RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
And these cartoons were rather accurately descriptive of real conditions.
I had hardly got my house on K Street in order before something happened in Panama which made it imperative for the Secretary of War to go down to the Isthmus and give the situation his personal attention. There was a state of popular discontent among the Panamanians complicated by question of zone boundaries, jurisdiction, postal regulations, tariff inequalities and a few other matters, and by that time we had too much at stake in the Canal Zone to risk long distance or dilatory regulation.
The building of the Panama Canal was not included in the business of the War Department until after Mr. Taft became Secretary, nor was there at that time any definite idea of having it done by the Army Engineer Corps, but it has long been recognised that in the War Portfolio accommodation can be found for any and every kind of governmental problem, and Mr. Taft had not been Secretary long before Mr. Roosevelt transferred the administration of Canal Zone affairs to his already well-laden shoulders.
I was very glad to have an opportunity to see the beginning of what I knew was to be the greatest enterprise ever undertaken by the United States, so I fully approved of my husband's suggestion that I accompany him to Panama. Señor Obaldia, the Panamanian Minister to Washington, went also, and among others in the very interesting party were Rear Admiral J. G. Walker, President of the Canal Commission, Judge Charles G. Magoon, law officer of the Commission, and Mr. Nelson W. Cromwell, counsel for the Republic of Panama.
On this trip Mr. Taft went to Panama as a representative of the President of the United States for the purpose of presenting to the President of Panama a message of friendship, and to make, if possible, an amicable adjustment of
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