Roosevelt received higher-grade intelligence from two U.S. Army officers just back from Panama. Captain Chauncey Humphrey and Lieutenant Grayson Murphy, who both understood Spanish, had spent a week on the isthmus, dressed as civilians. On the train from Colón to Panama City, they had overheard Governor Obaldía talking about the coming break with Colombia. They then revealed their identities to members of the junta, who disclosed the extent of their preparations for the overthrow of the Colombian government. Arms were being smuggled into Colón in piano boxes. Señor Duque had formed a “fire brigade” that was really a revolutionary militia. The two officers also took notes that would be useful in the event that the U.S. Army was obliged to occupy the isthmus: details on artillery placement, water supply, locations for camps. All this they reported to a rapt Roosevelt on October 16. Three days later—and three days after Bunau-Varilla’s meeting with Hay—the president directed the navy to send warships to within striking distance of Panama, on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. Roosevelt was in his element—the Philippines and Venezuela reprised.
AMADOR ARRIVED BACK IN Panama on October 27 and was greeted by José Arango and the other members of the junta. Their disappointment was profound and nearly unanimous. They had sent Amador, whom they had already chosen to be the first president of Panama, expecting him to return bearing a firm promise in writing from Hay that the United States would recognize and protect the nascent republic. All Amador brought them was a risky scheme from Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer who owned stock in the Compagnie Nouvelle. Instead of a line of credit for $6 million, which they had hoped for, they got instead Bunau-Varilla’s handshake on $100,000, provided the rebellion succeeded. As for the flag that Amador pulled from under his shirt, they hated it—too similar to the Stars and Stripes.
To make matters worse, the following day, Governor Obaldía, who had been living in Amador’s house and was now more loyal to the junta than to Bogotá, announced that the Colombian warship Cartagena, carrying more than two hundred soldiers, was en route to Colón. Many of the conspirators were ready to call off the revolution.
Amador was not one of them. He took Herbert Prescott, assistant superintendent of the Panama Railroad, into his confidence, and together they sent a desperate telegraph to Bunau-Varilla. The coded message was: “Fate news bad powerful tiger urge vapor Colon,” which, using his codebook, Bunau-Varilla (“Fate”) translated as Colombian troops arriving (“news”) Atlantic side (“bad”) in five days (“powerful”); send “vapor” (steamship) to Colón.
With Panama hanging by a thread, Bunau-Varilla raced to Washington and went directly to the house of Assistant Secretary of State Loomis. He told Loomis that a Colombian force was due to land in Panama on November 2 and that he feared a repetition of what had happened in 1885, when a U.S. warship had failed to arrive at Colón in time to prevent Colombian troops from putting down an insurgency and destroying the city.
Loomis gave Bunau-Varilla the time of day but little more. The next morning, Bunau-Varilla, by his “lucky star,” encountered Loomis on the street, and this time, so Bunau-Varilla claimed, Loomis told him: “I have thought over what you said to me yesterday. . . . It would be deplorable if the catastrophe of 1885 were to be renewed today.” Once again, Bunau-Varilla read between the lines.
He also read the papers. Several days earlier, he had seen in the New York Sun that the American cruiser Dixie, with four hundred Marines, was en route to Guantánamo, Cuba. Three days later, the New York Times mentioned that the Nashville had arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, and that, in case of a revolution in Panama, the Dixie would be sent to Colón.
On the train north from Washington, Bunau-Varilla made a daring calculation. If Loomis had said what Bunau-Varilla thought he had said, then an American warship was on its way—most likely the Nashville; Kingston was only five hundred miles from Colón. Figuring ten knots an hour, plus time to coal and stoke, it would have the Nashville arriving in two and a half days. He got off the train in Baltimore and sent Amador a telegram: “All right will reach ton and half”—meaning that the “vapor” would reach Panama in two and a half days.
Bunau-Varilla’s hunch had been correct. That same day, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Charles Darling ordered the Nashville to proceed at once to Colón and to “telegraph in cipher the situation after consulting the United States Consul. Your destination is a secret.” Two days later, Bunau-Varilla was gratified to read in the New York Times a dispatch bearing the dateline, Kingston, October 31: “The American cruiser Nashville left this morning with sealed orders. Her destination is believed to be Colombia.”
Two and a half days: that would be sometime during the evening of November 2. Bunau-Varilla had told Amador to commence the revolution by the third.
THE NASHVILLE DROPPED ANCHOR at Colón at 5:30 pm on November 2, almost precisely when Bunau-Varilla had estimated. News of the arrival of the U.S. warship was immediately telegraphed (or possibly telephoned) across the isthmus to Panama City, where the revolution was to begin. The junta and those privy to its intentions drew courage. Amador’s trust in Bunau-Varilla had not been misplaced.
But within hours their hopes were dashed. Shortly before midnight, the Cartagena arrived in Colón as well, and early the next morning, not two hundred, as had been first reported, but more than four hundred well-drilled Colombian marksmen, led by General Juan Tovar, disembarked at the Panama Railroad wharf and requested immediate transport across the isthmus. They had come to reinforce the garrison at Panama City—which had been diminished a week earlier, when Governor Obaldía deviously dispatched one hundred of its soldiers into the countryside in pursuit of a band of nonexistent insurgents from Nicaragua. Tovar had no way of knowing that General Esteban Huertas, the commander of the remaining Panama garrison, had already agreed not to intervene in the event of organized insurrection. Huertas’s price was $50,000, with $40 promised to each of his men.
Upon learning of the Cartagena’s imminent arrival, the White House ordered Commander John Hubbard of the Nashville to “[m]aintain free and uninterrupted transit. . . . Government forces reported approaching the Isthmus in vessels. Prevent their landing if in your judgment this would precipitate a conflict.” Under the “color of right,” Roosevelt had tipped his hand in favor of the junta. But through a mix-up in the American consulate, the telegram was not given to Hubbard until the Colombian tiradores were ashore and forming up at the rail depot. For the moment, the navy’s hands were tied.
Into the breech stepped James Shaler, superintendent of the Panama Railroad. Like all railroad managers in Panama, Shaler answered to New York and was collusively entangled in the junta’s plot (which was of course the railroad’s and the canal company’s plot as well). Before the Cartagena appeared at Colón, Shaler had shrewdly sent nearly all the rolling stock across the isthmus, keeping on hand only a special (and intentionally short) train in which he now offered to convey General Tovar and his retinue of aides to Panama City. The soldiers could follow later. (For them to march across fifty miles of jungle was unthinkable.)
Reluctantly, Tovar accepted Shaler’s hospitality, and the train left Colón at 9 am, arriving in Panama City shortly before noon. For the rest of the day, Shaler found one reason after another for refusing transport to the rest of the Colombian troops: fares had to be paid in advance; travel on credit required the signature of the governor, who was in Panama City—as were Shaler’s trains.
Commander Hubbard, who at last had received and deciphered his orders to maintain free and open transit and to occupy the railroad if need be, anxiously eyed the four hundred Colombian soldiers gathered about the terminal. Dutifully he wired the secretary of the navy—and thus the White House—that the Colombians were already ashore but that there had been no disturbances. “It is possible that movement may be made tonight at Panama [City] to declare independence,” he stated. “Situation is most critical if revolutionary leaders act.”
FIFTY MILES AWAY, THE revolution came off with hardly a s
cuffle. Upon arrival in Panama City, General Tovar and his officers were greeted most cordially by the governor and a delegation of leading citizens. The Colombian garrison and a detachment of police—already in the pocket of the junta—stood at attention in the plaza. Also on hand to welcome the general was Felix Ehrman, the American vice consul, who was thoroughly clued in to the charade. Elsewhere in the city, Duque’s fire brigade was armed and ready.
It is impossible to say which of the many interested observers in Panama was keeping Washington posted—most likely more than one—but he or they did their job too well, for at 3:45 pm, Assistant Secretary of State Loomis telegraphed the consulate in Panama City: “Uprising at Isthmus reported. Keep department promptly and fully informed.” In the years to come, these ten words would be cited as evidence that the White House was in on the revolution ahead of time; more fairly it serves as an indication of just how leaky the situation was in Panama. Ehrman was not taken aback by Loomis’s prematurity but could only reply: “No uprising yet.”
Originally, Amador and his co-conspirators had called for the revolution to take place at 8 pm. But by six o’clock, General Huertas’s garrison had surrendered and General Tovar and his staff were under arrest, along with Governor Obaldía, the latter as a formality. At 8:17 pm, a telegram arrived at the State Department addressed to “His Excellency Secretary Hay.” No longer was there a need for secret code. It read: “Isthmus Independence proclaimed without bloodshed. Canal treaty saved. Amador.”
By pre-agreement of the junta, Amador was not named to the council that declared itself the provisional government of the Republic of Panama. That honor went to José Augustín Arango, Federico Boyd, and Tomás Arias. One of the first acts of the council was to telegraph railroad superintendent Shaler in Colón, strongly urging him to continue denying transport for the Colombian soldiers. A public meeting was called for the next day in Panama City to present the declaration of independence. The flag that Bunau-Varilla’s wife had made was replaced. Amador’s election to the presidency would follow once independence was fully secured.
The day did not end without a few fireworks. Shortly after the telegram was sent to Shaler, the Colombian gunboat Bogotá opened fire on Panama City, more in protest than for effect. The bombardment ended after a half-dozen shells fell in the city, and then the Bogotá withdrew to an offshore island. The only casualties were a Chinese man and a donkey.
Meanwhile lights burned in the new West Wing, where word of the near-bloodless revolution was met with cautious relief. An hour or so after Amador’s telegram was delivered to Hay, another from Vice Consul Ehrman came in, confirming the successful uprising and the establishment of a new government, but also advising that four hundred Colombian troops were still staging at Colón.
President Roosevelt had been in New York to vote in the November 3 election and arrived back at the White House at around 9 pm. Both Secretary of War Root and Navy Secretary Moody were away, but Hay, Loomis, and Assistant Navy Secretary Darling were on hand. After they quickly briefed Roosevelt on the events of the previous twenty-four hours, Darling wrote a telegram to Commander Hubbard of the Nashville which he prayed would be delivered on time: “In the interest of peace make every effort to prevent Government troops at Colon from proceeding to Panama [City]. The transit of the Isthmus must be kept open and order maintained.” Warships in the Caribbean and Pacific were ordered to make steam toward Panama; the Dixie was already on its way.
With that, they all went home to await the next day’s developments. Bunau-Varilla grabbed what rest he could on the overnight train to Washington.
A TENSE TWO DAYS followed. While the provisional council was announcing the birth of the Republic of Panama, across the isthmus on the Caribbean, the city of Colón remained under Colombian control. Throughout the day and evening of November 3, Shaler, Hubbard, U.S. Consul Oscar Malmros, and Chief of Police Porfirio Meléndez conspired to keep the increasingly impatient tiradores at bay and uninformed. But by the next morning, once Commander Hubbard issued formal orders forbidding transport of troops across the isthmus, the secret could no longer be kept from the Colombians and their commanding officer, Colonel Eliseo Torres.
Torres flew into a rage and declared that if General Tovar and the other Colombians held prisoner in Panama City were not released by 2 pm, he would open fire on Colón and “kill every United States citizen in the place.” Any doubts of the Colombians’ resolve to hold the city vanished when the Cartagena weighed anchor and steamed over the horizon, leaving the soldiers with no immediate way to withdraw.
With a showdown seemingly inevitable, Hubbard held his ground. First, he put American women and children aboard two docked steamers; he had the men barricade themselves in a stone shed belonging to the railroad. At 1:30 pm, a half-hour before the Colombian deadline, he put ashore a landing party of forty-four Marines. The Nashville then got under way and steamed back and forth along the waterfront, guns loaded with shrapnel.
Two o’clock came and went, and over the next hour and a half, Americans and Colombians stared down one another’s barrels—ten Colombian riflemen for every Marine. At 3:15 pm, Colonel Torres broke the standoff and approached the Americans with a proposition: he would withdraw his troops on orders from General Tovar. Mostly to buy time, Shaler, Police Chief Meléndez, and Consul Malmros consented to send an envoy to Panama City, conveying Torres’s request. While they waited, the Nashville’s landing party agreed to return to the ship, and the Colombians said they would make camp outside the city.
Early the next morning, Torres and his men were back at the railyard, awaiting orders from Tovar. In Panama City, Amador and the other leaders of the revolution recognized that their republic still hung in the balance. Amador met with Tovar and impressed upon him that the movement had the enthusiastic support of the United States and that no more Colombian troops would ever be allowed to disembark on Panamanian soil. Still, Tovar would not capitulate, and he refused to issue orders for the soldiers in Colón to stand down.
While Amador was working on Tovar, back in Colón, Superintendent Shaler and Chief Meléndez were working on Torres, who had sworn in writing that he would rather “perish in the flames of this city” than withdraw or surrender. With still no directive from his general and presented with Shaler’s assurance that five thousand American Marines were on their way to the isthmus, he at last softened. And for $8,000, paid in $20 gold pieces by Shaler from the safe of the Panama Railroad, Torres dissolved entirely.
Shortly after six o’clock in the evening, he and his four hundred fearsome tiradores began boarding the Royal Mail Company packet Orinoco. At 6:20 pm, the Dixie, carrying four hundred Marines, hove into view. An hour later, as the ten-gun American cruiser swung at her anchor abreast the Nashville, the Orinoco was already steaming toward Colombia. The battle for Panama was over before it began.
THINGS WERE NOT GOING quite so smoothly for Bunau-Varilla. When he arrived in Washington on the morning of the fourth, Colón was still up for grabs, though the news out of Panama City was encouraging. As far as the Roosevelt administration was concerned, there was yet no Republic of Panama; nor, for that matter, had Amador sent a telegram naming Bunau-Varilla minister plenipotentiary. After a short visit with Loomis (Hay was unavailable), Bunau-Varilla returned to New York, where a telegram awaited him from Amador that still did not mention diplomatic accreditation but urgently requested $100,000. Slightly piqued, Bunau-Varilla decided to send $25,000. That night, a dispatch signed by the Panamanian provisional council of Arango, Boyd, and Arias reached the State Department, announcing the appointment of Bunau-Varilla as “confidential agent” of the republic.
At the cabinet meeting on the morning of November 6, Hay relayed a batch of promising telegrams. Consul Malmros reported the departure of the Colombian troops and the arrival of the Dixie. From Panama City, the triumvirate of Arango, Boyd, and Arias proudly announced: “Colon and all the towns of the isthmus have adhered to the declaration of independence proclaimed
in this city. The authority of the Republic of Panama is obeyed throughout the territory.” Vice Consul Ehrman seconded this assessment: “The situation here is peaceful. Isthmian movement has obtained, so far, success.” Ehrman also confirmed that Bunau-Varilla at last had been named envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary.
Roosevelt, Hay, and the rest of the cabinet decided not to wait any longer. When their meeting ended at noon, Hay drafted a telegram to be sent to Malmros and Ehrman: “The people of Panama have, by an apparently unanimous movement, dissolved their political connections with the Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence. When you are satisfied that a de facto government, republican in form and without substantial opposition from its own people, has been established in the State of Panama, you will enter into relations with it as the responsible Government of the territory.”
As ever, Bogotá was tardy and out of touch. Ten hours after the administration’s hurried recognition of Panama, a telegram arrived from the Marroquín government, beseeching the United States to preserve Colombian sovereignty in Panama. That the vaunted, oft-cited treaty of 1846, not to mention the signed but unratified Hay-Herrán Treaty, called for the United States to do precisely this seems not to have concerned the secretary of state. No longer Colombia’s protector, no longer even neutral, the United States was now the protector of Panama. Elihu Root, returning to Washington a couple of days later, found Hay “as emphatic and free from doubt about our Government’s course as our President was.” Writing to Clara, Hay was no less resolute. “[T]o make an omelette,” he observed, “you must break eggs, and the eggs once broken, they can never be mended again.”
Panama was the omelette; Colombia was left with broken eggs. On November 8, a large crowd marched through the streets of Bogotá, shouting for a change of government and throwing stones at Marroquín’s house.
All the Great Prizes Page 58
