Nos 1-4 [Committee room, gallery floor, west corridor. Telephone 230. Meets on call.] 1. WILLIAM SULZER, of New York, Chairman. 2. HENRY D. FLOOD, of Virginia. 4. GEORGE S. LEGARE, of South Carolina. 7. JEFFERSON M. LEVY, of New York. 8. JAMES M. CURLEY, of Massachusetts. 9. JOHN CHARLES LINTHICUM, of Maryland. 12. CHARLES M. STEDMAN, of North Carolina. 13. EDWARD W. TOWNSEND, of New Jersey. 14. B. P. HARRISON, of Mississippi. 15. DAVID J. FOSTER, of Vermont. 16. WILLIAM B. MCKINLEY, of Illinois. 17. HENRY A. COOPER, of Wisconsin. 18. IRA W. WOOD, of New Jersey. 19. RICHARD BARTHOLDT, of Missouri. THE STORY OF PANAMA. COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, January 26, 1912. Mr. SULZER (chairman). Gentlemen of the committee, we will take up this morning Mr. Rainey's resolution relating to Panama. The resolution reads as follows: [H. Res. 32. Sixty-Second Congress, first session.] Whereas a former President of the United States has declared that he "took" Panama from the Republic of Colombia without consulting Congress; and Whereas the Republic of Colombia has ever since petitioned this country to submit to The Hague Tribunal the legal and equitable question whether such taking was in accordance with or in violation of the treaty then existing between the two countries, and also whether such taking was in accordance with or in violation of the well-established principles of the law of nations; and Whereas the Government of the United States professes its desire to submit all international controversies to arbitration and has conducted treaties with many other nations agreeing to submit all legal questions to arbitration, but has steadily refused arbitration to the Republic of Colombia: Therefore be it Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives be, and the same hereby is, directed to inquire into the same; send for books, papers, and documents; summon witnesses; take testimony; and report the same, with its opinion and conclusions thereon, to this House with all convenient speed. Mr. Rainey, you can proceed. Mr. RAINEY. Mr. Chairman, the hearing the committee has so kindly accorded me is on House resolution 32, of the first session of the present Congress, which I introduced on the 16th day of last April. At the present time before this committee it is my purpose to make out, if I can, a prima facie case, and I think when we get through presenting the evidence to the committee you will agree that we have made out something more than a prima facie case. Now, in the first place, it might be important for the committee to know just what the propositions of Colombia are in this matter in order to show you the things Colombia could not ask for under her own proposition. On October 21, 1905, the Colombian minister at Washington presented to our State Department a recapitulation of the events which preceded the alleged revolution on the Isthmus of Panama and asked for arbitration, and in a subscquent note on April 6, 1906, he had this to say in a letter to our State Department: I note the fact that in your communication (Secretary Root's) it is stated for the first time on behalf of your Government that the United States espoused the cause of Panama, the language being: "Nor are we willing to permit any arbitrator to determine the political policy of the United States in following its sense of right and justice by espousing the cause of this weak people against the stronger Government of Colombia, which had so long held them in unlawful subjection." I must say that the question between Colombia and the United States is not whether Panama was justly entitled to assert independence, but whether the United |