The General then returned home and, despite failure, was elected president. In 1909 he made a strong effort once more to obtain redress. The United States then proved willing to do something to right the wrong, and a treaty was drawn up whereby the Panama Republic should pay Colombia a quarter of a million dollars annually. The paucity of this amount so shocked the Colombians that they turned their president out and the treaty was not signed.
In 1914 a new president of Colombia made a new attempt to get a settlement with the United States, and sent his envoy, Urrutia, to arrange a new treaty. This he did, but it was seven years before the talking died down and in a modified form it was signed. It provided for a twenty-five-million-dollar indemnity for "injuries," and an amendment provided that five million should be paid within six months of ratification. Colombia also was accorded special privileges in the use of the Panama Canal and Railroad. In exchange, she recognized the State of Panama. It was signed in December, 1921, and Colombia is now once more on friendly terms with the United States.
The Republic of Panama, it seems to me, has little future. Its habitable territory is scanty. In the interior are the Indians, who refuse to recognize it. It could improve places like Puerto Bello and Nombre de Dios—but it leaves that to the United States.
Article II of the treaty they signed provides that "the Republic of Panama further grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of any other lands and waters outside the Zone above described which may be necessary for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, or protection of the said Canal."
Whenever necessary, therefore, more territory can be added, should oil be found or new harbors desired. The importance of the Panama Canal lies not, however, in the jungle, which abuts it on both sides, but in itself.
2
Though I did not visit Nicaragua in these journeyings I think some notes on its position necessary to this study. It is the State next but one north of Panama, and is separated by the small State of Costa Rica. Though Nicaragua is broader than Panama from ocean to ocean, it has always been considered as possessing an alternative territory for a canal. This is owing to its large lake and existing waterways. British capitalists have in time past considered the feasibility of financing the construction of such a canal. The United States, bargaining with France for the price of de Lesseps' handiwork at Panama, used the idea of a Nicaraguan Canal as a persuader. It was used also with the Colombians before the Panama revolution.
Nicaragua is, therefore, a State on which the eyes of America have more frequently rested than on the remainder of the Central American republics. She has felt constrained to advise and help her, lend her money, and finally enter into virtual control.
In 1907 a war between Nicaragua and Honduras was settled by the joint efforts of Roosevelt and Diaz. The President of Mexico, who had succeeded in quelling the spirit of revolt in his own country, was ready to help in making Central America safe for Democracy, and under the auspices of his ideas a Central American Conference was held in Washington, and a sort of League of Nations tribunal was set up. Soon, however, fights broke out again, and Nicaragua started against Salvador, her north-western neighbor (1909). The United States then sent down the marines to hold the Nicaraguans in check.