The Height Of Panama Folly.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 18, 1912:
    Representative Moore expresses it as his opinion that it is the height of folly for the United States to build the Panama Canal at its sole cost and for the equal benefit of all nations. If other nations want to benefit on even terms with the United States, Representative Moons argues that they should be invited to pay their share of the cost He thinks that the remedy is to neutralize the canal, and to free ourselves from our obligations to England by asking England to share our burdens and responsibilities. The canal seems to Representative Moore to he a commercial enterprise, and it offends his sensibilities that we should be defending it as though it were liable to attack, and thus to be running up a big bill for military charges, none of which are to be borne by those who demand the equal use of the canal.
    We are far from thinking that Mr. Moore is less well informed than other Americans. On the contrary, he is serving his fourth term as Congressman, which is an education in itself. Neither are those who agree with him below the average of intelligence. On the contrary, they are so far above the average of intelligence that it is necessary to deal with them with less indulgence than the man in the street, who sympathizes with their specious arguments. We lament the necessity of warning all and sundry to accept with the greatest reserve such statements as those made by Representative Moore on Tuesday and by Senator Lodge on Wednesday. Senator Lodge says now that unquestionably the United States would be beaten on arbitration of the question as to the rights of the United States under the treaty which the Senator assisted to ratify. That is, all the world would disagree with the views he now holds, which he thought at that time to be expressed with such perfect clearness that they could not be misunderstood. "All" nations, the Senator contends, means "all other" nations, so that the United States stands in a class by itself regarding tolls, and may rebate, or discriminate at will. The argument proves too much. If the United States is excepted for one thing it is excepted; for all things, and it is relieved from the observance of the rates in general, as well as those regarding tolls. Americans, therefore, are warned that perhaps another depth of dishonor lies ahead of them unless they resist this first approach of the tempter.
    Those who trust gentlemen like Representative Moore and Senator Lodge must be amazed at their invitation to believe that all these things are now argued for the first time. So far is this from being true that the treaty was adopted after the fullest consideration, and there is not one idea now produced which was not weighed and rejected in favor of the considerations which led to the negotiation and ratifieation of the "musty document" of 1901, which is now thrown into the waste basket along with the Constitution, and anything else that obstructs anything thought popular. This treaty was thought popular eleven years ago. It was a concession to the popular demand that such a partnership arrangement as Representative Moore proposes should be displaced by a strictly American canal, to be owned by the United States, to be built on American territory, and to be operated for the benefit of the United States. It was to be built as a naval canal, for purposes of defense, and its cost was to be justified regardless of financial results by the economy of cost of the navy, and by doubling its efficiency.
    The treaty was negotiated to rid ourselves of partners, the cost of freedom being thought worth while. It was for that reason that we assumed the sole cost. The cost of the defenses is for our sole interest, and it would be equally useless and unnecessary to neutralize the canal, since its neutralization was accomplished by the treaty whose benefits as well as whose duties we would lose together.
    In those days nothing was heard of any such sordid thing as the division of profits. It was not thought sure that there would be any profits, and nobody would have dared to suggest that any interest should be excepted from "chipping in" toward lessening the greatest single burden in aid of trade any nation ever assumed. The canal was regarded as a species of insurance against the need of a navy twice as large as we have. Now it is said that we are trying to make a profit out of our insurance policy, when we are simply trying to argue ourselves out of a bargain which all the world except ourselves understands differently. We impugn no man's motives, but we state simple truth when we say that the only purpose of this argument is to take money out of the Treasury for an interest for which too much already has been done. The canal is the people's. Its earnings are the people's. One of its greatest earnings is designed to be the cheapening of communications in the interest of the ultimate consumer. Let him beware of the good faith of any argument designed to increase profits at his expense, and even more by resistance to the fall of freights than by the diversion of tolls into a few men's pockets, contrary to the language and intent of all the documents in the case.