illustrious political position and an immense fortune." He thought this could be done "without any diminution of the national sovereignty," that is, by letting the United States build the canal, and Colombia control it!

On August 29, 1902, Commissioners of the Colombian Senate drafted the Project of Law, which was designed to "satisfy the vehement desire of the Colombian people touching the excavation of the Panama Canal.” This provided that Colombia should receive $20,000,000 from the United States and $10,000,000 from the Canal Company; that the United States should pay the $250,000 a year rental for the Panama Railway; that likewise it should pay to Colombia for the easement on the Canal zone $150,000 a year until 1967, when the amount was to be increased to $400,000 a year, with a stipulation for renewing the period of easement by the payment of twenty-five per cent additional over and above the charges for the preceding period. Of course the sovereignty of Colombia was to be supreme over the entire Isthmus. The Dictator himself (Señor Marroquin) published a book, Canal de Panama, Bogotá, 1903, in which prominent citizens recorded their contempt of the United States for its "disposition to haggle about the price. . . like a rich man taking advantage of the poverty of a harebrained blusterer, to whom he proposes terms he would never dare to offer for the same property to another rich man able to stand up for his own rights in the transaction."

And so, the Hay-Herran Treaty having reached Bogotá, the generals in charge of the government, who had been living in this supernormal atmosphere of large aspirations and big figures, rejected the treaty, in August, 1903.

Colombia was under military rule. General Rafael Reyes and his army were back of Dictator Marroquin, and every member of the "Congress" was a man selected directly or indirectly by Reyes. While Marroquin pretended to favor the treaty, every member of the "Senate" voted against it!

III

In order to appreciate the magnitude of Colombia's attempted "hold-up" to view it in its true perspective, one should pause to consider briefly the Isthmus of Panama, in its political, economic, and sociological aspects.

In 1846 the United States and New Granada had entered into a treaty by which it was stipulated that American citizens and the United States government should always have free transit across the Isthmus. In this treaty the United States guaranteed the neutrality

of that territory. At least fifty revolutions have broken out, and on several occasions the United States has been compelled to land troops for the protection of life and property and the maintenance of transIsthmian Commerce. Panama, even before its present autonomy, had known what it is to be independent, and it has been asserted by competent authorities that the intervention of the United States to maintain the neutrality of the Isthmus furnished more than once (however unintentionally) the vital element in the preservation of the sovereignty of Colombia. In 1903 Panama was ripe for another break for independence.

What was the actual economic value of the strip of land sought of Colombia by the United States in 1903 for the canal, - not its opportune or strategic, but its economic, value?

It was evident that Colombia had no money with which to build that canal. The former French company had failed, and the spasmodic efforts of the new company were only occasional and accomplished little. What real loss, if any, would accrue to Colombia by the taking of that strip of land for canal purposes?

Ordinary land is sold by the government of Colombia for about five hundred dollars per square league. A square league consists of nine square miles, or five thousand seven hundred and sixty acres. Although most of the soil of Colombia is the richest in the world, nobody wants it, even at the pittance asked, and almost all Colombia is an undeveloped wilderness, government land. The least desirable part of Colombia, economically speaking, is the region of the proposed Panama Canal route.

The area of the Canal itself would be less than the content of two square leagues. Land equal in quantity, and much better in quality for any but canal purposes, could ordinarily be bought of the Colombian government for one thousand dollars. The narrow piece of land on each side of the canal route (wanted by the United States on a hundred-year lease with renewals at its pleasure) contains less than one hundred square leagues, an area that would ordinarily be worth about fifty thousand dollars. But let us call it one hundred thousand dollars. The gap between one hundred thousand dollars, on the one hand, and ten million dollars, plus the two hundred and fifty thousand dollar payments, on the other, left room for a liberal valuation of the opportune or strategic value, and all "extras."

A hundred individual landowners in Mexico not accounted very rich men own separate tracts of land, each much larger than the entire strip wanted by the United States for the Panama Canal. Many individuals own in Latin-American countries five times as much land as this strip contains, and excite no more notice than a man would with half a million dollars in Wall Street.

Not only was the land constituting this canal strip of inconsiderable economic value, but the climate of the region was intolerable, destroy

ing the energy and undermining the health of any person compelled to stay there. Malaria and all kinds of diseases infested the locality, and no one but a young man of iron constitution and unquestioned courage and determination could withstand the horrors awaiting him there. But if plagues of noxious insects and reptiles beset the land, while malarial poison and fever germs filled the atmosphere with disease, and undrinkable water and uneatable food aided in destroying the health and vitality, and a climate insufferable because of its heat and humidity added its quota to the dread array of afflictions, yet all these fearful evils were more endurable than the social and political conditions which prevailed there. Under the administration of Colombia this region was the most shameless hotbed of murder, rapine, intrigue, revolution, and crime to be found on the earth. One wave of political assassination (euphemistically called revolution) was swiftly followed by another. Murder trod on the heels of murder, and the living dwelt in constant terror.

Violence and anarchy stalking abroad; one military rule after another; bands of ragged, debauched, half-breed soldiers, living on loot and forced contributions; semi-bandits holding the reins of misgovernment through intrigues with military Jefes, appropriating to their own uses the revenues of the government, stifling all industry by their enormous levies of blackmail, disregarding all legal rights, international as well as domestic, so reads Colombia's wretched history, a long and blackened page of debauchery, bribery, iniquity, and crime. It seemed impracticable, if not impossible, to carry on the peaceful vocations of civilization in that stricken country. The unhappy land had known in seven years not twenty-four hours of peace.

IV

Such was the general situation, and such the disposition of pieces and of pawns upon the chess-board of the Isthmus, when, on November 3, 1903, the people of Panama, disgusted and outraged by the military oligarchy's rejection in Bogotá of the Hay-Herran Treaty, and by the recurring years of misrule and corruption (again become unendurable), raised once more, for the fiftieth or the hundredth time, the banner of revolution.

President Roosevelt at once recognized the Republic of Panama, and the ensuing treaty guaranteed its independence. For once the "Latin-American International Lawyer" was confounded.

The President's conduct in this connection was not open to the slightest criticism. Indeed his patriotism, energy, and moral courage had prevented the United States from being victimized by the Colombian guerrillas.

After the Isthmian canal route had been secured through the treaty with Panama (the Hay-Varilla convention), ratifications of

which were exchanged at Washington on February 26, 1904, Colombia contributed a plaintive little epilogue. General Rafael Reyes, then as now the dominant power there, proposed that if the President of the United States would undo what had been done, would subdue the infant Republic of Panama, and would restore it to the sovereignty of Colombia, the Colombian government would ratify the Hay-Herran Treaty, and give the United States all it asked — or even more. Not only was this amazing proposition highly incongruous, but, in fact, the terms of the Hay-Varilla Treaty are slightly more favorable to the United States than were those of the Hay-Herran proposed treaty as rejected by Colombia. General Reyes was too late. The Colombians had killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

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CHAPTER XV

THE PANAMA MASSACRE IN 1856

HE massacre of Americans and other foreigners at Panama on April 15, 1856, was on a larger scale than the usual LatinAmerican atrocity. Generally the outrage is directed against an individual, or at best a few persons; in this case several hundred people were comprehended within the scope of the tragedy. On account of the gold excitement in California, travel from the Eastern States westward at this time was extremely heavy. The route across the Isthmus was by far the best one to the gold fields. The muleteers, boatmen, and innkeepers of the Isthmus had for some years been reaping a harvest in the transportation business; but the Panama Railroad, which was completed in 1855, cut off this source of revenue, and the natives now longed to be revenged upon the Americans for having introduced an institution that so adversely affected their business.

About a thousand Americans, many of whom were women and children, had landed from the Illinois at Colon, and had crossed to Panama, expecting to embark in the John L. Stephens for San Francisco. This vessel was lying in the harbor about two miles off shore, and a small boat called the Taboga was to be used in transferring the passengers from the railway station to the steamer. There was a delay of several hours in Panama, until the tide should serve. A large number of the passengers remained in the railway station, while others went to hotels and eating-houses in the vicinity.

A graphic description of the occurrence is given by Richard Belleville, in "Gunter's Magazine," for March, 1905, as follows:

"A good many of the ladies were carrying large quantities of the precious metal, obtained by the sales of their old homes in the Eastern States, intended for the purchase of new homes upon the Pacific coast. Wells, Fargo, & Co.'s tariff being very high for the transportation of the treasure either to or from California, the ladies carried their funds secreted in their baggage or about their persons; in addition some of the male passengers bore around their waists belts full of gold pieces.

"This had become very well known during their few hours' passage across the Isthmus and sojourn in the town- not only to the lower classes about the railway station, but also the Chief of Police and the Governor of Panama. It was an opportunity not to be missed.