He was destined to have almost endless difficulties of various sorts in the Canal Zone, but he had the great privilege of occupying an administrative office, first as Secretary of War and then as President, until the end of the work was in sight and all the problems had been fully solved. During those eight years, wherever he might be or whatever business happened to be temporarily paramount, Canal questions were with him always and were always given first consideration.
The history of the Panama Canal is divided into two great periods. The first covers the full discussion and final settlement of the question as to which route should be adopted, the Nicaraguan or the Panama; the negotiation of the Hay-Herran Treaty with Colombia, by which we were given the right to complete the Panama Canal, and under which we secured all the rights of the French Panama Canal Company; the rejection of the Hay-Herran Treaty with Colombia; the revolution of Panama; the establishment of the Panamanian Republic and its recognition by President Roosevelt, the negotiation of the Hay-Varilla Treaty with Panama, by which we acquired dominion over the Canal Zone, and the right to build the Canal from the Republic of Panama, guaranteeing at the same time the integrity of that Republic. During all this period Mr. Taft was in the Philippines. In February, 1904, when he became Secretary of War, the Hay-Varilla Treaty was pending in the Senate. In a few weeks thereafter, it was consented to by the Senate, the Panama Commission was appointed, and early that spring the second period of the construction of the Canal began. The work was placed by the President under Mr. Taft as Secretary of War. From that time until his retirement from the office of President, March 4, 1913, the construction was constantly under his supervision. Sometime this history must be written. The chief crises in this work as he has recited them were the organisation of the force under the Commission, the adjustment of the relations of Panama to the work under the treaty, the change of engineers from Mr. Wallace to Mr. Stevens, the consideration by an International Commission, with a divided report, as to the proper type of the Canal, whether sea-level or lock, the very close fight in Congress to sustain the Administration view in favor of the lock type, the settlement of the issue whether the Canal should be built by contract or by Government agency, the selection of a successor to Mr. Stevens when he resigned, and the placing of the work under Army engineers and the selection of Colonel Goethals as the man to take the responsibility, the adjustment of critical labour troubles, and the confirmation by a Commission of the security of the foundation of the Gatun Dam. These were the points of critical importance in Mr. Taft’s Administration. In deciding the questions which came to him, it was necessary for him to visit the Canal seven times in as many years, and I went with him on three of his visits. The contrast between the Canal when we first visited it and were the guests of Mr. Wallace, the first engineer, and as it was when we were the guests of Colonel Goethals in 1912, when the Gatun Lake was more than half filled and nothing but the slides in the Culebra Cut remained for excavation, it is most interesting to look back upon. I was twice the guest of Colonel and Mrs. Goethals, and the beautiful view of the Canal Valley from the windows of their house in the town of Culebra, which has now disappeared, will long remain in my mind.
It was not long after our return to Washington from the first trip to Panama before arrangements were completed for the tour of the big Congressional party which Mr. Taft “personally conducted” to the Philippines and back, and which was destined to be slightly overshadowed as a Congressional party by the personality of Miss Alice Roosevelt who, under the chaperonage of Mr. Taft and Mrs. Newlands, made the trip just, as Kipling sings, “for to be’old and for to see.”
Knowing that I should have an opportunity to go again to the Far East in two years to be present at the inauguration of the first Philippine Assembly, I decided to remain behind this time. I did not think I would much enjoy this brief busy trip to the Orient with three children and decided that a quiet summer in England would be better for us all. So I took a cottage in Oxford for the summer and with my two younger children and one of my Cincinnati friends and her two children made various trips here and there and found myself most pleasantly entertained. It was an exceedingly quiet summer, unbroken save by the somewhat lurid accounts which we gathered from the British and European press of the progress of the Congressional party with Mr. Taft and Miss Alice Roosevelt in the East. One German paper went so far as to announce that Miss Roosevelt was undoubtedly engaged to be married to her father’s War Secretary.
It was my intention to sail from Southampton and meet
