influencing the scales of technical justice. What will that man of good faith think when he sees the vote on the Spooner Bill, on the 19th of June, 1902, in the Senate of Washington, and which gave preference to the Panama route over that of Nicaragua? The The Great Adventure of Panama 75 ii decision would have been contrary if four senators i! less, of the ninety members of that high assembly, i had been won to the idea of Panama by my inceasing i demonstrations, to which the eruption of Mont Pelee ; furnished a terrible materialization. Four senators less in favour of Panama, and the adop- tion of the Nicaraguan route already voted for in the preceding January by all but two of the House of Rep- resentatives would have become an accomplished fact. It may be convenient for you, sir, now that the work of error and calumny is consummated so far as con- cerns the material interests of France to anathematize the Panama Revolution, as well as the treaty which I, as the Minister Plenipotentiary of the new Republic, have signed with the United States, and to depict this diplomatic act as spoliating France ! What will this man of good faith think when reading the discussions before the Colombian Senate during the summer of 1903 which preceded the revolution? He will see there that the Hay-Herran Treaty was rejected which authorized the French Company to sell its prop- erty to the United States. He will see there the mani- festation of the will to consider as null and void the prorogation of six years, to date from 1904, granted to that company by the Executive power without author- ity from the Legislative power. The lack of ratification in 1903 of that prorogation was equivalent, for the French people, to the whole loss of all their rights of property on the works already 76 The Great Adventure of Panama carried out, on the plant and on the concession from the autumn of 1904. As all the billions of the earth could not have opened the Canal in one year, I have the right to say that the Revolution of Panama and the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, for which I claim entire responsibility, saved at least forty million dollars to France. But they saved something infinitely more precious, it is the undertaking itself of Panama. It is easy to see that because, after the rejection of the Hay-Herran Treaty by Colombia, the Spooner Law made it an imper- ative, explicit, and formal obligation to the Executive power of the United States to construct the Nicaragua Canal. The loveless marriage of the American nation with the foreign solution of Panama was already gladly greeted as dissolved. The Nicaragua Canal which the celebrated American financier Vanderbilt had begun in 1850 and which was ever afterward recommended by all the American commissions as the superior solution; which was constantly greeted by the unanimity of the press and of the political world as the national solu- tion was going to enter its hour of triumph. The Panaman Revolution has changed that hour of triumph into an hour of final defeat, and the final defeat of Nicaragua into the permanent and eternal triumph of the French idea of Panama. Simultane- ously with the revivification of the generous French creation, the honour of the scientific genius of our country became safeguarded. It would have been The Great Adventure of Panama 77 besmirched by the final sterility of this great national effort. It will radiate more luminously than ever by this historic demonstration of the height and of the surety of its conceptions. Those who acclaim this triumph of the Scientific Truth, served by the hearts and the brains of France for twenty-six years, are those whose consciences are filled by sincere love of France. Those who deplore it are those for whom this love is but an empty figure of speech hollow as well as deceiving or those whom this love, if it be sincere, oppresses with the crushing remorse of the past. I conclude in begging you, sir, to receive the expres- sion of the sentiments which this letter sufficiently translates, and in inviting you to insert it in answer to your article of June 9th published in the Eclair, this in conformity with the mandates of the law, expressing my obligation to pay the legal price for the surplus of the insertion. P. BUNAU-VARILLA. When Judet received the letter he immediately declared in his paper that he was going to publish it. He wrote on the 15th of June, 1906: This letter furnishes us with too good an opportunity to explain ourselves. We will not deprive our readers of that pleasure. Their curiosity shall not be disap- pointed. 78 The Great Adventure of Panama But the curiosity of Judet's readers was disap- pointed. He never dared to publish a line of my letter nor to oppose the formal indictment it con- tained of having wilfully and hypocritically ruined the Panama enterprise for a secret interest. THE INDICTMENT OF JUDET FOR HIGH TREASON A question remained open. For whose interest had Judet worked? Had he destroyed with his anarchist bomb the great and glorious enterprise of Panama; had he dishon- oured Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps, the engineers of France, her men of science, her political men; had he ruined 600,000 families; had he sown distrust and ill-will in the whole na- tion for the internal and infernal political ambition of a party excited by Boche intriguers unknown to him? Had he committed the still infinitely more odious crime of stabbing France in the back knowingly for the interest of Germany? Had he committed this crime in order to effect know- ingly the enfeeblement of France and to weaken , her resistance to the next great German attack? The last-mentioned hypothesis was so horrible that I never dared to express it, and I now still ask the reader to postpone his final judgment until The Great Adventure of Panama 79 the sentence of the court martial shall have pro- nounced on the accusation of high treason brought against Ernest Judet. This indictment has evoked the publication by the press of documents which, if corroborated, prove that he had relations with Germany at the very beginning of the war.* This despatch, if expressing the truth, would demonstrate that Judet was disposed to betray at the very outset of hostilities. Its tone also implies the fact that Judet was not then for the first time at the Service of Germany. The trial will clear the matter from which will result the answer to the question: In wrecking the Panama Canal, in 1892, was Judet knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of the Boche in Paris? The Petit Parisien published on the 26th of August the following despatch, dated Berlin, December 11, 1914, from Von Jagow, German Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Von Lancken, former Councillor of the German Embassy in Paris, and then in Brussels. "According to news from Switzerland, public opinion must be less favourable to us than four weeks ago. A revulsion of feeling might be hoped only after greater suc- cesses of Germany and better-prepared propaganda. I would like to win Judet for this task. He first rejected the offers made by an intermediary but finally he con- sented to the following conditions. As he would have to abandon the direction of his paper, which represents a sum of one and a half million francs and as he is risking his fortune amounting to half a million, he asks for two million francs. For this sum he would place at our disposal all his power. "This figure seems to me absurdly high. I beg you to make known your opinion. I stay here till Monday." "JAQOW." 80 The Great Adventure of Panama ' But a fact of the highest importance for con- temporary history remains: the wrecking of the Panama enterprise by the Judet article in 1892 after its stranding by the bourse manoeuvre of 1888 was the fruit of Boche conspiracy. It was evolved in view of the onslaught projected for the beginning of the twentieth century just as the conspiracy for establishing an empire in Mexico was a preparation for the attack of 1870 on France. CHAPTER VII Campaign in America against the Nicaragua Canal to countercheck the Boche conspiracy to annihilate the Panama Canal. IF I worked with all the fibres of my heart, all the cells of my brain, for the resurrection of Pana- ma, it is because I felt the hand of the Boche behind the whole affair. I saw that it was a con- spiracy against France, and I thought that the eventual ruin of the enterprise would be the fore- runner of the ruin of France herself. Thanks to George Morrison and Burr in the field of technical science; thanks to Hanna and Herrick in the field of national politics; thanks to Roosevelt, Hay, and Loomis in the final and eruptive phase of international politics, it has been possible to paralyze the dastardly Boche plot. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE NICARAGUA CANAL Everybody will now understand why I fought so desperately to counteract the construction of 81 82 The Great Adventure of Panama the Nicaragua Canal and why I strove so hard to have the Panama solution vindicated by its adop- tion. I was then fighting for France, as much as for the United States, against the Boche. It was indeed the prelude of the Great War. The strate- gical positions to be occupied were to be of the greatest moment for the outcome of the war it- self. If, as every consideration made it probable, the Nicaragua Canal had been carried out, the object of the web of the Boche conspiracy would have been attained. The rejection of the Panama solution by a nation celebrated for its practical mind and sound judgment would have been held as a brilliant justification of the spreaders of calumnies made in Germany. These calumnies would have taken a renewed force and France would have been convinced that they were the formal expression of the truth. She would have considered herself wholly betrayed by all her superior classes. She would have lost entirely all confidence in the genius, in the sagacity, in the sincerity of her legislators, her engineers, her financiers. She would have been brought to that state of mind which the consequences of the Mexican Expedition had determined in preceding The Great Adventure of Panama 83 generations. She would have been like the France of 1870 the victim of that nefarious depression. One may imagine with what intensity of senti- ment I entered the field of a battle from which was to result either the destruction or the salvation of France. The strain on my vitality produced by this extraordinary stake magnified the energy of my mind and the acuteness of my senses. The battle royal, which lasted three years, ended with the triumph of Panama, and its adop- tion by the United States. In the book published in 1913, to which I have already made reference, I have related in minute detail all the phases of the struggle; but I refrained from mentioning whom I thought to be the prime movers of the destruction of Panama. I simply called them the "enemies of the Canal." Now, however, I can call them by their name because the war has shown the underground activity of the Boches in all questions where their political interest is involved. If I had said in 1913 what I am writing now, I should have been regarded as a dangerous dis- turber of the peace of that peace for the preserva- tion of which Germany constantly declared she acted as a guardian angel. She counted on the 84 The Great Adventure of Panama imbecility of her neighbours who never gave a thought to her bloody record of conquest which Prussia pursued for three hundred years (since 1619). To-day the war has torn aside the veil with which Boche duplicity concealed its operations from the eye of the casual onlooker. One knows now the principal weapon used by the Boche dur- ing the periods of peace his moral poisonous gas it is: Calumny. It is with this moral gas that all the criminal attempts of the Boche have been made in times of peace. BIGELOW'S LETTER TO SECRETARY HAY At the end of the year 1898 two of my most sincere and devoted friends had, on my advice, made important suggestions to the Government of the United States. One of them, the Hon. John Bigelow, was an ex-minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the Court of the Tuileries. He was the highest and most noble type of the American gentleman of the second half of the nineteenth century. He wrote to the Secretary of State, John Hay, coun- selling him not to make a rash decision, as every- body else had urged him to do, about the construe- The Great Adventure of Panama 85 tion of the Nicaragua Canal, before investigating Panama. John Hay had been the personal secretary of Lincoln, and, after the great President's cowardly assassination, was sent to Paris as secretary of embassy. There he placed his brilliant intellect and his noble heart at the service of his country under the orders of John Bigelow. Though thirty- five years had elapsed since that remote period the authority of Mr. Bigelow's mind had not decreased in John Hay's estimation. The opinions he ex- pressed were always carefully considered by his former subordinate. There is not the slightest doubt that Mr. Bigelow's letter had very much to do with President McKinley's ultimate decision on this momentous question. Simultaneously another friend of mine, Com- mander [now Captain] Asher Baker of the United States Navy, after many conferences with me in Paris, was called to Washington on official business. He took advantage of his numerous and impor- tant connections in the capital to promote the cause of Panama, in which he firmly believed. In particular he conferred with the Speaker of the House Read and with the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means Joe Cannon 86 The Great Adventure of Panama the two most influential men in Congress at that moment. He did in the Legislative branch of the Government what Mr. Bigelow had done in the Executive branch. THE WALKER COMMISSION This double and capital diplomatic move, which I had started from Paris, yielded enormous con- sequences. A resolution was adopted by Con- gress ordering a double technical enquiry to be made, not only in Nicaragua but in Panama, when the session was to be closed and when the unani- mous opinion was favouring Nicaragua. For the first time in ten years the name of Panama was emerging from the heap of calumnies and abuses, made in Germany, which had doomed it in the eyes of the world. The commission in charge of the investigation was formed of the best engineers of the United States under the presidency of Admiral Walker. None of them, when he assumed his office, thought Panama deserved the slightest amount of atten- tion. Everyone believed that Nicaragua was the perfect, the ideal solution. But as the law required an investigation, they performed it thoroughly and a delegation was sent to Paris. The Great Adventure of Panama 87 I met there three of the delegates, very promi- nent men all of them: George Morrison, then con- sidered as the greatest American railroad bridge engineer; William H. Burr, a most eminent engineer and Professor of Engineering at the Columbia University; and Lt.-Colonel of Engineers Ernst, of the American army. I undertook to transform the notions they had gathered from the universal opinion then prevail- ing. I gave them in support of my optimistic assertions about the magnificent solution offered by Panama and my pessimistic denunciations about the detestable one at Nicaragua a book I had written eight years before: "Panama; le passe le present FaveUjr." (Masson, Editeur.) "Burn this book," I said, "and hold me for a man without honour if, during your investigations, you find one statement which is not borne out by facts. But if you find every word of it confirmed by what you see, then you must follow its con- clusions, adopt Panama, and reject Nicaragua." When my three eminent new friends left Paris a large hole had been made in the dam of prejudice then existing against Panama in their minds as in everybody's. This hole, I might say, was particularly large in Morrison's and Burr's minds. 88 The Great Adventure of Panama It was the first attack against official prejudice built up by the campaign of calumnies initiated by Boche agencies. This prejudice was to crumble under my repeated blows and under the light thrown on the matter by the investigations of men of accomplished talent and of strict conscience. At the end of 1900 a preliminary report was made which, though still recommending Nicaragua, showed that the initial faith in that project was dangerously punctured. SPEECHES IN AMERICA IN FAVOUR OF PANAMA At the end of December, 1900, I received by cable an invitation of the Commercial Club of Cincinnati, signed by Messrs. Taylor and Wulsin, to speak before the club on the Canal problem. I accepted it immediately. I sailed early in January, 1901, for New York to go and attack the enemy on his own ground. I knew how difficult it is for a technical corn- mi ;sion to go against the unanimous wishes of press and public opinion. I wished to create a public opinion in favour of Panama or at least to conquer for the Panama side men who could com- mand public opinion. This, I thought, was a sine qua non of the final and complete exterioriza- The Great Adventure of Panama 89 tion of the pro-Panama ideas which I had sown in the minds of several of the commissioners. I therefore spoke in many cities, before audiences completely surprised to hear expounded anything about the Isthmian canal which was in favour of Panama. At first reluctant to admit what I affirmed they without a single exception came round and fully understood the hitherto-unrealized objections to Nicaragua and the unknown advantages of Panama. CONSEQUENCES OF INVITATION OP COL. HERRICK Among these meetings the one that had the greatest consequences took place at Cleveland, Ohio, on the invitation of Col. Myron T. Herrick. This eminent man was afterward to become Gov- ernor of Ohio and, later, Ambassador to France. He displayed in Paris, during the march of the Germans toward that capital, magnificent qualities of sang froid and generous devotion to duty which made him the object of the everlasting gratitude of the French people. He was already, in 1901, a prominent personality in Ohio and the intimate friend of President McKinley and also of the celebrated Senator Hanna. 90 The Great Adventure of Panama Around the club table, where he invited me to sit at luncheon, were twenty prominent men of Cleveland, all of them friends of Senator Hanna. After the luncheon my expose began, at about 1 p. M. It was about 5.30 p. M. when it ended. Every part of the great problem had been thor- oughly examined. I had removed from the minds of my host and of his guests all trace of pro- Nicaraguism. As all of them formed the group of men among whom Hanna lived, when in Cleveland, this day gave me indirectly an important command on the opinion of the all-powerful Senator. "What is the matter?" Hanna asked Herrick, some days later; "Cleveland has become a Panama town!" Herrick explained, and Hanna expressed the de- sire to confer with me on this all-important sub- ject. It was perhaps the only way to obtain access to his mind, surrounded as he was by an army of people trying to obtain his support for their own political interests or individual aspirations. Un- der these conditions to get a hearing from Hanna was equivalent to a high probability of victory. Hanna's opinion exerted a great influence on that The Great Adventure of Panama 91 of the President and on that of the Republican party which then was in overwhelming majority in both Houses of Congress. I met the great Senator several times in Wash- ington and there I completed his conversion to Panama. I was also received by President McKinley thanks to an introduction offered to me by Mr. Dawes, Comptroller of the Treasury. He was a personal friend of the President. Many years later I again met Mr. Dawes, as a brigadier general, in Paris where, during the war, he rendered the greatest services to the American army, and consequently to the common cause of the Allies. Having fully accomplished my task I returned to Paris, certain of having placed the great Panama enterprise on the high road to recovery. ARTICLES IN THE FRENCH PRESS While travelling back home I asked myself whether I did not owe it to France to tell her all about the Panama situation. The new Panama Canal Company had always observed a passive attitude, and, by its cowardly demeanour, encouraged the worst suppositions as to the possibility of ever completing the Canal. 92 The Great Adventure of Panama I decided to make, at my own expense, this proclamation of facts which it had been the duty of the Company to do, but which it had shirked. I published in all the newspapers of France two articles, each one covering almost an entire page, explaining the Panama situation. I strongly urged a bold return to the task of finishing the great undertaking for the honour and for the profit of those who had begun the dig- ging. I concluded: I have now finished my task and I have done my duty. Let everybody in his turn do his by expressing his opinion with complete frankness through one of the two ways I have indicated. Let the advice of the Lion or the advice of the Hare be listened to and therefrom let a solution be arrived at. The one to which I am opposed that whispered by the Hare I still prefer infinitely to that lethargy the end of which is death: She of the two mothers who, at the tribunal of Solomon, preferred abandoning her child to strange hands rather than see him perish, was the veritable mother. Whatever may come from my last effort I shall have satisfied my conscience. Even if my voice remains without an echo, it will never be possible to say that not a single citizen of France has risen to point out the road that should be followed. The Great Adventure of Panama 93 At all events before the sacrifice, before the solution of despair I showed in advance as far back as 1892, I shall have established for contemporary history the balance sheet of this tragedy of mendacity and calumny. / shall have fixed the figure of the ransom that the coun- try is paying to its victorious internal enemy; to the parricidal son who stabs the country's great men and sets fire to the structures their genius has erected for her glory and her welfare; to the traitor who, during the battle, sows panic in rear of the army and by falsehood and slander prevents a rally so that the true cause of the rout may not be exposed and so that he may draw an infamous profit from the ruins he has brought about. I have said my say. P. BUNAU-VARILLA. I published these two appeals to the belief in truth, to the contempt for calumny, to the energy of creation of my compatriots, the first on the 25th of April, the second on the 10th of May, 1901. I refused to contemplate asking 1 the hospitality of any paper. I went to an advertising agent and requested him to pay for the publicity. It cost me $21,559. This figure, better than any demonstration, shows that it was the knowledge of a grave danger for France that inspired my acts. Here is an important sum which could never be repaid to me 94 The Great Adventure of Panama by anybody under any form. It was spent for no personal business purpose. It was therefore a sacrifice prompted solely by what I considered the importance to France of seeing the Panama enterprise rescued from the marsh of infamy and degradation into which calumny had made it sink. This shows materially how convinced I was that France, through the situation thus created, was exposed to the risk of losing the moral equilibrium necessary in case of a German attack. CONSEQUENCES OF THE AMERICAN ADOPTION When I wrote these appeals I desired, above all things, the completion of the Canal, because I thought that it was the only thing which could restore to France confidence in herself and the high esteem of her own power and grandeur. I desired at that moment that France should roll her sleeves up and conclude her task because it was the most noble way. I was wrong then, and I think now that the bet- ter solution for France was to see the Canal finished by the United States. This spectacle was to give her just as much confidence in herself as if she had completed the work. But this solution was to The Great Adventure of Panama 95 introduce into the question a new element of in- finite importance: America's friendship for France and confidence in her genius. The acquisition of the Panama enterprise by America was to generate feelings of the most mo- mentous political importance. They were to be the initial factors of the two great contributions of America to the salvation of the world which were: first, the delivery of munitions of war to the Allies from the outset of the conflagration, and second, the military association with them in the last period of the war. I was wrong to desire the completion by French capital, because infinitely greater and happier consequences were automatically to attend the completion by America. It was the life of France that was saved by this solution at the cost of a loss of some billions of francs. I do not, however, regret having then made a supreme effort for completion by a French com- pany. It was the solution of the Lion; and no Frenchman can be justified in proposing to France the solution of the Hare. After that solemn and universal declaration I had freed my mind. I was thenceforth relieved of the immediate moral obligation of working for 96 The Great Adventure of Panama the completion of the Canal by the French owners. I had only one task to accomplish: it was to save the noble conception of French genius through its adoption by America. I could concentrate on that great ambition all my mental faculties. The completion of the Canal by the United States from that time on excluded all sources of material profits for the French owners which would have resulted from the prosecution of the works by a French company. But the counterpart of that material loss was a flow of moral and political profits infinitely more valuable. They were bound to result from that association of the French genius with the American genius. The very preservation of the life of France was to be the final consequence. HOW THE OFFER OF $40,000,000 WAS DETERMINED I thought that the conquest to the cause of Panama of a man like Hanna, and the deep im- pression made by my various public demonstra- tions, had ensured a decision in favour of Panama. Having opened the way, and being sure of the final opinion of the great engineers of the Isthmian Canal Commission, I expected the new Panama Canal Company to do the rest. The Great Adventure of Panama 97 But it did not. Surprised by a success which it did not ex- pect, the Board of Directors, instead of acting, began to talk. Frightened, most probably by its responsibility, it did not dare to fix a price which might, later on, be an eternal reproach to its lack of energy. This inexplicable attitude on the part of the Company began to generate very bad feelings among the few but powerful friends I had con- verted in America to Panama. On the other hand, the situation of the Company was obviously desperate as it was under threat of the cancellation of its concessions by Colombia within three years. Its attitude in refusing to propose a price for its properties while asking America to buy them seemed, consequently, to cover a treacherous game and reinforced the powerful party of the Nica- raguans. The situation was summed up by the Sun, in one of its terse and luminous editorials which have made that paper famous, on the 28th of December, 1901. It read: PANAMA If the representatives of the French shareholders desire to obtain from Congress consideration of a rea- 98 The Great Adventure of Panama sonable proposition to sell out to this Government, and if they have an attractive proposition to offer, the swift- est ship that crosses the Atlantic is none too fast for their service at this time. Perhaps the last opportunity of Panama has already gone. Certain it is that with every week and day it is going. . . . The only move that can now gain a hearing for the Panama route must be nothing short of Napoleonic in conception and execution. At the very moment the Sun was publishing the above editorial in New York I was deciding to resort to moral violence on the Board of the Company to force a decision on its part. As the Board dared not speak, I spoke in all the newspapers of Paris for the third time. On January 1, 1902, appeared a new article which formed an adjunct to those of April 25 and May 10, 1901. I paid for its publication, as advertisement, the sum of $5,970, which must be added to the $21,559 which I had disbursed for the two preceding ones. In that article I fixed the sale price of the Canal property at $40,000,000. I urged the sale to the friendly United States with all the vigour at my command. BThe Great Adventure of Panama 99 I began by recalling the closing portion of the latter of the first two articles : She of the two mothers, who at the Tribunal of Solomon, preferred abandoning her child to strange hands rather than see him perish, was the veritable mother. In conclusion I wrote, speaking of the realiza- :ion of the Nicaragua Canal if Panama failed be adopted by America: That would be a material loss of enormous propor- tions. It would be a moral loss much greater still, be- cause the legend of infamy and mendacity which has been woven around the name of Panama, and which would be dissipated as its execution progressed even if carried out by a foreign nation, would be absurdly confirmed by a pref- erence given to the virgin project of Nicaragua over the two-thirds-finished route of Panama. To avoid this terrible abyss it is necessary to act and to act immediately; the duty of the Board is strictly defined by facts. If they have not accomplished it between to-day and the 7th of January next their responsibility will be also explicitly defined before the people and before the law. This publication entirely reversed the situation. Immediately the Board sent by cable an offer to sell all her property for $40,000,000. 100 The Great Adventure of Panama The movement against the Nicaragua Canal which I had started in America had to be com- pleted in France by starting a movement for the sale of Panama at a very low price. In both cases success followed the initiative. The year of 1902 began with the wind blowing in the sails of Panama. THE REASON OF AMERICAN FAITH IN NICARAGUA The victory, however was not won. Immedi- ately after the opening of the session in the first days of January, 1902, the House by all but two votes rejected Panama and adopted the Nicaraguan project. Public sentiment the entire press, with very few exceptions held firm for Nicaragua. An editorial of the New York Herald, published on January 14, 1902, gave a very accurate picture of the situation: As far as can be judged national sentiment in America is unanimous for Nicaragua. Such unanimity is so much more significant when you think that the Isth- mian Canal Commission has frankly shown all the dis- advantages of the popular route. All the objections shown have been admitted by the competent scientific authorities, but their weight is The Great Adventure, of. Pcfrlttwlfy ; ; nil if compared with the instinctive conviction so deeply rooted in the American nation, that the Nicaragua Canal project is a purely national affair, conceived by Americans, sustained by Americans, and (if, later on, constructed) operated by Americans according to American ideas and for American needs. In one word, it is a national enterprise. Sentiment must be reckoned with in national as in private affairs. The American people prefer to pay 30 per cent, more for their ships than would be neces- sary if built in foreign countries. They prefer to pay a surplus of 30 per cent, for having a fleet that is Ameri- can from beginning to end. For the same reason it is almost certain that if the people were consulted on the Canal question, they would simply drown under their vote the foreign canal and extol the national canal in spite of its greater cost. This is demonstrated by the nearly unanimous vote of the House in favour of Nic- aragua. The question is this : Will the Senate be more perme- able to foreign influence? The great New York organ was thus describing with a mathematical accuracy the nature and the weight of the argument in favour of Nicaragua. It is a most eloquent testimony, which can be re- ferred to if people wish to measure the tenacity of the resistance through which I had to break my way. t Adventure of Panama The quasi-unanimous vote of the House in favour of Nicaragua, given as soon as the session was open, did not dishearten me. In fact, nothing could dishearten me because I was fighting against what was everywhere considered as the inevitable. When one thinks what was to be the price of the victory in that struggle for the realization of the impossible, one's head begins to swim. People can see now that the defeat of Panama would have meant the triumph of the German manoeuvres for disheartening France and dissolv- ing her moral sinews! People can see now that the triumph of Panama has not only restored to France her control of herself but has established a powerful link between America and France! People can see now that the outcome of the strug- gle was to be the salvation of France and the pres- ervation of the universe from the yoke of Prussian slavery. And, seeing these things, it is possible to judge the perspicacity of those who wired to the French Government that my persistence in believing in the success of an irretrievably lost cause justi- fied the gravest suspicion as to my mental health. The Department of Foreign Affairs of France has The Great Adventure of Panama 103 this cablegram in its archives. It dates from the first months of 1902. One can judge the gratitude the world owes to Hanna and Roosevelt who made the victory pos- sible in the political and in the diplomatic fields respectively, and did not believe, as the represent- atives of France did, that my faith in the triumph of Panama indicated a derangement of my mental faculties. CHAPTER VIII American Congress between Panama and Nicaragua THE battlefield was' transferred during the first half of 1902 to Congress. It had left the domain of the Isthmian Canal Commission, otherwise called the Walker Commission from its presi- dent's name. Thanks to Morrison and to Burr the cause of Panama had won before the Commission and that route had been unanimously recommended. It may be recalled that when the Commission was formed, not one of its members had ever dreamed of Panama even as of a remote possibility. The same transformation was to take place, in spite of all probabilities, in the Senate and later on in the House before the end of the session of 1902. After many weeks of examination of the problem by the Senatorial Commission on Inter-oceanic Canals the public debate was opened. As I have said already, the article of the New York Herald, which I have reproduced in a previ- 104 The Great Adventure of Panama 105 ous chapter, exactly expressed the state of public opinion. The cause of Panama was doomed if I could not demonstrate to the Senate that the question of money was not the only one that was to be in- voked against Nicaragua. To offset her enviable privilege of being the half -century-old choice of the American people there were infinitely more powerful arguments. They were of two kinds. The first kind bore on the purely technical de- tails such as : number of locks, length of sections of difficult navigation, sharpness of curves, etc. Napoleon said that a small sketch is better than a large report. Never was this wise dictum more usefully put into application. Demonstration of the superiority of Panama by speeches or by reports was impossible. In a political assembly nobody listens to a technical speech, nobody reads a technical report. So I dis- tributed to every senator a pamphlet wherein four- teen decisive arguments were advanced and of which thirteen were accompanied by a diagram; there was one diagram for each page. One minute was enough to look at each page and be convinced. In a quarter of an hour the plea was brought home. 106 The Great Adventure of Panama The second kind of argument which I had pressed against Nicaragua as far back as 1892 in the book I had then published on "Panama" was: volcanic activity. This argument was not by itself easy to illustrate through a diagram. But there happened an extraordinary incident which enabled me, however, to formulate it graphically. This incident played, in the history of the world, a part infinitely greater than people may imagine, because its influence was paramount in the victory of Panama before the American Senate. I allude to the eruption of Mont Pelee in the island of Martinique and of the resultant destruc- tion of the prosperous town of Saint-Pierre. This tragic event which has no counterpart in the history of Europe, except Pompeii at the beginning of the Christian Era occurred on the sixth of May, 1902. It was less than a month before the beginning of the senatorial debates (2nd of June) on the choice between Panama and Nicaragua. I immediately sent to every senator the text of my speeches of the previous year wherein I had denounced in forceful terms the volcanic danger hanging over the Nicaragua Canal. Another incident took place which was abso- lutely disastrous to the partisans of Nicaragua. The Great Adventure of Panama 107 On the 14th of May a cablegram from New Orleans announced that a part of the Isthmus of Nicaragua had been shaken by a violent earthquake on the shores of Lake Managua, an annex of the lake of Nicaragua. It was due, said the despatch, to an eruption of Momotombo. My eminent friend, Edward P. Mitchell, whose brilliant editorial pen, following that of Dana, has given such force and such prestige to the Sun, wrote the crushing article which follows. Speak- ing of Momotombo he said: "Its great voice has uttered a warning of incalculable value to the United States." He supposes in the article the voice of Momotombo addressing Senator Morgan, the unflinching partisan of the Nicaragua route. My compliments to Senator Morgan. I beg leave to inform that gentleman, and others whom it may concern, that I am not only alive but am capable of sending down, without notice, through Lake Managua, and the Tipitata River into the adjacent lake of Nicaragua, a tidal wave of sufficient volume and malignity to over- whelm any canal that engineering skill can construct through this country, and to wipe out every dollar of the two or three hundred millions which the United States Government may invest within the reach of the waters subject to my power. Precisely the same thing can be done with equal facility, and on equally short notice, 108 The Great Adventure of Panama by my neighbours and allies Pilas, Nindiri, Zelica, Santa Clara, Oros, Isla Venada, Fernando, Mancaron, Zapatera, Mancaroncita, Madera, Omotepe, and the Hell of Masaya any one of them or all combined. We respectfully enquire of the Senate of the United States whether Momotombo did not tell the truth. Naturally the gigantic sensation created by the thrilling and spectacular drama of Saint-Pierre, complemented by the Nicaraguan earthquakes, dominated the senatorial debate. These terrible manifestations of the earth's interior fire had come just in time to give a tragic echo to everything I had been saying and writing for ten years. Senator Hanna, who played the main part in the discussion, was cartooned painting volcanoes on the map of the Isthmus guided by a man wearing the characteristic costume of a Frenchman as depicted on the stages of American comic the- atres. This portrayed him before the people as a puppet in the hands of French intriguers. Senator Hanna was particularly irritated. It was a staunch Re- publican paper, the Evening Star of Washington, which had stung him so cruelly. This little episode shows how broken were the party lines on this great question. It also shows The Great Adventure of Panama 109 how badly hurt by the "volcano argument" the Nicaraguan party had been. Feeling that their confidence of victory was weakening they resorted to that most dangerous of weapons: cynical negation of truth. Toward the end of the debate, the President of Nicaragua, Zelaya, sent a cablegram addressed to Senor Corea, Minister of Nicaragua at Washing- ton, at the latter's request. Speaking of the earth- quake reported by the telegram of May 15, the one resulting from the Momotombo eruption, he said: News published about recent eruptions of volcanoes in Nicaragua entirely false. Senator Morgan presented to the Senate the presidential telegram with a statement of Senor Corea to the effect that Nicaragua had had no volcanic eruption since 1835. The vote was going to be taken under that falsi- fied impression! To overcome an official document to demon- strate that what it said was a deliberate and wil- ful fabrication another official document was necessary; more than that, absolutely indispensa- ble. 110 The Great Adventure of Panama How could I obtain it in less than a week? Nicaragua was too far, her authorities too ob- viously disposed, to do anything that might ensure their victory! A POSTAGE STAMP SETTLES THE CANAL ROUTE Suddenly a flash revealed to me the needed official document. I had it under my thumb. It was a postage stamp representing a magnificent volcano belching forth smoke across the country. At the foot of the volcano was the shore of the lake where the recent earthquakes had taken place. The smoking volcano was precisely: "Momotombo." The postage stamp officially gave the lie to the statement of the Nicaraguan authorities to the effect that "since 1835 no volcano had been in eruption in Nicaragua." I immediately began to collect the precious stamps in Washington and in New York, and on the 16th of June I sent one of them, pasted on a sheet of paper, to every senator. On the paper was printed the necessary explana- tion under the telling title: "An official proof of the volcanic activity of Nicaragua." This was the last shot of the battle. It simply decided the fate of this long controversy. The Great Adventure of Panama 111 The day following, Senator Gallinger asked the lateif it was reasonable to undertake this colos- work in a country taking a smoking volcano as emblem for its postage stamps. On June 19, 1902, the bill giving preference to 'anama over Nicaragua the Spooner Bill jed by a majority of eight. Panama had won! The adoption of the great French conception, to which was attached the fate of the world, had made a first and enormous step. I telegraphed to the Matin the great news in the following terms: WASHINGTON, June 19. After fifteen days of desperate struggle majority of the Senate, answering the call of Truth and Science, rather than that of popu- lar prejudices half a century old, has adopted the Pan- ama route, the French project, in preference to the Nicaragua route, the American project. This memorable victory of French Genius, unappreci- ated and proscribed by France, is the everlasting con- demnation of the calumniators who poisoned public opinion and thus excited a blind and criminal ostra- cism against the glorious conception of Panama. To-day we can name these calumniators. They are: the Boches! We know wherefrom they came: Berlin. The Great Adventure of Panama We know what was their object: To create in France distrust of her government, of her scien- tists, of her financiers, of her legislators, of all their leaders ; to create outside of France contempt for a nation described by herself as fallen in a state of such imbecility that she could allow for ten years a gigantic swindle to be carried out under the pre- tense of making a work which was beyond the power of man to transform into a reality. On the 19th of June, 1902, the slender majority of eight votes in the American Senate was laying the foundation of the great monument of Franco- American friendship. It is this monument wherein France has found the weapons with which to defend not only herself but also the liberty of the world. It is this monu- ment which the adoption and the construction of the Panama Canal has erected and under the shadow of which the American legions were formed which put the Boche to final rout under the leader- ship of Pershing. The man who cemented that monument was a great noble American through whose heart flowed a streak of French blood. It was Marcus A. Han- na, Senator of Ohio. He had acted on the advice of and in council with Myron T. Herrick. They The Great Adventure of Panama 113 two were the principal masons of that epoch- making monument. After the vote of the Senate the House had to decide whether its vote for Nicaragua at the be- ginning of January unanimous but for two was to be sustained or dropped. The general sentiment of the House was still for Nicaragua. I sent to every member one of the same stamps which had produced such good results on the Senate. I was fortunate enough to be able to find in New York, by searching various postage- stamp firms, the five hundred units necessary. I came hastily back to Washington with an equal number of pamphlets containing the substance of my speeches of 1901. The day following the distribution of these documents to all the members of the House a strong wavering in the resistance to Panama was apparent. Soon after, on the 29th of June say ten days after the vote of the Senate had been taken the House in its turn reversed almost unanimously its decision of January. By all but eight votes preference was given to Panama, and the Spooner Bill became law. That vote sounded the knell of the sinister Boche 114 The Great Adventure of Panama conspiracy to demonstrate to France the decadence of her genius. In my book: "Panama; the Creation the Destruction the Resurrection," will be found eloquent expressions of the deep emotion French hearts felt at seeing this memorable vindication of France. It was the first battle lost by Germany in her preliminary operations for the World War of 1914. Indeed it was the factor which prevented the war from bursting out three years later, in 1905. CHAPTER IX The Boche intrigues in Bogota in 1902 to prevent the adoption of Panama by the United States i THE destruction of France's self-confidence was the aim of the annihilation of the Panama Canal enterprise in 1892. The adoption of the French conception by the Congress of the United States on the 28th of June, 1902, was a terrible German check. The object of the German diplomacy was to prevent this adoption from the very moment it loomed up above the horizon; that is, from the beginning of 1902. At the same time a new idea took form. It was to acquire for Germany the command of that precious and unique communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. To have the military command it was necessary to obtain somewhere on the Atlantic coast a naval base. The Venezuelan coast was chosen as very well fitted for such a military establishment. To have the Canal itself it was sufficient to oust the 115 116 The Great Adventure of Panama United States from the game by well-planned in- trigues in Colombia, and to acquire from Colombia the Canal rights. True it is that these rights were conceded to the French Company till 1910, but we shall see how this obligation could be annulled thanks to the cunning legerdemain of the Colom- bian politicians. The Spooner Law ordered the adoption of Pana- ma, provided that two questions were solved be- forehand: 1st. The French Panama Company had to give a clear title for her concessions, properties, works, machinery, etc. 2nd. Colombia had to give to the United States a concession for the right of constructing and oper- ating the Canal. The enunciation of the first condition was a matter of course. It was a satisfaction given to the opposition which had invented this absurd proposition : " The Panama Canal cannot be pur- chased because the Panama Company cannot sell her property and give a clear title." The second condition was infinitely more serious. The unavoidable necessity of obtaining a conces- sion from Colombia was giving the Boche the needed opportunity for his intrigues. He trusted The Great Adventure of Panama 117 to them to oust the United States from the Canal Zone of Panama and to stay there himself, master, disguised under the garb of Colombian patriotism. VENEZOLANO-COLOMBIAN INTRIGUES OF THE BOCHE But even before the votes for the Spooner Law (19th-29th of June, 1902) the astute Boche had begun to cast his nets. From the end of 1901 the double-faced game was played both in Colombia and in Venezuela. It had been determined on when the extraordinary qualities of the Panama solution had been exposed to world-wide publicity in the course of 1901. In Colombia the Boche worked with that smooth, velvety method of which he is a past master when trying "not to leave any traces" according to the Von Luxburg recommendations. They worked so successfully that many people were lured into the belief that Colombia had been the victim in the Panama matter. Readers of these pages will be afforded a per- sonal opportunity to judge for themselves whether the American Government did anything which it could regret. They will see whether Colombia did not deserve to the full the evils she has suffered. They will see whether, in that case, a vigorous 118 The Great Adventure of Panama justice has not acted hand in hand with the best interests of civilization. I shall retrace, later, the true story of the Pana- ma negotiations up to the signature of the Hay- Bunau-Varilla Treaty. Anybody wanting more details will find them in: "Panama; the Creation the Destruction the Resurrection.* I shall afterward outline a parallel sketch of the Venezuelan incidents in which German brutality was employed for the same purpose as velvety smoothness in Colombia. COLOMBIA BEGINS NEGOTIATIONS The first negotiations between the United States and Colombia began at the same time as I launched my campaign of agitation in 1901. The Colombian Government then was eager to see the Canal accomplished, because the Boches were indifferent to the Panama question except for wrecking the French enterprise, and their action was not felt in Colombia. Don Carlos Martinez Silva was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Wash- ington with instructions to help as much as pos- sible the adoption of Panama by the United States. He gave the new Panama Canal Company the *See footnote on page 61. The Great Adventure of Panama 119 necessary authorization to open negotiations with the American Government for the sale of its con- cessions and property. He himself tried to induce the American Government to select the Panama solution. Martinez Silva, Special Envoy of Colombia to Washington and important statesman of Bogota, thus formally initiated, in 1901, negotiations with the United States. It was in view of bringing her to abandon her national project of Nicaragua and to undertake the completion of the Panama Canal. In taking that step Colombia was pledging her honour to carry out in good faith the proposed plan and fully to do her share in the necessary arrangements between herself and the United States. When, later on, under the obvious pres- sure of German intrigues, she abandoned the j)ath of sincerity and good faith, Colombia took certain risks which bad faith necessarily entails. As we shall see, the revolt of Panama was a sin- cere and unanimous outburst of indignation of the Isthmian people, when crushed by the egoistical and treacherous policy adopted by Bogota at the suggestion of the Germans. The action of the United States Government toward Panama after the proclamation of her in- 120 The Great Adventure of Panama dependence was a legitimate and honourable proof of friendship toward a small but energetic nation proclaiming its right to exist. It was a legitimate and honourable act of the United States simultaneously to uphold the prin- ciple that the construction of the international highways of commerce cannot be obstructed by the greed of thej>roprietors, or of the sovereigns of the territory through which such highways must pass. It was a legitimate and honourable act of the United States to show, by her attitude toward Colombia, that the country had forfeited all rights to a friendly treatment on her part. It was a legitimate and honourable act of the United States to use, to their extreme limits, all her treaty rights: 1st To protect Panama. 2nd To insure the execution of a highway made for the use of all nations under strictly equal conditions. 3rd To show to Colombia that weakness is no justification for bad faith. All the sophisms spread everywhere by the pro- German advocates of Colombia will never break the strong bulwark of facts: It was Colombia that in 1901 initiated the negotiations and offered The Great Adventure of Panama the Panama Canal to the United States; it was Colombia that later on, in 1903, forfeited her pledge of honour, betrayed her word, and rejected the Hay-Herran Treaty by which the American acquisition was to be carried out. No excuse can be found in the fact that the Senate, and not the Government, rejected the treaty. Everybody knows that Colombia was then a dictatorial autocracy, and that the same autocratic government was in power in 1901 and in 1903. If anybody had the illusion that the elections in Colombia were free and independent of the Gov- ernment, he can read the official documents trans- mitted to the American Senate. He will see there that immediately after the Panama Revolution offers were made by Bogota to ratify the Hay- Herran Treaty, the same treaty which had been rejected by the so-called independent Senate of Colombia. GERMAN INTRIGUES MODIFY COLOMBIA S ATTITUDE In the beginning of 1901, when destiny seemed fixed forever in favour of the Nicaragua Canal, the Boche had not yet made any plans to control the precious transcontinental water route. He had 122 The Great Adventure of Panama done nothing but use his influence and intrigues to wreck the French enterprise and to develop in France a hectic political fever. But when I had shown how the matter stood both in America by the series of my speeches and in Europe by the three appeals published in all the papers of France the situation began to change. When in the beginning of 1902 the unanimous recommendation of the Isthmian Canal Com- mission for Panama was made, the German greed had then been already violently excited and Boche action had been prepared. The desire to control the transcontinental water route must then have reached such proportions as to become an imperious necessity. We all know from the solemn statement of Germany's chan- cellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, before the Reichstag at the beginning of the war that, for the Boche moral aristocracy, "necessity knows no law." The Panama Canal, then, having become a German necessity , neither law of righteousness nor law of decency could any longer be taken into account. Consequently, the two neighbour countries, Venezuela and Colombia, were simultaneously The Great Adventure of Panama 123 treated by appropriate methods, the former by brutality, the latter by guile. To Caracas the Kaiser sent an ultimatum as a new year's gift in December, 1901, and sent his men of war to rove along the Venezuelan coast. To Bogota went sweet, oily emissaries calling the people's attention to the incalculable disasters to which Colombian honour, sovereignty, and patri- otism were exposed by the proposed Americaniza- tion of the Panama Canal. RECALL OF MARTINEZ SILVA ARRIVAL OF CONCHA The following results of this double move were soon apparent: In Caracas, warlike attitude against Germany and confidence in United States' help. In Bogota, recall of Martinez Silva because he was friendly to - the United States and favourable to the American- ization of the Canal. His successor, Concha, arrived on February 26, 1902. He was just as hostile as his predecessor was favourable to the transfer of the Panama Canal to the United States. The aggressive policy which began with the end of 1901 by the ultimatum to Venezuela and by the decision of Colombia to recall Martinez Silva is The Great Adventure of Panama symbolic of the German action in tropical America. Both aimed at the control of Panama which was later on to be followed by a complete establishment of Germany both in Venezuela and in Colombia. THE GERMAN ASPIRATIONS FOR TROPICAL TABLELANDS Germany's acts in Caracas and Bogota were the offshoots of the German tropical policy. This policy consisted for the New World in controlling the high plateaux of the Andes ex- tending over Colombia and Venezuela and at the same time the precious connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Panama Canal. It consisted, in Africa, in controlling the high plateaux between the Congo and the Zambesi and at the same time the precious deposits of copper ores of the Katanga region, the richest in the world. Both these Venezolano-Colombian and Congo- Zambesian plateaux have an altitude which com- pensates their latitude. They offer to the white race magnificent zones of settlement and popula- tion. The establishment of two great German centres of population on the two high Central American and Central African plateaux; the consequent The Great Adventure of Panama 125 control of the natural passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific in the first case and of untold quantities of copper, the metal par excellence for transmission of energy, in the second; such were the tropical policies of Germany in the first years of the twentieth century. It is for the realization of these world policies that we saw the Boche intrigues in Venezuela and in Colombia in 1902-03. It is for the realization of these policies that we saw later the absorption of a part of the French Congo by Germany thanks to the Moroccan blackmail begun by the same bandit nation in 1905. This impudent Moroccan piece of roguery was undoubtedly started in order to obtain cause for the German aggression against France which was due about that time. It was certainly the firm attitude of President Roosevelt which made the Boche bully step back in 1905, as it had made him step back in 1902 after raising the Venezuela question, as we shall see in Chapter XI. The acquisition of a part of the French Congo was the only result obtained by Germany for the promotion of her tropical policies. It consoled her for her failure, both to control the Panama Canal 126 The Great Adventure of Panama and to declare war on France at the most propitious moment of 1905. Without enlarging too much upon this side-light it is not unnecessary to have a knowledge of the three great German designs in 1901-05: Aggression against France. Acquisition of the tropical highland of America with the Panama Canal as adjunct. Acquisition of the tropical highlands of Africa with the great copper mines of Katanga as adjuncts. All these three plans were foiled thanks to President Roosevelt and to the Revolution of Panama, except for a trifling German success in the third of these plans. THE OBSTRUCTION OF CONCHA As I have said already, on the 26th of February, 1902, Seiior Jose Vicente Concha, former Minister of War, at Bogota, arrived in New York to replace Senor Martinez Silva. On the preceding day Mr. Martinez Silva had expressed to me how concerned he was about Mr. Concha's influence on the fate of the Panama Canal. He had several days earlier requested me to write to him a letter with the view of sending The Great Adventure of Panama 127 it to Bogota in order to influence President Marro- quin. As we were examining the dangers to which the situation was exposed, through the unfriendliness of Concha to the adoption of the Panama route by the United States, he said: "If your letter had reached President Marroquin!" "Well," I replied, "it matters little; I am going to cable him if you think that it may relieve the situation." He pressed my hand, quite moved, saying: "But that will cost you an enormous sum!" The same day I wired to President Marroquin a long despatch in which I developed seven argu- ments demonstrating where the duty and the interest of Colombia lay. I strongly urged him to resist the suggestions of a foolish greed in de- manding extortionate financial conditions to the United States for the grant of the concession. Martinez Silva and I both supposed then that his recall and the arrival of an obstructionist like Concha meant the preponderance of a policy of extortionate financial conditions. In fact, the evil was more deeply rooted. It was not the greed of Colombia which was at stake, it was the plans of conquest of Germany. 128 The Great Adventure of Panama The wild excitation of an over-sensitive patriot- ism in Colombia was obviously the policy which,, was to be adopted by the enemies of the American- ization of the Panama Canal. It was the German policy, par excellence. It was this hypocritical pol- icy which consists in winning in a foreign country the support of a political party, not only by adopting its tendencies but also fanning constantly to white heat the red cinders of its aspirations. The Boche succeeds thus in generating a catastrophic fire which practically destroys the nation in which he operates, but which develops there the conditions satisfactory for German political interests. The best agents of German propaganda in most cases happen to be completely ignorant of the real part they are made to play. They are, with a very few exceptions, extremely patriotic and would rather kill themselves than knowingly serve a foreign interest antagonistic to that of their own country. But they serve it just the same by the absurd inflation of their otherwise justified opinions. During the Great War we have seen this system working with striking consequences in Russia. The astute fanning, by Boche emissaries, of the socialist cinders existing in Russia has developed this horrible and maddened bolshevism which has The Great Adventure of Panama 129 destroyed Russia for the time being. It is the same Boche process by which, in France, the red cinders of discontent were fanned when the Pana- ma Canal Company fell into financial difficulties. The subtle Boche calumnies artificially fabricated out of nothing a monumental scandal which al- most entirely disrupted France, and would have made her a prey to the German aggressor as she was in 1870 thanks to the Boche-made Mexican Empire. It was the same Boche process which fanned to a flame the red cinders of anti-semitic tendencies thanks to which was launched and armed the piratic boat of the Dreyfus affair. It created a moral civil war which coming on top of the wreck of the Panama Canal Company was intended to weaken France sufficiently to make her the easy victim of Germany's assault. It is the same Boche process by which the red cinders of French ex- pansion in the New World had been fanned at the Court of the Tuileries in 1861-63. It is the same Boche process by which had been fanned in the United States the red cinders of legitimate resent- ment against France for violating the Monroe Doctrine. The stupid policy followed by the chimerical- 130 The Great Adventure of Panama minded emperor, Napoleon III, at the suggestion of Bismarck's camouflaged agents, led to the Mexi- can Expedition, and was, as I have said already, the trap laid by the Prussians in view of preparing their war of 1870-71. It was certainly the same Boche process by which the red cinders of anti -protest ant ism were fanned at the end of the glorious reign of Louis XIV. It had for dire consequence the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the consequent ex- pulsion from France of her most progressive and most intellectual citizens. Recently the descendants of French Huguenots have appealed to the pity of France in favour of the Hohenzollern who committed the crime of crimes, of William II. They based their plea on the favours the French Huguenots always re- ceived from the Hohenzollerns. These Boche-transformed Frenchmen ought to have understood that the expulsion of the Hugue- nots from France was the most typical example of the influence of Boche political venom on the French political system. They ought to have seen that these Hohenzollern favours were nothing but the other end of the treacherous Boche diplomacy. Far from asking mercy for William II they ought to The Great Adventure of Panama 131 have exposed the German hypocrites fanning the red cinders of religious passions in France, in order to recruit her best citizens, her captains of indus- try, and later on heaping favours upon them to keep them solidly absorbed. When we shall have seen clearly through our own history the constant action of the Boche in our politics, we shall begin perhaps to be aware of their poisonous influence. My purpose now is to show their traces through the history of the Panama Canal. I wish to show that to stop its misdeeds it suffices to attack it, to fight it, to expose it. I have attacked for almost thirty years that remarkable Boche conspiracy in France, in Colombia, and in the United States. I followed it and fought it everywhere with Truth as my only weapon. I am now exposing it in the hope that a systematic organization will be established in America, England, France, and Rus- sia to countercheck the German operations of similar nature in the future. CONCHA AND THE HIGH-PRESSURE PATRIOTS OF COLOMBIA When Mr. Concha arrived in New York, the new Colombian minister was the representative of The Great Adventure of Panama the policy which Boche influence was creating in Bogota. It is far from my thought to accuse Mr. Concha of being in any way conscious of the part Germany had of the policy he was sustaining. I repeat that the character of this insidious method to promote Boche interests is precisely to fan to white heat legitimate and generally patriotic passions. The most sincere and best French patriots have unknowingly served the Boche interests in mental insurrections "made in Germany" which are called "the Panama and the Dreyfus affairs." In Colombia, when the Boche intrigues were centred in Bogota in order to obtain control of the inter-oceanic passage, almost all the men who were blinded by a foolish patriotism and opposed the United States, served unknowingly also the Boche propaganda. Concha was one of these men. He was repre- senting the party of the extremists, the bolshe- vists of the right wing, always ready to sacrifice everything their country included to the spasmodic and exasperated love of the same country. This party, fooled and excited by German in- fluences, had obtained from the honest but weak The Great Adventure of Panama 133 man placed at the head of the Republic, President Marroquin, the recall of Martinez Silva. The days following the arrival of Seiior Concha in Washington witnessed violent discussions. On March 26th, I sent a telegram to the principal paper of the Isthmus, the Star and Herald, in which I made clear that Colombian diplomacy was practically putting to death the Isthmian popula- tion. This telegram was the reason of an exchange of correspondence between Seiior Concha and my- self in which I was able to make him realize the enormous responsibility he was assuming. Under the influence of this pressure, and per- haps also under instructions from President Marroquin, Concha relaxed on the 27th of March from his obstruction and accepted decent condi- tions to form the base for the future treaty con- cerning the Panama Canal. This temporary victory of common sense over political hysteria, carefully maintained by the Boche in adequate exasperation, allowed the Senate to vote in favour of the Panama route on June 19th. The House followed, as we know, ten days later. Then began the fight for the final treaty. Senor Concha developed again in the autumn of 1902 134 The Great Adventure of Panama the most energetic qualities of obstructionist. At a given moment all negotiations were suspended. I decided to appeal by cablegram to President Marroquin. This important message was dated November 23, 1902. In it I did not hesitate to make allusion to a possible secession of the Isthmus as a conse- quence of the policy adopted at Bogota. I pre- dicted then what was to take place in the same month of the following year. Of course the pre- diction had to be carefully enveloped under rhetor- ical veils. I warned him against "the development of IN^ TERNATIONAL EVENTS of the gravest order from which might result that the CANAL BE MADE AT PANAMA AGAINST COLOMBIA instead of being made with her, amicably." THE HAY-HERRAN TREATY This warning apparently strengthened the hands of those who were in Bogota defending the real interests of Colombia against the clique supported by Boche intrigues. This clique, the party of the White Bolsheviki of Colombia, was also, probably at that moment, invited by Germany to relax its opposition and to let the other party win for a The Great Adventure of Panama 135 short space of time. At that moment the Boche was preparing the final move and the disembarka- tion of troops on Venezuelan soil. It was neces- sary to placate the United States and to make her believe in a success at Bogota and in the indepen- dence between Germany's action in Venezuela and the Colombian attitude regarding Panama. Concha's successor, Herran, had been the Secre- tary of the Legation of Colombia in Washington for many years. He was a modest, prudent official, incapable of any action without an explicit order from his government. After his taking charge of the office he soon agreed with Mr. Hay as to the conditions of parti- tion of sovereignty in the Canal Zone. But again the question of money compensation brought out new difficulties and the negotiations again came to a standstill. I decided once more to appraise President Marro- quin the question and I cabled to him on the 19th of December, 1902. I formally advised him to propose to settle the controversy by the ac- ceptance of $10,000,000 in cash and of an annuity of $250,000 for the grant of the Panama Canal concession to the United States. On the 22nd of January, 1903, the treaty be- 136 The Great Adventure of Panama tween the United States and Colombia was signed by Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State of the United States and Senor Herran, Charge d'Affaires of Colombia. The financial stipulation which had during the whole year caused limitless difficulties had been resolved according to my suggestion. To-day it is possible to see clearly; the basic cause of that signature. This cause is the collapse of Germany when faced by the energetic attitude of Roosevelt after her final ultimatum was brought on the 9th of December, 1902, to Caracas; after she had, in fact, declared war on Venezuela in order to seize a slice of that country's coast and there estab- lish a military base controlling the Panama Canal. On the 9th of January, 1903, it became known in New York that Von Holleben, the German Ambassador in Washington, had been dismissed by the Kaiser from the diplomatic service. It was the final discomfiture of Germany's ag- gression on Venezuela. This surrender of the Boche bully forced him naturally to slacken en- tirely the reins in Colombia and from that situation resulted the signature of the Hay-Herran Treaty. We shall see later the account by Mr. Roosevelt himself of these memorable events. It corroborates The Great Adventure of Panama 137 minutely these views of the double-faced policy of Germany, both in Venezuela and Colombia. Let us now prove the identity between the Boche policy in Venezuela and the Colombian policy in the United States, by the synchronism of successive events. Both are the two faces of the same body. THE TWO SIDES OF A BOCHE INTRIGUE TO CONQUER THE PANAMA CANAL BY HOOK IN VENEZUELA AND BY CROOK IN COLOMBIA First Phase Furthering by the Boche of a cause of aggression against Venezuela, while the attitude of Colombia is to obstruct the conception of an American-made Panama Canal. VENEZUELA January 3, 1902. A telegram from Berlin published by the Paris Matin of the morrow states that an ultima- tum was sent to Vene- zuela by Germany some days before. It is the beginning of the policy of violence toward Vene- zuela to generate a COLOMBIA February 26, 1902 Senor Concha lands in New York as minister of Colombia to replace Martinez Silva who had acted in good faith for furthering an under- standing between the United States, Colombia, and the Panama Com- pany. 138 The Great Adventure of Panama VENEZUELA Continued quarrel from which shall result a seizure of ter- ritory. The ultimatum does not fix a time limit. It is a feeler. January 10, 1902. President Castro of Vene- zuela publishes a tele- gram said to have been sent by Secretary of the U. S. Navy Long of December 30, 1901, giv- ing formal and precise instructions to the vice admiral commanding the Atlantic Fleet to oppose even by force any at- tempt of the Imperial German fleet cruising along the Venezuelan coast to seize any part of the territory of that republic. This telegram, if gen- uine, demonstrates that from the start, the U. S. Government was wide awake on the political significance of the Ger- man move in the neigh- bourhood of the Carib- bean Sea and that Mr. Roosevelt had already given his instructions to that effect. COLOMBIA Continued Concha begins a policy of obstruction to a Canal understanding between America and Colombia. That policy has in view the confiscation of the property of the Panama Company by Colombia and its sale to the Ger- man Government dis- guised as a syndicate. His arrival is undoubt- edly the Colombian side of the policy of aggression of Germany, the ultima- tum sent to Caracas being the Venezuelan side. The arrival of such an aggressive man as Con- cha follows too quickly the opening of a policy of German aggression in Venezuela not to be in close connection with that German aggression. Martinez Silva dies on his way back to Bogota. Everybody be- lieves that this sad event happened too "a pro- pos" not to have been caused by Boche parti- sans. The Great Adventure of Panama 139 Second Phase Hectic attitude of Germany in Venezuela while it is smooth and oily in Colombia. VENEZUELA December 9, 1902. A cablegram from Caracas announces the arrival of a special messenger bringing a formal ulti- matum of 48 hours in the joint name of Germany and Great Britain. i December 13, 1902. Another ultimatum is brought to Caracas from ! Italy who has sent a man of war to support the ultimatum. Let us re- member that Italy was at that time the ally of Germany and following a foreigp policy inspired by Berlin. It is the great clear- ing of the German decks for action against Venezuela, apparently against the U. S. in reality. COLOMBIA December 1, 1902. Change of attitude of Colombia in Washing- ton. Concha, the ob- structionist minister, is replaced by a subaltern individuality, Herran, Secretary of the Panama Legation for many years. He is a puppet, chosen to soften provisorily the Colombian-American friction during the burn- ing period which is going to be opened on account of the proposed seizure by Germany of a part of the Venezuelan coast. The Germans let the rein loose on the Colom- bian side, while they are going to pull strongly the other one, on the Venezuelan side. Of course the relaxa- tion will be temporary and the pull on the Co- lombian rein will begin again when the Vene- 140 The Great Adventure of Panama COLOMBIA Continued zuelan acquisition shall have been carried out. The double part to be played by Herren is shown by his attitude. He is all smoothness in the first days of Decem- ber and hardens again after the blackmailing attitude of Germany has been assumed. December 19, 1902. My telegram to Presi- dent Marroquin saying: "Situation ameliorated by removal of diplomatic representative of Colom- bia is exposed to new and grave perils on the question of annual rent- als." I conclude the telegram by suggesting the financial settlement. Third Phase Collapse of the German intrigues both in Venezuela and Colombia. General surrender of the War Lord of Germany before Roosevelt's verbal ultimatum. VENEZUELA COLOMBIA December 18, 1902- January 22, 1903. Cablegram from Wash- Signature of the Hay- The Great Adventure of Panama 141 VENEZUELA Continued ington announcing that President Castro of Ven- ezuela has given full power to Mr. Bowen, Minister of the United States at Caracas to settle all difficulties with Germany, England, and Italy. January 9, 1903. The Sun publishes a telegram from Berlin, dated Jan- uary 8th, saying that notwithstanding official statements Dr. Von Holleben will not return to Washington except to take leave when he is formally recalled. This is the submission of Germany in the Vene- zuelan theatre of Boche intrigue. COLOMBIA Continued Herran Treaty which al- lows the construction of the Panama Canal by America and prohibits Colombia to cede or lease to any foreign gov- ernment any of its islands or harbours near the Bay of Panama, or on the Atlantic coast of Colombia between the Atr?* River and the wes. ,a boundary of the department of Panama. J iry 31, 1903. The Mew York Herald quot a a senator as say- ing that the foreign gov- ernment against which this interdiction was speci- fied is Germany. This is the submission of Germany in the Co- lombian theatre of Boche intrigue. PROOFS AND SUSPICIONS OF BOCHE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES WITH THE COM- PLICITY OF THE RULING ELEMENTS OF COLOMBIA This synoptic representation of the events of 1902-03 in Venezuela and Colombia shows clearly 142 The Great Adventure of Panama the rigid link between the two. It is the clearest and most vivid demonstration that they are but two faces of the same body. The Boche is beaten at the beginning of 1903 but he will soon begin a new intrigue in Colombia to throw out the United States and prevent the ratification of the treaty he has been obliged to allow the Colombian Gov- ernment to sign. However well concealed was the system of trans- mission of German intrigues it was suspected all along. Many papers made allusion to it. The New York Herald (Paris edition) of January 16, 1903, reproduced a telling cartoon from Life alluding to the Panama situation. It shows Uncl* Sam clad in Robinson Crusoe's attire and looking at footprints on the soil of South America on which he is walking. Below the cartoon appears: "MORE THAN RUMOUR"; and above it: "UNCLE SAM [Robinson Crusoe] SEES GERMANY'S FOOTPRINT." CHAPTER X Various traces of boche intrigue in Bogota for defeating in 1903 the adoption of the Panama Canal by the U. S. after she had resolved to do so and signed the Hay-Herran Treaty. FROM the 17th of March, 1903 date of the ratification by the American Senate of the Hay- 1 Herran Treaty to the 3rd of November following ;^-date of the Panama Revolution the fate of the Panama Canal hung hi the balance at Bogota. It is beyond doubt that Marroquin, who was a real dictator, was earnestly desirous of seeing in ; force the treaty which he had ordered Herran to i sign in spite of the White Bolsheviki of Bogota. But these fanatics excited, as all extremists are, by the Boche propaganda, when Germany has to | hope something from disorder sown in foreign lands soon tried to take their revenge. The track of the Boche hand, which was so clearly shown in the preceding period, is also easy to discover in this one. 143 144 The Great Adventure of Panama SUSPICION OF GERMAN UNDERHAND PRESSURE During the extremely interesting period of the discussion before the Colombian Congress which we shall narrate later on, the American minister in Bogota, Mr. Beaupre, mentions in a letter to Secretary Hay dated July 21, 1903, the shadow of Germany on Colombia. He writes: At times I have thought, from the tone of the conver- sation of certain opponents, that foreign hostile influ- ences were at work, but I have never been able to be certain of this. If there be opposition from this source, it is of too secret a nature to be discovered and cannot therefore be particularly effective. Mr. Beaupre's last remark, that the "secret intrigues cannot be particularly effective" is indeed so full of candour as to disqualify him as a good judge of the dangers of German diplomacy. He certainly would not repeat that statement to-day after the bitter experience the world has had of the effectiveness of the most secret German intrigues. % The conspiracy to unchain the criminal war of 1914 was indeed very secret. Was it not effective? Von Luxburg's recommendation to sink neutral ships without leaving traces was indeed secret! The Great Adventure of Panama 145 >id it prevent the submarine work from being effective? Further down in the same letter Mr. Beaupre gives another proof of his naivete in furnishing, as a proof of Germany's disposition, the following account: I have certain but private information that Doctor Uricoechea a member of the Senate's special Com- mittee, heretofore referred to, and who lived a great many years in Germany called on Baron Grunau, the German Charge d'Affaires, to enquire what would be the attitude of the German Government in case of trouble arising out of the matter, and whether it would be willing to undertake or aid the construction of the Canal, in case the treaty with the United States should not be ratified. Baron Grunau replied that he had no instructions bearing on the subject, but that he was of the positive opinion that, considering how desirous his government was at the present moment to remain on friendly terms with the United States, it would not take any steps with reference to the construction of the Canal con- troversy growing out of the present negotiation. Evidently the German diplomats could not, six months after the abject surrender of William II in the Venezuela incident, bring him forward in a new scrap with Roosevelt. 146 The Great Adventure of Panama Never would the German Government have taken any step, but private German citizens would have certainly done it under a proper camouflage. The art of financial camouflage was not in its infancy. But Mr. Beaupre was not aware of the Boche tricks. (In extenuation, it may be said that very few people were at that time.) What we must retain of his letter is the fact that in spite of his obvious candour he could not have helped suspecting the Boche hand working against the United States in Colombia to kill the Hay- Herran Treaty. The manifestation of the reality of Boche activ- ity will be found in the motto of the enemies of the Hay-Herran Treaty. We find it particularly well expressed in the Nuevo Tiempo of Bogota, October 16, 1903. Speaking of the Hay-Herran Treaty it said: This treaty is a violation of our fundamental institu- tions. I desire, as do many of my compatriots, that whatever canal may be built across the Isthmus be, for eternity, in the rigorous acception of the word, A COLOMBIAN CANAL. If it cannot be a COLOMBIAN CANAL, then it cannot be built. The above quotation is a formal demonstration of the same Boche influence on the white extrem- The Great Adventure of Panama 147 ists of Colombia. It can be placed at the side of the demonstration resulting from the synchronous moves of the Germans in Caracas and of the Co- lombians in Washington during the year 1902 and January of 1903. The Colombians may have erratic political opinions, but they can claim one thing: that is, not to deserve to be held as dull and stupid. They would be entitled so to be regarded if they had ever believed for one moment that Colombia could have a Colombian canal made at Panama by Colombian engineers and with Colombian money ; that is, a Colombian canal in the rigorous acception of the word. To say and believe such a thing, after the failure of the French Company to collect the necessary funds from the public, is impossible to a rational being. Colombia, herself being en- tirely unable to construct even a railway of any importance, could not dream of financing the giant enterprise with her own resources. Only the money of a large government could finance the Panama Canal construction. No other government in the world but that of Germany had enough interest in the matter to undertake it in competition with the United States. If another had had the interest, none 148 The Great Adventure of Panama would have had the nerve to do it. It may be I said, therefore, that the enigma of a strictly Co- 1 lombian canal has only one solution. By the expression strictly Colombian canal was! meant : a canal made by a Colombian company, I under Colombian laws, with ostensibly private! German subscribers but in reality with the money I of the German Government itself. Of course not I only the money but the engineers, the machinery, I and the directorate would have been German. It I would have been a replica of the Bagdad Railway. I The canal would have been a strictly Colombian! canal as to the exterior aspect. It would have! been a strictly German canal as to the internal! brains, nerves, sinews, and muscles. This combination is the one and only rational! explanation of the belief shared by many, if not! all Colombians, that, by rejecting the Hay-Herran I Treaty, the life of the Canal was ensured with! many additional advantages for Colombia. Of! course, as a preliminary step, Colombia was to steal | the Panama Canal concession from the French | Company and sell the stolen goods to Germany. , This was the programme implicitly contained j f in the declaration quoted hereabove from thej Nuevo Tiempo of October 16, 1903. The Great Adventure of Panama 149 When Colombia decided to throw off the Ameri- can cooperation, the work of the Boche influences and programmes to that effect could be clearly detected. They were obvious then for a limited number of persons only but they can be now fully demonstrated. However carefully concealed from the public eyes, at that time its radiations could be detected by special observers. QUOTATIONS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS IN 1903 I am going to give quotations from the papers of the period considered, which entirely confirm the rational inductions which can be obtained from the facts as well as from the suspicions of Mr. Beaupre. The New York Sun of October 23, 1903, pub- lished the following: COLOMBIA TO BUILD CANAL? SEEKING EUROPEAN CAPITAL TO COMPLETE THE PANAMA WATERWAY WASHINGTON, Oct. 22. Dr. Herran, the Colombian Charge d'Affaires, had a talk with Secretary Hay to-day. Mr. Hay learned that Seiior N of the Colombian diplomatic service, who arrived here this week sup- posedly with new proposals from his government for 150 The Great Adventure of Panama the negotiations of a Panama Canal treaty, brought no such proposals. The State Department had heard, however, through sources connected with the Panama Canal Company, that Sefior N asserts that European capitalists are ready to advance the money to build the Panama Canal and that the Colombian Government is indifferent on that account to make another treaty with the United States. . . . Who were the European capitalists who could then complete the Panama Canal? The answer is simple: No private capitalists could, but a govern- ment, camouflaged under the garb of private banks, might take such a risk. For political purposes a government might accept the financial challenge against Nature as to the cost of construction and against the American-made Nicaragua Canal as to that of operation. Among the European governments, as we have seen already, only one, the German Government, could contemplate such a scheme. This was Mr. Hay's opinion as expressed in the World of the same day, October 23, 1903, about the same Sen or N 's mission: . . . . It is known that Mr. Hay fears that Canal matters may develop into international complication. The Great Adventure of Panama 151 It is believed that Colombia will try to secure $10,000,000 from the Panama Canal Company. . . . If the Company refuses it is predicted from what Seiior N has said that Colombia will declare void the law ex- tending the franchise from 190 Ji. to 1910 and confiscate the property with the idea of turning it over to a German syndicate. There we have the whole plan condensed in a few lines by the World's representative at Wash- ington. It is the explicit echo of the Nuevo Tiempo of Bogota: A Colombian canal in the full sense of the word. We have there the rightful interpretation which we had already deducted by reasoning. It is the final outcome, at the end of 1903, of the German intrigues in Colombia. These in- trigues had begun in January, 1902, when Senor Concha went to Washington to prevent the Americanization of the Panama Canal and the consequent rapprochement of America and France. But it is not only on the rational examination of facts and on the appreciation of American news- papers that the demonstration of these intrigues is resting. 152 The Great Adventure of Panama We have a most striking testimony expressed in a letter published by a newspaper of Lima and reproduced by the New York Tribune of October 27, 1903. Here is the Tribune's article: FAILURE OF CANAL BILL GERMAN MINISTER SAID TO HAVE AIDED IN SECURING ITS DEFEAT El Comercio, a newspaper of Lima, publishes in a re- cent issue a letter from its correspondent in Colon in which it is asserted authoritatively that the diplomatic representatives of Germany and Chili at Bogota worked secretly together to help the defeat of the Panama Canal Treaty. Rumours have been current for some time that a strong foreign influence was being used against the treaty. The article in El Comercio says in part: The Colombian Senate took the action it did on the advice of Senor , the German Minister at Bogota. Germany sent to Nicaragua a commission of civil engineers to make a thorough inspection of the proposed Nicaragua Canal and to report to Berlin on its feasibility. The commission reported that besides the tremendous expense that would be incurred by the adoption of the Nicaragua route, it was physically impracticable for the United States and against her interests. This finding was immediately communicated to Senor The Great Adventure of Panama 153 who took care to make the Colombian Government acquainted with its purport. The press of Colombia continues its violent agitation against the treaty. It is obvious from these various quotations that however well concealed were the wires pulled by the Boche in Bogota, it was impossible to cover them entirely. The great principle of Von Luxburg to com- mit political crimes without leaving traces is the hope of all law breakers, but it is not always ful- filled. It is not only at the end of this long, treacherous struggle against America's civilizing and generous undertaking that the hiss of the Boche snake could be heard from outside. The strong smell revealed the trail of the reptile and we have found it everywhere. At every critical phase it could be clearly dis- tinguished in the period of 1902, as shown in the preceding chapters and in the period of 1903 as has been shown in this one. CHAPTER XI President Roosevelt's testimony relative to the breakdown thanks to a verbal ultimatum to Germany at the end of 1902 of the Boche-camouflaged naval and diplo- matic operations to obtain on the Venezuelan shores a military base commanding the Panama Canal I HAVE now demonstrated, I think to the satis- faction of the most sceptical mind, that interde- pendence existed between the attitude of Germany in Caracas (Venezuela) and the attitude of Co- lombia in Washington (United States) during the year 1902. I have shown how, at the three succes- sive critical moments of the German blackmailing adventure in Caracas, there corresponded three synchronous and highly sympathetic movements of Colombia in Washington. It remains for me to show what was the signi- ficance, for the American Government, of that German blackmailing adventure in Caracas. I have to show that this Boche move was indeed made against the Panama Canal, while Colom- 154 The Great Adventure of Panama 155 bian sympathizers were working in Bogota; I have to show how the Boche was foiled in his expecta- tions. The most powerful one might say the only witness of the whole affair was the then President of the United States himself, Theodore Roosevelt. I am going to quote from Mr. Ralph Page's "Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy" his momentous declarations about the matter. After reproducing Mr. Roosevelt's testimony I shall give my own and narrate how, almost a year later, I was able to foil the German intrigue in Colombia by the creation of the Republic of Panama. MR. ROOSEVELT'S TESTIMONY* I also became convinced that Germany intended to seize some Venezuelan harbour and turn it into a strongly fortified place of arms, on the model of Kiau-Chau, with a view to exercising some degree of control over the future Isthmian canal and over South American affairs generally. For some time the usual methods of diplomatic in- tercourse were tried. Germany declined to agree to arbitrate the question at issue between her and Vene- zuela, and declined to say that she would not take posses- *Reproduced from "Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy," by Ralph Page. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, Publishers. 156 The Great Adventure of Panama sion of Venezuelan territory, merely saying that such possession would be "temporary"; which might mean anything. I finally decided that no useful purpose would be served by further delay, and I took action accordingly. I assembled our battle fleet (there were more than fifty ships including every battleship and destroyer we had) under Admiral Dewey, near Porto Rico, for "manoeuvres," with instructions that the fleet should be kept in hand and in fighting trim, and should be ready to sail at an hour's notice. The fact that the fleet was in West Indian waters was of course generally known, but I believe that the Secretary of the Navy, and Admiral Dewey, and perhaps his chief of staff and the Secretary of State, John Hay, were the only persons who knew about the order for the fleet to be ready to sail at an hour's notice. I told John Hay that I would now see the German Ambassador, Herr Von Holleben, myself and that I intended to bring matters to an early conclusion. Our navy was in very efficient condition, being superior to the German navy. I saw the Ambassador, and explained that, in view of the presence of the German squadron on the Venezuelan coast, I could not permit longer delay in answering my request for an arbitration, and that I could not acquiesce in any seizure of Venezuelan territory. The Ambassador responded that his government could not agree to arbitrate, and that there was no intention to take permanent possession of Venezuelan The Great Adventure of Panama 157 territory. I answered that Kiau-Chau, was not a "permanent" possession of Germany that I under- stood that it was merely held by a ninety-nine-years lease; and that I did not intend to have another Kiau- Chau held by similar tenure on the approach to the Isthmian canal. The ambassador repeated that his government would not agree to arbitrate. I then asked him to inform his government that if no noti- fication for arbitration came within a certain specified number of days I should be obliged to order Dewey to take his fleet to Venezuelan waters and see that the German forces did not take possession of any territory. He expressed very grave concern and asked me if I realized the serious consequences that would follow such action, consequences so serious to both countries that he dreaded to give them a name. I answered that I had thoroughly counted the cost before I decided on the step, and asked him to look at the map, as a glance would show him that there was no spot in the world where Germany, in the event of a conflict with the United States, would be at a greater disadvantage than in the Caribbean Sea. A few days later the Ambassador came to see me, talked pleasantly on several subjects, and rose to go. I asked him if he had any answer to make from his government to my request, and, when he said No, I informed him that in such event it was useless to wait as long as I intended, and that Dewey would be ordered to sail twenty-four hours in advance of the time I had 158 The Great Adventure of Panama set. He expressed deep apprehension and said that his government would not arbitrate. However, less than twenty-four hours before the time I had appointed for cabling the order to Dewey, the Ambassador notified me that His Imperial Majesty, the German Emperor, had directed him to request me to undertake the arbitration myself. I felt and publicly expressed great gratification at this outcome and great appreciation of the course the German Government had finally agreed to take. Later, I received the con- sent of the German Government to have the arbi- tration undertaken by the Hague Tribunal and not by me. The author of "Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy" adds to this testimony of Roosevelt that Von Holleben was recalled in disgrace by the Kaiser and dismissed from the diplomatic service. As we have seen, Mr. Roosevelt's intervention had settled the whole matter within less than a month. It had been done between the opening of formal hostilities, December 9, 1902, and the ar- rival of the news of the disgrace of Von Holleben, January 9, 1903. Precise, vigorous, decisive action had foiled the German conspiracy to establish a military base in Venezuela in order to command the en- The Great Adventure of Panama 159 trance to the Panama Canal. It had also, for a time at least, broken down the Boche-made op- position of Colombia to a treaty with the United States. It was as a consequence of that ultimatum that the Hay-Herran Treaty was signed. CHAPTER XII The author's testimony concerning the breakdown thanks to the Panama Revolution, in November, 1903 of the concealed Boche diplomatic operations to obtain from Colombia: (1) the rejection of any treaty with the United States; (2) the confiscation in the autumn of 1904 of the French Panama Canal Company's properties and concessions; (3) the transfer of these properties and concessions to the German Government masquerading under the disguise of a " strictly Colombian corporation" WE SHALL see now how I could foil the German conspiracy, in Colombia, to acquire possession of the Panama Canal itself. The history of the Panama, UeYolution which saved the Panama Canal from the grip of Germany , effected by the willing hand of Colombia, was al- ready written in 1913 but without the clear light which the Great War has thrown on Boche diplo- matic methods.* *See "Panama: the Creation the Destruction the Resurrection." French edi- tion, Plon Nourrit, Paris; English edition, Constable & Co., Ltd., London; Ameri- can edition, Robert M. McBride and Co., New York. 160 The Great Adventure of Panama 161 In "Panama; the Creation the Destruction the Resurrection" I abstained from indicting Ger- many as the cause of the destruction, and from showing what heavy defeat she had sustained by the resurrection. My principle in writing the complete history of the great drama of Panama was to advance nothing which I could not prove by documents. How could I have then proved the existence of criminal work of the Boche hand in all the internal and external troubles of any nation, whenever such troubles could serve the Boche cause? I suspected it; but without a knowledge of the facts which the war has exposed to the light of the day, and which transformed these suspicions into certainties. The servants of Boche intrigue would have heaped upon me their usual calumnies, but this time I should have lacked all possibility of demonstrating their mendacity and pointing toward the Wil- helmstrasse of Berlin as their origin. To-day the greatest centre of crime the world has ever known the German Foreign Office is temporarily out of its usual business. It is due to the activity of the American Secret Service that many of its dastardly plots have been exposed. Its treacherous work in the United States, in 162 The Great Adventure of Panama Mexico, in Argentina, in Japan is now known. It is possible also henceforth to prove other crimes by reconstitution and juxtaposition of facts. This is what I am doing in exposing what was one of the blackest conspiracies to prepare the German assault against the liberty of the world. I therefore can print again the history of the Panama Revolution by which I was fortunate enough to foil this criminal conspiracy. The reader, now better informed, will be able to understand its meaning, its importance, its vast consequences. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAD NO HAND IN THE PANAMA REVOLUTION The reader will now also completely understand that the President of the United States was abso- lutely free from secret connivance with the revolu- tionists. He will understand, now, Mr. Roose- velt's meaning when he said: "I took Panama." The dissemination of the truth about the Pana- ma Revolution will also help to eliminate the pres- sure exercised on the conscience of some people by the idea that Colombia was wronged. They will see that since the Revolutionary War of the Eng- The Great Adventure of Panama 163 lish colonies of America, there never was a clearer case of the right of a nation to dispose of itself. Co- lombia has, not and never had, the slightest title to receive an indemnity for the separation of Panama. My views are fully expressed in the letter which I wrote to the Secretary of State about the very same subject on the morning of November 18, 1903 the day I signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which made the Panama Canal a fact. I reproduce this letter herewith: Wednesday morning, November 18, 1903. DEAR MR. SECRETARY, Will you allow me to condense the somewhat loosely expressed ideas I submitted to you yesterday on the question of reserving for Colombia, against a quit claim, a part of the $10,000,000 which is to be paid to the Republic of Panama by the United States? This, in my opinion, would create two independent impressions. First. Impression on the World in general. Any man who pays something that he does not owe is immediately thought to be paying under the pressure of blackmail. Any man who pays under the pressure of blackmail is immediately thought to be paying on account of a concealed crime. 164 The Great Adventure of Panama This would be the immediate opinion of the world, if the United States is beheld to be declaring at the same time that she had no hand in the Isthmian revolution, and is therefore under no liability to Colombia for dam- ages, and simultaneously to be paying a heavy sum to get rid of the claim of Colombia. The only possible interpretation would be: a public confession of breach of international faith. L'enfer est pave de bonnes intentions. He who im- agined good heartedly this fine solution is a master in paving the lower regions. Second. Impression on Spanish Americans. To the demonstration which would result thus from such an action namely, the admission of the United States to having played a Machiavellian trick upon Colombia would be added, in Spanish-American hearts, the incurable and bitter resentment of the insulting offer of a little money compensation for a patriotic wrong. In a case like this, the rules applicable to treaties of peace after a war would not be justified. In a treaty of peace money questions come in natural order with other conditions. But in this case, when the United States maintains, with perfect justice and absolute propriety, that she has not done anything else but what was her rigorous obligation according to her treaty duties and to the rules of international law; and when, immediately afterward, she appears to confess in fact what she denies in theory and offers a lump sum of money to heal the The Great Adventure of Panama 165 wound and to redress the wrong, she would be adopting an attitude which would be a direct offence to the senti- ment of dignity and to the natural pride of all South Americans. It would amount to a slight which would be felt from the frontier of Arizona to the Strait of Magellan. No. Really I cannot imagine any move more danger- ous and more impolitic than such a one. Pallas Athene would be replaced by a female broker of suspicious deals. Most respectfully yours, P. BUNAU-VARILLA. I have not a word to withdraw from that letter but I have something to add. The entire lack of any justified argument in favour of a payment as an indemnity for the se- session of Panama is existing to-day as in Novem- ber, 1903. Nothing has filled the hollow of Colom- bian claims. But a new light has been thrown on the cause of her attitude in 1902 and 1903. The Great War has acted like a violent storm scratching the surface of the earth and exposing to the light of day the underground cables trans- mitting the electrical energy. The Great War has uncovered the concealed cables transmitting to all nations of the earth the 166 The Great Adventure of Panama calumnies, the sophisms, and the nerve-racking theories of false patriotism by which innocent nations were practically driven mad for the bene- fit of German plans. The Great War has disclosed the system of cables commanding from Berlin the anti- American and dishonest policy of Colombia and furthering the piratical policy of Germany, toward the capture of the Panama Canal against the will of the Isthmians. This is a new and powerful justification of Pana- ma, when revolting against the abominable tyranny exercised by Colombia for the benefit and at the suggestion of the Boche. But there is no base to be found for an indemnity in the action of the United States any more than there is in the action of Panama. The American Government had been played with and ill treated by Colombia. There is no reproach to impute to the IT. S. policy. In preparing the revolution I avoided anything that could be interpreted as a connivance between Washington and the insurgents. If President Roosevelt went with the high speed which was indispensable for final success, after the revolution became a fact, it was because I had carefully re- spected his independence. Evidently the quickness of his actions exposed The Great Adventure of Panama 167 him to the most poisonous arrows, largely made in Germany. He would have been unable to stand their contact if I had not on purpose left aside everything which might have diminished his liberty and therefore hampered his action. People may smile while speaking of a Roosevelt "staged revolution"; their smile will simply expose their own gullibility in believing the tales of im- aginative wickedness. I wish to caution the reader in advance against the impression that the American Government had a hand in the Panama Revolution, because such a statement is absolutely fabricated and devoid of any foundation in fact. It would have been, as Talleyrand said, more than a crime; it would have been a fault. Neither the fault nor the crime was committed. If either had been, the Panama Canal would probably be to-day in the hands of the Boche and the history of the world would not perhaps have registered his defeat now. AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFFAIRS On the 6th of June, 1903, everybody thought that the period of antagonism to the American- ization of the Canal had been finally closed by 168 The Great Adventure of Panama the signature of the Hay-Herran Treaty. I re- ceived in Paris on that day a letter from a dis- tinguished personality with whom I had had no previous relations. As he was arriving from Bogota he expressed the desire to give me im- portant information. In a subsequent interview he said to me: I have followed with passionate interest your pa- triotic campaign for rescuing the Panama Canal enter- prise from complete destruction. I am convinced that President Marroquin, with whom I had several talks, shares your views. I am, however, very pes- simistic about the turn of things. There is around old Marroquin a gang of men I pro- foundly distrust. Beware of treacherous surprises. MY WARNING TO THE PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA I then decided to send a new cable message to Marroquin for strengthening his hands at the opening of the Colombian Congress. In it I de- cided to speak openly of the secession of Panama. The cablegram was sent on the 13th of June from Paris and delivered on the 27th to the President. Here is this important message, in which were foretold the events that were going to take place less than five months later: The Great Adventure of Panama 169 MARROQUIN, President Republic Bogota Beg to submit respectfully following. [1] One must admit as a fundamental principle the only party that can now build the Panama Canal is the United States and that neither European govern- ments nor private financiers would dare to fight either against the Monroe Doctrine or American Treasury for building Panama Canal in case Americans return to Nicaragua if Congress [Colombian] does not ratify treaty, (2) It results from this evident principle that failure of ratification opens only two ways. Either construction of Nicaragua Canal and absolute loss to Colombia of the incalculable advantages result- ing from construction on her territory of the great artery of universal commerce or construction of Panama Canal after secession and declaration of independence of the Isthmus of Panama under protection of the United States, as has happened in Cuba. I hope that your high, patriotic policy will save your country from the two precipices where would perish either the prosperity or the integrity of Colombia and whither would lead the advice of blinded people or of evildoers who wish to reject treaty or to modify it, which would amount to the same thing. PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA. I do not think that an event of world import- ance was ever traced more exactly on the wall about five months before it happened. Colombia 170 The Great Adventure of Panama cannot accuse me of having taken her by surprise, or of having defeated the Boche intrigues without stating in advance how it would be done. The news published by the New York Herald in Paris, as soon as the Colombian Congress was opened, confirmed the pessimistic impressions formed by my new friend while he was in Bogota. President Marroquin had presented the treaty in a very fair but very weak manner. He had taken the attitude of Pontius Pilate, and washed his hands of the result. FANATIC APPEALS TO FRENZIED PASSIONS IN BOGOTA The White Bolsheviki of Bogota had frightened the reasonable citizens just as the White Bolsheviki of France had operated during the period of de- struction of the great Panama Canal enterprise. It was the same exasperated appeals to the high- est patriotism, and to serene justice to commit precisely the acts which were most dangerous for the country and most hurtful for justice. One could not help feeling that they were the result of similar passions brought to a state of frenzy by a poisoned propaganda of the same origin. We now know that origin which we only suspected then: it was Berlin. The Great Adventure of Panama 171. To give a sample of the mode of propaganda employed in Bogota to destroy the Canal project let me quote a small paragraph from the Correo National. It was published on the llth of May, 1903, above the signature of a Senator Perez y Soto: The Hay-Herran Treaty will be rejected unanimously by both Houses. This is what I hope, because there will not be a single representative of the Nation who will listen to the voices of those who have sold themselves, and who have been impudent enough to recommend this shameful contract. In spite of everything the ignominy which Herran has cast upon Colombia's good name will never be obliterated. The gallows would be a very light penalty for such a criminal. This is the prototype of the Boche-inspired propaganda. It bears the same certificate of origin as Dru- mont's denunciation in 1890 of the Panama Canal and of its immortal creator, Ferdinand de Lesseps. We read in the "Last Battle," Drumont's book published in Paris to destroy the Panama enterprise ( speaking of Ferdinand de Lesseps) : This scoundrel walks about as a triumphant hero. 172 The Great Adventure of Panama Same literature, same object, same methods; the employment of the same moral poisoned gases by the infamous Boche. From the beginning of the session of the Colom- bian Congress, June 20, 1903, to its end, October 31st of same year, only one man spoke nobly : that was Senator Obaldia. The Canal treaty was re- jected on the 12th of August. Nobody had dared to defend it except Obaldia. THE PROPOSITION OF NEL OSPINA MY CABLEGRAM A group of senators at the head of which was the vice-president of the Senate, Nel Ospina proposed a blackmail pure and simple on the French Panama Company. They demanded $10,000,000 from that company for permission to transfer its property to the United States. This proposition was expressly violating the principle which was laid at the base of the negotia- tions, that of the independence between the con- ditions of Colombia and those of the Company. This had been accepted in writing by Martinez Silva in 1901, in Colombia's behalf. One might harshly condemn Senator Nel Ospina for that immoral proposition. On the contrary, he The Great Adventure of Panama 173 presented it in order to try to avoid a still greater and still less excusable immorality: the confiscation, pure and simple of the Canal property. I knew Senor Nel Ospina; I had met him and I had a high opinion of his judgment. On August 17th I cabled him this last appeal to the Colombian notion of justice, common sense, and judgment: NEL OSPINA, SENATOR, Bogota. I appeal to your scientific spirit to spare contempo- rary history the terrible and immediate consequences for Colombia of the rejection or amendment of the Panama Treaty. This would be equivalent to stabbing your country to the heart, destroying its prosperity and its interests, whereas ratification insures a glorious future. P. BUNAU-VAKILLA. I cannot be accused of not having attempted everything to point out to Colombia the right way. But she was lured to the abyss by her foolish White Bolsheviki, carefully drugged by German moral chemistry. DECISION TO CONFISCATE THE FRENCH PROPERTY The resolution was taken to confiscate cynically and hypocritically the French concession on the 31st of October of the following year (1904). 174 The Great Adventure of Panama That confiscation was necessary for putting the whole matter in the hands of Colombia. Once that stage was reached, it was easy to establish a compact with Germany where neither the United States nor the French Company would have had anything to say. Even the Monroe Doctrine objections would have been easily pushed aside by an artful cam- ouflage of Germany under the garb of a "strictly Colombian" company. The solution of the problem was soon found by the Colombiano-German casuists of Bogota. The concession of the French Company expired on October 31, 1904, but a prorogation of six years had been given her in 1900 against a cash payment of $1,000,000. In that year Colombia was in a state of revolu- tion. The Colombian Constitution wisely foresees that in a state of war or of revolution the Legisla- tive power is entrusted to the Executive power. The prorogation, consequently, had been made by the Executive power in virtue of its constitutional authority in such a situation. When it was decided at Bogota, in view of the German arrangements, to confiscate the French The Great Adventure of Panama 175 property an adequate method was soon devised. A commission of the Colombian Senate had to re- port on the matter of the French concession and on October 14, 1903, the report was made public. It sustained the incredible theory that the Colom- bian Congress could, at its option, either annul or confirm the prorogation given in 1900. With a remarkable legal legerdemain the solemn contract between Colombia and the French Com- pany was transformed into a simple project which the Congress had the right either to accept or to refuse. Having thus suspended by a thread the sword of Damocles over the head of the French Company, the worthy commission proposed to postpone to the next year the decision to cut that thread. They said, among other monstrosities: By the 31st of October of next year, that is to say when the next Congress shall have met in ordinary session, the Concession will have expired and every privilege with it. In that case the Republic will become possessor and owner without any need of a previous judicial decision, and without any indemnity, of the Canal itself and of the adjuncts belonging to it according to the contract of 1878 and 1890. The conclusion of this remarkable report was 176 The Great Adventure of Panama to do nothing and to defer indefinitely the grant of any authorization to the Executive power to make a new treaty with the United States. Between the lines of this unique document it could be read that on the 31st of October of the following year, Colombia having become pro- prietor of the Canal would finish it. The neces- sary, the indispensable elements of that completion would obviously be German money and German engineers. Both were to carry out the stolen plans of French genius. The Senate followed textually the recommenda- tions of her worthy commission and adjourned fifteen days later, on the 31st of October, 1903. If there ever triumphed a hypocritical, treacher- ous policy for despoiling America and France of their natural proprietary or political rights for the benefit of the contemptible Boche it triumphed then in Colombia. But that triumph was to be short lived because the mine I had prepared was soon to explode. By her birth on the third of November, 1903, the Republic of Panama annihilated these das- tardly plans three days after their explicit and final adoption in Bogota by the Colombian Senate. I am going to explain how I was happy enough The Great Adventure of Panama 177 to be able to determine an event productive of such incalculable consequences such as the creation of the new American republic. PROPHETIC ARTICLE IN THE PARIS "MATIN" I had, as may be remembered, twice announced the Panama secession by cablegram to President Marroquin; once implicitly on November 23, 1902, and once explicitly on June 13, 1903; and once to the vice-president of the Senate, Nel Ospina, on August 17, 1903. I had said plainly and openly that the separation of Panama would be the out- come of a rejection of the treaty ensuring the com- pletion of the Canal by the United States. In order to propagate the same view on the events in course of development, I published in the Matin of Paris on September 2, 1903, what may be termed a prophetic article. Speaking of President Roosevelt I said: He can wait . . . until the Revolution which, as will be seen from our despatches, is smouldering in the "State of Panama" bursts out, and until the prov- ince declares herself independent, as it has done twice already during the last century, in 1840 and in 1856. In that case the President would merely have to make a treaty with the new State of Panama. 178 The Great Adventure of Panama The article concluded thus: By her untimely and inconsiderate obstruction to the realization of the greatest progress which now lies within the reach of man, in the arrangement of the planet, Colombia is overstepping her property rights. In thus barring the road to progress she acts like a landlord who tries to take a stand on his rights of owner- ship to prevent the construction of a railroad or of a road across his estate. The property rights of private persons, like those of nations, have a limit which is the superior law of the necessity of circulation of the human collectivity. And it is this superior law which President Roosevelt will enforce, and which it will be his next step to enforce. I had also in the same article advanced the idea of a possible intervention of the United States, on the Isthmus, as a consequence of the treaty of 1846. In this treaty with New Granada, the predeces- sor of Colombia, the United States had received the right of way across the Isthmus of Panama. She had, as the price paid for that privilege, under- taken to keep open and free the transit between the two oceans and to protect the Isthmus against foreign aggression. I suggested in the Matin article that the United The Great Adventure of Panama 179 States, having the right of way, possessed also im- plicitly the faculty of carrying out the works necessary for the enjoyment of that right. Never was a suggestion more a propos, since as will be seen later on it enabled me to get an exact knowledge of Mr. Roosevelt's disposition regarding the Panama Canal policy. Having thus done all I could in Paris, I intended to return to the United States to take a hand in the matter, if needed. I expected to be in Washington for the return of political activity in November. RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES IN SEPTEMBER, 1903 A quite unforeseen incident due to the pre- occupations which the state of health of my young son necessitated led me to leave for the States in the middle of September, 1903. I landed in New York on the^SnaT) The following dayThastened to pay a visit to an old banker and commission merchant of Panama, Mr. Lindo, head of the firm of Piza Nephews & Co. He was in close and continuous connection with the Isthmus and better fitted than any one else to give me reliable information. 180 The Great Adventure of Panama "Well, Mr. Lindo," said I, after the first ex- change of compliments, "is the rumour true that the people of Panama are going to make a revolution? " He shrugged his shoulders in a disheartened way, and said: "Faltan recursos" (They have no financial means). "What!" said I, disappointed at this answer. "These people who are ever ready to make a revolution for insignificant causes are going to keep quiet when Colombia decrees that they must die of hunger?" " It can't be helped," he said. " Without money a revolution cannot be brought about any more than a war. But if you care to know what the situation really is I will ask Amador to call and see you." "What!" said I, surprised; "is Amador here?" "Yes," answered Lindo (lowering his voice); "he has come precisely to obtain the wherewithal for bringing about a revolution. But he has failed and is sailing for Panama in a few days. He will tell you all. He is in despair."* AMADOR HASTENS TO COME AND SEE ME When I reached my hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria, 'Doctor Amador was a prominent physician of Panama. He was attached to the Panama railroad and had been consequently a member of the Staff subordinated to the General Direction which I held in 1885. The Great Adventure of Panama 181 in the evening I found two cards of Doctor Ama- dor. He had called at 9.05 p. M. and again at 9.25 p. M. and asked for an immediate appointment. I telephoned at once to the Endicott Hotel, where he lived, that I would receive him on the following day at 10.30 A. M. On that day, the(^3rd of September, when the Hay-Herran Treaty was lapsing for want of ratification, was established between Amador and myself the link through which Panama was saved. On the day following, at the stated hour, Amador entered room No. 1162 of the Waldorf-Astoria which I occupied and which deserves to be con- sidered as the cradle of the liberation of the Isth- mus. The old Doctor was pale and haggard. His mind had obviously been labouring a long time under terrible preoccupations. A strange fire burned in his eyes. He began to tell me the his- tory of a plan of rebellion laid in Panama and of a mission to New York entrusted to an American residing usually in Panama. This man was to enquire if subsidies, arms, am- munition, ships, the help of the American Army and of the American Navy could be obtained in America for the projected revolution. 182 The Great Adventure of Panama CHIMERICAL HOPES GIVEN AMADOR He had come back with assurances from a man having some prominence in Isthmian affairs, but without governmental position, that all these things would be ready whenever the Isthmians were dis- posed to revolt. "This is too good to be true," said the conspira- tors, and they had sent Amador to verify. To the utmost delight of the delegate the very same as- surances had been given to him again just as they had been to the first envoy. Everything then seemed to point toward the culmination of his most ardent hopes, when sud- denly his protector turned his back on him. Amador had got from him the explicit promise to go together to Washington in order to see Secretary Hay. Amador wanted to settle finally with the Secretary of State a transaction. This transaction was in Amador's chimerical mind to be a formal pledge in writing to sustain the Panama Revolution with the army, with the navy, and with the treasury of the United States. When everything had been arranged, as Amador believed, to make the decisive trip to Washington the supposed powerful intermediary turned his The Great Adventure of Panama 183 back on the unfortunate delegate of the Isth- mians, and did not go with him anywhere. With intense emotion and maddened rage Amador concluded: "Whenever I went to see him, orders had been given to the effect that he was not in. I had to instal myself in the hall, to camp there, and, so to speak, to besiege his office. "Nothing resulted from it. And here I am. All is lost. At any moment the conspiracy may be discovered, and my friends put on trial, for high treason, sentenced to death, and their prop- erties confiscated. I, at first, decided to return to Panama to share their fate. But I am hesitat- ing. If my friends are shot, I prefer to devote my life to avenging them on the man who will have been the cause of their deaths." While Amador spoke I had a clear vision of the entire drama. I understood instantly who was the man whose foolish and imaginary assurances had made the poor doctor fall into the deadly pit. HOW AMADOR UNDERSTOOD THE REVOLUTION "Calm yourself, my dear Doctor," I said, "appeal to reason not to passion. Tell me what your hopes, what your chances were; what method 184 The Great Adventure of Panama you intended to employ. Tell me all that calmly, methodically, precisely." From the explanations given by Amador it appeared that Colombia, exhausted by three years of civil war, had not sent new soldiers to Panama. Her garrison of five hundred men had been there for many years had become permeated with the Panama spirit and had no more any sentiment of devotion for Colombia. Amador added that, with six million dollars' subsidy, he could buy arms, ammunitions, and ships, sink the Colombian flotilla, and have the immediate support of the local garrison. I dismissed Amador with soothing words though I considered his ideas as totally chimerical. The raising of $6,000,000 was an empty dream. The time necessary to get the arms and the ships must be counted by months. During that time Colom- bia would certainly renew her garrison and send her wiry, loyal Indian fighters to the Isthmus to consolidate her tyranny. " Let me think, my dear Doctor. Perhaps I shall find for you a way out of the difficulty. At any rate, our communications must henceforth be sub rosa. When I 'phone to you I shall call myself 'Jones.' When you call me you take the name of 'Smith.'" The Great Adventure of Panama 185 I shook his hand and, having recovered his balance of mind, he went, happy to have grasped a hand both friendly and firm, that of a man on whom, long before, he had looked as on his highest commanding officer. As soon as he had gone, I saw that Chance had brought to me the precious seed of the whole revolutionary movement against Colombia and her anti-canal policy. The seed was actually without any value, it was practically crushed and destroyed. There was no practical idea, but there was a spontaneous aggre- gation of energies and wills to fight the Germano- Colombian conspiracy of Bogota. These energies could be used with a rational plan. WHAT ARE PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S DISPOSITIONS?' If I was to encourage these men to act I had to find out first of all what were the dispositions of President Roosevelt in regard to Panama. I had not, up to that time, had any relations with him. He had formerly been a most sincere and firm believer in Nicaragua. He had not been submitted to the pro-Panama influence of Hanna, as Hanna was not his personal friend. Did there not 186 The Great Adventure of Panama from the personal antagonism which separated them also result an antagonism as to the political ideas? To Hanna had been due the victory of Panama in Congress. Did not that fact predispose Roose- velt still to adhere to his old allegiance to the Nicaragua Canal? In one word, was not President Roosevelt happy to see the failure of the Colom- bian treaty? and was he not going to steer the ship of State toward Nicaragua? That was the question ! Of course the very first thing to be done was to discover the President's state of mind on the subject. AN EXTRAORDINARY AND REVEALING INCIDENT An unexpected incident furnished me, within seven days of my arrival in New York, the most positive knowledge of the intentions of the Presi- dent. I was informed about this all-important and secret question as if I had been present at one of the cabinet meetings of the White House. And nobody had betrayed any confidence, and no im- proper question had passed from my lips. This is a little but weighty chapter of the libera- tion of the Isthmus. Like many others of the The Great Adventure of Panama 187 same history it would seem to belong to the domain of fiction, yet it is simple reality. One of the best friends of mine was Professor Burr, the great American engineer, Professor at the Columbia University who, in the Isthmian Canal Commission, adopted first with George Morrison my views on Panama. I hastened to pay him a visit, in order to learn what he thought about my suggestion of building the Canal on the strength of the treaty of 1846, with New Granada, conferring to the United States the right of way across the Isthmus of Panama. This solution which I had developed, in the Matin article on September 2nd, was, of course, the most desirable, in my opinion. It rendered un- necessary the hazards of a revolution and opened an easy and certain way to success. My eminent friend was not very enthusiastic about the solution. He said, however, that in the course of a conversation, one of his colleagues at the University had expressed similar ideas before him. I asked him who this colleague was, and expressed a desire to meet him. This was quickly arranged and on the 29th of September, in Pro- fessor Burr's office, I met Mr. Bassett Moore, 188 The Great Adventure of Panama Professor of Diplomacy at the Columbia Uni- versity. The conservation showed that his ideas on this momentous subject were almost identical with mine. The Professor at a given moment said that he had been surprised recently to see his own theory exposed in a French paper. I pulled from my pocket the folded copy of the Matin of the 2nd of September. Mr. Bassett Moore, recogniz- ing the paper by its peculiar shade, before I had unfolded it, exclaimed: "That is the paper." I was somewhat surprised to learn of Prof. Bassett Moore having had cognizance of the Matin, which, in spite of its great circulation in Paris, was diffi- cult then to obtain in America. Seeing the Professor so well disposed, I saw a magnificent opportunity to use his authority for the benefit of the Panama cause. "Why," I asked, "do you not make public these ideas which, if adopted, may ensure the success of a great national undertaking? Why do you not write a letter or an article to the Sun ?" The attitude of Bassett Moore suddenly became embarrassed. As I pressed him more and more, and demonstrated that he had a civic duty to The Great Adventure of Panama 189 accomplish, and that he ought not to shirk it, he eventually surrendered, and said: "I cannot do what you wish. I formulated these views, and the conditions in which I formu- lated them make it impossible for me to adopt a public attitude at the present stage of affairs." I had nothing more to say. I felt that I had touched a very delicate spot and I withdrew in order to learn who Mr. Bassett Moore was and what could be the reasons which obliged him to keep secret his important theory. I went straight down town to consult with my good friend and wise adviser Frank D. Pavey. "Mr. Bassett Moore/' said he, "is the closest friend of Tresident Roosevelt. He was Assistant Secretary of State when President Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. They are gen- erally considered to have joined their influences to unchain the Cuban war. They have remained very close friends ever since, and President Roose- velt is generally considered as sharing Bassett Moore's diplomatic views and always taking his advice on important matters." "Well," I answered, "the copy of the Matin he has seen might have been shown to him by President Roosevelt to whom I had sent one copy. 190 The Great Adventure of Panama It is obvious, on the other hand, that his reserved attitude is due to the fact of his having submitted to the President a report that must remain secret until use is made of it." "Yes," replied Pavey; "that is just the thing, and I might even tell you on what day President Roosevelt showed him the copy of the Matin, the 16th of September. On that day Mr. Roose- velt gave a party at Oyster Bay to some friends. On then* return a terrific storm practically drenched every one of them and their names were given by the newspapers. Bassett Moore was among them." The date of September 16th entirely corresponded with the arrival, some days earlier, of the paper I had sent on the 2nd of the same month, to Presi- dent Roosevelt's summer residence at Oyster Bay. This information was casting a brilliant light on the whole mysterious question of Mr. Roosevelt's dispositions. He was listening to the advice of exerting coer- cion on Colombia, on the strength of the treaty of 1846. This fact clearly demonstrated that the mind and the will of the President were set on Panama. No fear of a turn toward Nicaragua was visible. The Great Adventure of Panama 191 One question remained to be cleared. Of the two ways opened coercion of Colombia by the United States or revolution of Panama by Amador which was the practical one? All my inclinations were for the former, but without a single exception all my friends declared that the coercion of Colombia would never be carried out. "Do not forget, " they said, "that we are on the eve of presidential elections. Do not forget that Congress, in passing the Spooner Bill, has stated that the Nicaragua Canal would be finally adopted in case of a failure to obtain the concession from Colombia. To coerce Colombia would be con- sidered a formal breach of the Spooner Law. Do not forget that the Nicaragua solution is by an enormous margin the more popular of the two. No president would dare to risk being accused of breaking a law to favour an unpopular project when the presidential elections are in sight, and when he has to be submitted to election. That would be the doom of the Republican party." This argumentation was convincing and left Panama but one chance of survival: the Revolu- tion, and it was a slender chance! I decided henceforth to concentrate on that 192 The Great Adventure of Panama one object all my power of observation and of action. I left for Washington early in October, but no- body I knew in political life had returned from the country, and I came back without any informa- tion. IMPORTANT INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT ROOSE- VELT On the 9th of October I returned to the Ameri- can capital. I found at his office Mr. Frank B. Loomis, First Assistant Secretary of State, whom I had known in Paris while he was United States Minister to Portugal. I spoke to him of the Matin in which I had recently acquired an important proprietary interest. " Then you ought to go and present to the Presi- dent the compliments of the Matin. Do you know Mr. Roosevelt personally?" asked Mr. Loomis. "I have not that honour," I replied. "I am going to telephone," said Mr. Loomis. "If the President is disengaged he will be glad to see you." The quick answer was that the President was disposed to receive me that same day at 12 o'clock. I was, as may be understood, very happy to avail The Great Adventure of Panama 193 myself of this opportunity to talk over the delicate Panama question with the President himself, and to observe his attitude, and take the necessary soundings. I was received with the characteristic open- heartedness which won for this remarkable man so many friends. We conversed about the Matin. I was awaiting an opportunity to bring up the Panama subject. Mr. Loomis having cited the publication of the famous bordereau in the Dreyfus affair, as being among the great achievements of Le Matin, I jumped at the opportunity. The bridge was found; I crossed it. "Mr. President," I said, "Captain Dreyfus has not been the only victim of detestable political passions. Panama is another." "Oh, yes," exclaimed the President, suddenly interested; "that is true, you have devoted much time and effort to Panama, Mr. Bunau-Varilla. Well, what do you think is going to be the outcome of the present situation?" It was then or never. I could with a proper answer learn exactly what the President had in mind. I remained silent for a moment, and then I pronounced the following four words in a slow, decided manner: 194 The Great Adventure of Panama "Mr. President, a revolution!" The features of the President manifested pro- found surprise. "A revolution?" he repeated, mechanically. Then he turned instinctively toward Mr. Loomis, who had remained standing, impassive, and said in a low tone, as if speaking to himself: "A revolution? . . . Would it be possible? . . . But if it became a reality, what would be- come of the plan we had thought of?" I had an intense desire to say to him: "Mr. President, the plan that you had thought of is coercion of Colombia, based on the treaty of 1846, as interpreted by Prof. Bassett Moore. I have supported this idea in an article in the Matin and added to it the doctrine of the Expropria- tion of Sovereignty for reason of International Utility." Of course I remained mute, and I concealed my joy at hearing the interrogation which had escaped from the mouth of the President. He quickly recovered himself, and asked: "What makes you think so?" There was no interest in going further. I answered : "General and special considerations, Mr. Presi- The Great Adventure of Panama 195 dent. As you know, the revolutionary spirit is endemic on the Isthmus. There is almost a cer- tainty of seeing an endemic disease spread vio- lently when the circumstances favourable to its development have reached their maximum. Co- lombia has decreed the ruin of the people of the Isthmus. They will not let things go any further without protesting according to their fashion. Their fashion is: Revolution. I have, further- more, certain special indications that corroborate these general considerations." The conversation ended there. I had no desire to speak further, and the President on his side did not care to hear more. WHAT I GATHERED FROM MY VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT I left the private office of the President, being finally in possession of all the elements necessary for action. I had, at last, the direct confirmation of the deduction which thus far I had drawn solely from pure reasoning: "The President of the United States is holding firm for Panama." If a revolution were to generate new conditions favourable to the acquisition of the Canal Zone '196 The Great Adventure of Panama by the United States, President Roosevelt wo'uld immediately seize the opportunity. I was henceforth certain of this capital point, as certain as if a solemn contract had been signed between us. No word had been pronounced, no concealed meaning had been attached to any sen- tence which could constitute a tie between us. His liberty was as complete as my own. I left Washington, having extracted the first and most essential of the unknown quantities from the problem confronting me. I had the basic thought of the American Government, as to the application of the Spooner Law, without having said anything or heard anything in confidence or under the guarantee of secrecy. I CONCEIVE THE THEORY OP THE PANAMA REVOLUTION I had the first unknown quantity: the disposi- tions of the President. It remained for me to discover the second one: How could a revolution be made successfully at Panama without the financial cooperation of the United States, and without the express promise of her military support? The intense satisfaction I felt after finding the The Great Adventure of Panama 197 complete solution on the first equation led me to discover also what still remained concealed. The great and apparently unsurmountable ob- stacle was the raising of a sum of $6,000,000 for the necessary armament. In trying to reduce this demand of Amador, the light suddenly flashed across my mind during the railway journey back to New York. What was going to be the use of this $6,000,000, according to Amador ? To buy ships, which would be equipped for war in order to sink Colombia's ships, and to prevent the transportation of her troops. But toward what places were these military movements to be feared? Was it in the Isthmus itself? By no means, because the treaty of 1846 gave to the United States the right, and imposed upon her the duty, of turning any belligerents away from the line of transit. All this costly war machinery would, therefore, be useful solely to protect the insurrection in the western part of the Panama province, near the frontier of Costa Rica. The Isthmus, properly speaking, was separated from this western portion by immense virgin forests, while toward the east it was separated from Colombia by an impassable wilderness. 198 The Great Adventure of Panama What was the use of uniting, in the same revolu- tionary movement, these two groups of territory so distant and so distinct? Why be hampered by the irrational conception of the Department of Panama? Why not give, as territorial limits to the new Republic at all events at the outset the watersheds of the Chagresand of the Rio Grande? The more I reflected on this new idea, the more clearly did I behold the solution of all the diffi- culties. In the basins of these two rivers, the common watershed of which passed by the sum- mit of Culebra, there were no inhabitants who did not live within gunshot of the line of com- munication between the oceans. The duty of the United States was precisely to exclude all fighting within gunshot of the line of the railroad. THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES I had myself seen the United States, in 1885, performing her duty and preventing any fighting in this zone. It may be recalled that in 1885 a revolutionary army, commanded by General Aizpuru, had seized Panama. The town once taken, the Amer- The Great Adventure of Panama 199 ican troops had entered Panama to prevent dis- order. But when it was seen that the Revolu- tionary Government was maintaining order, the American forces were withdrawn, and they con- fined themselves to garrisoning the railroad and its wharf, the sole means of communication with the Pacific Ocean. Some days later two ships laden with Govern- ment troops tried to land at the wharf. General Reyes, who commanded the Colombian troops, was invited to withdraw, and the landing was forbidden by the American officer in command, Commodore MacCalla. I had seen with my own eyes, therefore, in 1885, the Revolutionists protected from the aggression of the Government troops by the American mili- tary authorities. It was after the election of Presi- dent Cleveland, when the Democratic party was in power. At that time the thought of making an American canal at Panama did not exist even in embryo. The prohibition of fighting, within gunshot of the line of transit, had always been, without any exception, the principle enforced by the United States, with the consent and sometimes at the request of Colombia. It was a formal and direct 200 The Great Adventure of Panama consequence of the stipulations of the treaty of 1846. In the preceding year, 1902, the same principle had been reenforced at the very moment of the difficult negotiations with M. Concha, for the grant of the Canal concession to the United States. In September, 1902, Commodore MacLean had forbidden all transportation of troops on the rail- road. General Quintero, commander of the Co- lombian troops, and General Herrera, commander of the Revolutionary troops, had received the same notification. It was at a moment when the greatest care had to be observed not to hurt Co- lombian feelings. How could it be doubted that the American forces would not act in the same manner one year later, at a time when Colombia had taken a de- cidedly hostile attitude? No hesitation was possible. The solution had been found! The mysterious problem was solved! The final unknown quantity had been at last discovered and I had resolved the equation, as the French mathematicians say, in the most elegant manner. It was no longer necessary to spend enormous sums for a useless navy. It was no longer neces- The Great Adventure of Panama 201 sary to present the impossible request for protec- tion by American forces outside of the line of transit. Such a thing was indispensable to an insurrection covering the whole province of Panama, but it was eliminated entirely if the in- surrection was limited to the Isthmus proper. If a revolution was started from Colon to Panama the American forces were automatically, and without any anterior understanding, obliged to intervene. Their intervention would consist in forbidding any armed force to come within gunshot of the line of transit. All the villages, all the houses, all the inhabitants within that zone, would immediately enjoy all necessary pro- tection. Once such military protection was secured, the new republic could wait. Would it or would it not be immediately recognized? To this question no answer could be given. But of the two political entities the great protecting Power and the small protected Power which had the greater interest to end such a ridiculous situation? It was evidently the United States, and furthermore she had the greatest interest in settling the Panama Canal question. 202 The Great Adventure of Panama I EXPLAIN MY NEW SCHEME TO AMADOR The more I thought of this new idea, the more simple, clear, decisive, it seemed to me. I had not been wrong when I had faith in the eventual solution of a problem which at first glance seemed unsolvable. Before completely exposing these new ideas to Amador I thought it necessary to question him again as to the means of carrying out the revolution. As all the information which he furnished to me was in harmony with my new conception, I disclosed my plan to him on the evening of Tuesday the 13th of October. His attitude was sullen. Evidently his mind had for some months been accustomed to brooding over the idea of a contract with the United States such as novelists imagine. He saw himself as- sociated with the President and the Secretary of State of the powerful Republic, and disposing of her millions for a common enterprise. In spite of my efforts to make him compre- hend the truth, he was certainly persuaded that such a plan as the one to which he was listening had been conceived at Washington, in the White House, and not in my own mind on the return The Great Adventure of Panama 203 journey to New York. A special circumstance certainly confirmed him in his conviction. "You say," he interrupted, in a tone of rebuke, "that with this plan there is no more need of money; but it will still be absolutely necessary. On the day following the revolution we shall have to pay the arrears to the troops." "I admit it," I replied, "but $6,000,000 will not be necessary for that. There are 500 men. Let us put $20 $100 if you like for each man. This makes $50,000." "It is not enough," said Amador. "Let us put $100,000 if you like," was my answer. He was obliged to admit that $100,000 would be sufficient. " Well, Doctor," I said, " it is a small sum. I shall probably be able to borrow it of a New York bank." "What if you don't succeed?" he retorted. "Well, I shall give it out of my own pocket," I said. "I can make such a sacrifice as that, but I could not give $6,000,000." Evidently the idea that I could risk $100,000 from my private means, to save the Panama undertaking, never entered the mind of the doctor. He certainly saw there the shadow of one of those 204 The Great Adventure of Panama mysterious treasures of the American Secret Funds which exist in fiction but nowhere else. "No," said Amador, finally, "we cannot make the movement in that way. We all of us at Panama own more or less property in the rest of the province. The idea of cutting the province in two, when one part of it would remain to Colombia, while the Isthmus itself would be an independent republic, is unacceptable. It would discourage everybody." "But I speak only of the first period," I re- torted. "Once your independence is assured, and the treaty is ratified, you will have $10,000,000 with which you can wage war and conquer the rest of the province." "No," he replied, "that wouldn't do." I arose, growing impatient. "Doctor Amador," said I, "if you want to close your eyes, you will see nothing. You came on the 23rd of September, in despair, to -ask me for support. To-day, October 13th, I offer it you. If you refuse it, well and good. I have nothing more to say." We separated, coldly. On the following day I was awakened early in the morning by two discreet knocks at the door, which I opened. It was Amador. The Great Adventure of Panama 205 He was pale and his features were haggard. "Have you slept?" he asked, by way of greeting. "Very well," I answered. "And you?" "Not one second," he replied, taking a seat. "But I have been thinking, and I have discovered that I am nothing but a fool. I understand. Pardon me. I shall obey." "That is what I call a sensible speech," I said. "Well, there is nothing more to be said, as you at last understand. I must go to-morrow, Thurs- day, to Washington, for the inauguration of the Statue of General Sherman. I am invited by his niece, Mrs. Sherman MacCallum. I will perhaps find how to complete the cycle of my information. Prepare yourself to leave by the next boat, Tues- day, October 20th, for the Isthmus. On my re- turn from Washington I will give you a precise programme of action. Now leave me, so that I can prepare it at leisure." I wanted to be free from his presence to prepare a rational and mature plan, which I did not want to leave him the time to discuss in detail. MY MEETING WITH MR. HAY, SECRETARY OF STATE I intended, in going to Washington, not only to have time for quiet thought, but also to find 206 The Great Adventure of Panama an opportunity of becoming acquainted with Mr. Hay. I had met this eminent man once only, at the house of Mr. Bigelow, but I had not had the chance of speaking to him. The opportunity arrived. I had gone to call on Mr. Loomis, in the State Department. Mr. Hay, whose office was next to Mr. Loomis's, en- tered to ask for some information. Mr. Loomis introduced me. Mr. Hay, with much courtesy, once the first greetings had been exchanged, in- vited me to his own office. The subject of our conversation was, at first, our common friendship for Mr. John Bigelow. Our talk had scarcely begun when the usher entered and gave a card to the Secretary of State. I noticed a certain embarrassment on his features. I intervened: "Mr. Secretary of State, I should be sorry if my unexpected presence were to interrupt your audiences. Please let me withdraw, and we will find a more convenient time to continue this con- versation." "I am, indeed, very embarrassed," answered Mr. Hay; "I want- to talk with you on a subject which is giving me grave preoccupation: Panama. You certainly are better informed than ourselves. The Great Adventure of Panama 207 On the other hand, I have to-day to receive the i ambassadors, and it is difficult not to fulfil this 1 other duty. It will take about one hour." "It does not matter," I said, "I shall withdraw, i and it will give me great pleasure to come back when your receptions are over." "Well, since you allow me," replied Mr. Hay, "let me send you word to fix an appointment, so that we may converse without fear of interrup- tion." Soon after I had reached my hotel a card from Mr. Hay was handed to me. He invited me to go and see him not at the State Department but at his own house at three o'clock in the afternoon. Such were the circumstances which permitted me to become acquainted for the first time with this many-sided and extremely able man. I had always imagined him as severe and cold, a sort of "Iron Chancellor" of America. It was the impression given by his photographs and policy. How different he was when he had doffed his outside armour! The constant desire of this delicate and refined mind was to obtain by political action the im- provement of the moral and physical condition of man. He considered the United States as 208 The Great Adventure of Panama consecrated above all to this great task. In ] serving his country, as he did, with all the energy of his heart and mind, I doubt if he ever dis- sociated in his thoughts her interests from those of humanity. He saw, in the opening of the Panama Canal, the greatest service which could be rendered to the human family. As his ideas coincided rigor- ously with my own on this subject a strong and reciprocal sympathy was soon established between us. Together we deplored the blindness of Colombia. I told him what efforts I had made to show her the truth and how they had been baffled. "When all the counsels of Prudence and Friend- ship have been made in vain," I said, "there comes a moment when one has to stand still and await events." "These events," he asked, "what do you think they will be?" " I expressed my sentiments on the subject some days ago to President Roosevelt," I replied; "the whole thing will end in a revolution. You must take your measures, if you do not want to be taken yourself by surprise." "Yes," said Mr. Hay, "that is unfortunately The Great Adventure of Panama 209 the most probable hypothesis. But we shall not je caught napping. Orders have been given to naval forces on the Pacific to sail toward the Isth- mus." THE "CAPTAIN MACKLIN": SYMBOL OR PASSWORD? Our conversation then took a more general turn; we spoke of the facility with which in these coun- tries political discontent takes a violent form. "I have just finished reading," said Mr. Hay, " a charming novel, ' Captain Macklin.' It is the history of a West Point cadet who leaves the mili- tary academy to become a soldier of fortune in Central America. He enlists under the orders of a general, a former officer of the French army, who commands a revolutionary army in Honduras. The young, ambitious American, and the old French officer who as head of the army displays in all his acts the generous disinterestedness of his race are both charming types of searchers after the Ideal. Read this volume, take it with you," concluded Mr. Hay, "it will interest you," and he handed it to me. I carried away with me from this interview an emotion, the recollection of which will never be erased from my heart. I felt I had had the privi- 210 The Great Adventure of Panama lege of approaching one of the most noble charac- ters it has ever been given me to know. The course of events was only to engrave this first impression more deeply on my mind. I have never ceased to have for the character of Mr. Hay an almost religious admiration. I read "Captain Macklin" with an interest which may be easily understood. The chivalrous figure of the old French warrior, who is the hero of the history, corresponded perfectly to the de- scription given by Mr. Hay. At the head of his half-wild army, in the virgin forest, he pursued undeviatingly the high aim of justice and progress. I could not help thinking that Mr. Hay, in giving me this volume, had meant to make a subtle allu- sion to my own efforts in the cause of justice and progress. Perhaps he wished to go even further? Did he not intend thus to make me understand that he had the presentiment of the personal part I was playing, and which I had not revealed to him? Did he not wish to tell me symbolically that he had understood that the revolution in preparation for the victory of the Idea was taking shape under my direction? Never did I undertake to clear up this delicate The Great Adventure of Panama mystery, but I always acted as if " Captain Mack- lin" had been the subtle symbol, the password, exchanged between Mr. Hay and myself. This password explained that which concern for our honour prevented us both from expressing verbally. NOTWITHSTANDING MR. HAY*S SILENCE, I KNEW ALL The interview with Mr. Hay would have re- moved my last hesitations if hesitation had been any longer possible. The Secretary of State had not feared to say that Washington expected a revolution in Panama, and that the United States had taken military precautions. They were probably the consequence of the formal assertion of opinion I had made to President Roosevelt, an assertion which the rum- ours current in the press entirely corroborated. It only remained for me to act. The United States would have a sufficient military force in the neighbourhood of the Canal if the revolution broke out. I felt no doubt as to the only question which could burden my conscience: the security of the men who were to risk their lives on my word. What would be the destiny of the new republic? There was but little interest in trying to determine that in advance. This chapter could be left to 212 The Great Adventure of Panama the eventualities of the future. As soon as I had become thoroughly convinced by a succession of repeated proofs, that my friends would be pro- tected against the crushing load of the Colombian forces, my mind was free to prepare the events. As soon as I left Mr. Hay's house I hastened to take the first train for New York. When passing through Baltimore at 7:50 in the evening I sent a telegram to Amador saying that Jones expected him on the following morning at 9:30. I GIVE AMADOR FULL INSTRUCTIONS At the stated hour Doctor Amador knocked at the door of room No. 1162 of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. During my sojourn hi Washington I had medi- tated over the precise plan of action, and I had written the necessary documents. As I was well acquainted with the hesitating temperament of Spanish-Americans, I had made it a point to have ready for Amador, before the day of sailing, all that he needed for immediate action. I had pre- pared the Proclamation of Independence; a me- thodical plan of the military operations, including arrangements for the defence of the Isthmus to be The Great Adventure of Panama 213 effected within the three first days; and, finally, a cipher code allowing Amador and myself to correspond secretly. The Constitution of Cuba, which had just been drawn up by men of high legal talent, was to be the model for the Panama Constitution. It only remained to design the flag of the new republic. I had realized during my journey back from Washington that nobody was better fitted than I rapidly to conduct the diplomatic negotiations, as no one knew better the ground at once in Wash- ington, Panama, and Bogota. I had for several years thoroughly studied the situation in Washing- ton. I had secured there important posts of ob- servation which could easily be turned into centres of diplomatic action. "Doctor Amador," said I, when he entered my room, "the moment has come to clear the deck for action. Be satisfied with my assertions. There is no more time for discussing their genesis. "I can give you the assurance that you will be protected by the American forces forty-eight hours after you have proclaimed the new Republic in the whole Isthmus. "Then will begin a delicate period, that of the complete recognition of the new Republic. The 214 The Great Adventure of Panama fight will be in Washington; I assume responsibility for it. I take also the responsibility of obtaining for you, from a bank or of myself furnishing you the one hundred thousand dollars which are necessary to you. But my political and financial cooperation will begin only after you have com- pleted what is incumbent upon you: the conquest of your liberty. This is your own work. If you do not feel yourself capable of establishing, with- out external aid, a new government in the Isthmus proper, remain quiet and do nothing. If you believe yourself capable, follow your free judg- ment. When you have done your work, when you have conquered and acquired your liberty, then will begin my part; I shall work for you and with you, so that liberty may be preserved to you. "In order to make everything quite clear I have prepared a series of documents which I shall give you as suggestions. You will do with them what- ever you deem wise. They are the programme of military operations, the Declaration of Independ- ence, a base for the Constitution of the new Re- public, and finally a code with which to correspond with me. "I repeat, my official connections with this affair cannot, and must not, begin until you have The Great Adventure of Panama 215 broken your chains unaided and by your own hands. "From that moment on, if ever the moment comes, a most important part will have to be played; it will consist in ensuring the permanence of the life of the entity you will have created, and its entrance into the family of nations. This part I sincerely believe nobody is better fitted to play than myself. I venture to say this, because no- body knows better than I the final aim, which is the completion of the Canal and the best way to attain it. It will, therefore, be necessary to en- trust me with the diplomatic representation of the new Republic at Washington." Doctor Amador had been listening to my expose with a glow of enthusiasm in his eyes. The flame suddenly died out when I touched upon the ques- tion of diplomatic representation. This sudden change revealed to me that he had thought of some other person for filling this important post. He tried hesitatingly to raise objections! The amour-propre of the Isthmians, he said, would be hurt by the choice of a foreigner for their first representative abroad. "I can easily see that," I answered, "but a supreme law must dictate our resolutions. It 216 The Great Adventure of Panama commands us to assemble every element that may help to ensure final success. A battle royal will be fought at Washington; let him wage it who is best equipped to win the victory." "But could not a Panaman be appointed whose obedience I would guarantee?" asked Amador. "You would dictate his acts and his words." "No, my dear Doctor," I replied, "a solution of that order is of no value when on one word, on a single act, on a single minute, may depend the success or the reverse. Absolute liberty of deci- sion and of action must be provided for him who commands. But this is only my advice. If it is not acceptable to you, to your friends, follow your personal inclinations. In such a case, you may still count on me to do everything within my power to help you, but at the same time I must tell you that I will not accept any responsibility, if you do not follow the line ensuring the maximum quantity of favourable chances." Amador had listened to me with a distressed air. "Well," he said, "I will try to carry your point." "Nothing remains," I added, "but to make the model of the flag. I am going to-morrow to join my family at Highland Falls on the Hudson, at The Great Adventure of Panama 217 the Bigelows', and I shall find there the agile and discreet fingers that will make the new flag." We separated. I hastened to go and buy at the nearest shop the silk necessary for making the new Standard of this Republic, whose birth was to be the signal of the resurrection of the slaughtered enterprise, and later on the prime cause of the deadly defeat of its murderer. I spent the rest of the day correcting and revising the documents I had prepared for Doctor Amador. He came back in the afternoon, still preoccupied by the question of the plenipotentiary at Washing- ton. Evidently his mind could not adapt itself to the argument I had developed. He was power- less to dispute its forcible logic, but he could not overcome the pressure of the secret ambition of himself being this plenipotentiary. I inexorably maintained the necessary line of ac- tion. I could not admit that personal interest should interfere to lessen in any degree, however small, the chances of success of this difficult enterprise THE FLAG MADE BY MME. BUNAU-VARILLA I left on the following day, Sunday, early in the morning, for Highland Falls on the Hudson, to 18 The Great Adventure of Panama join my wife and children, who were enjoying there the delightful hospitality of the Bigelow family. Mme. Bunau-Varilla remained in her rooms in the greatest secrecy the whole day making the flag of liberation. Besides my wife, I took as a confidant my son, Etienne, then thirteen years old, in whose mind I desired to leave a trace of these dramatic moments. It only remained to have a copy of all the documents made by a typist. A young woman totally ignorant of Spanish, and who acted in the capacity of secretary in the Bigelow family, came to New York for the purpose. She executed the work far from indiscreet eyes, in the then empty residence of the Bigelows at Gramercy Park. On Monday, when I came back, I soon managed to get everything ready. Amador came to admire the flag, which he found perfect. Its design was the same as that of the American flag with these exceptions: for the white was substituted the yellow which characterizes the Spanish and Co- lombian flags, and instead of white stars distrib- uted over the blue jack were placed two yellow suns united by a band of the same colour. These suns represented the two continents as the stars The Great Adventure of Panama 219 in the American flag represent the states of the Union. I knew that this flag would be modified; and it was. But in Central America people are much quicker at modifying than at creating, and not a moment had to be lost after Amador's arrival on the Isthmus. After having taken cognizance of both letter and spirit of the instructions that I had handed him, Amador said: "Fifteen days will be necessary after my arrival in order to carry out the move- ment." "What!" I exclaimed; "fifteen days? It would be much simpler to say right away you are going to abandon everything. You leave to-morrow, the 20th of October; you arrive on the 27th. Within two days you could act." "Yes if I were alone," he replied; "but do you not know our friends? Conference after con- ference will be necessary!" "That is true," I interrupted; "but what is still more true is that Colombia has massed troops at Carthagena with General Tovar, who at any moment may disembark on the Isthmus. What is possible to-day may be impossible to-morrow. You must act as soon as you arrive. Success will 220 The Great Adventure of Panama be the reward of rapidity and decision, as is al- ways the case. "Well," I said in conclusion, "I give you up to the 3rd of November as a final limit for action. If you have not accomplished the revolution on that day, or before, I shall consider myself free of all responsibility for further events." "Give me at least till the 5th of November," implored Amador. "No," I replied; "if you are not capable of doing within seven days what you declare yourself to be ready to do immediately, you demonstrate yourself incapable of winning your liberty, and you had better stay where you are and what you are." Amador left me, saying he would be back on the day following at nine in the morning. He was to stop on his way to the wharf in order to take with him what I had prepared for the liberation of his country. Before his return I prepared the cablegram that he was to send me in clear language, once the Re- public was proclaimed. It was the summing up of our conditions, and drew the line definitely where Amador 's action finished and mine began. It was conceived in these terms: The Great Adventure of Panama The Government has just been formed by popular acclamation. Its authority extends from Colon in- clusive to Panama inclusive. I request you to accept the mission of Minister Plenipotentiary in order to obtain the recognition of the Republic and signature of Canal Treaty. You have full powers to appoint a banker for the Republic at New York, and to open credit for immediate urgent expenses. I gave the text to Amador with these words : "So long as you are unable to send me this tele- gram, no responsibility is incumbent upon me. From the moment I receive this telegram my re- sponsibility will begin. It will then be my duty immediately to send you one hundred thousand dollars and within forty-eight hours to see that protection is extended to you. The only dangerous period for you will be from the moment the revolu- tion begins to forty -eight hours after the telegram is handed to me." Amador left me to embark, after solemnly affirming his complete agreement with me as to the conditions thus stipulated. It was at this moment 9:30 A. M., Tuesday, October 20th, that the period of action began. Some minutes later he reopened the door. "One word more," he said. "What must I do 222 The Great Adventure of Panama about Obaldia? He is now Governor of Panama. His sympathies are certainly with us. Must I disclose everything to him? Consider my situa- tion if I say nothing to him. He is my lifelong friend; he is my guest at this moment; he eats at my table. I am in great perplexity." "Do not take him for a confidant," I replied. "Do not place Obaldia between his sympathies and his honour." Amador closed the door and left for the steamer. I TAKE MEASURES TO PROVIDE $100,000 I soon felt relieved from the tension of mind caused by the preparation of my instructions to the emissary in charge of this formidable enterprise. I had now to think of placing myself in a con- dition to keep my promise with regard to the re- sources needed for the first days of the new Re- public. I had seven days ahead of me. My first idea had been to disclose the situation to Mr. Pierpont Morgan or to Mr. Isaac Seligman, with whom I was in personal relations. I had written to both of these gentlemen to ask for an appointment without saying for what purpose. When the moment arrived I saw obstacles which I had not at first perceived. Was it likely that the The Great Adventure of Panama representatives of such huge interests would run the risk of engaging in so dangerous an adventure? If the revolution was to fail the moral responsibil- ity would be enormous for them. If it succeeded the profit would be insignificant. Would any banker ever be tempted where the alternatives were of such a nature? An operation of that class could be acceptable only to a second-rate bank. But in such a case a commission would be demanded from the new Republic which would be in proportion to the risk, that is to say, very great. It would, later on, be considered as extortionate and usurious. On the other hand, in such a case, what could prevent the bank from making an easy speculation in Panama securities? A revolutionary movement ending successfully would necessarily about treble the quotation in these securities. What would appear to me a con- temptible speculation could not fail to be con- sidered by a second-class banker as absolutely legitimate. And besides, if I raised the question of this eventual loan, I must necessarily disclose the secret plan. Who could guarantee that the secret would be kept? Who could guarantee that on the same evening a telegram would not be sent 224 The Great Adventure of Panama to Bogota, and that Colombian troops would not be hurried to the Isthmus and land at the same time as Amador? All these considerations made it absolutely im- practicable to contract a loan with third parties in the name of the new Republic. I was bound by honour. I had no other alterna- tive but to provide the funds from my personal means, and to run the risk myself of losing this important sum. It was the only way to be as- sured that no indiscretion would be committed and no speculation attempted. My resolution was made on the evening of Wednesday, the 21st of October. At 1 A. M. on the 22nd I cabled to two banks in Europe which held securities for me, asking each of them to loan me fifty thousand dollars. I requested them, in case they should agree to my request, to remit this sum immediately to the branch office "B" of the Credit Lyonnais. This branch office was accustomed to make cable transfers for me during my sojourns in America, when I needed money for travelling expenses. One cannot but admire the extraordinary elas- ticity of the financial mechanism of our days. I delivered my two cablegrams at the telegraph The Great Adventure of Panama office on Thursday at 1 A. M., going to bed im- mediately afterward. I was awakened at 8 o'clock by a servant, who brought the first answer. At 11 o'clock the second one arrived. All was set- tled. The hundred thousand dollars had been sent to the branch office "B", where I could dis- pose of them at will. I had but to give the order for transferring them by cable to New York, which order was given the Sunday following. Before Amador arrived on the Isthmus I had at my dis- posal in New York one hundred thousand dollars at the bank Heidelbach, Ickelheimer & Co. I was ready. This question once settled, and everything, therefore, being accomplished by Thursday morn- ing, the 22nd of October, I had nothing more to do but await events. THE COLOMBIAN GENERAL PROVIDENTIALLY LATE I need not say with what anxiety every morning and evening I opened the newspapers. The fate of the Panama Canal depended upon the move- ments of the Colombian troops concentrated at Carthagena. On the 26th of October I read in a newspaper with indescribable joy the following lines: 226 The Great Adventure of Panama Barranquilla [a Colombian port on the Atlantic, close to Carthagena] announces that General Tovar who was expected to leave soon [for the Isthmus] may not do so before the beginning of November. He has received the order to make a report on the condition of the artillery of the forts at Barranquilla, Puerto, Colombia, Carthagena, and the harbours of the Atlantic. On the other hand, on the previous day, October 25th, the New York Sun had published a telegram from Philadelphia, which had for me an extreme significance. It announced that the cruiser Dixie had sailed with sealed orders, taking with her 400 marines. Three days later the papers printed a despatch from Washington which was published among others in the New York Times on the 28th of October, announcing that the Dixie was to arrive at Guantanamo, Cuba. The despatch added that, in case of a revolution in the Isthmus, the Dixie would be sent to Colon. Another paper said that the marines would be landed on the Isthmus to maintain order along the line of inter-oceanic communication. The same despatch announced that another cruiser, the Nashville, was at Kingston, Jamaica. Evidently the movements of Amador had been The Great Adventure of Panama watched, and his departure for the Isthmus after his conference with me had raised suspicions of an early explosion of the revolution after the Colom- bian Congress had closed its session. The sending of the Dixie to Guantanamo showed the preoccupation of the American Government. It did not disguise this preoccupation in its com- munication to the press. Does not this simple fact in itself give the lie to the absurd and prej- udiced story of a revolution organized by the United States Government? At Washington they had probably associated in their minds the departure of Amador and the prediction I had formulated in my interview with President Roosevelt on the 9th of October and with Mr. Hay on the 16th as to the imminent peril of a revolution. The conclusion which must have been reached was that the departure of Amador after his interviews with me was the beginning of revolutionary operations. Mr. Hay had remembered my warning as to the danger of the United States being caught un- aware by a sudden revolution. He had certainly issued the orders to have troops ready as soon as Amador had left. The Nashville was mounting guard at Kingston for the obvious purpose of fly- 228 The Great Adventure of Panama ing to the Isthmus at first call. The intentions of the American Government were luminously shown by the whole set of facts. Thus were rigorously confirmed all my anterior inductions. Positively everything was working out with admirable precision and in accordance with my logical reasoning. Amador had nothing more to do but to set fire to the fuse before the arrival of the Colombian troops, and Panama was saved. To be still more certain I went to spend the 27th at Washington. I heard nothing to give me a fresh indication. It was the very day that Ama- dor was landing at Colon. AMADOU'S CRYPTIC TELEGRAM: i INTERPRET IT On the 27th and 28th of October Amador gave no sign. There was nothing astonishing in that. I expected the great news on the 29th. Instead of receiving it, the following cablegram was handed to me at 9.45 in the morning: TOWER, New York Fate news bad powerful tiger. Urge vapor Colon. SMITH. The address, "Tower, New York,*' was that of M. Lindo, the friend of Amador, who had sent The Great Adventure of Panama 229 him to me to ask for my support as soon as I arrived in September. He had undertaken to transmit the telegraphic secret correspondence between Amador and my- self. But he was ignorant of their contents, which only the conventional code I had given to Amador could explain. In that way the despatches could pass without attracting the attention of the Colom- bian authorities. I deciphered with stupefaction the first words: Fate. This cable is for M. Bunau-Varilla. News. Colombian troops arriving. Bad. Atlantic. Powerful. Five days. Tiger. More than 200. None of the words which followed in the des- patch Urge vapor Colon was in the code. It was therefore necessary to take their meaning in Spanish. It was: "Press steamer Colon." The signature "Smith" meant "Amador." The beginning of the despatch was perfectly clear. Amador announced the arrival within five days that is on the 2nd or 3rd of November of 200 Colombian soldiers on the Atlantic side. But what was the signification of the rest: "Press steamer Colon"? Nothing in my instructions to 230 The Great Adventure of Panama Amador could explain the mystery. The fact that these words were in plain language established that they did not refer to anything previously agreed. Suddenly light dawned in my mind. I saw clearly the scene which had given birth to this curious and inexplicable message. Amador had left the Isthmus when everybody was under the sway of the illusions created by the foolish and unrealizable promises which the first delegates of the insurgents had said had been made to him in New York. He and his friends were firmly convinced that he was going to be intro- duced to the Secretary of State, and that he was going to sign with him a regular convention. Everybody expected Amador to bring a veritable treaty vouching for the support of the American forces and the payment of six million dollars. This fairy tale, like all prolonged chimeras, must have been gradually transformed into a firm belief. Instead of bringing this treaty, Amador returned with only the verbal assertion of a private individual. To be sure every one of Amador's associates had known that person for a long time. To be sure they had complete faith in his word. But between believing in somebody's word and risking one's The Great Adventure of Panama 231 life because of such belief there is an enormous difference. To overcome their resistance, Amador must have assured them that I was the spokesman of the American Government. Probably he had even per- suaded himself of that nonsense. Had he not said to me with a mysterious air: "Who has suggested this to you?" on the day following my disclosure to him of my scheme of a Republic limited to the Isthmus proper? When, therefore, he tried to persuade the re- luctant confederates, one of them must have risen and said: "If Bunau-Varilla is so powerful let him prove it. He says we shall be protected forty-eight hours after establishing the new Re- public. Well, we will believe him, if he is capable of sending an American man-of war to Colon at our request." This obviously was the interpretation of an otherwise incomprehensible cablegram. The more I considered the solution the more certain I felt that it was the right one. It was not information which was transmitted to me, it was a test to which I was being submitted. I knew later on through M. Carlos Arosemena one of the confederates who afterward became my The Great Adventure of Panama Secretary of Legation and remained my friend that this interpretation was rigorously true. The arrival of the 200 Colombian soldiers was imaginary, and yet, by an extraordinary coin- cidence, this arrival did take place on the very date announced, November 3rd, as will be seen later on. As soon as I understood the signification of the mysterious telegram I realized that it was in- cumbent upon me to fire the fuse. Amador had failed. It remained for me to set the machine in motion. A MAN-OF-WAR, OR THE CANAL IS LOST The whole question of the life or death of the Canal was condensed in the following words: "An American man-of-war must be sent to Colon." If I succeeded in this task, the Canal was saved. If I failed, it was lost. After so many turns and twists of destiny the problem of its preservation was henceforth con- centrated on this sole point. I could just as well think over it in the train as in my own room. If I could find the solution between New York and Washington I could act immediately on arrival there. Without further reflection I seized my The Great Adventure of Panama 233 valise and hurried to take the next train to Wash- ington. When I arrived my plan was settled. It was based on information that had appeared in the papers during the preceding days. Did they not say that the Dixie had brought troops to Guanta- mano in view of possible disturbance on the Isthmus? Did they not say that the Nashville was at Kingston? Evidently the Government was ready to land troops on the Isthmus. It was ready to fulfil once more its police duty, and to maintain order for the free circulation of the trains, as the treaty of 1846 compelled it to do. It was only necessary, therefore, to exert a very slight' pressure in order to turn the scale of fate. All that was necessary was to convince the American Government that its duty was to send a cruiser immediately, in anticipation of probable events, rather than to wait for their explosion. I soon found the way to exert this slight pres- sure. I had received the news of the arrival of Colom- bian troops for the 2nd or 3rd of November. I had a right to point out the possibility or even the probability of a conflict when they should land. I had the right to recall that a conflagration, in a 234 The Great Adventure of Panama town built of wood, is the inevitable consequence of an armed conflict. I had the right to cite the historic example, which I had witnessed in April, 1885, of the destruction of Colon, in just such condi- tions. I had the right to say that I had also been a witness of the dire criticism to which Captain Kean, the commander of the Galena, had been sub- jected by American opinion for his inactivity in 1885. The American man-of-war, the Galena, was at the time in Colon waters. Her commander, Kean, had abstained from any attempt to prevent the fight, and had been violently attacked for his abstention. When I left the train I had in my head the clear and decisive formula out of which would naturally result the action of the American Government and the despatch of the boat nearest to Colon. Everybody I met asked me the question: "What is going to happen at Panama?" I re- peatedly answered: "Remember the date of November 3, 1903. That day will behold a repetition of what happened there on the 1st of April, 1885, the burning of Colon. The armed conflict, which will be the cause of the fire, is expected everywhere. It is spoken of publicly in the press. The only differ- The Great Adventure of Panama 235 ence between 1885 and 1903 is that the blame will not be attributed to the captain of a man-of-war in the waters of Colon. It will rest on the Govern- ment of the United States itself. President Cleve- land had sent a man-of-war, the Galena, which did not manage to interfere in time. To-morrow the disaster will be imputed to President Roosevelt for not having taken the slightest preventive measure. He will not have sent even a little cruiser." I repeated this formula to all the friends I met. Of course according to circumstances I moderated its expression without dulling its point. I called on Mr. Loomis in his own house, but I naturally suppressed everything referring to the eventual responsibilities of the government of which he was a member. Mr. Loomis was too acute an observer not to draw the conclusion him- self. I understood, by the particular gravity of his expression, that the parable had struck home and that he clearly understood the imminence of a fresh and unexpected peril. On the following day I was preparing to leave Washington before noon. To kill time I went out for a walk, uncertain as to the wisdom of paying a visit to Mr. Hay himself. My lucky star brought me face to face with Mr. Loomis near the White House. 236 The Great Adventure of Panama "I have thought over what you said to me yes- terday," said he; "this situation is really fraught with peril for the town of Colon. It would be deplorable if the catastrophe of 1885 were to be renewed to-day. If you have any news, please communicate it to me." This request was to remain without results. I wrote to Mr. Loomis during the following days, but merely to tell him that I had no further news than had already been published in the press. I took leave of him. There was no longer any need of seeing Mr. Hay. The words I had heard could have but one interpretation: "A cruiser has been sent to Colon." This cruiser could only be the one stationed nearest to the Isthmus, the Nashville. She was at Kingston at a distance of 550 geographical miles from Colon. She was a little boat of ten or eleven knots speed. Within two days she would cover the distance. Adding twelve hours for preparations, she would reach the Isthmus within two and a half days. I CABLE THAT THE MAN-OF-WAR IS COMING I left Washington at 11 o'clock for New York, and I quitted the train at Baltimore. The Great Adventure of Panama 237 I went straight to the telegraph office and sent the following cablegram: PIZALDO Panama. All right will reach ton and half obscure JONES. The signification was: PIZA NEPHEWS [commercial firm of Mr. Lindo], Panama. All right will reach two days and half , This message is for Amador. BUNATI-VARILLA. In sending this cablegram I was certain it would produce no effect if the man-of-war did not arrive. If, contrary to my rationally established convic- tion, the American Government should take no measure of precaution, no evil could result from my message. Nothing would take place so long as the boat did not appear. But if the American Government had really decided not to remain inert, confronted as it was by the clear and obvious duty dictated by circum- stances, then the revolution was made made because the connection between (a) the request to me for a boat and (6) the arrival of the boat, ma- terialized in the eyes of the confederates the reality of the influence which Amador had asserted to them I possessed over the American Government. 238 The Great Adventure of Panama Evidently they imagined the situation to be quite different from what it really was. They believed this influence to be of a direct and material order. They could not understand matters as they really were. They could not imagine that there was no material influence exerted, and that I was merely correctly and mathematically calcu- lating the forces at play, among which the main ones were the duty and the interest of the Ameri- can Government. The despatch which was at last to fire the slow match, and thus determine the explosion on the Isthmus, was handed in at the Central Telegraph Office at Baltimore at ten minutes past noon on October 30, 1903. As the despatch arrived on the evening of the same day, the confederates, counting two days and a half from that hour, could expect the man-of-war on the morning of the 2nd of November. I left Baltimore and arrived in the evening in New York. I found there a new cablegram from Panama announcing the arrival of Colombian forces on the Pacific side for ten days later. I was asked at the end when the ship would arrive at Colon. This despatch, delivered in New York at 7.10 in The Great Adventure of Panama 239 the evening, had evidently left Panama before the arrival of my despatch from Baltimore. To this second question I answered as to the first one, relying on my mathematical calculation as to the probable course of events. I calculated what would be the likely date of the arrival of the naval forces which Mr. Hay had told me on the 16th of October had been ordered to leave for the Isthmus on the Pacific side. A telegram to the Evening Post of October 22nd had announced the departure of the Marblehead and the Mohican for a cruise in southern waters. Their true desti- nation was evidently that to which Mr. Hay had alluded. The distance from San Francisco to Panama is 3,277 geographical miles. It could be covered therefore in twelve or thirteen days at the velocity of from ten to eleven knots. The ships could arrive by the 3rd or 4th of November. Tak- ing these calculations as a basis I wired that within four days there would be American ships on the Pacific, and within two days on the Atlantic side. I had reduced from two and a half days to two days the period indicated in my telegram from Baltimore, because more than nine hours had passed between the first and second despatches. 240 The Great Adventure of Panama Thus was fixed on the day of the 30th the plan of future events. REPLY TO THE CRITICISMS OF RATIONAL DIPLOMACY Some people will perhaps criticize me for having thus announced future facts without possessing greater material certainty and in relying merely on logical conjectures. My only reply to such critics is that they have not the slightest idea of scientific methods. I built all this subtle diplomatic structure as a bridge is built: that is, by calculating its various elements, and not by trying to obtain direct in- formation, which it would have been impossible to obtain. The abstract operations of trigonometry led to results more certain than physical measurements, when both operations are possible, but in the majority of cases trigonometry alone can be used. I have made diplomacy as it were by trigonometry. Such a method will, without doubt, seem incom- prehensible to many minds. To these people I may reply that they are incapable of rising to the conception of a work such as that of Panama. They will never grasp the new processes which its realization will have made necessary in all the or- The Great Adventure of Panama 241 ders of mental activity. One may say to them what Pascal said to those who, wanting in the mathematical mind, discussed with him the in- finitely small: Adopt other professions. There are many such in which your mind could be useful. But for Heaven's sake do not exhaust yourself in trying to penetrate an order of ideas in which you will lose your time, and where your efforts will be futile. THE DEPARTURE OF THE "NASHVILLE" On the morrow of the following day, that is to say, on November 1, 1903, a despatch which rigor- ously verified my induction was published in the New York Times. The paper printed it under the title: Nashville sailed for Colombia? It read: Kingston, Jamaica, 31st Oct. The American cruiser Nashville left this morning with sealed orders. Her destination is believed to be Colombia. The Nashville had left on the morning of October 31st. With her speed of ten or eleven knots she was therefore due to arrive on the morning of November 2nd. 242 The Great Adventure of Panama My prevision ought consequently to have be- come a reality, but things did not happen quite so exactly. It was in the evening not in the morn- ing, of November 2nd, that the Nashville dropped anchor in the harbour of Colon. I waited until the 2nd of November, and then I sent to Doctor Amador a cablegram containing only the one word: "Boy." It meant: "Noth- ing has happened which requires modification." This was my final communication to tell him that the route was open, and that I did not perceive any obstacle. The 2nd of November passed without any news. With the 3rd of the month expired the last day of the period of one week after the arrival of Ama- dor at Panama which I had fixed for carrying out the revolution. Deeply .disturbed by this silence I went on the morning of the 3rd to the offices of Mr. Lindo. I wanted to prepare with his ordinary code a des- patch which my conventional code did not allow me to send on account of its incompleteness. I wished to make a supreme appeal to the energy and courage of the people of the Isthmus. I had great difficulty in composing this despatch with a code adapted only to commercial operations. The Great Adventure of Panama 243 As I left the building to go to the telegraph office a newsboy ran up to me and offered me the Evening Telegram. I bought it, and cast a glance at it. It announced the landing of General Tovar, and of the Colombian troops the very same morn- ing at Colon, as well as the arrival, on the previous evening, of the Nashville. Nothing more not a word of the slightest revolutionary movement. Everything seemed to be irretrievably lost. I destroyed the despatch I had prepared. I returned to the Waldorf-Astoria, heart-broken and in a state of complete despair. For the first time in my life I felt that the enterprise of Panama was forever dead. It was the supreme test of Des- tiny, for it was just at this very moment that the Phoenix was arising from its own ashes. I spent the whole afternoon in a state of profound dejection. My dear wife tried to comfort and encourage me in this infinite sorrow. Finally, she prevailed on me to dominate my grief and to go with her to dine at Mr. John Bigelow's, where we had accepted an invitation. ALL APPEARED TO BE LOST: ALL IS SAVED When I returned to the Waldorf-Astoria at about 10 o'clock that evening a telegram was 244 The Great Adventure of Panama handed to me. It was in plain language, and signed by Amador. It ran thus: Proclamada Independencia del Istmo sin sangre.* AMADOR. The life of the great undertaking had been saved at the very moment when it seemed to be destroyed forever. What had taken place? The rumour of the arrival of the American man- of-war, that I had announced, had promptly leaked out and spread all over the Isthmus. From the morning of the 2nd of November all the inhabitants of Colon were looking toward Kingston, hoping for the appearance of the ship symbolizing American protection. As the hours passed disappointment gradually invaded all hearts. Toward nightfall despair was general, when suddenly a light smoke arose in the direction of the northeast. This was a ray of hope! If it was the liberator! Little by little the smoke thickened, the ship emerged above the horizon, and soon the S tar- Spangled Banner dominated the Bay of Colon. Independence of Isthmus proclaimed withoulsbloodshed. The Great Adventure of Panama 245 A burst of delirious enthusiasm shook the whole Isthmus. It was really true: Bunau-Varilla had effectively obtained for the unfortunate country the protec- tion of the powerful Republic! At this moment, without one word having been uttered, the revolution was accomplished in the hearts of all. The regime of Colombian tyranny was over! The people were so intoxicated with joy that serious business was postponed until the following day. Instead of supplying the wharves of Colon with an armed force to prevent a possible landing of the Colombian troops, nothing was done. The presence of such an armed force would have en- tailed the immediate interference of the American cruiser, and prevented a landing which would have provoked disorder. But the confederates had for- gotten this detail in their blind happiness. It happened that this arrival of the Colombian troops which they had invented in order to justify the despatch : " Press steamer Colon" took place the very same day they had announced. On the morning of the 3rd of November General Tovar arrived quietly with about five hundred soldiers. 246 The Great Adventure of Panama It was the news which the Evening Telegram had brought to me. This unexpected event awoke the confederates. The employees of the Panama Railroad availed themselves of various technical pretexts to delay the formation of a special train required for the troops. General Tovar took the train for Panama, leav- ing his troops behind him at Colon. Meanwhile the patriotic excitement determined by the arrival of the Nashville was steadily gaining on the entire population, as well as the garrison of Panama. The aged Doctor Amador set the example. He went to the barracks, and started the whole move- ment by having General Tovar and his officers arrested by General Huertas, commander of the Panama garrison. The Independent Republic of Panama was im- mediately proclaimed. The revolution had been made without shedding a drop of blood. It was due to the unanimous ex- plosion of a whole nation, which refused to be stifled by the policy of Bogota, a policy now known to have been inspired by the diplomacy of the Boche against the United States. But, as it happens with nations weakened by a long The Great Adventure of Panama 247 military oppression, this explosion had taken place only when the people felt they were no longer alone. This revolution, which it would have been so easy to accomplish from the 27th of October, when there were no obstacles in the way, was accomplished in face of the dreaded troops of the tyrant. If these troops had arrived twenty-four hours earlier nobody would have made a move. But they had landed twelve hours after the sym- bolic arrival of the Nashville had fired hi all hearts the spark of hope, and thus restored general self- confidence. People had seen therein the extended hand of the powerful neighbour republic. And that proof of friendship had made all hearts beat more quickly and raised everybody's courage. The Republic of Panama had therefore been born; and it had sprung from a legitimate revolt against the most intolerable oppression. REVOLUTION NOT FOMENTED BY THE U. S. Colombia can say to-day that the Republic of Panama was born owing to American protection. This is true if the word "protection" is under- stood as expressing solidarity between the mighty and the weak in the defence of common and legiti- mate interests. It was not born from a con- 248 The Great Adventure of Panama spiracy fomented by the American authorities. It developed out of the simultaneous and parallel, but distinct, movements in two separate spheres of the same aspiration: the completion of the Panama Canal. Everyone remained in his proper place and acted his legitimate part.* "This statement, already expressed in identical terms in the author's book of 1913: "Panama; the Creation the Destruction the Resurrection," was confirmed by Col. Roosevelt in his book of February, 1916: "Fear God and Take Your Own Part." Here are some quotations of said book: "I saw at the time very many men, American, natives of Panama, and Europeans all of whom told me that they believed a revolution was impending, and most of whom asked me to take sides one way or the other. The most noted of these men whom I now recollect seeing was M. Bunau-Varilla. He, however, did not ask me to take sides one way or the other. To no one of these men did I give any private assurance of any kind one way or the other, referring them simply to my published declarations and acts. "For some reasons certain newspapers have repeatedlystated that Mr. X. Y. [name omitted by the author of this book] was responsible for the revolution. I do not re- member whether Mr. X. Y. was or was not among my callers during the months im- mediately preceding the revolution. But if he was I certainly did not discuss with him anything connected with the revolution. I do not remember his ever speaking to me about the revolution until after it occurred, and my understanding was, and is, that he had nothing whatever to do with the revolutionary movement which actually took place. On information received after the event, 7 believed then, and believe now, that the revolutionary movement which actually succeeded was the one with which M. Bunau- Varilla was connected. He was sent by the Government of Panama as Minister to this country as soon as Panama became an independent state, and he then made no secret of the fact that he had been one of those who had organized the successful revolution precisely as was the case with the President and other officials of the new republic. . . . In view of this double attitude of the Colombian Government, an attitude of tyranny toward Panama and of robbery toward the French Company, M. Bunau-Varilla conceived it to be his duty to do all he could to aid the natives of Panama in throwing off the yoke of Colombia. / believe his attitude was entirely proper. . . . But until after the event I had no knowledge of his activities save the knowledge possessed by all in- telligent men who had studied the affairs of the Isthmus. I gave him no aid or encour- agement. . . . No one connectedwith the American Government instigated the revolu- tion" The Great Adventure of Panama 249 Mr. Roosevelt, during the first revolutionary attempts, avoided anything which could resemble collusion. The abandonment of Amador, by those who had promised him everything, was the obvious demonstration that the American Govern- ment had refused to lend itself to anything of a compromising character. The action of President Roosevelt was as correct as it was active and resolute. Colombia can brandish her titles of property over the Isthmus. Her claim is that of Shy lock asking for the pound of flesh. The title of Shy- lock was also perfectly well established, but his claim was untenable. The claim of Colombia is, and will remain, un- , tenable, because she herself forfeited her rights by her policy, the Boche policy. Her rights chal- lenged superior rights: the right of a nation to exist; the right of humanity to circulate. She had violated the very basis of her sovereign rights, namely, the duty of the sovereign to protect his subjects. With a stroke of the pen she had condemned the whole of the population of one of her provinces to destruction in order to satisfy German greed. With a stroke of the pen she had challenged the 250 The Great Adventure of Panama whole of humanity which had a preeminent right of way across the Isthmus. With a stroke of the pen she had cynically an- nounced her will to confiscate from the French share- and bond-holders all that still remained from the wreck of their great enterprise. With a stroke of the pen she had disavowed her contract for the extension of the term of the French concession, on the pretext that certain formalities had not been fulfilled, whereas through her own fault it had been a physical impossibility to fulfil them. These are the violations of superior rights which made the Revolution of Panama the most legiti- mate of protests against tyranny. These are the .violations of superior rights which vitiate the pro- tests of Colombia, as the very object of the con- tract of Shylock vitiated his claim for its judicial execution. IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES OF THE REVOLUTION I shall not expand upon the incidents following the Revolution of Panama because they form part of that portion of the history which can be read in the public press. Thanks to the valiant decision of the Isthmian The Great Adventure of Panama 251 population and of her leaders: Amador, Arango, Arias, Carlos Arosemena, and others, I had torn the Isthmus and its precious waterway from the Colombiano-German tyranny. I then demonstrated to Secretary Hay that the laurels of final victory would belong to the quickest action. The American Government, completely inde- pendent from any embarrassing connivance with the revolutionists, was free to act. The Panama Government delegated to me un- limited powers to represent the Republic not only before the Washington Government, but also be- fore all governments having embassies or lega- tions at Washington. I could act immediately, and the antipathy generated universally by the inadmissible attitude of Colombia found its expression in the action of all governments of the earth. The German Government did not care to be set aside and to show by its attitude what was its part in Colombian politics. It recognized Panama al- most as soon as the other nations did. The successive events followed with a dazzling rapidity. The Panama Revolution took place on Novem* 252 The Great Adventure of Panama ber 3, 1903. Three days afterward, on Novem- ber 6th, the new Government was recognized de facto by the United States; ten days afterward it was recognized de jure by President Roosevelt; thirteen days afterward it was recognized de jure by the Republic of France fifteen days afterward I signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty which granted the Canal rights in perpetuity to the United States, guaranteed the protection of Panama, and asserted anew the rights of the French Company; thirty days afterward on December 2nd the treaty was ratified by Pan- ama. Finally, on the 23rd of February, 1904, it was ratified by the Senate of the United States without changing a word of its text, and became the law of the land. The rapidity with which this most important document was made is worthy of mention. After my official reception by the President as Minister Plenipotentiary of the Panama Republic, on Friday the 13th of November, I urged Secretary Hay to conclude with the greatest speed the treaty that was to replace the Hay-Herran Treaty. Two days later, on Sunday the fifteenth, he sent me the draft of the treaty he proposed, which was the Hav-Herran Treaty with insignificant modi- The Great Adventure of Panama 253 fications. I saw many flaws in that treaty which could be used by the opposition to raise innumerable obstacles to its ratification. I began on the following day, the 16th, at 6 A. M., to write a completely new one; at 10 p. M. it was finished and I took it myself to Secretary Hay's house. As he had retired, I brought it back home and sent it early the following day, the 17th of November. In the course of the day I had a conference with the Secretary of State. He complimented me on the clearness of the new text. He agreed to all my proposals and we settled the thorny question of the neutrality of the waterway. At 6.40 in the evening of the 18th of November the treaty, drawn up in sixteen hours two days earlier, was signed without any other modification than, in Art. II, the substitution of "leases in perpetuity" by "grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control." In spite of the most violent attacks in the Senate the text was of such strong tissue that not one hole could be made in it. It stands to-day, as it was, when Mr. Hay and I signed it sixteen years ago. I have given a full account of these very interest- ing senatorial debates in my book: "Panama; 254 The Great Adventure of Panama the Creation the Destruction the Resurrection." As the Boche conspiracies organized to wreck the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty though they may have been to some extent influencing this particu- lar battle were not very clearly apparent I shall not expand on this matter. I refer the reader who may be interested in it to my book of 1913 just mentioned. THE HOUR OF THE RESURRECTION Two formalities remained to be fulfilled: the proclamation of the treaty by the President of the United States, and the exchange of ratifications. The former took place on February 25, 1904, and the latter on the day following. At eleven o'clock in the morning Mr. Hay and I exchanged the two treaties duly ratified by our respective governments. In placing our signatures beneath the Act which registered this great fact we rang the hour of the resurrection of the Panama Canal. It was for him and for myself one of those moments which remain engraved in the memory for the rest of one's life. We were both of us deeply moved. Two strokes of a pen were sealing forever the The Great Adventure of Panama 255 Destiny of the Great Thought which had haunted Humanity during four centuries. In an instant I beheld, focussed before my eyes, the efforts and the struggles of the centuries to wring from Nature its mystery, from Man his prejudices. I thought of all those heroes, my comrades in the deadly battle, worthy grandsons of those Gauls who conquered the Ancient World, worthy sons of those Frenchmen who conquered the Modern World, who fell in the struggle against Nature, a smile on their lips, happy to sacrifice their lives to this work which was to render still more dazzling the glory of French genius. I thought of the shameful league of all the pas- sions, of all the hatreds, of all the jealousies, of all the cowardices, of all the ignorances, to crucify this great Idea, and with it all those who had hoped, through its realization, to give France one more glorious page in the history of Humanity. I thought of my solitary work, when I went preaching Truth on the highways. I thought of the untold number of stupidities I had had to destroy, of prejudices I had had to disarm, of insults I had had to submit to, of inter- ests I had had to frustrate, of conspiracies I had 256 The Great Adventure of Panama had to thwart, in order to celebrate the Victory of Truth over Error and mark at last the hour of the Resurrection of the Panama Canal. Mr. Hay silently shared my deep emotion, be- cause he had been the witness of the last four months of efforts, and his mind travelled back with mine over the twenty years which had preceded them. The two signatures once appended we shook hands and I left him simply saying: "It seems to me as if we had together made something great." I went on, having at last unburdened my heart of the load which had so long weighed on it. I had fulfilled my mission, the mission I had taken on myself; I had safeguarded the work of French genius; I had avenged its honour; I had served France. EPILOGUE OF THE EEVOLUTION WHEN I left the Department of State I went to the first telegraph office to inform the Government of Panama that I had accomplished my task, and that at the same time, as Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama, I considered my mis- sion ended. Soon after, the American Govern- ment made use of the rights of option which had The Great Adventure of Panama 257 been granted by the New Company in January, 1902. Two prominent jurists, Messrs W. A. Day, Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, and Charles W. Russell, special Assistant Attorney- General of the United States, came to Paris to execute the deed. They signed it on April 22, 1904, and it became binding on the morrow by ratification at the meeting of the shareholders of the New Company. After paying $40,000,000 to J. P. Morgan & Co. for their subsequent transfer to the New Company, the American Government resumed on the 4th of May the work of completion of the great French undertaking after fifteen years, four^ months, and twenty days' practical suspension of activity. I will mention three among the various ex- pressions of gratitude which came from the most distant sources, and which my friends symbolized in the gift of an admirable medal by Chaplain. I take these three examples because they express the sentiments of the governments of the three in- terested countries. The Government of the French Republic im- mediately conferred upon me the Cross of Officer of the Legion of Honour. It was the first distinc- tion connected with the Panama Canal given since 258 The Great Adventure of Panama the downfall of the Old Company in 1888. This promotion in the Legion of Honour from the rank of Knight to that of Officer possessed, in the cir- cumstances, a significance particularly precious to me. Secretary Hay interpreted the sentiments of the Government of the United States. He wrote when the French Government had shown me, as I have just stated, its appreciation of my services to France this simple and eloquent testimony of his government's appreciation of my services to the United States : It is not often given to any man to render such a service to two countries and to the civilized world as you have done. As to the Republic of Panama the expression of her gratitude came later, but it was all the more eloquent and explicit. When Doctor Amador died, after having filled the office of President of the Republic, I recalled the decisive and courageous part he had played in the liberation of his native land. I wired, the 3rd of May, 1909, to President Obaldia, Amador's successor, the following mes- sage: The Great Adventure of Panama 259 At the moment of the death of your illustrious predeces- sor, I wish to express to Your Excellency how much I share the sorrow of the Republic which he has contributed to establish. His name will remain forever associated with the work of the Union of the Oceans, a thing which would have re- mained a chimera without the formation of the Republic of Panama. My mind goes back with emotion toward those tragic moments of September, 1903, when Amador, betrayed and abandoned, came to confide to me his despair, and when we undertook together the liberation of the Isthmus, which has formed the base of the realization of the "Straits of Panama." His heroic patriotism led the revolution of November 3rd to a successful issue. The slaying of Oppression has unchained Progress. PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA. On May 13, 1909, I received the following answer from President Obaldia: / am grateful to you for the share you take in the sorrow caused by the death of President Amador. The remem- brances you recall have deeply moved the public sentiment. It is a page of our history. Our people will keep eternally engraved in their memory your fruitful services, and will put in a preeminent place the names of Amador and your own. The national gratitude gives them the title of "Bene- factors of Panama" OBALDIA. CHAPTER XIII CONCLUSION I HAVE now led the reader through the labyrinth of the boche intrigues and conspiracies of which Panama was the centre from 1888 to 1903, that is during fourteen solid years. When a child of eleven years I witnessed, with teeth set and fists clinched, the collapse of France in 1870-71. Destiny made this child, fifteen years later, to be the chief engineer of the Panama Canal. During the thirty-four years which lapsed from 1885 to 1914 two ambitions filled my brain and my heart. What I desired far more than any other material or moral satisfaction was, first, to see the immortal creation of the French genius at Panama finally completed for the utility and the service of civiliza- tion; second, to see France washing the slate of his- tory with Prussian blood, and writing with her own in luminous letters the date of her triumph. I always lived with the hope that I should see 260 The Great Adventure of Panama 261 the second phase opened soon after the completion of the first. By an extraordinary coincidence the glorious war of 1914 began on the very same day that the first ocean steamer passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across the Central American Cordillera. I was on that steamer, the Cristobal, on the 3rd of August, 1914. The acclamations of those who saluted the conclusion of the greatest marvel of the Old and of the New World seemed to me as the distant echo of the roar of the guns defending the holy soil of France against her vile invader. The simultaneity of these two parallel ambitions has led me naturally to observe connections be- tween the two orders of facts which escaped other people's attention. I could see distinctly the thin and dissimulated threads which linked the German conspirators and the Panama problem through the political events of France, of the United States, of Colombia, and of Venezuela. The Battle of Verdun has brushed off my right leg from above the knee, but as Stephane Lauzanne wrote me, it has left intact my brains and my heart. I am profoundly happy to be able thanks to this providential preservation to expose publicly 62 The Great Adventure of Panama these mysterious threads which so long were visible to me alone. I have shown that everything points toward the hand of the Boche, in the submarine mine which, in 1888, stranded the financial ship, on which was the fortune of the Panama enterprise. I have shown, in reproducing a letter written and published in 1906, that the author of the article which in 1892 sank forever the French Canal Company, the De Lesseps Company, is Ernest Judet the journalist of then great repute, who is now indicted for high treason committed during the Great War. I have shown how these deadly conspiracies aimed at the destruction of the moral health of France, at the cutting of all the sinews which a nation requires in order to wage war: Confidence in herself, Confidence in her leaders! I have shown how I was able to countercheck these perfidious as well as nefarious plots, and, after ten years of struggle, rehabilitate French Genius in bringing about the adoption by the United States of the foreign-French solution of Panama, in preference to what was held for the National-American solution of Nicaragua. I have shown how after undergoing that defeat The Great Adventure of Panama 263 and, even before, when it was looming above the horizon the Boche changed his batteries and laid snares both in Colombia and in Venezuela simul- taneously to obtain possession of the Canal itself and of a naval J^ase4n-nezuelaJrpm which to exercise a military control on its gate on the Atlantic. I have shown how the Venezuelan snares, laid at the beginning of 1902, were destroyed at the end of the same year by the audacious, energetic ultimatum of President Roosevelt. I have shown how the Boche, when beaten a second time, after having for a moment appeared to relax his intrigues in Colombia, renewed them with the further addition of criminal pressure during the year 1903. I have shown how the Colombian ruling element played hand-in-glove with the German conspira- tors during the year 1903; rejected the Hay-Herran Treaty with the United States; rejected all proposi- tions to fix conditions for a new treaty to be sub- stituted for the Hay-Herran Treaty; decided to adopt the attitude necessary for carrying out the confiscation of the French property in October, 1904, with the obvious intention to transmit that property to Germany disguised under the camou- flage of a Colombian stock company. 264 The Great Adventure of Panama I have shown how I was fortunate enough to frustrate entirely this dastardly plan by the organ- ization of a rebellion on the Isthmus and by the formation of the New Republic of Panama. This rebellion was the most sincere expression of the legitimate revolt of a nation of two hundred and fifty thousand people, who claimed to have the right to dispose of themselves and not to be crushed under the egoistic plan of the Colombian tyrant. The Revolution of Panama formed the culminat- ing and victorious point of the history of the Great Adventure of Panama. I have shown how the new-born Republic was welcomed into the world by the great man whom the United States had chosen for her president, Theodore Roosevelt, and how he and his coadjutor, John Hay, accepted the treaty which I had drawn up and which ran the gauntlet of all the exasper- ated attacks of those whose political, technical, financial, egoistical interests had to be sacrified to the Juggernaut car of Progress and Justice, and which, after nearly one hundred days of desperate struggle, was ratified by the American Senate with' out reservation nor modifications. I have shown how this triumphal, this noble end of the Great Adventure of Panama not only The Great Adventure of Panama 265 dismantled the strong positions which the Boche had erected against France and against the United States, but formed the base of the moral rapproche- ment of these two countries and, in one word, rejuvenated the Franco-American friendship prac- tically destroyed, in 1870, as the result of the Boche-suggested Mexican Expedition. I have shown how this great moral influence was used by President Roosevelt in 1905 to par- alyse the German aggression prepared for that year, and by President Wilson, in 1914, to prevent the interdiction of exporting American munitions of war, and in 1917 to unchain the long-hoped-for American intervention. I have not shown, but it is useful to say this after the three successive defeats of the Boche conspiracies affecting Panama in 1902 and 1903, that a new Boche conspiracy was formed in 1908 always aiming at the military control of Panama. The object of this last conspiracy was the pur- chase of the Galapagos Islands from Ecuador by Germany, which islands command the entrance of the Canal on the Pacific Ocean. It failed also, thanks to the vigilance of Elihu Root, Secretary of State of the United States. But still later on, in 1914, just before the be- 266 The Great Adventure of Panama ginning of the Great War, Germany again at- tempted to inject itself into the military domina- tion of the Panama Canal. She claimed with diplomatic violence to have the right to par- ticipate in the control of the Haytian Customs. Had the war resulted in a German victory, Hayti would have become for Germany an admirable base for launching blackmailing expeditions against Washington. Let this sincere account of the cleverness and persistence of the Boche conspiracies from 1888 to 1914 cause us to meditate on their danger in national politics, and on the havoc they can create. Let us keep a careful eye on all the feeders com- ing from Germany through the financial, economic, religious, political associations, when their General Staff has its head in Germany or in states as- sociated with her. They are the natural transmitters of her subtly disguised and criminal intrigues. The more in- nocent the nature of these associations appears to be the less innocent and the more fraught with danger it actually will be, inasmuch as the Boche will undoubtedly so manipulate the credit and the authority derivable from those associations as to The Great Adventure of Panama 267 make them subservient to the promotion of his nefarious and poisoned conspiracies. Let the governments of the United States, of Great Britain and France establish a system to watch these Boche conspiracies and prevent their nefarious consequence. Let the governments of these three great nations always remember that their union was the prin- cipal cause of the victory and will be the only but powerful factor of the maintenance of the Peace. Let the great triangle af the Atlantic: America, Great Britain, and France form the base of future civilization. Let the lessons drawn from the great Adventure of Panama show to each of them that the Trinity of the Tricolor must henceforth lead Humanity and prohibit the Nefarious Black and White of Prussia from preparing its crimes for the conquest of the World and the destruction of all non- Germanic races. THE END THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N .Y. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. M } . nrp o 1 TCT i OEC 8 '64 -4PM tfl C ? A ' 9 :i HOV17196521 j~'O JUN 1 10 PC 1 a rr B^- C c oOV wvlt J. UUO O 7 #*** : r . R^c ^ i n VP^ " JUN ?9 i.qfift LIBRARY USE a^4 A MAR 18 1967 w J619>*- ^ REC ^ mo 1 8 67 -11 Afi ^^ hUGi?^-^ 'HII JL W **/ JL1 *" ! "<^ h^ u - cV ^ sS> FEB 2 2001 ^N ^ LD 21A-40m-ll,'63 (E1602slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley F 116409 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY