Says Canal Bill Shames Americans.

New York Times 100 years ago today, January 31, 1913:
We Are No Longer Able to Look Englishmen in the Face, Johnson Tells Peace Society.
WILL FIGHT FOR ITS REPEAL
Knox's Reply to Sir E. Grey Has the Sluggishness and Provinciality of a Country Ditch, Editor Says.
    Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of The Century Magazine, appealed to members of the New York Peace Society at a meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle last night to aid in forcing the repeal by Congress of the legislation governing the Panama local tolls, saying that an American could no longer look an Englishman square in the face.
    Mr. Johnson said Senator O'Gorman was a misguided leader and praised Elihu Root for his stand against the canal legislation, Andrew Carnegie, who presided at the meeting, applauded Mr. Johnson's address heartily. A resolution embracing the speaker's ideas was passed unanimously at the close of the meeting.
    "I detect a new note of humiliation in the conversation of men who return here from Europe," Mr. Johnson said. "It is a note beyond mere annoyance. It comes from a deeper shame than anything that could be related to money. For the first time in their lives, as they confessed to me, an American could not look an Englishman fair in the face because of the interpretation put by our Congress upon our treaty obligations.
    "Secretary Knox's reply to Sir E. Grey upon the question involved in the treaty has the muddiness, the sluggishness, and the provinciality of a country ditch. If  we are a world power we must put aside ditchwater diplomacy and acquire the  larger horizon of the sea.
    "Is it any wonder that George Ade, who was in England at the time the Government made public its new interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, said that the English 'seriously believe we are trying to make them the victims of a slick Yankee trick.'
    "We should in this case prove ourselves to be good losers — as good as England proved herself to be on the first arbitration of the world — the Alabama claims. To have a formal presentment go out against us to the world that the United States has violated its sacred word and has refused an opportunity to undo a wrong; this will hush in shame our patriotic songs and turn our paeans into dirges.
    "Do you realize what our National sin is? It is lawlessness; the lawlessness of capital and labor, of graft and of lynching, of the boycott and the blacklist, of purchased injustice, of secret oppression by the predatory rich; but never before has the United States Government, the fountain, the embodiment, the bulwark of law, gone on record as a breaker of its own contract. What an example of lawness is that."
    In closing his address Mr. Johnson read an ode of his own composition entitled, "Hands Across the Sea." He wrote it, he said, at the end of the nineteenth century, but found it still voiced his sentiments for universal peace.
    "I hope that the time may come," he said, "when above the ramparts of The Hague Palace, built through the generosity of one of the wisest of living men, will be inscribed the words, 'The Ultimate Argument of the People.' matching the words which I once saw on an old cannon at Monaco, 'Ultima ratio regnum.' "
    Mr. Carnegie, after Mr. Johnson had finished his address, proposed this resolution, which was adopted:

    Resolved, That the members of the New York Peace Society hereby place themselves on record unequivocally as opposed to the violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty by the provision of the Panama Canal act which remits the tolls on American vessels in contravention of the traditional understanding and the explicit agreement with Great Britain, and the tacit agreement with all other nations, that there shall be no discrimination in tolls or conditions. We respectfully urge upon Senators and Representatives in Congress the supreme importance of safeguarding the National honor thus imperiled, and earnestly request them to vote for the repeal of the exemption.
    And we call upon our fellow-citizens throughout the country, without distinction of party, to lend their aid to the movement for repeal by making known through the press and in letters to their Senators and Representatives, and otherwise, their opposition to any course on the part of the Government which would not be becoming to the most scrupulous man of honor.
    And in case the movement for repeal shall not be successful, we declare our conviction of the supreme necessity of referring the controversy to the decision of impartial arbitration.

    John Barratt, Director General of the Pan-American Union, with headquarters at Washington, D. C., said in his address:
    "To assume toward the South American countries the attitude that we are the whole thing will be to bring failure to our efforts to gain their confidence. Our press should cease to patronize Latin America, to criticise their supposed shortcomings, and to insist on their accepting our point of view.
    "The trade of the United States with South America should be more than $1,000,000,000 annually. We can made it amount to that by a policy of sympathy and kindness, and the economic advantage of the Panama Canal."
    Mr. Carnegie proposed that his speech be considered as read and ordered printed in the proceedings of the meeting. But the audience demanded an address, and Mr. Carnegie said a few words in praise of President-elect Wilson. He attacked the naval policy of the present Administration, and said the only way to welcome an invading army, should one attack our shores, would be to coax it inland, and then let it solve the problem of "how to get out of the country again."