Politics And Panama Canal
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Politics And Panama Canal
During the Spanish-American War the warship Oregon was summoned from the West
Coast. The trip took two months to travel 14,000 miles around Cape Horn to the
Atlantic. (The American Journey 741) How was the United States supposed to
defend it shores if it took ships that long to get between them? The United
State had to build a canal through Central America; national security depended
on it. The Politics of the Panama Canal are confusing. This confusion includes
the building, the economics and the operation of this facility. The canal, began
in 1881 and finished in 1914(Dolan 55), has caused one country to fail, another
to triumph, and another to gain its independence. There was a need for a canal
through the isthmus of Central America. The big question was who would step up
and build it. France had just lost the Franco-Prussian War against Germany. The
country felt that it had lost some prestige in eyes of other nations. There
seemed only one certain way to restore its glory, undertake and complete the
most challenging engineering feat in history. Build a canal through Central
America and link the world’s two greatest oceans. (Dolan 53) The French chose
Panama to build its canal because it was far narrower than Nicaragua, it’s
closet competitor. They obtained permission from Columbia to lay the waterway.
(Dolan 53) A private company was founded in 1879 to raise the needed capital to
undertake the construction. Appointed president of the company was Ferdind de
Lesseps, who had guided the construction of the Suez Canal. (Panama) The French
abandoned the project in 1889, due to a lack of funding. (Dolan 59) Now it was
time for the American’s to get involved. But there was one problem; they had
signed a treaty with Great Britain that said, if one or the other decided to
build a canal then the two countries would work together. This treaty was called
the Clayton Bulwer Treaty. In 1901 the treaty was replaced with the Hay-Pauncefote
treaty. It called for Great Britain to give the United States the right to act
independently in the development of an Atlantic Pacific waterway. Why did the
British agree to the treaty? They were tied up in the Boer War in South Africa
and didn’t want to split the bill on a canal? (Dolan 63) Now congress had to
decide on where to dig the canal. The two main choices were Panama and
Nicaragua. Just days before the vote on the canal site, Philipee Benau-Varilla
obtained ninety Nicaragua stamps that pictured a ...
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