Republic of Panama

“ Seldom in the history of international relations has a controversy afforded more grounds for honest difference of opinion than the issue between the United States and Colombia, growing out of the revolution and formation of the new Republic of Panama. ”

“ Political stability for the government of Panama is assured by the relations which exist between the United States and the Isthmian Republic, a condition which exists in no other Spanish-American republic. The proximity of the Canal assures a world market. The climate and soil and water supply nature has provided with lavish hand. Sanitation and hygiene have become exact sciences, and the matter of retaining [Pg 100] good health in the tropics is no longer a problem. ”

“ When one considers that the Republic of Panama is made up largely of the cities of Panama and Colon, with a large area of almost wholly undeveloped territory, it will be seen that this service was rendered to practically all the people of the Republic. ”

“ The Republic of Panama has two thirds as many people as Paraguay or Jamaica, and, as previously stated, one third as many as Cuba, as many as Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho combined, or is about equal to Utah, Nevada, and Arizona put together. ”

“ Its numerous towns and occasional good roads suggest a newly opened territory in the west, where there are abundant opportunities for growing up with the country. The newcomer is apt to be deceived into thinking that all things are now ready and all he has to do is to move in.
In the extreme western part of Panama lies the great Chiriqui Province with its best-developed region in the entire Republic. Here are great cattle ranches, sugar fields, rice plantings, cotton farms, cornfields, and here are American companies working to develop modern civilized conditions. ”

“ But Panama is something vastly more significant than a couple of slow-service, high-priced hotels. The Isthmian Republic is an empire in possibilities, entirely apart from the Canal Zone, though the development of the latent riches of the country is most vitally related to the Canal enterprise. And the rich belt of land that binds together two continents is something very much larger than the interesting little city that bears the name of Panama. ”

“ The western half contains at present all the population of the Republic. The eastern half has no population at all, with the exception of a few wild Indians. In Balboa’s time this eastern half was thickly populated, and contained most of the inhabitants. Columbus looked upon Panama as the richest portion of his American discoveries, particularly from a gold-producing standpoint, and the Spaniards generally shared this opinion. ”

“ Panama is much drier than the Caribbean seaport, the annual rainfall [p. 46] usually being not more than 70 inches and the humidity of the atmosphere not so great. But 90° Fahrenheit in the shade is the average mean temperature, and the humidity is penetrating enough to serve all practical purposes of discomfort.
The new Panama is at La Boca, the Pacific mouth of the Canal. This is the railway terminus, and it is there the United States authorities created the port of Ancon and then abandoned the plan of collecting customs duties in competition with the Isthmian Republic. ”

“ Canal Zone 2.4%; shortage of skilled labor, but an oversupply of unskilled labor
_#_Organized labor: 17% of labor force (1986)
_*Government #_Long-form name: Republic of Panama
_#_Type: centralized republic
_#_Capital: Panama
_#_Administrative divisions: 9 provinces (provincias, singular—provincia) and 1 territory* (comarca) ; Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui, Cocle, Colon, Darien, Herrera, Los Santos, Panama, San Blas*, Veraguas
_#_Independence: 3 November 1903 (from Colombia; became independent from Spain 28 November 1821)
_#_Constitution: 11 October 1972 ”

“ More than one-third of the people therefore are town dwellers, which is to say they are unproductive citizens. Meanwhile more than five-eighths of the arable land in the country is not under cultivation.
The five chief towns of Panama with their population in 1911 are:
[275]
Of these towns David is the capital of the Chiriqui province, the portion of the republic in which cattle growing and agriculture have been most developed. Bocas del Toro is a banana port, dependent upon that nutritious fruit for its very existence, and the center of the business of the United Fruit Company in Panama. ”

“ As the Panamanians were not strong enough to win independence, nor the Bogotá government to keep good order, every revolution either degenerated into brigandage, or was stopped by American intervention. For the burden of this disorder fell not so heavily on the habitants of a region where there are no industries, and a poor man can gather a week's food in half an hour's walk through the jungle, as on the foreign merchants and traders, particularly the American-owned Panama Railroad. ”

“ The local idea of government was to put yourself in power and then squeeze all the taxes you could out of everybody else. Nobody ever became president of New Granada or Colombia except by violence, and no president was strong enough to keep peace in Panama.
Revolutions, like every other industry, were revived on the Isthmus by the coming of the forty-niners and the building of the railroad. The Spaniards there have always been predatory by choice, and as they had lived off the Indians in the old days, they now lived off the Americans and other travelers. ”

“ If a spirit of independence can make a people prosperous, then Panama and prosperity should mean the same thing.
Panama has some peculiar political advantages to-day. Where other nations maintain their political sovereignty and internal peace at the cost of huge sums of money and by means of armies and battleships, Panama is spared this enormous drain upon her resources and men and money, and finds her political independence guaranteed against all the nations of the earth. Likewise she is sure of internal peace and is the only really war-tight, revolution-proof country in Latin-America. ”

“ American business men who have lived in Panama feel that no permanent success can be assured to such undertakings without the backing of the United States government. The officials of Panama naturally do not look with enthusiasm upon this idea and prefer to keep development enterprises within their own jurisdiction. ”

“ It would be idle to describe, even to enumerate, all the revolutions which have disquieted the Isthmus since it first joined Colombia in repudiating the Spanish rule. They have been as thick as insects in the jungle. No physical, social or commercial ties bound Panama to Colombia at any time during their long association. ”

“ President and gentlemen, let me assure you that in the share which the United States is taking and is to take in this work, there is and can be but one feeling and one desire toward the people of Panama. It is a feeling of friendship sincere and lasting; it is a feeling of strong desire that wisdom may control the deliberations of this assembly; that judgment and prudence and love of country may rule in all your councils and may control all your actions; it is a desire and a firm purpose that so far as in us lies, there shall be preserved for you the precious boon of free self-government. ”

“ Cortlandt. "But times have changed. Panama has seen her last revolution, and she needs a business man at her head. Presidents are not made now by rifle and sword, and the man with the machete must give way to the man with a capacity for handling big affairs. There will be no more swineherd Presidents like your Guatemalan countryman Corera, nor tyrants like Zelaya. Panama is a healthy country, with no national debt; she is growing, developing. ”

“ Thus over Gatun Lake they flew, over the Chagres River; along the course of Culebra Cut, with its high banks, across the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks on the other side of the isthmus; over Ancon; and finally below them lay clustered the white-robed buildings of Panama itself, with the swelling blue reaches of the big Pacific to the southward and westward, and the bold shore-line of South America to the southeastward. ”

“ The population of Porto Rico has nearly doubled since American occupation exchanged the old regime for the new. The barren deserts of the great Southwest are becoming fertile and populous regions because the people [Pg 99] who are possessing the land have a fair chance, and know that they will be assured a market for their produce and security for their lives and property. Given political security, monetary stability, market accessibility, and assurance of economic cooperation on the part of the government, there are no immediate limits to the population that Panama may support in comfort. ”

“ But in too many of the little countries along the shore of the Caribbean,—the region which a great American statesman has called "the land of the fantastic and the unexpected," men still prefer to vote as their forefathers did, with swords and cannon. Of all these backward countries, the one that has changed least since the days of the conquistadores is Colombia.
Panama was too small a state to stand alone, after it became independent of Spain, and accepted an invitation from Bogotá to put itself under the government there, but quickly found that it had exchanged King Log for King Stork. ”

“ The only interest in life is political manipulation. Law and politics are the two occupations most esteemed, and Panama is not different from other countries in the frequent association of these two professions. ”

“ The most urgent need of the mission work in Panama just now is that of trained and efficient Latin leadership. No people can be effectively lifted from without.
A century ago nearly the whole of the southern world was in the throes of political readjustment. Self-government and political freedom were the watchwords and everywhere strong men arose and devoted their lives to the task of breaking from the necks of the people the political yokes under which they had staggered for two and one half centuries. ”

“ There are people who tell us that the basis of national progress is economic and commercial. Given a land with all large resources, we shall perforce have a progressive people. Measured by this standard, Panama should lead all the rest. Her thirteen hundred miles of coast bound a narrow empire, but an empire of wonderful possibilities. ”

“ The first city founded by explorers in the New World, the oldest town in America inhabited by white men, the most conglomerate mixture of humanity on earth are in Panama. The bloodiest tale of modern history, the most romantic story of American exploration, the greatest engineering achievement of man all center in Panama. ”

“ Accounts of the construction and character of the old city represent it to have been builded with much magnificence. All the woods used in building were of the fine native mahoganies, and there were hangings, tapestries, and paintings in the sumptuous houses of the men who became enormously rich from the traffic of the times. Returning ships from Europe brought luxuries as well as necessities, and the gold trade people maintained regular fleets of ships and put Panama in close touch with the life of the age. ”