The Heritage of Conflict
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Chapter 17 The Heritage of Conflict Unless the United States gives away the Panama Canal it will have in the future to deal with today's Panamanian youth, who will have grown into Panamanian politicians. How are* they to learn the truth about who created their Republic? Are North Americans willing to face up to their share of responsibility for the "tragedy of errors" that led to President Theodore Roosevelt's "taking" the Isthmus? The history of the creation of the Republic of Panama will always be clouded with the conflicting personalities and contradictory assertions of two brilliant men, Crom- well and Bunau-Varilla. More should be recorded than can be compressed into a short book about the contradictions of these two extraordinary men, each credited largely or in part with the paternity of the Republic. Bunau-Varilla died in Paris in 1940 at the age of 81, ac- claimed there for having "engineered a revolution" to ful- fill his boyhood dream of canal building in Panama. But in Panama his memory is reviled and he has been hanged in effigy by anti-Americans who say Bunau-Varilla negotiated 146 The Heritage of Conflict 147 a treaty so good for the United States and so bad for Pan- ama that he was guilty of a "great treason." Cromwell died in New York in 1948 at the age of 94. Despite his grievance that the French Panama Canal Com- pany's liquidators cut his bill for fees and disbursements from $832,449.38 to $228,282.71, he gave generously to the American Library in Paris, where he spent many of his later years. He told his French clients that his own time almost exclusively and much of his partners' had been devoted to Panama Canal matters for eight years and that consequently his firm had been compelled to turn away much lucrative law business. Still he left a fortune of $19,000,000. Who's Who in America had no mention of Cromwell prior to its edition of 1903-05. Then it recorded: CROMWELL, WILLIAM NELSON, lawyer; now sen- ior of law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell; specialty is cor- poration law; organized, 1899, National Tube Co. (capi- tal $80,000,000); since then many other corporations; ap- pointed assignee and reorganized Decker, Howell & Co., 1890, and later Price, McCormick & Co., which had failed for several millions and put both on paying basis; officer, director or counsel of more than 20 other of the largest corporations in U.S., including U.S. Steel Corporation. Engaged by Panama Canal Co. of France and was instru- mental in securing passage of Panama Canal bill in Con- gress, now engaged in perfecting details of the transfer of Panama Canal to U.S. Government. In later editions of Who's Who appeared a list of some of Cromwell's corporate connections, including the various light and power companies from which it was known that he accumulated part of his vast fortune. Among them was his directorship in the Bowling Green Trust Company, through which dollars were siphoned to Panama to finance the "revolution." Several Panamanian patriots told me in 1910 they were certain it was Cromwell's guarantee, not Bunau-Varilla's, back of their borrowing $100,000 at the Bowling Green. 148 The Untold Story of Panama On his side of the ledger, Cromwell got for his French client escape from having to pay Colombia for permission to transfer to the United States its bankrupt canal diggings and its about-to-lapse concession. He succeeded in protect- ing the speculative profits of those who knew there was a the "killing" to be made in the securities of the "Old" and "New" Panama Canal companies who would have lost their share of whatever Colombia exacted for a transfer fee. And Cromwell made for himself the profitable job of managing the finances of the Infant Republic. John Foster Dulles, now Secretary of State, was studying international law at the Sorbonne, Paris, 1908-09, when The World was seeking in vain to uncover in Paris the records of Cromwell's client, the French Panama Canal Company. Dulles began the practice of law in the Cromwell office in New York in 1911, became a partner in 1920 and senior partner in 1927. His younger brother, Allen W. Dulles, later to become Director of Central Intelligence Agency under the Executive Office of the President, was in the United States Foreign Service for ten years before joining the Crom- well firm in 1926. In retrospect, Cromwell's manipulations contributed to- ward Theodore Roosevelt's thinking that as President he owed it to his country to do what he did; that it was morally right to support with armed force the Panama "revolution" and to be the dominant factor in setting up the Colombian province of Panama as the Panama Republic. T.R. had been forearmed, as early as August, 1903, with a special memorandum by John Bassett Moore, eminent au- thority on international law, against the later accusation that his "taking" of the Isthmus was in violation of the treay of 1846-48 with Colombia. Under that treaty, which was still in force in 1903, the United States guaranteed to Colombia (then called New Granada) the "rights of sovereignty over the said territory" in return for the right of free transit across Colombia's Isthmus of Panama. The "Moore Memo- randum" in effect held that the United States guaranteed The Heritage of Conflict 149 Colombia against attack by a foreign power but not against internal revolution. The Moore interpretation of the 1846- 48 treaty, as well as Professor Moore's admitted assistance in preparing President Roosevelt's message to Congress in support of his action, loomed large in the controversy over eventual ratification of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty, February 26, 1904. Whether the United States did or did not directly and deliberately violate its treaty with Colombia, the fact will always remain that the United States did prevent Colombia from putting down the Panama "revolution." That fact un- fortunately cost the United States the distrust and ill will of all of Latin America. Goodwill has been slowly and pain- fully regained, starting with the negotiation of the Thomp- son-Urrutia Treaty, signed in Bogota April 6, 1914, and re- sulting eventually in 1922 in the apologetic payment by the United States of $25,000,000 to Colombia. This was in par- tial reparation for Colombia's loss of territory and loss of income from the Panama Railroad and the Panama Canal The Thompson-Urrutia Treaty recognized the title to Pan- ama Canal facilities as vested in the United States. Credit for the 1922 adjustment with Colombia belongs largely to the late James T. Du Bois, of Hallstead, Penns- sylvania, a State Department veteran who was sent to Bo- gota as American Minister in 1911 to seek a way out of the impasse of America's refusal to submit the seizure of Pan- ama to international arbitration. In a pamphlet published in 1914 Mr. Du Bois said: An impartial investigation at Bogota, running over a 'black- period of two years, convinced me that instead of mailers' and 'bandits' [T.R.'s characterization] the pub- lic men of Colombia compare well with the public men of other countries in intelligence and respectability .... I deplore Colonel Roosevelt's bitter and misleading at- tack In the Panama incident, while doing what he in accord- believed to be a great thing for mankind and mo- ance with the principles of the highest international 150 The Untold Story of Panama himself rality, he did a bad thing for Colombia. He put in the position of a dentist apprentice who pulled the wrong tooth; he cannot put it back and he does not want his employer to realize his mistake .... Owing to the tender regard for ex-President Roosevelt contained in my instructions [from the Taft Administra- tion] I failed. The Wilson Administration has taken a broader and more correct view of the entire question and has presented to the American people a treaty that ought to be heartily approved .... [The treaty was finally rati- fied under the Harding Administration in 1922.] I am a Republican and have been all my life, and I have been urged not to make this statement public be- cause a successful issue of the treaty will help the Wilson Administration. I do not care to live to greet that day when my love of party smothers my love of justice and halts my courage in doing what I believe is right for the true interests of my country. It will take courage of equally high degree to face up to the multiple dangers that threaten the future of the Pan- ama Canal. Propaganda for wresting control of the Panama Canal from the United States and giving the Canal to the United Nations is far-reaching and persistent, with articulate spokesmen even in the United States. Clamor of misguided intellectuals and communist stooges for nationalization of the Canal by the Republic of Panama is too serious to be yawned off by apathetic ig- norance. And a continuing problem, too little understood by United States taxpayers, who own the Canal, or by its Pan- amanian beneficiaries, involves both engineering and pol- itics. Modernization of the Panama Canal and considera- tion of a possible alternative waterway via Nicaragua and Costa Rica should not be neglected any longer by the United States Congress. Chapter 18 Navigable Lake Canal vs. Sea-Level at Panama Reform does not grow as rapidly as vegetation in the tropics.