258 Presidential Addresses 



European power possibly can be, and that our duty 

 to ourselves and to the weaker republics who are 

 our neighbors requires us to see that none of the 

 great military powers from across the seas shall 

 encroach upon the territory of the American re 

 publics or acquire control thereover. 



This policy, therefore, not only forbids us to 

 acquiesce in such territorial acquisition, but also 

 causes us to object to the acquirement of a control 

 which would in its effect be equal to territorial ag 

 grandizement. This is why the United States has 

 steadily believed that the construction of the great 

 Isthmian Canal, the building of which is to stand as 

 the greatest material feat of the twentieth century 

 greater than any similar feat in any preceding 

 century should be done by no foreign nation but 

 by ourselves. The canal must of necessity go 

 through the territory of one of our smaller sister 

 republics. We have been scrupulously careful to 

 abstain from perpetrating any wrong upon any of 

 these republics in this matter. We do not wish to 

 interfere with their rights in the least, but, while 

 carefully safeguarding them, to build the canal our 

 selves under provisions which will enable us, if 

 necessary, to police and protect it, and to guarantee 

 its neutrality, we being the sole guarantor. Our 

 intention was steadfast; we desired action taken so 

 that the canal could always be used by us in time of 

 peace and war alike, and in time of war could never 

 be used to our detriment by any nation which was 

 hostile to us. Such action, by the circumstances 



