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Show Kh1! ,8 the'isthmus situation. h i 5' IB Tlie message of President Roosevelt is stalwart ' 1 ' 'IB ' a11 tn0 way through. The most interesting feature Vi ' I J H ls nis diacussion of e Isthmus .business. If press Bf ' ' I ' I B or neoDe cicise the administration on that score, if I they will have to criticise by. implication half a Bwl ; ' "l ' 'a 1 Hi ' 1 1 ill N Bll'l Hliill dozen former administrations, both Republ"f 1 and Democratic. Certainly there will be no genuine sympathy wasted on Colombia. When there was a "question on the part of the United States whether to undertake under-take the Nicaragua Canal or accept the offer of the French and proceed with the Panama Canal, Colombia begged our country to take the southern route and negotiated a treaty with our Government. Govern-ment. When that was ratified by the Senate of the United States and returned for ratification by the Congress of Colombia, it was received with contempt and not a Greaser in that Congress voted to ratify it. That closed the business with Colombia, Colom-bia, and when the other Greasers at Panama declared de-clared their independence, under the old Treaty of half a century ago which bound our Government to keep the Isthmus route open, oUr Government recognized Panama as an independent state and proceeded to make a new treaty. Then with Central Cen-tral American perfidy Colombia offered a new treaty so soon as the United States licked Panama into subjection to Colombia. The matter ohght to be considered closed, and two things should be kept in mind. First, by securing the treaty, the United States has got decidedly the worst of it. To finish and make practical a canal through that Isthmus after both the pride and money of the French has been exhausted is an experiment the cost of which cannot be computed by any known rules, because so many obstacles that cannot be anticipated will arise. Second, it is a burlesque to try to treat with those wretches down there, save as the men who negotiated the original treaty did, giving the unstable un-stable rabble there no ground for either treachery or bluffing. |