In planning the cable as he did, the President was right in his anticipation. Duly the American chargé at St. Petersburg informed the State Department that the Russian Government, through its Minister of Foreign Affairs, had declined to receive or consider the petition. Nevertheless, its purpose was accomplished. Official Russia was made to realize the aroused indignation and the public protests of the civilized world. This in turn had a decided influence in checking, for the time being at least, similar outbreaks threatened throughout the empire, besides bringing to trial and punishment some of the leaders of the massacres.
That afternoon at Sagamore Hill, after the Russian matter had been disposed of, the President was talking to Dr. Shaw and me about the Alaskan boundary question. He pulled out a map showing the disputed boundary, and explained that three commissioners from the United States and three from Great Britain and Canada would take up the dispute for investigation. He argued that they were not arbiters and he refused to sign an arbitral agreement; if they did not agree, he would take the matter into his own hands; that the whole trouble arose from the fact that the Canadians had shoved down the boundary line after the discovery of gold. "Suppose a man pitches a tent on my grounds and claims them, and I want him to get off; and he says he won't get off, but will arbitrate the matter!" Roosevelt exclaimed. Then, turning to me, he added: "Straus, you are a member of the Hague Tribunal; don't you think I'm right?"
I calmly replied that as a member of the Hague Tribunal I should first have to hear what the other side had to say and therefore must reserve my judgment. And we all had a good laugh.
During the Venezuela controversy in 1902, Venezuela on the one side and Great Britain and Germany on the other, Roosevelt was very much incensed that Germany, with the feeble backing of England, should undertake a blockade against Venezuela to make the latter carry out certain agreements, and he promptly took steps to prevent it. Thereupon there was a disposition on the part of Germany to ask Roosevelt to arbitrate. Secretary Hay, it seems, favored such a course, but I strongly advised against it.
At a luncheon to which I was invited by the President early in November, 1903, the conditions in Panama came up as the principal topic of conversation. There were present on this occasion, besides Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt, Cornelius N. Bliss, former Secretary of the Interior; John Clark Davis, of the "Philadelphia Ledger"; H. H. Kohlsaat, of Chicago; Lawrence F. Abbott, of "The Outlook"; and the President's brother-in-law, Lieutenant-Commander Cowles, of the Navy. News had been received that Panama had separated from Colombia and we were about to recognize Panama. In his informal way, as was his custom at luncheons, the President began to discuss the situation, referring to the fact that our treaty of 1846 was with New Granada, which afterwards became the United States of Colombia and then the Republic of Colombia, and that in that treaty we had guaranteed to protect the transit route. One of the questions raised was whether the treaty still held us to that obligation, notwithstanding these several changes of sovereignty.
The President was directing his remarks toward me, which was his way of signifying the particular person from whom he wanted to draw comment. I answered that it seemed to me, as I recollected the terms of the treaty, which I had recently read, that the change of sovereignty did not affect either our obligations or our rights; that I regarded them in the nature of a "covenant running with the land."
"That's fine! Just the idea!" Roosevelt replied, and as soon as luncheon was over, he requested me to express that idea to Hay. He scratched a few lines on a correspondence card asking Secretary Hay to go over with me the suggestion I had made and to work into the treaty the "covenant running with the land" idea.
That evening I called on the Secretary. He seized the idea at once and said he would make use of it in a statement he was just preparing for the press detailing the whole situation. The following day there was reported in the papers of the country the fact that the President, following a meeting of the Cabinet, had decided to recognize the de facto government of Panama; and then the detailed statement by Secretary Hay regarding the terms of the treaty, the history of the negotiations, and the subsequent development, covered several newspaper columns. It contained this paragraph: