Colombia ever since has contended that the United States was under a solemn obligation to protect the Colombian sovereignty over the Isthmus--an obligation that has been assumed in return for valuable considerations--and that it had been despoiled of the Isthmus of Panama under the very treaty that had guaranteed its permanent control of that Isthmus. It further asserted that President Roosevelt had been a party to the revolution for the purpose of circumventing the stand of the Republic of Colombia. It made a long plea against the action of the United States and urged that in the event the two countries could not come to any agreement, the pending questions should be submitted to The Hague for adjudication. Secretary Hay at one time proposed that a popular election should be held on the Isthmus to determine whether the people there preferred allegiance to the Republic of Panama or to the Republic of Colombia, but Colombia would not agree to that. Secretary Hay rejected the plea of Colombia for arbitration, upon the ground that the questions that Colombia proposed to submit affected the honor of the United States and that these matters were not arbitrable. [Illustration: EDWARD J. WILLIAMS THE PAY CAR AT CULEBRA] [Illustration: UNCLE SAM'S LAUNDRY AT CRISTOBAL] After Elihu Root became Secretary of State, he declared that the real gravamen of the Colombian complaint was the espousal of the cause of Panama by the people of the United States. He said that no arbitration could deal with the real rights and wrongs of the parties concerned, unless it were to pass upon the question of whether the cause thus espoused was just--whether the people of Panama were exercising their just rights in maintaining their right of independence of Colombian rule. "We assert and maintain the affirmative upon that question," he declared. "We assert that the ancient State of Panama was independent in its origin, and by nature and history a separate political community; that it was federated with the other States of Colombia upon terms that preserved and continued its sovereignty, and that it never surrendered that sovereignty and was subjugated by force in 1885." Mr. Root further asserted that the United States was not "willing to permit any arbitrator to determine the political policy of the United States in following its sense of right and justice by espousing the cause of the Government of Panama against the Government of Colombia."