MARRIAGE IS AN AFFAIR OF SOME POMP
Without pretension to intimate acquaintance with Panamanian home life I may state confidently that this attitude toward the Yankees is practically universal. The ordinary demeanor of the native when accosted is sulky, even insolent. The shop-keeper, unless he be a Chinese, as most of the better ones are, makes a sale as if he were indifferent to your patronage, and throws you the finished bundle as though he were tossing a bone to a dog. One Sunday morning, viewing the lottery drawing at the Archbishop’s palace, I saw a well-dressed Panamanian, apparently of the better class, roused to such wrath by a polite request that he remove his hat to give a lady a better view, that one might have thought the best blood of all Castile had been enraged by some deadly insult.
THE MANLY ART IN THE TROPICS
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
A GROUP OF NATIONAL POLICE
This smoldering wrath is ever ready to break out; the brutal savagery which manifests itself in the recurrent revolutions of Spanish-America is ever present in Panama. On the Fourth of July, 1912, the Americans resident on the Zone held patriotic exercises at Ancon. After the speeches and the lunch a number of the United States marines wandered into the City of Panama and, after the unfortunate fashion of their kind, sought out that red-lighted district of infamy which the Panama authorities have thoughtfully segregated in a space between the public hospital and the cemeteries. The men were unarmed, but in uniform. Naturally their holiday began by visits to a number of Panamanian gin mills where the liquid fuel for a fight was taken aboard. In due time the fight came. A Panama policeman intervened and was beaten for his pains. Other police came to his rescue. Somebody fired a shot and soon the police, running to their station, returned with magazine rifles and began pumping bullets into the unarmed marines. The latter for a time responded with stones, but the odds were too great and they broke and ran for the American territory of the Canal Zone. Meantime of course the noise of the fusillade had alarmed the American authorities. At Ancon, separated from Panama City only by an imaginary boundary line, the Zone police were mustered for service in case of need, and at Camp Otis, an hour away by rail, the 10th Infantry, U. S. A., was drawn up under arms, and trains made ready to bring the troops to the riotous city at command. But the order never came, though the 10th officers and men alike were eager for it. It could come only through the American minister, and he was silent, believing that the occasion did not warrant the employment of the troops on the foreign soil of Panama. So the marines—or as many of them as their officers could gather up—were sent to their post, Camp Elliott, by train while those arrested by the Panamanians were taken to the Chiriqui Jail, or to the Panama hospitals. In jail the unarmed captives were beaten and tortured after the fashion of the average Latin-American when he has a foe, helpless in his power. The day ended with three American marines killed and many wounded; the Americans, soldiers and civilians, both gritting their teeth and eager to take possession of Panama; and the Panamanians, noisy, insolent, boastful, bragging of how they had whipped the “Yankee pigs” and daring the whole United States to attempt any punishment.
