The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I

by Burton Jesse Hendrick

To one unskilled in legal technicalities, the Panama controversy involved no great difficulty. Since 1850 the United States and Great Britain had had a written understanding upon the construction of the Panama Canal. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which was adopted that year, provided that the two countries should share equally in the construction and control of the proposed waterway across the Isthmus. This idea of joint control had always rankled in the United States, and in 1901 the American Government persuaded Great Britain to abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and agree to another—the Hay-Pauncefote—which transferred the rights of ownership and construction exclusively to this country. In consenting to this important change, Great Britain had made only one stipulation. "The Canal," so read Article III of the Convention of 1901, "shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and war of all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise." It would seem as though the English language could utter no thought more clearly than this. The agreement said, not inferentially, but in so many words, that the "charges" levied on the ships of "all nations" that used the Canal should be the same. The history of British-American negotiations on the subject of the Canal had always emphasized this same point. All American witnesses to drawing the Treaty have testified that this was the American understanding. The correspondence of John Hay, who was Secretary of State at the time, makes it clear that this was the agreement. Mr. Elihu Root, who, as Secretary of War, sat next to John Hay in the Cabinet which authorized the treaty, has taken the same stand. The man who conducted the preliminary negotiations with Lord Salisbury, Mr. Henry White, has emphasized the same point. Mr. Joseph H. Choate, who, as American Ambassador to Great Britain in 1901, had charge of the negotiations, has testified that the British and American Governments "meant what they said and said what they meant."

In the face of this solemn understanding, the American Congress, in 1912, passed the Panama Canal Act, which provided that "no tolls shall be levied upon vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States." A technical argument, based upon the theory that "all nations" did not include the United States, and that, inasmuch as this country had obtained sovereign rights upon the Isthmus, the situation had changed, persuaded President Taft to sign this bill. Perhaps this line of reasoning satisfied the legal consciences of President Taft and Mr. Knox, his Secretary of State, but it really cut little figure in the acrimonious discussion that ensued. Of course, there was only one question involved; that was as to whether the exemption violated the Treaty. This is precisely the one point that nearly all the controversialists avoided. The statement that the United States had built the Canal with its own money and its own genius, that it had achieved a great success where other nations had achieved a great failure, and that it had the right of passing its own ships through its own highway without assessing tolls—this was apparently argument enough. When Great Britain protested the exemption as a violation of the Treaty, there were not lacking plenty of elements in American politics and journalism to denounce her as committing an act of high-handed impertinence, as having intruded herself in matters which were not properly her concern, and as having attempted to rob the American public of the fruits of its own enterprise. That animosity to Great Britain, which is always present in certain parts of the hyphenated population, burst into full flame.

Clear as were the legal aspects of the dispute, the position of the Wilson Administration was a difficult one. The Irish-American elements, which have specialized in making trouble between the United States and Great Britain, represented a strength to the Democratic Party in most large cities. The great mass of Democratic Senators and Congressmen had voted for the exemption bill. The Democratic platform of 1912 had endorsed this same legislation. This declaration was the handiwork of Senator O'Gorman, of New York State, who had long been a leader of the anti-British crusade in American politics. More awkward still, President Wilson, in the course of his Presidential campaign, had himself spoken approvingly of free tolls for American ships. The probability is that, when the President made this unfortunate reference to this clause in the Democratic programme, he had given the matter little personal investigation; it must be held to his credit that, when the facts were clearly presented to him, his mind quickly grasped the real point at issue—that it was not a matter of commercial advantage or disadvantage, but one simply of national honour, of whether the United States proposed to keep its word or to break it.

Page's contempt for the hair-drawn technicalities of lawyers was profound, and the tortuous effort to make the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty mean something quite different from what it said, inevitably moved him to righteous wrath. Before sailing for England he spent several days in the State Department studying the several questions that were then at issue between his country and Great Britain. A memorandum contains his impressions of the free tolls contention:

"A little later I went to Washington again to acquaint myself with the business between the United States and Great Britain. About that time the Senate confirmed my appointment, and I spent a number of days reading the recent correspondence between the two governments. The two documents that stand out in my memory are the wretched lawyer's note of Knox about the Panama tolls (I never read a less sincere, less convincing, more purely artificial argument) and Bryce's brief reply, which did have the ring of sincerity in it. The diplomatic correspondence in general seemed to me very dull stuff, and, after wading through it all day, on several nights as I went to bed the thought came to me whether this sort of activity were really worth a man's while."

Anything which affected British shipping adversely touched Great Britain in a sensitive spot; and Page had not been long in London before he perceived the acute nature of the Panama situation. In July, 1913, Col. Edward M. House reached the British capital. A letter of Page's to Sir Edward Grey gives such a succinct description of this new and influential force in American public life that it is worth quoting:

To Sir Edward Grey
Coburg Hotel, London.
[No date.]

DEAR SIR EDWARD:

There is an American gentleman in London, the like of whom I do not know. Mr. Edward M. House is his name. He is "the silent partner" of President Wilson—that is to say, he is the most trusted political adviser and the nearest friend of the President. He is a private citizen, a man without personal political ambition, a modest, quiet, even shy fellow. He helps to make Cabinets, to shape policies, to select judges and ambassadors and suchlike merely for the pleasure of seeing that these tasks are well done.

He is suffering from over-indulgence in advising, and he has come here to rest. I cannot get him far outside his hotel, for he cares to see few people. But he is very eager to meet you.