Theodore Rex (72 page)

ON 13 NOVEMBER
, a small man in brand-new diplomatic uniform paid a visit to the Blue Room. Secretary Hay presented him to Roosevelt as “His Excellency M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama.” Bunau-Varilla bowed, handed over his credentials, and begged permission to read a short
discours
of his own composition. It owed its brevity to Hay, who had edited out many Gallic metaphors likely to threaten the President’s composure. But Bunau-Varilla managed to mix a few more after Roosevelt joked, “What do you think, Mr. Minister, of those people who print that we have made the Revolution of Panama together?”

“
It is necessary patiently to wait,” Bunau-Varilla replied, “until the spring of the imagination of the wicked is dried up, and until truth dissipates the mist of mendacity.”

Afterward, with Hay, Bunau-Varilla was all business. The United States must take advantage of his accreditation, as he would be unable to represent Panama for long. Already a delegation headed by Dr. Amador was reported to be en route to Washington for treaty “consultations.” That could mean endless Hispanic haggling.

Hay understood. “
I shall send it to you as soon as possible.”

What Bunau-Varilla received, two days later, was a slightly altered version of the old Hay-Herrán Treaty, allowing for a ten-million-dollar indemnity and an annual rental of $250,000. Although these amounts were clearly fabulous
to an impoverished little isthmian republic, the terms struck Bunau-Varilla as otherwise being not generous enough toward the United States. He wanted the quick approval of the United States Senate, and felt that he should add inducements, such as “a concession of sovereignty
en bloc.”
A presidential election year loomed; Democrats and anti-Roosevelt Republicans were looking for an opportunity to humiliate the Administration.

Working through the night, with only two hours’ sleep, Bunau-Varilla sent Hay the next day a new protocol, markedly more in the interest of the United States. “Simply a suggestion to enable you to decide,” he wrote. On 18 November, he received a return message: “Will you kindly call at my house at six o’clock today?”

The Secretary was unwontedly formal when Bunau-Varilla presented himself. “I have requested Your Excellency to be so good as to keep this appointment in order to sign, if it is agreeable to Your Excellency, the Treaty which will permit the construction of the Interoceanic Canal.” He produced two beautifully typed copies, and waved aside “an insignificant question of terminology” in article 2. “If Your Excellency agrees to it, the Treaty will now be read, and we will then sign it.”

Conscious that Dr. Amador might at any minute knock on Hay’s door,
Bunau-Varilla was quite willing to forgo the reading. He had not thought to bring a seal, so the Secretary offered him a choice of sealing rings. Bunau-Varilla chose one embossed with the Hay coat of arms. The clock stood at 6:40
P.M.
Pens scratched across parchment. Wax melted on silk. Two oceans brimmed closer, ready to spill.

BUNAU-VARILLA WAS
at Sixth Street Station three hours later to greet the diplomatic delegation. “The Republic of Panama is henceforth under the protection of the United States,” he announced as Dr. Amador stepped down, followed by Pablo Arosamena and Federico Boyd. “I have just signed the canal treaty.”

Amador reeled with shock. Bunau-Varilla felt obliged to support him. “Cherish no illusion, Mr. Boyd, the negotiations are closed.”

THANKSGIVING APPROACHED WITH
lowering skies and shortening days. But Capitol Hill was lit up again, weeks earlier than usual. The Fifty-eighth
Congress had convened in special session, at Roosevelt’s request.

That looked like the extent of its obedience, at least until its regular session began in December.
The dragging, eighteen-month-old question of Cuban reciprocity, incredibly not yet resolved by last March’s treaty approval, lacked the romantic appeal of “gunboat diplomacy” on the Spanish Main. Yet for political scientists, usually more interested in data than drama,
there was much logistical fascination in the increased power of the House.
Thanks to the census of 1900 and the election of 1902, a record apportionment of 386 representatives now crowded the lower chamber. One hundred and twenty were freshmen, and more than half of those were Democrats. But the Republican total was still large enough for the new Speaker to wield a formidable majority. Moving fast while Senate leaders took up the Panama treaty, Joseph Cannon played host to a stream of callers, lavishing them with large confidences and small cigars. “I believe in consultin’ the boys,” he said in the hayseed accent he liked to affect, “findin’ out what most of ‘em want and then goin’ ahead and doin’ it.”

What “the boys” (i.e., Uncle Joe himself) wanted was to remind the Senate of his famous threat about “the right of the majority to rule.”
On 19 November, the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of a reciprocity bill for Cuba, based on the Senate’s own treaty terms. Nothing remained but due process to make it law, whereupon the senatorial beet-sugar lobby maneuvered for adjournment, in order to mount a filibuster during the regular session.

Cannon pointed out that if two houses were needed to pass a bill, two houses were also needed to vote for adjournment. As far as he was concerned, the special session could run on through its statutory limit on 7 December. Senators from remote states were thus denied a Thanksgiving vacation, while the Speaker laughed at their discomfiture, ash peppering his vest.

MARK HANNA
, who had been noticeably subdued since coming back to town, went to spend the holiday in New York, at the home of J. P. Morgan.

His uncharacteristic quietness was caused partly by exhaustion and partly by a new strain on his relations with the White House. The President had offended him by asking him to “manage” the Roosevelt campaign of 1904. If that was a ploy to head off any last chance of a Hanna candidacy, it was a remarkably obvious one, insulting to the Senator’s intelligence. All Hanna wanted to do was enjoy the afterglow of his triumphant re-election. If the glow was intensified, for the moment, by electric lightbulbs spelling out
HANNA FOR PRESIDENT
in Cleveland and New York, he saw no harm in a little celebrity before making a final disclaimer. Roosevelt should know by now that he had no further ambitions. He was tired, he told George Cortelyou, of going to the White House with his hand over his heart “and swearing allegiance.”

Morgan, no less perceptive than the President, talked throughout Thanksgiving dinner of Hanna’s “duty to the country.” He spoke not only for himself, but for all the Wall Street moneymen still recovering from the summer panic. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s yards were crowded with empty cars. Morgan’s pride, U.S. Steel, had reduced wages sharply. As a result, millworkers and boilermen
from Rhode Island to California faced an impoverished winter. Miners were rioting in Colorado. Theodore Roosevelt—seeking with one hand to constrict capital and with the other to throttle organized labor—was to blame. Financiers mistrusted what Oswald Garrison Villard called Roosevelt’s “terrifying habit of ‘suddenness,’ ” demonstrated so recently in Panama. They looked to Hanna—a businessman as well as a Senator, an employer well respected by workingmen—to save the Republican Party from schism.

When the Senator remained silent, Morgan appealed to Mrs. Hanna. It would be “easy” to nominate her husband, he said, “if he would only give the word.” She replied with feminine forthrightness: nothing would induce Mark to run.

This did not stop Hanna from joshing reporters afterward. “
You can say what you damn please,” he told them, grinning and thumping his cane.

THE SENATOR’S CONTINUING
conservative appeal exasperated Roosevelt, who thought it had been disposed of at Walla Walla. He saw trouble with Hanna in the months ahead, particularly with regard to party patronage. There was the vexed question of Dr. Crum, and a much newer one concerning Leonard Wood.
Roosevelt wished to make his old Rough Rider commander a Major General at forty-three. Unfortunately, Wood had once jailed one of Hanna’s political cronies for postal fraud in Cuba. The Senator was now bent on revenge. Nothing would better demonstate his renewed legislative clout than blocking an obvious piece of presidential favoritism.

In a last-minute effort to negotiate a truce, Roosevelt summoned Hanna to the White House on the evening of 4 December. They sat up till nearly midnight. Hanna won the right to say what he liked about Wood on the floor of the Senate, in exchange for permitting the appointment. Roosevelt also promised not to force the Senator to serve another term as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In theory, this cleared Hanna to run for the presidency. But Roosevelt could see at close quarters that he was an exhausted man.

Another party elder who had to be wooed before the regular session began was the priestly George F. Hoar. Roosevelt needed him to bless the Administration’s Panama policy as a sign to anti-imperialists (a dwindling but still powerful faction in Congress) that God had not been mocked on the Isthmus. He invited the Senator to take an advance look at his Third Annual Message.
Hoar began to read the Panama section, then stood up in disgust. “I hope I may never live to see the day when the interests of my country are placed above its honor,” he said, and walked out of the White House.