How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal [Paperback]

Ovidio Diaz Espino (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2003

This book tells a previously untold story of decades of financial speculation, fraud, and international conspiracy that led to the creation of the Panama Canal. The author meticulously details the dark alliance — among a French company; Teddy Roosevelt with his gunboat diplomacy; and a secretive syndicate of Wall Street financiers — that masterminded a coup in Colombia and the secession of Panama in 1903. Panama then welcomed the canal building, and the U.S. foreign policy precedent was set for the 20th century. How Wall Street Created a Nation includes historical photographs and is a fascinating telling of this scandalous true story.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Informative, interesting, and even exciting."

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (September 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568582668
• ISBN-13: 978-1568582665
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #673,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > Panama

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Isthmus, Canal, Scandals...and So Much More, July 7, 2001

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal (Hardcover)

The "nation" is of course Panama and this well-written and informative book explains the different roles played by members of an especially interesting group who include Joseph Pulitzer, William Nelson Cromwell, Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, Senator John Tyler Morgan, Senator Mark ("Dollar") Hanna, John Hay, and General Esteban Huertas. Espino traces a chronology of events which extends from 1501 when Christopher Columbus arrives in Panama until December 31, 1999, when the United States surrenders its control over the Panama Canal after ninety-six years. With all due respect to the profoundly important social, political, military, and financial implications of various decisions and consequences which Espino examines, I must say that the narrative often seemed to me to be one of a global or at least hemispheric soap opera. There are heroes and villains galore. Plots and sub-plots. Triumphs and failures. Betrayals. Countless opportunities either seized or forfeited.

The book's title correctly suggests Wall Street's central influence (both positive and negative) on efforts to finance, design, build, maintain, and control the Panama Canal. To say "Wall Street" is to refer to human beings with resources sufficient to their ambitions. Specifically, Morgan who was involved with a syndicate to purchase the French Canal Company and fund Panama's independence. Hence the importance of Cromwell who founded a pre-eminent Wall Street Law firm and succeeded in defeating the Nicaraguan canal forces in the U.S. Congress led by Senator Morgan. Hence the importance of Pulitzer who (through his newspaper, the New York World) accused President Roosevelt of aiding and abetting the Wall Street syndicate's advocacy of the Panamanian revolution.

American military forces were first stationed in Panama in 1857 and remained there to protect and defend the Isthmus until relinquishing authority on December 31, 1999, following a de-Americanization process initiated by President Carter. The "Zonians" will never forgive him for "depriving" them of their tropical paradise, just as so many British "colonials" never forgave Gandhi for leading India to independence. As for Panamanians, Epson reminds them (and the reader) of what Secretary Cass said (in 1855): "sovereignty has its duties as well as its rights." No country (including the United States) should ever be permitted "to close the gates of intercourse on the great highways of the world."

In his concluding remarks, Epson observes: "Today, the canal is no longer the vital waterway it once was. Panama, however, continues to be the coveted territory imbued with the special mission because of its critical position as the crossroad of the Americas. The challenges facing the canal are no longer only the security of the waterway, but a forty-year-old civil war in Columbia; drug trafficking; corruption; money laundering; authoritarian regimes; and poor social conditions throughout Latin America." In some respects, the soap opera continues. In other and more significant respects, a global pressure point remains.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A more balanced view, September 24, 2001

By 

Roberto R. Roy "elbibop48" (Panama City, Panama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal (Hardcover)

Ovidio Diaz's book is highly recommended as a source of new insights into the Panama Canal Story.

The title is very exaggerated, but it helps sell books, and the most important thing for a book, love or hate it, is to be sold.

There is big emphasis on alleged corruption by some Panamanian Founding Fathers while in the same book he acknowledges that Panama had intended 57 times in the past to become independent. So, it is evident, that the ideas of our Independence and the Republic of Panama were not invented by Wall Street at all.

J.P. Morgan, Cromwell et al, just profited from the situation as good Wall Streeters. The Panamanian patriots, smart and practical, took advantage of their greed in order to accomplish something that otherwise would have been impossible, Panama being a small province of a much bigger , warring country and, worst of all, Colombia having a Treaty with the U.S. were the latter had the obligation to maintain the order.

Our Founding Fathers gambled their lives for sure. If the Colombian troops had managed to reach Panama City, they would have been executed.

Some Founding Fathers may not have been saints, but the evidence is really not that clear at all. Plenty of hearsay and accusations from people that had their own agendas and that told the story in their own, self serving way. Pulitzer's fight with Teddy Roosevelt being a major source of misinformation. So it seems necessary to dig up more documental facts.

It is also clear that Teddy Roosevelt and Hay were no saints either, but this does not diminish their good deeds or their place in history. Politics in those days, were like that !

In the end, we Panamanians have a great debt not only to the Founding Fathers, but yes, to Bunau Varilla and to Cromwell and to Roosevelt. If it hadn't been for ALL of them, we would still be, who knows, a forgotten backwoods province of Colombia !.

Congratulations to Ovidio Diaz Espino on his personal and important contribution to the history of Panama and the United States.

Roberto R. Roy
Member, Board of Directors
Panama Canal Authority 1998-2007

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It was not only Wall Street, November 5, 2003

By 

Roberto N Mendez (Panama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal (Hardcover)

WAS PANAMA A MERE CREATION OF WALL STREET --O WAS ITS INDEPENDENCE THE EFFECT OF THREE POWERFUL FORCES?

by: Roberto N. Méndez (*)

Panamanian lawyer Ovidio Díaz-Espino's essay, "How Wall Street Created a Nation", whose Spanish version recently became available, informs us about a few, little-known but important, historical facts related to Panama's independence from Colombia, which happened on November 3, 1903. Un-fortunately, the essay's argument is simplistic, aside from the fact that it turns out to be contradictory and unoriginal.

The book's title, its Preface, its first chapter, and the author's own public statements, all align themselves with the "black legend" which surrounds Panama's independence.
According to it, Panama's independence from Colombia was conceived, promoted, financed and led by a group of New York bankers, headed by cunning lawyer William N. Cromwell, who acted in liaison with President Theodore Roosevelt.

Also according to the legend, Panama's founding fathers were little more than corrupt puppets, who merely followed Cromwell's instructions word for word, all in exchange for the classic handful of silver coins.

Such viewpoint is not only simplistic -it contradicts several historical sources and evidences, some of which, paradoxically, are mentioned by Díaz-Espino himself.

For one thing, it is well known that José A. Arango and other Panamanians started the conspiracy between June and July of 1903, at great personal risk. In other words, the separatist plot began spontaneously in Panama, and much before the Colombian Congress rejected the Herran-Hay Treaty, which occurred on August 12, 1903.

Only after the treaty was rejected did President Theodore Roosevelt began to lean in favour, not of Panama's independence, but of the odd thesis of American jurist John Basset Moore. According to Moore, the Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty of 1846 allowed to US to build a Canal through Panama, regardless of the wishes of the Colombian government.

Well-known historical documents testify to this fact. French investor Phil-lipe Bunau-Varilla provided one of them, in his book "From Panama to Verdun". Bunau-Varilla describes there how he met, in early October of 1903, with Roosevelt, and how he convinced the American President to abandon Moore's thesis, and to lend support to the separatist plot.

Surprisingly, Díaz-Espino mentions the meeting in his book, but he never realizes that it contradicts his essay's central thesis.
The essay's ending is no less of a surprise. On chapter 11, Díaz-Espino asserts that Panama's independence from Colombia was the joint result not of one, or two, but of three "powerful forces"; the first, Roosevelt's "ambi-tions" relative to the Canal; the second, Wall Street's "greed"; the third, Panamanians' "century-old aspiration to independence".

"Does not such a statement imply a contradiction vis a vis the essay's cen-tral argument?", Díaz-Espino was asked publicly in mid 2003, while visit-ing Panama on occasion of Panama's yearly Book Fair. As expected, the author was unable to offer a coherent answer.

In addition to that incongruence between central thesis and historical evi-dence, Díaz-Espino's essays suffers from a lack of originality, derived, ap-parently, from the author's unawareness about previous works on the sub-ject.
Indeed, Colombian journalist and historian Eduardo Lemaitre, whose work "Panama and its separation from Colombia", was published already in 1972, described the role that Cromwell and his group played in detail. And before Lemaitre, Colombian intellectual Oscar Teran, in his voluminous essay "From the Herran-Hay to the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty" (published in the thirties of last century) also divulged a large amount of information on the subject. What is more, Teran used the same sources that Díaz-Espino uses. It is therefore amazing that neither of these two previous and well-known works is even mentioned in Díaz-Espino's essay.

Yes, Ovidio Díaz-Espino's essay informs us of a few interesting and little known historical facts; unfortunately, his viewpoint is simplistic, contradic-tory, and lacking of originality. His purpose seems to be convincing us that Panama's independence was an episode characterized solely by the selfish-ness, corruption and cowardice of its participants. But in doing so Ovidio-Díaz contradicts himself, and seems to forget that all historical events are the result of interactions between positive and negative elements, which in one way or another contribute to the material and spiritual advancement of the people.

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(*) Roberto N Méndez (www.rnmendez.com) is a professor of economics at Panama's National University.