Evening star., 1934-03-25
BY GASTON NERvAL.
.HE people of Panama want a

~HE people Of Panama want a
new deal" from the Govern
ment of the United States.
i Encouraged by President Roose-
velt's good neighbor" pledges
and the administration repeated ges-
lures of friendship toward Latin
America, the Panamanians feel that
the time has come for a correction of
the evils and Misunderstanding aris-
ing out of the 1903 treaty, which gov
erns their relations with the United
States.
The Panamanian Society for Inter-
national Action presented a few days
ago to President Roosevelt and Speak
er of the House Rainey, through its
representative in Washington, DR.. J.
G. Lewis, "A Message From the Pana-
manian People to the People of the
United States" to which more than
| $4,000 signatures had already been af-
fixed. The message is clear and con-
else exposition of the errors and
abuses which the treaty of 1903 has
permitted and of the dangers of per-
petuating them.
| Beginning with a reference to the
hastiness and secrecy with which the
treaty was signed by the ill-famed
Bunau Varilla, financially interested
i'll the Panama Canal, and Secretary
of State John Hay, in the private res
ioence of the latter, scarcely two hours
before the duly accredited Pana-
| manian plenipotentiaries arrived in
Washington, the message goes on to
explain the inconvenience, the def
ciencieS and most of all the injuStices
| which that convention implies" and
| concludes by requesting the co-opera-
ton OF the people of the United States
in securing a revision of the 1903 pact
and thus pave the way for fairer and
more harmonious relations between
the grantor and the concessionaire OF
the Panama Canal.
Secured Perpetual Rights.
The history Of the Hay-Bunau Va
rilla treaty IS too well known to need
repetition. No one ignores that in Or
| der to secure the concessions neces-
sary for the construction, mainte-
nance, operation, sanitation and pro-
lection" of the Panama Canal, which
that treaty sanctioned. the United
States did not stop short of lending
indirect, but very effective, assistance
in the separation of Panama from
Colombia and its constitution into an
independent republic. And nobody will
| deny. today. that the price for such
an assistance was ably exacted from
the neWly-born. state when the terms
OF the canal concessions were settled
| Instead of the joint Jurisdiction of the
Canal Zone proposed to Colombia, the
United States obtained from Panama
| the exclusive and absolute jurisdic-
| ton over it. Instead of the 99-year
grant which the Colombian Senate
had refused to ratify. the United
States secured from Panama perpetual
rights over the Canal Zone. In a Sc
ries of provisions covering eXpropria-
tiors of land for the construction OF
| the canal. control of the Panama
Railway, commercial privileges for the
zone commiSsaries," etc, plus certain
| political rights, the United States OBJ
| tanned from Panama considerably
more than it had ever expected to get
from Colombia.
In spite of this, public opinion in
Panama accepted the sacrifices in
volved in the 1903 compact in the
belief, widely broadcast then from the
United States, that the people of Pan
| anna would be compensated in the fu-
ture by the material benefits and the
commercial prosperity to be derived
from the construction and operation
of the interoceanic canal. Moreover,
the statesmen of the United States
solemnly declared that their only aim
as "the manufactures Of civilization,
was the construction of the canal for
the development of peace and inter
| national trade without hindering the
rights and interests Of the native pop
ulation of Panama. President Theo-
dore Roosevelt said that the United
States had not the slightest intention
to establish an independent colony In
the midst of the State of Panama OF
to exercise powers other than those