But unfortunately in international matters every
nation must be judged by the action of its Government. The good people
in Colombia apparently made no effort, certainly no successful effort,
to cause the Government to act with reasonable good faith towards the
United States; and Colombia had to take the consequences. If Brazil,
or the Argentine, or Chile, had been in possession of the Isthmus,
doubtless the canal would have been built under the governmental control
of the nation thus controlling the Isthmus, with the hearty acquiescence
of the United States and of all other powers. But in the actual fact the
canal would not have been built at all save for the action I took. If
men choose to say that it would have been better not to build it, than
to build it as the result of such action, their position, although
foolish, is compatible with belief in their wrongheaded sincerity. But
it is hypocrisy, alike odious and contemptible, for any man to say both
that we ought to have built the canal and that we ought not to have
acted in the way we did act.
After a sufficient period of wrangling, the Senate ratified the treaty
with Panama, and work on the canal was begun. The first thing that
was necessary was to decide the type of canal.
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