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Show REPEAL OF CANAL TOLLS WOULD BE DISGRACEFUL. Bainbridge oiby. chairman of 'The Committee tor the Preservation of American Rights in the Panama Canal," Ca-nal," sends the Standard a letter reviewing re-viewing the Panama tolls controversy controver-sy that is by far the strongest presentation presenta-tion of the side defending American rights that we have seen His letter, in part, follows. "Dear Sir. Do you not think the following two facts in the Panama Tolls controversy, should be called to your reader.-' attention: First: That the reasons assigned by the repealers for the surrender of our rights In a matter of purely domestic do-mestic regulation, such as the 61 emption 0) American coastwise shipping ship-ping from toll payment, have been abandoned, one after the other, until the repeal Is now sought on the ground that the forces behind the repeal re-peal merely want it They have fixed their desires upon it, and their "arguments'' are now only reiterated requests for what tbey want. "Second That the interests of monopoly, or of subsidy, or of special i privilege call It what you like, are righting on the side of repeal "The statement with which the President introduced the question to the consideration of congress, that the exemption of our coastwise ship ping from toll payment is 'In plain contravention of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, Is heard no more. Senator Lodge put a quietus upon this contention. con-tention. He was a member of the foreign relations committee of the senate which reported the amendments amend-ments of the first Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and was in charge of the treaty in the senate when it wa ratified rati-fied He was in London when the second Hay-Pauncefote treaty was being negotiated and was familiar with the discussions which then took place. Later, it devolved upon him to report the second treaty to the .ciiiite. and to participate in the discussions dis-cussions which ended in its ratification ratifica-tion I look the view then.' says Sena-j tor Lodge, 'that under the terms of the treaty of November 18, 1901, the United States was at liberty to exempt ex-empt its own vessels of commerce from the payment of tolls, if they saw . fit to do so.' This is Senator Lodge's, unaltered convictions today "To the same effect have spoken I also President Roosevelt, President j Taft, former Secretary of State Ol-1 ne . former Attorney General Bonaparte, Bona-parte, and ex-Secretary of State and Attorney General Philander C Knox, not to mention other names of almost al-most equal dignity and authority. "How can dishonor attach to Amer icans who assert and defend national rights which have been affirmed so impressively, and which were virtually virtual-ly conceded by the English govern-' mcnt, when Senator Root invited a renewal of its abandoned contentions In his deplorable speech of January 21, 11&3? If the American position! is In conformity with the treaty, and not 'in plain contravention' of It, I then can be no obligation of honor to relinquish what is clearly ours by j right ' That the force of this proposition la felt by the repealers is shown by their shift from an appeal to "honor , to an appeal to our magnanimity. To use the phrase of the President, we ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, so that 'we may deserve de-serve our reputation for generosity ' Iu other words, the repealers 'want us to do it ' The President asks that he be indulged In his wish 'In ungrudging un-grudging measure.' 'I ask this of you,' says he In his speech of March 5, to congress. This Is all there Is to the question. "After trying to subject us to a sort of moral intimidation by representing repre-senting the national honor as hanging In the balance, the repealers next tried to frighten us into compliance by picturing the nations of the world as united In protest against our course. But no protest was forthcoming forth-coming except England's, which was a.s half-hearted as it is graceless and unworthy of the nation which profits so immeasurably more than wo from our own labor and expenditure The j matters of delicacy and near consequence' conse-quence' turn out to be only a broken-I broken-I down alibi That there are none such is now admitted. "A witty reviewer once said, 'as ' you turn the pages of one of George Meredith's novels, the suspense of I tho author Is almost unbearable.' As we note the horrific megrims and I melancholy sunpalns of the repealers, repeal-ers, and their visions of a world arrayed ar-rayed against us in sullen distrust, ! it ia difficult for us to realize thai we have about completed a stdpend ! ous benefaction to mankind, which it hails with grateful expectancy of I new gains and hitherto undreamed of expansions "These afflicted repealers, professing profes-sing concern for the nation s honor, cannot be soothed by the demonstration demonstra-tion that at no point Is it compromised, compro-mised, and is questioned only by themselves. "The Republic of Panama has granted by treaty to the United States, and I quote from the treaty, ! 'all the rights, power and authority,' j within the canal zone and the limits of all auxiliary lands and waters, I 'which the United States would pos-I pos-I ses8 and exercise If it were the sovereign sov-ereign of the territory within which ! said lauds and waters are located, to I the entire exclusion of the exercise by the republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority." au-thority." And England in its note of November 14, 191'. conceded 'that the United States has become the practical sovereign of the canal.' Yet, notwithstanding this, we find Senator Root Intercepting these admissions, seeking by vulpine logic and tenuous reasonings to deprive bi country of their benefit, and to substitute for the sovereignty so clearly granted, a wobbly lawyer-made 'trusteeship ' "Was ever such a spectacle seen before What can It mean'' President Presi-dent Wilson and Becretary Bryan, marting under the charge that they have dragooned their party into a he trayal of Its platform, retort that the plank in favor of an exemption from toll payment of our coastwise shipping ship-ping was furtively slipped Into the platform and is nothing but a auc-ctsaful auc-ctsaful imposture. They are prompt ix obliged to hare recourse to an other defense, however, when the fact is recalled that Secretary Bryan was the chairman of the convention committee which reported the platform, plat-form, that the plank in question was referred to a sub-committee, discuss ed in full committee, amended, and debated in the open convention before be-fore adoption. Besides, there is the President's tell-tale speech to the New Jersey farmers, in which he extolled ex-tolled the exemption feature of the Panama act a few days after its paa sage, and explained Its operation as a check to excessive transcontinental freight charges. "Their nexi excuse was that the platform pledge was not binding be cause in conflict with the party's at titml.' of opposition to subsidies. Further Fur-ther than this panic cannot drive conscious evasion. Subsidy, forsooth! when per cent of our coastwise shipping Is railroad-owned, and by the terms of the Panama act excluded exclud-ed altogether from use of the canal, f this Is what subsidy means, then every deepened waterway and broadened broad-ened channel, every lock and every canal, on our lakes, along our coasts, upon our vlvers built by national ap proprlatlons. and used by our shipping, ship-ping, is a subsidy. The Democratic party not less than other parties has had its honorable share in these great internal improvements. "This cry of 'subsidy' has been raised most disingenuously. The repealers omit to mention the fact that England's protest is directed not only against the exemption of our coastwise shipping from toll payment, but also against our exclusion of railroad rail-road owned ships. If the principle is once conceded, that we have no rlgh? to adopt such regulations as we see fit within the domestic sphere of our coastwise shipping, it follows automatically auto-matically th t we have no nht to bar railroad-owned ships from the canal Thus it clearly appears that despite the effort to discredit the op. position to repeal by raising the hue and cry of privilege and special In-I In-I terest. the truth Is that monopoly the monopoly of coastwise as well as transcontinental carriage, is ranged on the side of the repealers Under j the captivating pretense of burnishing burnish-ing our honor by splendid renuncia tion. the forces of monopoly, under. Root's experienced guidance, hope to turn rout into victory, by snatching from the people control of this great waterway, the only effective means vet devised for beating down the hitherto Invincible railroad monopoly." monop-oly." nn- |