The Path Between the Seas

by David McCullough

his fear that Roosevelt’s “impetuous and violent disposition” might lead him to seize Panama by eminent domain, on the ground of universal public utility.

The State of Panama will secede if the Colombian Congress fails to ratify the canal treaty.

The citizens of Panama propose, after seceding, to make a treaty with the United States,

Bolívar, the Liberator, was known as the “George Washington of South America.”

the United States would pay the full asking price of $40,000,000 for the Panama holdings.

“we might make another treaty, not with Colombia, but with Panama.”

by the tenets of the old Bidlack Treaty the United States already had sufficient legal grounds

The “right of way” at Panama was already “free and open” to the United States, as stated in the treaty of 1846.

The first was to proceed to construct the canal under the treaty of 1846, and “fight Colombia if she objects.”

he had come to New York to help arrange a revolutionary takeover at Panama.

to secure some kind of assurance from the American Secretary of State that a revolution would be given military support by the United States.

but Cromwell said that if Duque provided $100,000 to finance the revolution, then he, Cromwell, would see that Duque was made the first president of the new republic.

Hay is said to have given Duque no promise of direct American assistance in the conspiracy.

United States was determined to build a Panama canal and did not propose to let Colombia stand in the way.

Should revolutionists take possession of Colón and Panama City, he said, they could depend on the United States to ...

Duque understood perfectly. And no sooner had he descended the front steps of the State Department than he was on his way to the Colombian legation to see Tomás Herrán and tell him everything.

Squeals to oppositr side

Cromwell had been doublecrossed.

if the treaty was not ratified, Panama in all probability would secede, and with American support.

Cromwell, determined to protect himself and safeguard the interests of his client, had decided to have no further ostensible dealings with conspirators from Panama.

He had ordered that two or three picked men from the Army be sent to Panama in civilian dress to appraise the situation from a military point of view and to report back to him personally.

warning of dire consequences should the Colombians reject the treaty.

“A revolution?” murmured Roosevelt (according to Bunau-Varilla’s account). “Would it be possible?”

He is a very able fellow, and it was his business to find out what he thought our Government would do.

The one element lacking for the moment was a flag for the new republic.

The entire state of affairs, declared the Frenchman, would end in a revolution, and Hay agreed that this, unfortunately, was the most probable hypothesis.

Plainly the American Secretary of State was trying to tell him something.

From all they had seen, the officers told the President, a revolution on the Isthmus could be expected at any moment.

Amador that he and his junta would be protected by American forces within forty-eight hours after they proclaimed their new republic.

but bringing in his suitcase a strange silk “flag of liberation” that Madame Bunau-Varilla and Bigelow’s daughter Grace had spent nearly all Sunday stitching together “in the greatest secrecy.”

Bunau-Varilla said he could not wait that long. He wanted the revolution to occur on November 3—election day in the United States—which

But mainly he worried over the possible movement of Colombian troops from Cartagena to Panama, a turn of fate that, if it came too soon, could wreck everything.

But then it dawned that Amador wanted him to send an American man-of-war to Colón at his, Amador’s, request.

“The words I had heard could have but one interpretation: ‘A cruiser has been sent to Colón.’ ”

If a ship had been ordered to Colón, it would be the Nashville, the one stationed nearest Colón, which, as he knew, had been in Colón earlier in the month.

Had the doctor been searched, however, he would have been found to have an odd-looking flag wrapped about his waist.

Amador’s report evoked only disappointment or harsh disapproval.

The expectation had been that Amador would return with an actual agreement signed by John Hay or possibly even Roosevelt himself.

A new flag was designed by

with Shaler’s blessing, Prescott had shifted all idle rolling stock, every car that might be used to transport troops, out of the yards and back to the Panama City end of the line.

To Amador’s fellow conspirators, however, it was the long-awaited decisive moment, the irrefutable sign that the United States stood prepared to guarantee their success, that Amador’s Frenchman was truly their deliverer.

but far worse was the realization that the American ship had made no move to prevent the Colombian troops—and assuredly a Colombian firing squad—from coming ashore.

He would do all he could to hold the troops in Colón, Shaler said, but he did not know how long it would be before they became suspicious and decided to take things into their own hands.

His specific, secret orders now—orders issued the day before, November 2—were to prevent the landing of Colombian troops.

leave the arms stalled in the jungle.

At a command the soldiers stopped and swung about with bayonets lowered at the astonished generals. “Generals, you are my prisoners,” said the officer in command, a young captain named Salazar.

The United States has fully entered into this movement . . . and our independence is guaranteed by that colossus.”

Colombia, the sovereign, was to be denied the right to land its own troops on the pretext that the United States was obligated to maintain “free and uninterrupted transit” on the railroad.

Without the military presence of the United States—had there been no American gunboats standing off shore at Colón and Panama City—the Republic of Panama probably would not have lasted a week.

“the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis”

“Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.”