dent of the United States, who, by the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Congress should not even entertain such a proposition.

THE Clayton-Bulwer treaty was a convention to define the joint policy of the United States and Great Britain "with reference to any means of communication by ship-canal which may be constructed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by way of the River San Juan de Nicaragua and either or both the Lakes of Nicaragua or Managua to any port or place on the Pacific Ocean."

This treaty, which was ratified by the Senate May 22, 1850, provided that

The Governments of the United States and Great Britain hereby declare that neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over said ship-canal; agreeing that neither will ever erect nor maintain any fortifications commanding the same or in the vicinity thereof, or occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America.

If the treaty had stopped there, the United States would have been spared much controversy and vexation; but it did not stop there. In their anxiety to extend the general principles of this treaty to every possible Isthmian route between the Atlantic and Pacific, and thereby prevent interference on the part of other governments, the American and British diplomatists included in the convention a further provision that :

The Governments of the United States and Great Britain, having not only desired, in entering into this convention, to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, they hereby agree to extend their protection, by treaty stipulations, to any other practicable communications, whether by canal or railway, across

1 The (New York) World, March 18, 1914.

the Isthmus which connects North and South America, and especially to the interoceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which are now proposed to be established by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama.

This treaty was hailed at the time as a notable victory for American diplomacy. It ended all American misgivings as to the objects of the British policy on the Mosquito Coast, and it was regarded as more favorable to American than to British interests.

The United States was not prepared to build a canal, and it was well satisfied to have any canal that might be built subject to the joint protection of the two English-speaking nations.

After ratification the treaty went to sleep, and for many years neither the United States nor Great Britain manifested further interest in the subject of a trans-Isthmian canal except in an academic way.

Finally de Lesseps appeared upon the scene, and the question became acute again. Hayes, who was then President, declared that any canal ought to be under American control and the line of that canal should be considered "a part of the coastline of the United States." A House committee reported a resolution March 8, 1880, that the United States was entitled to control any Isthmian canal and authorizing the President to terminate any treaty conflicting with that principle. The resolution was called up for the second time March 3, 1881, and failed to pass. Congress thus refused to abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

Garfield modified Hayes's coast-line dictum into an assertion that we did not seek "peculiar or commercial privileges in any commercial route." Frelinghuysen, who was Arthur's Secretary of State, undertook to put the Clayton-Bulwer treaty to the test and negotiated a treaty with Nicaragua for the construction of a canal entirely under American control. One of Cleveland's first official acts after he became President in 1885 was to withdraw this treaty from the Senate.

The Spanish-American war made the canal question a vital issue in American politics, and John Hay, then Secretary of State, undertook to bring about a modification of the Clayton

Bulwer treaty. The first Hay-Pauncefote treaty was amended by the Senate, much to Secretary Hay's mortification. A new compromise treaty was then negotiated "to facilitate the construction of a ship-canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by whatever route may be considered expedient," and to "remove any objection which may arise out of the convention of the 19th of April, 1850, commonly known as the ClaytonBulwer treaty, to the construction of such canal under the auspices of the Government of the United States, without impairing the 'general principle' of neutralization established in Article VIII of that convention."

This treaty, which was received as another brilliant achievement in American diplomacy, provides that—

The canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable.

If ever language was clear, this language is clear. If this clause does not mean what it says, it means nothing. Indeed, the whole history of the treaty relations between the United States and Great Britain in respect to an Isthmian canal goes to prove that such a provision, even though it were as clumsily drawn as this provision is plainly drawn, could not mean anything else. Until the coastwise-shipping monopoly saw a chance to grab a million dollars or so a year at the expense of the National Treasury and of the national honor, nobody ever pretended that it meant anything else.

Mr. Hay is dead and Lord Pauncefote is dead; but Joseph H. Choate, who as American Ambassador to Great Britain helped negotiate the treaty, is still alive. No other living man is so well qualified to give testimony as to the meaning of this provision, and this is what Mr. Choate says:

As the lips of both these diplomatists and great patriots, who were true to their own countries and each regardful of the rights of the other,

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are sealed in death, I think that it is proper that I should say what I that the think both of them, if they were here to-day, would say clause in the Panama Toll act exempting coast wise American shipping from the payment of tolls is in direct violation of the treaty.

I venture to say that in the whole course of the negotiations of this particular treaty, no claim, no suggestion, was made that there should be any exemption of anybody.

The whole civilized world is against the United States on this issue. As Senator Lodge says, we are threatened with the stigma of an "outlaw Nation" which has no respect for its solemn word or its solemn pledges. The President of the United States, in urging Congress to repeal the special canal privileges granted to the coastwise monopoly, has said:

I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the Administration. I shall not know how to deal with matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure.

In the face of the record and of such a solemn appeal, Lewis Nixon writes to The World to say that he has "never seen a sincere or logical argument to uphold the Hay-Pauncefote provisions against remission of tolls." Senator O'Gorman, who is helping the coastwise monopoly keep its hand in the National Treasury, has even forgotten that he was once eminent as a Judge, and falls back upon the pettifogging argument that

The word "vessels" as used in the treaty applies solely to ships in the overseas trade. It does not apply and was never intended to apply to the coast wise trade.

In other words, a vessel is a vessel if it does not get a subsidy, but it is a raft or a derrick or a pike-pole if it does get a subsidy.

The Constitution provides that all treaties made under the authority of the United States shall be part of "the supreme law of the land." But Congress has recognized a higher law than this supreme law. That higher law is in the pockets of the

coastwise-shipping monopoly. In order to give a million dollars a year to men who are already protected against every form of foreign competition, Congress undertakes to violate a treaty and break the pledge of the Nation. The Democratic part of Congress which upholds this tolls exemption is also turning its back upon the fundamental principle of its party and voting special privileges to a special interest at the expense both of the public Treasury and the public faith. And to what purpose? Not to build up an American merchant marine, for not a cent's worth of privilege is given to any American ship in the foreign trade. Every ship flying the American flag which goes through the Panama Canal bound to any foreign port must pay the same tolls as a British ship or a German ship or a French ship.

The subsidy is all for the shipping that has no foreign competition. The treaty-breaking is all for a monopoly that has no foreign competition. The honor of the Nation and the historic principles of the Democratic party are alike flouted for the profit of a few coastwise carriers, while 95,000,000 American people are made to pay the bill in money and to pay the bill in international enmity.

The United States built the canal subject to the provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty and it is bound by those provisions. There is no external power or tribunal which can compel this country to respect its pledges, but the pledges are as valid as if we were the weakest instead of the strongest of pations.

This country began its national existence by proclaiming in the Declaration of Independence its "decent respect for the opinions of mankind." It must still maintain that decent respect for the opinions of mankind. Whatever Congress may think or whatever Congress may do at the behest of a monopoly's lobby, the American people are a people who want to keep the faith.