When we submitted to Colombia the Hay-Herran Treaty, it had been settled that the time for delay, the time for permitting any government of anti-social character, or of imperfect development, to bar the work, had passed.

The United States had assumed in connection with the canal certain responsibilities not only to its own people but to the civilized world, which imperatively demanded that there should be no further delay in beginning the work.
The Hay-Herran Treaty, if it erred at all, erred in being overgenerous toward Colombia.

The people of Panama were delighted with the treaty, and the President of Colombia, who embodied in his own person the entire government of Colombia, had authorized the treaty to be made.

But after the treaty had been made the Colombia Government thought it had the matter in its own hands; and the further thought, equally wicked and foolish, came into the heads of the people in control at Bogota that they would seize the French Company at the end of another year and take for themselves the forty million dollars which the United States had agreed to pay the Panama Canal Company.
President Maroquin, through his Minister, had agreed to the Hay-Herran Treaty in January, 1903.

He had the absolute power of an unconstitutional dictator to keep his promise or break it.