Theodore Rex (58 page)

There was no guarantee, though, that Marroquín
would
so override. Roosevelt discovered that Hay had been keeping quiet about a sharp deterioration in Colombian-American relations. Cables from the American Minister in Bogotá, Arthur M. Beaupré, quoted angry local protests against any “surrender of sovereignty” in the canal zone, and described a general feeling that the treaty prescribed a “loss of the national honor.” (Apparently this feeling related to the ten-million-dollar fee negotiated by Hay and Herrán. Beaupré said he had received “private” assurances that Colombia’s honor would be restored if the United States agreed to pay “a much greater sum of money.”)

Hay, a poet’s soul in a diplomat’s body, reacted with sulky distress to any criticism of his treaties. An instrument like this—the painstakingly worded distillation of months of gentlemanly conversation, of late-night
pourparlers
and next-morning “memorials,” calligraphed at last on crisp parchment—
was as dear to him as any sonnet. Wholesale rejection was apt to aggravate his chronic depression.

“A POET’S SOUL IN A DIPLOMAT’S BODY.”
Secretary of State John Hay, 1904
(photo credit 16.2)

Roosevelt moved quickly to restore the diplomatic offensive, and Hay’s wilting morale. One of the most important conventions in the history of the Americas demanded a resolute State Department. He saw the Secretary briefly, behind closed doors, on the afternoon of 8 June. Whatever transpired, Hay returned to work as if galvanized. The next morning, new instructions went out to Beaupré, couched in language of unusual force:

Hay acted like a new man in the days that followed. Town gossip had it that twenty-one months of “strenuous Teddy” had enfeebled him—that he was being kept on only as a venerable symbol, Washington’s last link with the administration of President Lincoln. There was some truth to both rumors, although Hay was still capable of inspired diplomacy. And his relationship with Roosevelt was genuinely affectionate, rooted in a mutual memory of Theodore Senior introducing them nearly thirty-three years before—reedy boy and young diplomat shaking hands to the roar of the Hudson Valley thunderstorm.

At sixty-four, Hay was still as elegant as he had been then. The severe cut of his Savile Row clothes gave line to his five-foot-two-inch figure, while a slight fullness of silk under the winged collar focused attention on his unforgettable face. In youth, when merely mustached, Hay had looked almost mandarin, with his high cheekbones and Ming-smooth brow. Now the mustache floated over a magnificent whitened Vandyke, while the skin above was slashed with creases, two of the deepest plummeting in a frown so anguished that photographers felt obliged to retouch them.

The Secretary was, by common consent, one of the great talkers of his time, holding forth in a quiet, beautiful voice. Like a well-resined viola, it poured forth suave melodies, lapsing instantly into accompaniment whenever the presidential trumpet sounded. Even more than Root, Hay was a master of the sly
mot juste
that inspired Roosevelt to go too far. His inert pose and hazel stare gave no hint of the hilarity suppressed beneath his waistcoat.

Although Hay found the President amusing, he never savaged him as Adams did. He recognized that Roosevelt had “plenty of brains, and a heart of gold,” not to mention a gift for storytelling that rivaled his own. Curious
to hear about the great cross-country trip, he invited Roosevelt to dinner on 12 June, along with Ambassador and Madame Jusserand.

With very little encouragement, the President launched beaming into an account of his adventures. Big sticks and badgers and midnight fusillades, rose-petaled streets and redwoods, golden gifts and glistening Beardsleyesque faces held the table entranced. As he talked on and on, Roosevelt began to free-associate earlier western memories: of sharing a bed with the judge who jailed Calamity Joe, of Hell-Roaring Bill Jones chasing a lunatic across the prairie, of bandy-legged Frank Brito “shooting at his wife the time he killed his sister-in-law.” To Jusserand, such stories sounded as remote and strange as any in
Piers Plowman
. Roosevelt’s extraordinary frankness, his high-pitched mirth (punctuated with table thumps and chortles of
“Hoo! Hoo!”)
, and perpetual discharge of energy were such that the Ambassador could conclude only that France was being vouchsafed some sort of privileged audience.

After dinner, Hay displayed some of the rarities in his library. Roosevelt took up an autographed page proof of the Gettysburg Address, then, his mind leaping to other subjects, began to talk and gesticulate. The precious sheet flapped in the air, to Hay’s silent agony. Rescuing it, he begged Roosevelt to endow him with a typed transcript of his western monologue, to preserve for posterity.

Roosevelt, flattered, promised to oblige.

THE COLOMBIAN MINISTER
for Foreign Affairs was mystified by Hay’s cable. What was this threatened “action” by the United States—something directly aggressive, or just reversion to a Nicaragua Canal? Beaupré did not know, and the State Department sent no clarification. Thirty years of foreign-policy experience had taught Hay to keep his opponents guessing. “There are three species of creature,” he liked to quip, “who when they seem coming, are going: diplomats, women, and crabs.”

That same day, 13 June, Roosevelt sat in private conference with William Nelson Cromwell. It was not his habit to receive lobbyists. But Mark Hanna had strongly urged the meeting, and after Walla Walla he wanted to be accommodating. The glossy little lawyer had made himself indispensable in all canal matters, darting with bright-eyed, bumblebee quickness among every possible source of pollen. Cromwell had spies in Bogotá, paid agents in Colón and Panama City, political supporters in Washington, and financial backers in Paris and New York. Every infusion of news, every fresh pledge of funds was more honey in his hive. Roosevelt’s stiff petals yielded to his fervor.

For a half hour before lunch, and two hours that afternoon, they went over every aspect of the canal situation. Cromwell thought that President
Marroquín favored the treaty, but did not have enough political strength to oppose the will of the Colombian Congress. If Marroquín recommended ratification, there might be a coup by antitreaty forces; if he advised against, he risked the secession of Panama.

Roosevelt told Cromwell that he was “determined” to build a Panama Canal, and would tolerate no trickery by Colombia; if the treaty was rejected, and Panama seceded, he would “strongly favor” dealing with the new republic.

This was all the lobbyist needed to hear. He walked out into the fresh June evening.
White sails crept down the Potomac; somewhere a baseball crowd was roaring. Washington had shut for the summer. Only its insatiable press corps lingered. Cromwell felt that pleasant loosening of the lips known to all Executive Office visitors, particularly those who think they have prevailed on the President. Full as he was of news, he did not dare to leak it directly.
Instead, he briefed an aide who had close connections to the New York
World
. Overnight, an uncannily prophetic article ground out of the Pulitzer press:

Washington, June 13
—President Roosevelt is determined to have the Panama Canal route. He has no intention of beginning negotiations for the Nicaragua route.

The view of the President is known to be that as the United States has spent millions of dollars in ascertaining which route is most feasible; as three different Ministers from Colombia have declared their Government willing to grant every concession for the construction of a canal, and as two treaties have been signed granting rights of way across the Isthmus of Panama, it would be unfair to the United States if the best route be not obtained.

Advices received here daily indicate great opposition to the canal treaty at Bogotá. Its defeat seems probable.… Information has also reached this city that the State of Panama, which embraces all the proposed canal zone, stands ready to secede from Colombia and enter into a canal treaty with the United States … giving this Government the equivalent of absolute sovereignty over the canal zone. The city of Panama alone will be exempted.… In return the President of the United States should promptly recognize the new Government, when
established, and at
once appoint a Minister to negotiate and sign a canal treaty.

    The article went on to report that Roosevelt’s Cabinet fully supported his plan, as did congressional leaders. Apparently the President was prepared to wait “a reasonable time” for ratification of the treaty, but if there was any hint of deliberate delay, he would quickly “make the above plan operable.”

One detail missing from the article was Cromwell’s private prediction that the Panamanian revolution would occur on the third day of November.

Roosevelt issued no denial of the
World
article, nor of similar scenarios in the Washington
Evening Star
and New York
Sun
. He was known to be a quick repudiator of his own faux pas, so evidently he was sending Bogotá a message. Herrán sent one, too, also predicting that Panama might secede.

Cromwell, for his part, smoothly assured reporters that he “still expected ratification.”