THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 167 



treaty and free the United States from the ban of territorial 

 expansion in Central America, it is probable that, sooner or 

 later, a fourth coup d'Stat in Bluefields might transfer the 

 State of Zelaya to the United States. Such a consummation 

 would be pleasing to those members of Congress who favor 

 the immediate construction of the proposed canal as a national 

 undertaking. 



VI 



As already noted, the views of President Cleveland, touch- 

 ing the political status of the Central American Canal, being 

 more in accord with those entertained by the country pre- 

 vious to 1870, precluded the possibility of any definite action 

 looking to the abrogation of the Clay ton -Bulwer treaty under 

 his administrations. From 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 

 1897 no renewal of Mr. Elaine's and Mr. Frelinghuysen's 

 efforts in that direction were undertaken, notwithstanding 

 the fact that the treaty received several denunciations in 

 Congress, and public opinion throughout the country was 

 becoming more and more fixed against the toleration of 

 foreign influence in the management of the canal. 



President McKiriley at first gave to the public no hint of his 

 own position in the matter ; but in his second annual message 

 (December 1898), moved by the new conditions which had 

 arisen within the short space of a year, he recorded himself a 

 champion of the doctrine of an " American Canal." He said 

 in reference to the Nicaraguan Canal : " The construction 

 of such a maritime highway is now more than ever indispen- 

 sable to that intimate and ready intercommunication between 

 our Eastern and Western seaboards demanded by the annex- 

 ing of the Hawaiian Islands and the prospective expansion of 

 our influence and commerce in the Pacific, and that our 

 national policy now more imperatively than ever calls for its 

 control by this government, are propositions which I doubt 

 not the Congress will duly appreciate and wisely act upon." 



Thus President McKinley came to endorse the ultra-Amer-\ 

 ican principle of the political status of a Central American | 



