CHAPTER 28

June 13, 1903

Almost a year had passed since President Roosevelt signed the Spooner Act and Bogotá still had given no clear sign of wanting to allow the United States to build the Panama Canal. Negotiations of the treaty between Dr. Tomás Herrán and John Hay had been quite challenging due to their uncompromising attitudes and the constantly changing conditions that the Colombians wanted to impose. Furthermore, all of this caused considerable distress in President Roosevelt which only added to the ordeal.

Philippe had to postpone his return home for Christmas because he had to mediate the negotiations, and fortunately, both sides were able to reach an agreement to sign what would become the Herrán-Hay Treaty. Smoking a Cuban on the first class deck of the steamship Emideo headed to Le Havre, Philippe celebrated Christmas Eve alone in the middle of the Atlantic.

Upon his arrival in Paris, just before the end of the year, Philippe received a pleasant surprise: his friend Francis Loomis had been named Assistant Secretary of State and would be working for John Milton Hay as of January 1903. Undeniably, the influence of Mr. Bigelow was second to none.

But for several months, the Colombian senate didn’t seem to want to sign the treaty their country’s ambassador had already endorsed. Even worse, rumors were circulating that the German ambassador in Bogotá was heavily lobbying for Colombia to reject the Herrán-Hay Treaty.

It was no secret that the Kaiser wanted to establish a strong presence in Latin America, even though this disregarded the Monroe Doctrine of an “America for Americans.” It wasn’t long before President Roosevelt had to prevent the Kaiser from settling a debt owed to Germany by carrying out a “temporary occupation” of Venezuela.

According to what the American Ambassador in Colombia, Beaupré, told Loomis, the Germans wanted Bogotá to extend a new concession to them once the French concession expired in eighteen months, and then Germany would finish construction of the canal initiated by the French.

The Kaiser had even sent a team of engineers to inspect the Panamanian route. “Damned Prussians, hoping once again to tarnish the reputation of the French,” Philippe said to Maurice, who responded with a smile, “Brother, what the Kaiser really wants is to control access to the nitrate in Chile…” Philippe never understood why Maurice felt such an affinity for the Germans.

In the face of Colombian indecision and then German threat, the engineer decided to send a lengthy cablegram to President Marroquín of Colombia, which said, among other things:

“Colombian failure to ratify the treaty would leave only two options: either the construction of the Nicaraguan Canal and consequently, the loss to Colombia of incalculable benefits resulting from construction of a great artery of universal commerce in Colombian territory, or construction of the Panama Canal after the secession and declaration of independence of the Panamanian isthmus, under the protection of the United States, equal to what has happened in Cuba.”

It wasn’t the first time that Philippe sent a message in which he openly mentioned the possibility of Panama becoming independent of Colombia. The past November, he had sent a similar cablegram, but hadn’t received any response. Philippe couldn’t explain how the Colombian President dared to ignore him.

Almost simultaneously, William Nelson Cromwell had arranged a secret meeting with President Roosevelt. As he left the White House, Cromwell gave instructions to his assistants and on the 13th of June, the New York World published a report titled: “The State of Panama is Ready to Become Independent if the Treaty is Rejected by the Colombian Congress.”

The body of the article stated, among other things, the following: “It has been said that Roosevelt supports the idea…the United States will immediately recognize the new government in order to negotiate and sign the canal treaty.” Almost instantaneously, other newspapers published similar reports.

And the White House remained silent.