" The naked meaning of this was that Colombia
proposed to wait a year, and then enforce a forfeiture of the rights and
property of the French Panama Company, so as to secure the forty million
dollars our Government had authorized as payment to this company. If we
had sat supine, this would doubtless have meant that France would have
interfered to protect the company, and we should then have had on the
Isthmus, not the company, but France; and the gravest international
complications might have ensued. Every consideration of international
morality and expediency, of duty to the Panama people, and of
satisfaction of our own national interests and honor, bade us take
immediate action. I recognized Panama forthwith on behalf of the United
States, and practically all the countries of the world immediately
followed suit. The State Department immediately negotiated a canal
treaty with the new Republic. One of the foremost men in securing the
independence of Panama, and the treaty which authorized the United
States forthwith to build the canal, was M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, an
eminent French engineer formerly associated with De Lesseps and then
living on the Isthmus; his services to civilization were notable, and
deserve the fullest recognition.
Pages:
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859