"Imbecility " Of The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 18, 1912:
    It is impossible to sympathize with that sort of Americanism which would break a treaty for profit, but there can be no reason of any sort why a treaty should not be observed because of its benefits. The treaty which requires the equal treatment of ail commerce via Panama gives a full equivalent for all its obligations, and the obligations cannot be broken without sacrificing the benefits. We cannot break the treaty regarding our duties and expect it to be observed by other nations regarding their duties. We ought not to desire to release ourselves from our undertakings, and if we shall do so we shall forfeit more than we shall gain under the treaty, and incidentally shall lose our National character for probity. It is a case where honesty is the best policy, because profit lies along the path of duty. Our engagement is with England alone in form, but England is the representative of the world. We engaged to treat "all nations" impartially on the condition that they should observe the rules we should make. It follows that if we observe the treaty no nation can break our rules without affronting all nations which observe them. It is beyond conception that any nation which can send ships through the canal free of cost should forfeit the privilege of doing so provided that the stipulations of equality are observed. But as soon as conditions of discrimination are established the privilege of using the canal for nothing beyond compliance with our rules disappears. Nations would not value the open door to the canal if on entering they found conditions of competition unfair. It would not be a square deal. Immediately all nations would be interested to attack the canal's commerce instead of to defend that in which they were participators. In other words, the establishment of discriminatory conditions in favor of our commerce abolishes the neutralization of the canal.
    What is neutralization worth? It happens to be a case where the neutralization is as much a matter of peace as of war. The Suez Canal is neutralized only regarding war, and we are not a party to that treaty. We abstained from signing it because we could not be a party to the interests and quarrels of the European system. Since we are not a signatory it follows that we could not object if discrimination were imposed, upon our commerce, which is large, as well as against our ships, which we hope will be numerous with the growth of our foreign trade in the new industrial era which we are just entering so inauspiciously on the political side. There is no obligation for equality of treatment of our commerce via Suez, because that treaty is a political document. The Panama treaty, on the other hand, is chiefly a commercial document. It does stipulate for equality of commercial treatment of "all" nations, and does so for a reason. It was impossible for us to admit European Powers to our system, just as it was impossible for us to enter the European system. We act alone regarding the Panama Canal because it is an American enterprise in a sense which extends from Magellan to where Peary planted the Stars and Stripes. It belittles the canal to regard it as a United States affair. Those who do so, intending to exalt the United States, in reality exclude the United States from world affairs just as the days of our exclusiveness are passing.
    It follows that by breaking the treaty in our alleged selfish National interests we both declare commercial war and take all the risks of any political war between any two nations in the world. The nations which have assumed the obligations of neutrality in consideration of equality of treatment become free to antagonize the canal in any manner, under any conditions of peace or of war, and we are put to the cost and risk of defending the canal against hostility alike in war and peace. Every nation becomes interested in raising or joining a commercial cabal against us. And nations which are not parties to any such hostile commercial combination are free to consult their own interests in attacking the canal whenever their interests require it. In the case of a war between any two foreign nations neither would attack New York Harbor, but either or both of them might find it worth their while, for reasons of self-interest rather than of hostility to the United States, to attack the canal. They might wish to do so either to cripple the enemy's navy or to destroy its commerce. Any such act would drag in allies, for no nation is concerned to defend a canal which is not neutralized. So long as we maintain the treaty the defense of the canal is a small matter, since every nation is interested to keep it free on terms of equality to all. But if we break the treaty the defense of the canal is a much more serious matter than the defense of New York Harbor.