in the Cabinet of President McKinley while it was negotiated, and of President Roosevelt when it was signed. I was called in with Senator Spooner to help in the framing of the Panama treaty which makes obedience to this Hay-Pauncefote treaty a part of the stipulations under which we get our title. I negotiated the treaty with Colombia for the settlement and the removal of the cloud upon the title to the Isthmus of Panama and carried on the negotiations with England under which she gave her assent to the privileges that were given to Colombia in that treaty. I have had to have a full conception of what this treaty meant for now nearly 13 years. I know what Mr. Hay felt and what he thought, and, Mr. President, I speak for all the forebears that went before me in America and for all that shall come after me, for the honor and credit of our country, and for that alone. If we do not guard it, who shall?

A settlement? We are told that the speech I made in January, 1913, prevented a settlement. If I could believe that, I would tell it to my children, that they might rejoice after I am gone at that one service rendered to their country. Settle? Compromise? Compromise the honorable obligations of our country? Never. If Great Britain should be so false to the duty she assumed in imposing upon us stipulations as a condition of our having the right to build the canal, if she should be so false to the duty toward mankind which she assumed then, as to commute the obligations that we took upon us for any advantage to herself, I would not consent to give one copper farthing to have her withdraw her demand.

We are right or we are wrong. If the rule of equality which we have prescribed for all the world is infringed by this statute, no negotiations with Great Britain can relieve us of our obligations to arbitrate or

withdraw the statute, our obligations to the rest of the world to arbitrate or withdraw the statute, our obligations to ourselves, to our own consciences, our own sense of right and honor.

There is even more than the higher interests of an ordinary nation involved in this question.

It is now some 80 years since De Tocqueville, in his great book Democracy in America, which presented to the world so just and favoring an estimate of our country, wrote these words:

It is therefore very difficult to ascertain at present what degree of sagacity the American democracy will display in the conduct of the foreign policy of the country, and upon this point its adversaries, as well as its advocates, must suspend their judgment. As for myself. I have no hesitation in avowing my conviction that it is most especially in the conduct of foreign relations that democratic governments appear to me to be decidedly inferior to governments carried on upon different principles.

Mr. President, I have not believed that to be true. I do not believe it to be true. I could not believe it and not despair of the future of our civilization, for more and more the control of all foreign as well as domestic affairs is coming into the hands of democracy. More and more the judgment of the great body of the people determines the actions of Secretaries of State and ministers of foreign affairs and foreign ambassadors and ministers. If democracy is incompetent to deal with foreign affairs more and more, the world will return to the chaos of international strife and war.

Our country has taught the world the most valuable lesson of modern history, if not of all history, that a democracy is competent to maintain within its own territory peace and order with justice. Our democracy has set at naught all the dismal forebodings of its enemies and compelled an unwilling assent from the Governments of the world to its entire competency to rule itself. I have believed and I do believe that the power

of a developing democracy is competent to the maintenance of international peace and justice, to substitute kindly consideration, the mutual courtesy and forgiveness of international brotherhood for the hatred and strife of monarchical and dynastic rule.

Our democracy has assumed a great duty and asserts a mighty power. I have hoped that all diplomacy would be made better, purer, nobler, placed on a higher plane because America was a democracy. I believe it has been; I believe that during all our history the rightthinking, the peace-loving, the justice-loving people of America have sweetened and ennobled and elevated the intercourse of nations with each other; and I believe that now is a great opportunity for another step forward in that beneficent and noble purpose for civilization that goes far beyond and rises far above the mere question of tolls or a mere question with England. It is the conduct of our Nation in conformity with the highest principles of ethics and the highest dictates of that religion which aims to make the men of all the races of the earth brothers in the end.

Mr. President, the noble American who negotiated this treaty as Secretary of State did his share in his time toward accomplishing the beneficent work of ennobling diplomacy and the relations of states. He did it with purest patriotism and the most unswerving devotion to the interests of his own country; and I cannot but feel that in preventing our country from repudiating the obligation into which he entered to make possible the great work of the canal we are rendering a service to his memory that must be grateful to his friends. I recall something that he said that is worth remembering when we are dealing with his work and thinking of the spirit in which he wrought. I ask you to listen to it:

There are many crosses and trials in the life of one who is endeavoring to serve the Commonwealth, but there are also two permanent sources of comfort. One is the support and sympathy of honest and reasonable people. The other is the conviction dwelling forever, like a well of living water, in the hearts of all of us who have faith in the country, that all we do, in the fear of God and the love of the land, will somehow be overruled to the public good; and that even our errors and failures cannot greatly check the irresistible onward march of this mighty Republic, the consummate evolution of countless ages, called by divine voices to a destiny grander and brighter than we can conceive, and moving always, consciously or unconsciously, along lines of beneficent achievement whose constant aims and ultimate ends are peace and righteousness.

I invoke for the consideration of this obligation of honor and good faith, which he assumed in our behalf and in the name of our country, that nobility and largeness of spirit which he exhibited and illustrated in his life. [Applause in the galleries.]

CHAPTER XXV.

THE SUEZ CANAL.

Why bring the Suez Canal into a book treating of the Panama Canal? These two great waterways are the famous international canals of the world's accomplishment; and when repeal of toll exemption was brought prominently before our country, many citizens at once asked: Why can't our nation fix tolls as she pleases, just as do the owners of the Suez Canal?

It then is most proper, as a matter of general information, to treat in a brief way of the Suez Canal, as to its organization, owners and mode of operation. M. de Lesseps held friendly relations with the Khedive of Egypt and proposed to organize a company and undertake to construct a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea under favorable grants and franchises. The Khedive consented to the proposition and the first concession was signed, provisionally, in November, 1854; a complete specification of the grant was drawn up at Cairo, March 25, 1855, by two engineers, Linant and Mougel Bey. M. de Lesseps appealed to the best engineers in Europe to ascertain if the work was possible. This international Commission met at Paris, October, 1855, and passed on to Alexandria where they arrived in November.

The Commission made scientific investigation of the route of the proposed canal and borings to find out about the substratum; the required depth was bored with ease. A favorable report was made and sent to the Khedive; and de Lesseps at once began to advertise the project with a view to the organization