212 



CONGRESS. (PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



necessarily involved police control where the local au- 

 thority was temporarily powerless, but always in aid 

 of the sovereignty of Colombia. 



The prompt and successful fulfillment of its duty 

 by this Government was highly appreciated by the 

 Government of Colombia, and has been followed by 

 expressions of its satisfaction. 



High praise is due to the officers and men engaged 

 in this service. 



The restoration ot peace on the Isthmus by the re- 

 establishment of the constituted government there 

 being thus accomplished, the forces of the United 

 States were withdrawn. 



Pending these occurrences, a question of much im- 

 portance was presented by decrees of the Colombian 

 Government, proclaiming the closure of certain ports 

 then in the hands of insurgents, and declaring vessels 

 held by the revolutionists to be piratical and liable to 

 capture by any power. To neither of these proposi- 

 tions could the United States assent. An effective 

 closure of ports not in the possession of the Govern- 

 ment, but held by hostile partisans , could not be 

 recognized : neither could the vessels of insurgents 

 against the legitimate sovereignty be deemed hostes Tiu- 

 mani generis within the precepts of international law, 

 whatever might be the definition and penalty of their 

 acts under the municipal law of the state against 

 whose authority they were in revolt. The denial by 

 this Government of the Colombian propositions did 

 not, however, imply the admission of a belligerent 

 status on the part of the insurgents. 



The Colombian Government has expressed its will- 

 ingness to negotiate conventions for the adjustment 

 by arbitration of claims by foreign citizens arising out 

 of the destruction of the city of Aspinwall by the in- 

 surrectionary forces. 



The interest of the United States in a practicable 

 transit for ships across the strip of land separating 

 the Atlantic from the Pacific has been repeatedly 

 manifested during the last half-century. 



My immediate predecessor caused to be negotiated 

 with Nicaragua a treaty for the construction by and 

 at the sole cost of the United States of a canal through 

 Nicaraguan territory, and laid it before the Senate. 

 Pending the action of that body thereon, I withdrew 

 the treaty for re-exainination. Attentive considera- 

 tion of its provisions leads me to withhold it from re- 

 submission to the Senate. 



Maintaining, as I do, the tenets of a line of prece- 

 dents from Washington's day, which proscribe entan- 

 gling alliances with foreign states. I do not favor a 

 policy of acquisition of new and distant territory or 

 the incorporation of remote interests with our own. 



The laws of progress are vital and organic, and we 

 must be conscious of that irresistible tide of commer- 

 cial expansion which, as the concomitant of our active 

 civilization, day by day, is beinw urged onward by 

 those increasing facilities of production, transporta- 

 tion, and communication to which steam and elec- 

 tricity have given birth ; but our duty in the present 

 instructs us to address ourselves mainly to the devel- 

 opment of the vast resources of the great area com- 

 mitted to our charge, and to the cultivation of the arts 

 of peace within our own borders, though jealously 

 alert in preventing the American hemisphere from 

 being involved in the political problems and compli- 

 cations of distant governments. Therefore, I am un- 

 able to recommend propositions involving paramount 

 privileges of ownership or right outside of our own 

 territory, when coupled with absolute and unlimited 

 engagements to defend the territorial integrity of the 

 state where such interests lie. While the general 

 project of connecting the two oceans by means of a 

 canal is to be encouraged, I am of opinion that any 

 scheme to that end to be considered with favor should 

 be free from the features alluded to. 



The Tehuantepec route is declared by engineers of 

 the highest repute and by competent scientists to 

 afford an entirely practicable transit for vessels and 

 cargoes, by means of a ship-railway, from the Atlan- 



tic to the Pacific. The obvious advantages of such a 

 route, if feasible, over others more remote from the 

 axial lines of traffic between Europe and the Pacific 

 and particularly between the valley of the Mississippi 

 and the western coast of North and South America, 

 are deserving of consideration. 



Whatever highway may be constructed across the 

 barrier dividing the two greatest maritime areas of 

 the world must be for the world's benefit, a trust for 

 mankind, to be removed from the chance of domina- 

 tion by any single power, nor become a point of invi- 

 tation for nostilities or a prize for warlike ambition. 

 An engagement combining the construction, owner- 

 ship, and operation of such a work by this Govern- 

 ment, with an offensive and defensive* alliance for its 

 protection, with the foreign state whose responsibili- 

 ties and rights we would share, is in my judgment 

 inconsistent with such dedication to universal and 

 neutral use, and would, moreover, entail measures for 

 its realization beyond the scope of' our national polity 

 or present means. 



The lapse of years has abundantly confirmed the 

 wisdom and foresight of those earlier administrations 

 which, long before the conditions of maritime inter- 

 course were changed and enlarged by the progress of 

 the age, proclaimed the vital need of interoceanic 

 transit across the American Isthmus, and consecrated 

 it in advance to the common use of mankind by their 

 positive declarations and through the formal obliga- 

 tion of treaties. Toward such realization the efforts 

 of my administration will be applied, ever bearing in 

 mind the principles on which it must rest, and which 

 were declared in no uncertain tones by Mr. Ca^s, who, 

 .jvhile Secretary of State, in 1858, announced that 

 "what the United States want in Central America, 

 next to the happiness^ of its people, is the security 

 and neutrality of the interoceanic routes which lead 

 through it." 



The construction of three transcontinental lines 

 of railway, all in successful operation, wholly within 

 our territory, and uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific 

 Oceans, has been accompanied by results of a most 

 interesting and impressive nature, and has created 

 new conditions, not in the routes of commerce only, 

 but in political geography, which powerfully affect 

 our relations toward, and necessarily increase our in- 

 terests in, any transisthmian route which may be 

 opened and employed for the ends of peace and traffic, 

 or, in other contingencies, for uses inimical to both. 



Transportation is a factor in the cost of commodi- 

 ties scarcely second to that of their production, and 

 weighs as heavily upon the consumer. 



Our experience already has proved the great im- 

 portance of having the competition between land-car- 

 riage and water-carriage fully developed, each acting 

 as a protection to the public against the tendencies to 

 monopoly which is inherent in the consolidation of 

 wealth and power in the hands of vast corporations. 



These suggestions may serve to emphasize what I 

 have already said on the score of the necessity of a 

 neutralization of any interoceanic transit ; and this 

 can only be accomplished by making the uses of the 

 route open to all nations and subject to the ambitions 

 and warlike necessities of none. 



The drawings and report of a recent survey of the 

 Nicaragua Canal route, made by Chief- Engineer Me- 

 nocal, will be communicated for your information. 



The claims of citizens 'of the United States for losses 

 by reason of the late military operations of Chili, in 

 Peru, and Bolivia, are the subject of negotiation for a 

 claims convention with Chili, providing for their sub- 

 mission to arbitration. 



The harmony of our relations with China is fully 

 sustained. 



In the application of the acts lately passed to exe- 

 cute the treaty of 1880, restrictive of the immigration 

 of Chinese laborers into the United States, individual 

 cases of hardship have occurred beyond the power of 

 the Executive to remedy, and calling for judicial de- 

 termination. 



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