Assails Spread-Eagleism.

New York Times 100 years ago today, September 2, 1912:
French Writer Says We Used Monroe Doctrine in Panama for Our Profit.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    PARIS, Monday, Sept. 2.— A remarkable contribution to the bitter Paris campaign against the Panama Tolls act is a long and exhaustive article signed "A Diplomat" in to-day's Information, an important financial organ, wherein the writer scathingly attacks the "spread-eagleism of the American people, the dishonesty of the Senate, and the casuistry of Mr. Taft."
    "Since the day the American Government took up the construction of the canal," he writes, "its foreign policy has been dominated by the desire to obtain an unassailable supremacy in the eventual utilization of the canal. It was solely with this end in view that Washington separated Panama from Colombia, and that successive Presidents have so zealously and unscrupu-lously applied to the small republics of the Isthmus the famous Monroe Doctrine, which tends more and more to become an instrument of the policy of pan-Americanism, to some profit to the United States."
    The writer reproaches American jurisprudence for not making a distinction between near and distant coast-wise traffic, as does French law.
    "For instance," he says, "a ship leaving New York for San Francisco via the Philippines would, be classed as a coaster.
    "Mr. Taft knows very well," he adds, "that by a cynical exploitation of the passions and prejudices of nationalism it is possible to sway American popular opinion, and fearing the effect of running counter to spread-eagleism, he ratified the act, which makes waste paper of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The President's memorandum was a pitiable expedient which reveals him in a still more unfavorable light." In conclusion the writer says: "This wretched episode sheds a glaring light on the inconveniences and perils of a Constitution which permits the chief of the State to ignore the highest duties of his office in order to serve personal ends. Such an incident won't improve the character of the demagogic struggle between Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt and the coalitions whose puppets they are any more than will Senator Penrose's revelations on the subject of Mr. Roosevelt's campaign funds.
    "It is to be feared that this blow dealt at Great Britain's vital interests will shatter the good relations between the two powers, which, however cordial and enthusiastic they may seem, are only of recent date, and succeeded a state of tension sometimes menacing."