The Path Between the Seas

by David McCullough

On January 28, Senator John Coit Spooner introduced an amendment to the Hepburn Bill. It authorized the President to acquire the French company’s Panama property and concessions at a cost not to exceed $40,000,000; to acquire from Colombia perpetual control of a canal zone at least six miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama; and to build a Panama canal. If a clear title or a satisfactory agreement with Colombia could not be reached within “a reasonable time,” then the President was authorized to proceed with a canal at Nicaragua. If passed, the proposal would obviously transform the House bill into an entirely new measure. It was the strongest evidence of all that Roosevelt had made up his mind that it must be a Panama canal.