712 Presidential Addresses 



Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty it was explicitly 

 provided that the United States should control, po- 

 lice, and protect the canal which was to be built, 

 keeping it open for the vessels of all nations on 

 equal terms. The United States thus assumed the 

 position of guarantor of the canal and of its peace- 

 ful use by all the world. The guarantee included 

 as a matter of course the building of the canal. 

 The enterprise was recognized as responding to an 

 international need ; and it would be the veriest trav- 

 esty on right and justice to treat the governments 

 in possession of the Isthmus as having the right, 

 in the language of Mr. Cass, "to close the gates of 

 intercourse on the great highways of the world, and 

 justify the act by the pretension that these avenues 

 of trade and travel belong to them and that they 

 choose to shut them." 



When this Government submitted to Colombia 

 the Hay-Herran treaty three things were, therefore, 

 already settled. 



One was that the canal should be built. The 

 time for delay, the time for 'permitting the attempt 

 to be made by private enterprise, the time for per- 

 mitting any government of anti-social spirit and of 

 imperfect development to bar the work, was past. 

 The United States had assumed in connection with 

 the canal certain responsibilities not only to its own 

 people, but to the civilized world, which imperatively 

 demanded that there should no longer be delay in 

 beginning the work. 



Second. While it was settled that the canal 



