From the beginning to the end our course was straightforward and in
absolute accord with the highest of standards of international morality.
Criticism of it can come only from misinformation, or else from a
sentimentality which represents both mental weakness and a moral twist.
To have acted otherwise than I did would have been on my part betrayal
of the interests of the United States, indifference to the interests of
Panama, and recreancy to the interests of the world at large. Colombia
had forfeited every claim to consideration; indeed, this is not stating
the case strongly enough: she had so acted that yielding to her would
have meant on our part that culpable form of weakness which stands on a
level with wickedness. As for me personally, if I had hesitated to act,
and had not in advance discounted the clamor of those Americans who have
made a fetish of disloyalty to their country, I should have esteemed
myself as deserving a place in Dante's inferno beside the faint-hearted
cleric who was guilty of "il gran rifiuto." The facts I have given
above are mere bald statements from the record. They show that from
the beginning there had been acceptance of our right to insist on free
transit, in whatever form was best, across the Isthmus; and that towards
the end there had been a no less universal feeling that it was our
duty to the world to provide this transit in the shape of a canal--the
resolution of the Pan-American Congress was practically a mandate
to this effect.
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