Colombia's
wrongdoing, therefore, recoiled on her own head. There was no new
lesson taught; it ought already to have been known to every one that
wickedness, weakness, and folly combined rarely fail to meet punishment,
and that the intent to do wrong, when joined to inability to carry
the evil purpose to a successful conclusion, inevitably reacts on the
wrongdoer.
For the full history of the acquisition and building of the canal see
"The Panama Gateway," by Joseph Bucklin Bishop (Scribner's Sons). Mr.
Bishop has been for eight years secretary of the commission and is one
of the most efficient of the many efficient men to whose work on the
Isthmus America owes so much.
CHAPTER XV
THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
There can be no nobler cause for which to work than the peace of
righteousness; and high honor is due those serene and lofty souls who
with wisdom and courage, with high idealism tempered by sane facing
of the actual facts of life, have striven to bring nearer the day when
armed strife between nation and nation, between class and class, between
man and man shall end throughout the world. Because all this is true, it
is also true that there are no men more ignoble or more foolish, no men
whose actions are fraught with greater possibility of mischief to their
country and to mankind, than those who exalt unrighteous peace as better
than righteous war.
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