crippling blow will have been struck at the best of all AngloSaxon traditions. The value of international relations would be changed and the world would be different.

We will close this line of observations with appropriate comments by Charles Francis Adams:

"I feel strongly on the subject, and also as an American citizen, somewhat humiliated by the turn discussion is taking. So far as I can see, it is shockingly low in tone; quite worthy, perhaps, of 'Little Jack Horner,' but altogether unworthy of the occasion.

"The keynote of the discussion, it strikes me as I suggested to you last evening-should have been Hamilton's somewhat famous remark that the American people must learn to think continentally.' This was said with an eye to provincial conditions then (1787) existing, and impeding the attainment of nationality. We have got beyond that now; and, in the present case, it is most desirable the American people should be made to think cosmopolitanly. We have attained a higher status.

"So it irritates and mortifies me to have this tolls discussion conducted, as it is the tendency to conduct it, on a country crossroads grocery level. I hear it said, for instance, by those who, it seems to me, should know better, that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was a mistake and for us a 'bad bargain,' but we must make the best of it.' On the other hand, I hear it suggested that the treaty admits of a police-court construction, under which, by having recourse to a quibble and reading words into it, we would secure certain advantages-as much, for instance, as five cents, possibly, a head for each inhabitant!

"I take a wholly different view of the matter. I

insist upon it that the treaty is in no way ‘a bad bargain'; it was, on the contrary, negotiated in a large cosmopolitan spirit, and, dealing with a world-issue, it is in every respect right, sound, and as it should be. The negotiators appreciated the fact that this was a world question, and, rising to an equality with it, small local interests and temporary advantages were eliminated from consideration. They so acted, and they were right in so acting. It was a large, statesmanlike, world-wide, all-time view.

SHOULD LIVE UP TO SPIRIT

"In this spirit they negotiated a treaty in which the United States was the principal factor and largest party in interest. The United States should now, in my judgment, live up to this-not bargain; that is a low huckstering term-but should live up to this international pact. It is essentially cosmopolitan, and should be dealt with in a cosmopolitan and not a ten-and-six spirit.

"That larger and higher aspiration dictated the terms of a treaty under which no nation was to have any advantage over any other nation, and the peoples of the world were to use this international thoroughfare on terms of absolute equality, one with another. There were to be no small preferences. What was law for one was to be law for another. And this was right!

"The enforcement of that law and this pact was then left with the United States. Such being the case, we should, in my judgment, be the very last people on earth to read into the treaty what is not plainly there, or to claim under it any exclusive or sordid benefit. We should say that we propose to enforce the rule of absolute

equality in the use of the canal on other nations; and, at the outset, we would set an example by enforcing it upon ourselves. Recognizing the fact that we are a republic and a great one, we should treat with contempt all huckstering suggestions. All the time and above all, we should bear in mind that this is not a tradesman deal, to be disposed of on a county court level. Let it be borne in mind that in every step now taken the United States is on trial; and, being so, should show a disposition to live, both in letter and spirit, up to the high standard which influenced the negotiators when the treaty was formulated. Not a bargain, it should be construed in no pettifogging or shop-keeper spirit. It speaks for itselfa world pact!

"If therefore, the people of the United States, represented by Congress, are not now prepared to think cosmopolitanly on this issue, they will simply show to an onlooking world that as a republic they are not equal to the occasion which is presented. The corner-grocery spirit will have asserted mastery. This, it seems to me, would be truly lamentable; but President Wilson is peculiarly well situated to emphasize the larger point of view."

MANNER OF SECURING TITLE

President Roosevelt said in this message of January 4, 1904, laying before Congress the Panama treaty:

“The proper position for the United States to assume in reference to this canal, and therefore to the Governments of the Isthmus, had been clearly set forth by Secretary Cass in 1858. In my annual message I have already quoted what Secretary Cass said; but I repeat

the quotation here, because the principle it states is fundamental:

While the rights of sovereignty of the States occupying this region (Central America) should always be respected, we shall expect that these rights be exercised in a spirit befitting the occasion and the wants and circumstances that have arisen. Sovereignty has its duties as well as its rights, and none of these local Governments, even if administered with more regard to the just demands of other nations than they have been, would be permitted in a spirit of eastern isolation to close the gates of intercourse on the great highways of the world and justify the act by the pretension that these avenues of trade and travel belong to them and that they choose to shut them, or, what is almost equivalent, to encumber them with such unjust relations as would prevent their general use.

"The principle thus enunciated by Secretary Cass was sound then and it is sound now. The United States has taken the position that no other Government is to build the canal. In 1889, when France proposed to come to the aid of the French Panama Company by guaranteeing their bonds, the Senate of the United States in executive session, with only some three votes dissenting, passed a resolution, as follows:

That the Government of the United States will look with serious concern and disapproval upon any connection of any European Government with the construction or control of any ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien or across Central America, and must regard any such connection or control as injurious to the just rights and interests of the United States and as a menace to their welfare.

"Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty it was explicitly provided that the United States should control, police and protect the canal which was to be built, keeping it open for vessels of all nations on equal terms. The United States

thus assumed the position of guarantor of the canal and of its peaceful use by all the world."

Recently ex-President Roosevelt is reported as saying: "For four hundred years there had been conversation about the need of the Panama Canal. The time for further conversation had passed, the time to translate words into deeds had come.

"It is only because the then [my] administration acted precisely as it did act that we now have the Panama Canal.

"The interests of the civilized people of the world demanded the construction of the canal. Events had shown that it could not be built by a private concern. We as a nation would not permit it to be built by a foreign Government. Therefore, we were in honor bound to build it ourselves.

*

"Panama declared her independence, her citizens acting with absolute unanimity. We promptly acknowledged her independence. She forthwith concluded with us a treaty substantially like that we had negotiated with Colombia for the same sum of money. We then immediately took the Canal Zone and began the construction of the canal.

"The case demanded immediate and decisive action. I took this action. Taking the action meant taking the Canal Zone and building the canal. Failure to take the action would have meant that the Canal Zone would not have been taken and that the canal would not have been built."