private property for the uses of the canal, the stipulations of the Hay-Herran treaty are closely followed, while the compensation to be given for these enlarged grants remains the same, being ten millions of dollars payable on exchange of ratifications; and, beginning nine years from that date, an annual payment of $250,000 during the life of the convention. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. WHITE HOUSE, _December 7, 1903_. MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS ON JANUARY 4, 1904 _To the Senate and House of Representatives:_ I lay before the Congress for its information a statement of my action up to this time in executing the act entitled “An act to provide for the construction of a canal connecting the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” approved June 28, 1902. By the said act the President was authorized to secure for the United States the property of the Panama Canal Company and the perpetual control of a strip six miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama. It was further provided that “should the President be unable to obtain for the United States a satisfactory title to the property of the New Panama Canal Company and the control of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia ... within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms, then the President” should endeavor to provide for a canal by the Nicaragua route. The language quoted defines with exactness and precision what was to be done, and what as a matter of fact has been done. The President was authorized to go to the Nicaragua route only if within a reasonable time he could not obtain “control of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia.” This control has now been obtained; the provision of the act has been complied with; it is no longer possible under existing legislation to go to the Nicaragua route as an alternative. This act marked the climax of the effort on the part of the United States to secure, so far as legislation was concerned, an interoceanic canal across the Isthmus. The effort to secure a treaty for this purpose with one of the Central American republics did not stand on the same footing with the effort to secure a treaty under any ordinary conditions. The proper position for the United States to assume in reference to this canal, and therefore to the governments of the Isthmus, had been clearly set forth by Secretary Cass in 1858. In my Annual Message I have already quoted what Secretary Cass said; but I repeat the quotation here, because the principle it states is fundamental: