Calls Senate Bill On Canal Grotesque.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 18, 1912:
Frankfurter Zeitung Says It is Ruthless Disregard of International Obligations.
MANY PAPERS ARE SILENT
Have Apparently Had Hint from Government Not to Express Their Views of Canal Situation.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, Aug. 17.— German comment on the United States Senate's abrogation of the tolls clause in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty has not taken place on an extensive scale, but such as there has been is of an extremely plain-speaking character.
    The New York Times correspondent has reason to believe that the unusual restraint which the German press has laid upon itself in connection with the Panama Canal bill is in direct response to an intimation from the Imperial Government.
    The Kaiser's Cabinet, at the present juncture of Anglo-German relations in particular, and of international affairs in general, has no desire unnecessarily either to offend American susceptibilities, or to espouse any British cause too heartily.
    That can be the only explanation of why the professionally anti-American section of the German press has failed to take advantage of so legitimate an opportunity to assail American international manners. The Frankfurter Zeitung, the leading, organ of the German financial and commercial classes, which is accustomed to speak its own mind, regardless of official inspiration, says:
    "The United States Senate passed the Panama Canal bill in a form which differentiates against foreign ships, and therefore constitutes a direct infraction of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The Senate contends that the phrase 'all nations' in the treaty means 'all other nations.' No international court of arbitration would, of course, concur in this grotesque construction of a perfectly plain statement.
    ''The policy of brute force which the. Senate has applied to the interpretation of the treaty, and this ruthless disregard of international obligations, is nothing new in America. It reflects the spirit of the young colonial Nation which has only recently been a race of pioneers, cowboys, and prairie huntsmen.
    ''The most ludicrous feature of the situation is the contradiction it offers to the American people's pretended enthusiasm for international peace and obligatory arbitration. We believe that these is little hope that President Taft will veto the Senate's bill. We ourselves were only recently in a position to state that the very idea of differentiation against foreign nations originated with president Taft himself. He is hardly likely, on the eve of a Presidential election, to do anything which might be construed into an ignominious retreat."