82 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



The measure was not again called up until January 18, 

 1897, when it became the special order of business in the 

 Senate for nearly a month. A vast amount of testimony,, 

 from many sources, had been taken by the Senate committee 

 to demonstrate the necessities for passing the bill, and volumi- 

 nous documentary reports accompanied the Senate com- 

 mittee's recommendation. But behind the necessities of the 

 case there existed in the minds of many of the Senators an 

 uncomfortable feeling that the passage of the bill might 

 involve a neglect of those moral requirements placed upon 

 the nation by its treaty stipulations. Many advocates of 

 governmental control of the canal fully believed that the 

 Clayton-Bulwer treaty with England, binding the United 

 States never to secure sole control of any isthmian canal, had 

 long since become a dead letter; yet that treaty had never 

 been formally abrogated, and all past attempts to avoid it* 

 terms having failed, the treaty still stood as though fully and 

 unreservedly, acknowledged. This treaty, made in I860,, 

 operated as a check, though as yet a silent one, upon any 

 such legislation as the Senate at that time contemplated. 

 Other influences, notably those of the great transcontinental 

 railways, steadfastly opposed the passage of the bill. It was 

 finally tabled, and the hopes of the Maritime Canal Company 

 agatrr^mthered. 



Before the close of 1897 the President appointed a new 

 commission, consisting of Admiral Walker, Colonel P. C. 

 Haines, and Professor Lewis N. Haupt, to make a final and 

 complete survey of the entire Nicaraguan route. This com- 

 mission proceeded to Grey town in November, 1897, with a 

 corps of able engineers and a large force of assistants. It 

 was armed with the most perfect scientific equipment. The 

 sending of this commission in this age of commissions 

 was really to serve a triple purpose. First, it would gather 

 all the information needed by the government to satisfy Con- 

 gress of either the feasibility or non-feasibility of the Nica- 

 raguan route, and it would add one more expert estimate of 

 cost to the many previous ones on file. Secondly, it would 

 give the encouragement felt to be due those who clamored 



