The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-05
MESSAGE ON PANAMA.
PRESIDENT DEFENDS THE AD-
 LAMENTATIONS COURSE.

MlAlOlAA4AOI'c OOUASEs Absolute Denial That Any One Com neeted with ThIs Government Had Anything to Do With Ineistng the ton of the Treaty with Panama Urged.
 Washington, Jan. 1.-The president sent to congress to-day special mes sage telling what the administration had done to carry out the act for the construction of an isthnian canal, de- nying that anybody connected with the United States government had any part in melting the Panama revolution, and urging the ratification of the treaty with the republic of Panama. The fea- lures of main interest follow:
 A To the Senate and House of Represen- tatives:
 I lay before the congress for its infor- nation statement of my action up to this time in executing the act entitled "An act to provide for the construction of a. canal, connecting the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans" approved June 2S, 1902
 By the said act the president was au- thorized to secure for the United States the property of the Panama Canal com pany and the perpetual control of strip six miles wide across the 1sthmus of Panama It was further provided that should the president be unable to obtain for the United States a satisfac- tory title to the property of the New Panama Canal company and the control of the necessary territory of the Repub- lie of Colombia within req sonable time and upon reasonable terms, then the president" should en- deavor to provide for canal by the Nicaragua route. The language quoted defines with exactness and precision what was to be done. and what as a matter of fact has been done. The president was authorized to go to the Nicaragua route only if within a req sonable time he could not obtain "con- trol of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia" This control has now been obtained; the provision of the act has been complied with; it is no longer possible under existing legisla- tion to go to the Nicaragua route as an alternative.
 This act marked the climax of the ef- fort on the part of the United States to secure, so far as legislation was con cerned, an inter-oceanic canal across the Isthmus. The effort to secure a treaty for this purpose with one of the Central American republics did not stand on the same footing with the eff fort to secure treaty under any ordi- nary conditions. The proper position for the United States to assume in ref erence to this canal, and therefore to the governments of the Isthmus, had been clearly set forth by Secretary Cass in 1858. In my annual message I have already quoted what Secretary Cass said; but I repeat the quotation here, because the principle it states is funda- mental:
 While the rights of sovereignty of the states occupying this region Central America) should always be respected, we shall expect that these rights be ex- ercised in spirit befitting the occasion and the wants and circumstances that have arisen. Sovereignty has it's du- ties as well as it's rights, and none of these local governments, even if admin istered with more regard to the just de- mands of other nations than they have been, would be permitted, in spirit of eastern isolation, to close the gates of intercourse on the great highways of the world, and justify the act by the pretension that these avenues of trade and travel belong to them and that they choose to shut them, or, what is almost equivalent, to cucumber them with such unjust relations as would prevent their general use.
 The principle thus enunciated by Sec- retary Cass was sound then and it is sound now. The United States has taken the position that no other govern ment is to build the canal. Tn 1889, when France proposed to come to the aid of the French Panama company by guaranteeing their bonds, the senate of the United States in executive session with only some three votes dissenting passed a resolution as follows:
 That the government of the United States will look with serious concern and disapproval upon any connection of any European government with the con- struction or control of any ship canal across the Isthnlus of Darien or across Central America, and must regard any such connection or control as injurious to the just rights and interests of the United States and as menace to their welfare.
 Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty it was explicitly provided that the United States should control, police and pro- tect the canal which was to be built,