The duties assumed by the United States to maintain neutrality and free passage were undertaken for the benefit of all the world.

The effect of the treaty was, therefore, that foreign Powers were to be excluded from the opportunity to construct the canal; and, consequently, if private enterprise should fail to build it, the United States assumed the obligation to build it herself. We could not refuse to permit the work to be done by any one else competent to do it and refuse the burden ourselves. The obligation of the United States to build the canal and the obligation of Colombia to permit her to build it, both followed necessarily from the relations and obligations assumed by them in the treaty of 1846.

We took the responsibility [says Mr. Root] upon ourselves alone, to do for civilization what otherwise all the maritime Powers would have united in requiring; it was for us alone to act; and I have no question that our right and duty were to build the canal, with or without the consent of Colombia.

But, even beyond that, he declared that:

Throughout the centuries since Philip II sat upon the throne of Spain, merchants and statesmen and humanitarians and the intelligent masses of the civilized world have looked forward to this consummation with just anticipations of benefit to mankind. No savage tribes who happened to dwell upon the Isthmus would have been permitted to bar this pathway of civilization. By the universal practice and consent of mankind they would have been swept aside without hesitation. No Spanish sovereign could, by discovery or conquest or occupation, preëmpt for himself the exclusive use of this little spot upon the surface of the earth dedicated by nature to the use of mankind. No civil society organized upon the ruins of Spanish dominion could justly arrogate to itself over this tract of land sovereignty unqualified by the world's easement and all the rights necessary to make that easement effective. The formal rules of international law are but declarations of what is just and right in the generality of cases. But where the application of such a general rule would impair the just rights or imperil the existence of neighboring states or would unduly threaten the peace of a continent or would injuriously affect the general interests of mankind, it has always been the practice of civilized nations to deny the application of the formal rule and compel conformity to the principles of justice upon which all rules depend.

We have further in this address a narrative of the events in Panama through the period of unrest and open discontent under the control of the Colombian authority against which the incessant efforts of the people of the Isthmus were directed. Mr. Root sets forth their political development, with the close analysis which always accompanies the investigation of a legal or constitutional question by him. He arrays the facts and supports the arguments with documentary proofs, so that the reader may follow the course of local history in Panama into and through the contests in which the people fought to exhaustion in 1885 to prevent the loss of their liberty and were defeated through the action of the naval forces of the United States. Three times since then they arose in rebellion against their oppressors. In 1895 they arose and were suppressed by force; in 1899 they arose again, and for three years maintained a war for liberation, which ended in 1902 through the interposition of the United States by armed force. The rising of November, 1903, was the fourth attempt to regain their rights. This time the United States Government would not, in view of the strained relations created by the situation at Bogota, exercise her authority again, as she had done before, to aid the troops of Colombia. "She was under no obligation to do so, and she could not do so without aiding in the denial of her own rights and the destruction of her own interests." Upon that the people of Panama relied in their last attempt, and they relied upon it with

reason.

Every one knows that in the revolution which then broke out these people succeeded finally in declaring and maintaining their independence, and that subsequently to this, as the United States decided that the inhabitants of Panama were the real owners of the canal route, we might, in consequence, deal with them as an independent sovereign state. The circumstances led, naturally, through the course of reasoning adopted at that time by the Administration at Washington, to the final adjustment and to the completion, years ago now, of the Panama Canal; and Mr. Root shows that this country's participation in the enterprise was just and right.

By all the principles of justice among men and among nations [said he] that we have learned from our fathers, and that all peoples and all governments should maintain, the revolutionists in Panama were right,

the people of Panama were entitled to be free again, the Isthmus was theirs and they were entitled to govern it; and it would have been a shameful thing for the Government of the United States to return them again to servitude.

It is hardly necessary to say now that our Government had no part in devising, fomenting, or bringing about the revolution on the Isthmus of Panama.

The temptation is great, as one turns the pages of these addresses and speeches, to linger over them in order to study each by itself and dwell longer upon its subject-matter with the enjoyment and relish that satisfy the mind in the treatment of them by so strong and skillful a hand. We might say that the feeling is not unlike that of being in the midst of a collection of rare books, which one takes down with pleasure and holds separately in one's hand, loath to put the volume back again upon the shelf.

It would be well if every one in America could read, for instance, the address entitled: "The Real Questions under the Japanese Treaty and the San Francisco School Board Resolution," delivered in 1907 as his inaugural address before the first annual meeting of the American Society of International Law. It would be a benefit to us all, as it would be to any nation, if people were enabled more generally to inform themselves as to the elements of a controversy which has arisen, or threatens to arise, between them and another Power equally sensitive and proud; especially so, if we approach the subject with the dispassionate judgment which Mr. Root displayed in this treatment of the questions here involved.

These were not only exceedingly delicate in so far as they became a menace to our peaceable relations with Japan, but the whole incident was erroneously considered and quite generally misunderstood by our own people because it presented an apparent conflict between the treatymaking power under the Constitution of the United States, on the one hand, and the rights of the citizens of California within their authority to make their own State laws and govern themselves, on the other. There could, of course, be no question in the mind of any American that the intention of the California people was to do right, nor does anybody doubt it now, and, that being so, the popular belief was that their official and public acts were legal even when they decided that Japanese

children should not be educated in the same schools with their own children.

But they had offended by this the national sensibilities of the Japanese people, and the Imperial Government of Japan appealed to its treaty with the Federal Government of the United States, claiming the rights which had been mutually conceded under that treaty as to the privileges, liberties, and rights of the nationals of the one high contracting Power within the territory of the other, which led, as Mr. Root said, "to much excited discussion of the subject in the newspapers and in public meetings and in private conversation."

Happily, he was able to add:

The excitement has now subsided, so that it may be useful to consider what the question really was, not because it is necessary for the purposes of that particular case, but because of its bearing upon cases which may arise in the future under the application of the treaty-making power of the United States to other matters and in other parts of the national domain.

Mr. Root was himself Secretary of State at that time. The views which he expresses are conclusive and convincing throughout the address. Indeed, the discussion by him of the constitutional powers brought into question here, as between the several State Governments and the Federal authorities, has the incisive force of an argument before the Supreme Court. Speaking as a statesman, and not only as a lawyer, in the latter part of his address, he teaches us a lesson in international relations which may well serve, in dignity and high-minded forbearance, as a model in modern diplomacy:

There was one great and serious question underlying the whole subject which made all questions of construction and of scope and effect of the treaty itself—all questions as to whether the claims of Japan were well founded or not; all questions as to whether the resolution of the school board was valid or not seem temporary and comparatively unimportant. It was not a question of war with Japan. . . There never was even friction between the two governments. The question was: What state of feeling would be created between the great body of the people of the United States and the great body of the people of Japan as a result of the treatment given to Japanese in this country?

What was to be the effect upon that proud, sensitive, highly civilized people across the Pacific, of the discourtesy, insult, imputations of in

feriority, and abuse aimed at them in the columns of American newspapers and from the platforms of American public meetings? What would be the effect upon our own people of the responses that natural resentment of such treatment would elicit from the Japanese?

It is hard [he said] for democracy to learn the responsibilities of its power; but the people now, not governments, make friendship or dislike, sympathy or discord, peace or war, between nations. . . . The people who permit themselves to treat the people of other countries with discourtesy and insult are surely sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind, for a world of sullen and revengeful hatred can never be a world of peace.

It is to Mr. Root that the country owes the benefits that have come to it and to our people through the adjustment of this very serious and difficult controversy. It was recognized abroad, as well as at home, to be one of the most distinguished services rendered by him to the United States Government, and was singled out as such and formally presented, at Christiania, as one of the chief considerations which led the Committee to award to him the Nobel Prize in 1912. We find the announcement in Le Prix Nobel en 1913 (Stockholm, 1914) that:

The most difficult task that fell to Mr. Root as Secretary of State was the settlement of the dispute between the United States and Japan on the question of Japanese immigrants in California, in 1906-07. It is impossible to give here the history of this great question, which assumed a threatening aspect in the winter of 1907. It will suffice to say that the peaceful settlement of the dispute, ratified by the action of the Congress at Washington in passing the immigration act of March 19, 1907, followed by the identic note of November, 1908, was due to the efforts of Mr. Root.

We incline somewhat to the idea that, in many respects, the address which Mr. Root prepared as his speech of acceptance of the Nobel Prize, in 1914, contains more of his own personality and brings one closer to him as a man than any of the others that are printed in this volume. There is a composure of expression in it which renders it especially agreeable in tone. One reads it with the feeling that one is more intimately acquainted with him than ever before. There is no controversy under discussion, or difference of opinion to be adjusted by force of argument, or international hostility to be conciliated. But, dealing tran