At Culebra Cut

Dr. Belisario Porras, onetime (1918-20; 1924) president of Panama, last week announced he would cause a statue of Theodore Roosevelt by Sculptress Gertrude Vanderbilt (Mrs. Harry Payne) Whitney, to be erected at Culebra Cut, on the Panama Canal. It was easy to foresee that U. S. poets might seize this news as a theme with a classic precedent. The classic precedent, however, contains an error. The traveler who first stood "silent upon a peak in Darien" was not "stout Cortez" (Hernando Cortez) as sung by Poet John Keats. It was Vasco Nunez De Balboa. Poets celebrating the proposed Roosevelt statue should bear in mind that Darien is an eastern dis- trict of the Republic of Panama, on the Caribbean side. Culebra Hill, upon which the Roosevelt statue will stand silent overlooking the spot where the last dikes were blasted to join ocean with ocean, is near the southern (Pacific) end of the strip of territory which alert President Roosevelt bought for $10,000,000* from the infant Republic of Panama in 1903 (Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty) the instant the Panamen revolted from Colombia, which had warily been refusing President Roosevelt's overtures./- "Oh, Mr. President," cried Attorney General Philander Chase Knox, "do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality!"

*Plus an annuity of $250,000 to begin ten years after purchase. /-The revolt of the Panamen was not, as is often charged, instigated by the Roosevelt Administration. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, French engineer, engineered the revolution, which was bloodless. President Roosevelt quickly sent warships to support the new gov- ernment. Explaining this to his Cabinet, President Roosevelt said: "I simply lifted my foot."