On August 14, having finished a lunch with the President at Saga-more Hill, the President’s home at Oyster Bay, Long Island, Senator Shelby Cullom, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, held a press conference with reporters from the New York papers. The President, he said, was fully prepared for bad news from Bogotá and the President still wanted a Panama canal. “What will be done is a matter of discussion and consideration after the Colombian Congress has finally acted.” When a reporter asked how the canal could be built without the treaty, Cullom replied in a matter-of-fact way that “we might make another treaty, not with Colombia, but with Panama.”
Was the United States prepared to foster a Panama revolution? he was asked.
“No, I suppose not. But this country wants to build that canal and build it now.”
The interview appeared the morning of August 15, the same day the long-awaited cable from Beaupré reached the State Department. Three days before, on August 12, the Colombian Senate had rejected the Hay-Herrán Treaty by a unanimous vote.
The President was notified immediately, as was the Secretary of State, who was also away from Washington at his summer place on Lake Sunapee in Newbury, New Hampshire. All matters of consequence at the State Department were being attended to by Acting Secretary Francis B. Loomis and Second Assistant Secretary Alvey A. Adee, both conversant with the Colombian situation. Adee, a man of vast experience with the department, a friend and colleague of John Hay’s for thirty years, had installed a cot in his office and was on duty virtually around the clock.
Roosevelt’s mounting frustration with the entire situation had become a source of some concern to Hay. “Those contemptible little creatures in Bogotá ought to understand how much they are jeopardizing things and imperiling their own future,” Roosevelt had written earlier in the summer. Hay’s instinctive response, then as now, was to urge restraint, patience. “I would come at once to Oyster Bay to get your orders,” he now wrote, “but I am sure there is nothing to be done, for the moment.” He advised consultation with Hanna and Spooner. Then, pointedly, he referred to Nicaragua as the “simple and easy” course, adding, “If you finally conclude to close with Nicaragua, it will be quick work to get a treaty ready. But I presume you may think best to do nothing definite until our Congress meets . . .”
It was Hay at his best and a very different letter than he would have written had Cromwell been with him in New Hampshire. It crossed in the mail with another angry missive from Roosevelt saying, “We may have to give a lesson to those jack rabbits.”
These must have been exciting days for anyone sorting the mail in the little New Hampshire community. On August 18, Alvey Adee cautioned the Secretary by letter against any thought of American involvement in a Panama revolution. “Such a scheme could, of course, have no countenance from us–our policy before the world should stand, like Mrs. Caesar, without suspicion.” A day later Adee wrote again to suggest to Hay that maybe, after all, Nicaragua was the best way out. “. . . We are very sorry, but really we can’t help it if Colombia doesn’t want the Canal on our terms.”
But writing to Hay that same day, Roosevelt left no doubt as to his position concerning Panama. “. . . It seems that the great bulk of the best engineers are agreed that that route is the best; and I do not think that the Bogotá lot of jack rabbits should be allowed permanently to bar one of the future highways of civilization . . . what we do now will be of consequence, not merely decades, but centuries hence, and we must be sure that we are taking the right step before we act.”
Roosevelt’s particular interest at the moment was a memorandum that had been sent on to him by Acting Secretary Loomis, a lengthy document prepared by a specialist in international law and diplomacy at Columbia University, Professor John Bassett Moore, which Roosevelt now forwarded to Hay. Professor Moore’s thesis, in essence, was that by the tenets of the old Bidlack Treaty the United States already had sufficient legal grounds to proceed with the canal. The “right of way” at Panama was already “free and open” to the United States, as stated in the treaty of 1846. Hay went to Sagamore Hill on August 28, and there, while numerous Roosevelt children in light summer clothes scampered over a great green sweep of lawn, the two men conferred at length. Afterward, a correspondent for the Herald sent a long dispatch to his office. The President and the Secretary had settled on three possible courses of action in view of the failure of the canal treaty. The first was to proceed to construct the canal under the treaty of 1846, and “fight Colombia if she objects.” (This, it was felt, would be a short and inexpensive war.) The second was for the President to move in accor-dance with the Spooner Act and turn to the Nicaragua route. The third course was to delay the great work “until something transpires to make Colombia see the light,” then negotiate another treaty.
It will, doubtless, be a surprise to the public that a course which is sure to involve the country with war with a South American Republic is one of the methods of procedure being soberly contemplated by the United States. . ..
Persons interested in getting the $40,000,000 for the Panama Canal Company are of course eager that this government shall go ahead and seize the property, even though it leads to war.
II
When Dr. Manuel Amador first landed in New York he had still to meet William Nelson Cromwell. Dr. Amador, whose full name was Manuel Amador Guerrero, was a leading physician and a popular figure in the social life of Panama City. His wife was the brilliant Maria de la Ossa and he himself was known as a man of “unblemished character,” large property interests, and much political acumen. Born in Turbaco (near Cartagena), Colombia in 1833–which made him just seventy in 1903–he was a graduate of the University of Cartagena who had come to Panama at the time of the gold rush. His political career as a Conservative had flourished along with his medical practice until 1867, when he was designated president of the Department of Panama, but did not take office because of a revolution. Defeated, captured by the opposition, he was sent into exile, not to return again for a year, at which point he went back to medicine at the Santo Tomas Hospital, where he became superintendent. It was as chief physician of the Panama Railroad, however, that Dr. Amador had attained most of his influence and prestige, as well as his interest in the canal. He had been among those prominent Panamanians to appear at the various occasions arranged to honor Ferdinand de Lesseps. When Lieutenant Wyse made his second journey to Bogotá in 1890 to secure an extension of the Wyse Concession for the court-appointed liquidator, the doctor was the head of a delegation of Panamanians who joined Wyse there to lobby in his behalf.
He was a neat, frail-looking man of medium height with thin white hair, a shaggy white walrus mustache, large ears, and heavy black brows, and he wore small steel-rimmed glasses. In his photographs at least, he seems to have had a habit of looking at people with his head cocked slightly sideways. He was also a man of nerve and ambition and he had come to New York to help arrange a revolutionary takeover at Panama.
The first known organized meeting of the movement had been held at a country estate outside Panama City on a Sunday late in July, probably July 25, 1903, a meeting at which Dr. Amador had not been present. Those who were there included his old friend Senator Jose Agustin Arango, Carlos Constantino Arosemena, and an American named Herbert G. Prescott, all of whom, like the doctor, were employees of the Panama Railroad and had been in regular communication with William Nelson Cromwell. Arango, a senator from the Department of Panama, was the railroad’s attorney on the Isthmus, its land agent and chief lobbyist; Arosemena was a staff civil engineer; Prescott was the assistant superintendent. Also present were the United States consul general at Panama City, Hezekiah A. Gudger, and two officers from the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the only American Army officers on the Isthmus, who had been sent by the Walker Commission, Major William Black and Lieutenant Mark Brooke. The complete guest list is said to have numbered twenty-five or twenty-six people and the hosts were Ramon and Pedro Arias. Hezekiah Gudger, who was the main
speaker, would be unable to recall later exactly what the meeting established, other than that “plans for the revolution were freely discussed.”
All evidence is that Senator Arango (El Maestro), a most distinguished-looking gentleman with a white Vandyke beard, was the inspirational force; that in May he had begun talking revolution with his sons, sons-in-law, and the “intelligent and devoted” Arosemena, men in their late twenties or early thirties, all of whom had been educated in the United States. It was also El Maestro, whose office was side by side with Amador’s, who personally recruited Amador early in August.
At that point the group was anxiously awaiting the return from New York of another railroad employee, James Beers, freight agent and port captain, who had left on a secret mission to see Cromwell. Whether he went on Cromwell’s orders, whether he was actually summoned to New York, as later charged, cannot be proved. But at least six men were to testify that Cromwell sent for Beers, and it is unlikely that Beers or any other railroad employee would leave his job to stir up a revolution unless sent for by a superior, and as the railroad company’s New York attorney, Cromwell ran the railroad. Beers, “a shrewd and calculating” former sea captain, had Cromwell’s confidence, in any event, and he returned to Panama with the word that Cromwell was ready to “go the limit” for them. (Cromwell, in Arango’s subsequent account, Data for the History of the Independence, would be referred to never by name, only as “the responsible person.”)
Arango, Amador, and Arosemena became the nucleus of the conspiracy, to be joined shortly by Federico Boyd, son of the founding editor of the Star & Herald. Amador insisted that Arango should become the first president of the projected new republic of Panama. Arango, out of courtesy, said it should be Amador, and Amador agreed.
Amador, it was further decided, should also be the one to go to New York to see “the responsible person” in order to line up the necessary arms and money, and to secure some kind of assurance from the American Secretary of State that a revolution would be given military support by the United States. Amador, it was thought, would arouse the least suspicion since he had a son in the United States, a doctor with the United States Army, who was then stationed in Massachusetts. As instructed, the son sent a cable to his father saying, “I am sick; come.” So on August 26 Amador sailed for New York, taking with him a cable code that he and the others had devised to cover every possible contingency.
The code had thirty numbered expressions for Amador to use in cables to Panama–he need only cable the appropriate number or combination of numbers–and sixteen numbered expressions for those at home to use in reply. Amador’s list is especially interesting in that it shows how very uncertain things were at this stage. It shows, for example, that the conspirators had not excluded the possibility that Cromwell might be a liar.
Amador’s code went as follows:
1. Have not been satisfied with Hay in my first conference.
2. Have had my first conference with Hay, and I found him determined to support the movement effectively.
3. Have not been able to talk to Hay personally, only through a third person; I believe that everything will turn out in line with our desires.
4. Hay is determined to aid us in every way, and has asked me for exact details of what we need to ensure success.
5. My agent is going with me, fully authorized to settle everything there.
6. Cromwell has behaved very well, and has facilitated my interviews with important men who are disposed to cooperate.
7. you can hurry up matters, as everything here goes well.
8. I am satisfied with the result and can assure success.
9. Minister Herrán has suspected something and is watching.
10. Have not been able to obtain assurances of support in the form in which I demanded it.
11. Delay of Cromwell in introducing me to Hay makes me suspect that all he has said has been imagination and that he knows nothing.
12. It appears that Hay will not decide anything definitely until he has received advices from the commissioner who is there [in Panama].
13. I understand that Hay does not wish to pledge himself to anything until he sees the result of the operation there.
14. The people from whom I expected support have attached little importance to my mission.
15. Those who have decided can do nothing practical for lack of necessary means.
16. I have convinced myself that Hay is in favor of the rival route, and for that reason will do nothing in support of our plan.
17. News that has arrived from there on facilitating the construction of the canal has caused opinion here to shift in regard to our plan.
18. The pretensions manifested in the new draft of an agreement [treaty] render all negotiations between the two Governments impossible, and for this reason I have again resumed conferences.
19. The new commissioner is expected here to negotiate. On this depends my future movements.
20. I consider that I can do nothing practical here now, and for this reason I have decided to take passage for home.
21. Await my letter, which I write today.
22. Here it is thought best to adopt a different plan in order to obtain a favorable result for the construction of the work.
23. Cromwell is determined to go the limit, but the means at his disposal are not sufficient to ensure success.
24. Hay, Cromwell, and myself are studying a general plan of procedure.
25. The commissioner there is an agent of Cromwell’s, of which fact Hay is ignorant.
26. I wish to know if anything has been advanced there and can I fix date here to proceed.
27. Delay in getting satisfactory reply obliges me to maintain silence.
28. B. [Beaupré apparently] communicates here that the contract can be satisfactorily arranged.
29. I have considered it prudent to leave the capital [Washington] and continue negotiations from here [New York] by correspondence.
30. I await letters from there in reply to mine, in order to bring matters to a close.
Of additional interest is the fact that Amador departed from Colón with insufficient cash to meet even the most modest travel expenses. It was only as a result of several good days at the poker table during the voyage that he was able to make ends meet.
There was trouble almost immediately. Among Amador’s fellow passengers–indeed, the one he had won the most from at the poker table–was a man of “large interests” in Panama, J. Gabriel Duque, a Cuban by birth and a naturalized American who owned the Star & Herald, an ice plant, a construction company, and the extremely lucrative Panama lottery. Though not part of the Arango-Amador inner circle, Duque was aware of all that was going on and appeared entirely sympathetic. On reaching New York he went directly to Wall Street to see Cromwell, while Amador trailed off uptown to find an inexpensive hotel.
It is unclear exactly what Duque was up to, 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. He told Duque, furthermore, that the Secretary of State was eager to see him, and with Duque sitting before him, he picked up the phone, put through a call to Hay at the State Department, and set up the appointment. It was further suggested that Duque go to Washington by overnight train to avoid registering in a Washington hotel, a suggestion that Duque followed the next evening.
He arrived in Washington at seven in the morning, September 3, and after a breakfast at Harvey’s Restaurant, he went to the State Department. At ten o’clock Hay appeared. The conference lasted for the next two and a half hours. Hay is said to have given Duque no promise of direct American assistance in the conspiracy. But in the same breath he emphasized that the United States was determined to build a Panama canal and did not propose to let Colombia stand in the way. Then, allegedly, he went still further. Should revolutionists take possession of Colón and Panama City, he said, they could depend on the United States to stop Col
ombia from landing troops to put down the revolution. This, Hay said, would be done to guarantee “free and uninterrupted transit” on the railroad, which the United States was treaty bound to maintain.
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 Tomas Herrán and tell him everything. Perhaps this had been his intention all along out of spite over some real or imagined insult on the part of the inner circle. Perhaps it was a sudden impulse resulting from something Hay had said, or the way he said it. Or possibly he thought such a warning, when relayed to Bogotá, would jolt the Colombian regime into apprising the seriousness of the situation. Whatever the explanation, Cromwell had been double-crossed.
Herrán immediately sounded the alarm. He cabled Bogotá that revolutionary agents were in Washington seeing Hay, and that if the treaty was not ratified, Panama in all probability would secede, and with American support. He notified the Colombian consul general in New York of the Panama Railroad Company’s involvement in the plot and of Amador’s activities. The plot, he wrote, had been “well received” in Washington. He put detectives on Amador’s track, then wrote to Cromwell and to the Paris office of the Compagnie Nouvelle to warn that they would be held directly responsible for any secessionist movement on the Isthmus. Implicit in the warning was the threat of full abrogation of all rights and privileges possessed by the Compagnie Nouvelle–all that it was about to sell for $40,000,000–if the company or its agents were party to an act of sedition.
For Amador, meanwhile, the mission to New York had suddenly become a bewildering dead end.
Unaware of what Duque had done, oblivious of the fact that he was being trailed by detectives, he saw only that Cromwell, the model of hospitality and enthusiasm on first meeting, had turned unexplainably rude and unreceptive. Amador appears to have made his first call on Cromwell on September 2, or the day after Cromwell saw Duque. Cromwell made “a thousand offers in the direction of assisting the revolution,” even promised Amador that he would finance the undertaking. “I was to go to Washington to see Mr. Hay,” Amador would recall. But by the time Amador returned for a second conference with the lawyer, Duque had been to see Herrán. Herrán had fired off his warning letters to New York and Paris, and Cromwell, determined to protect himself and safeguard the interests of his client, had decided to have no further ostensible dealings with conspirators from Panama.
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set Page 368