Here is the real story behind Panama. Please share it with the ignorant ppl on here trying to propagandize us AGAIN

26:35

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Transcript

0:00 Okay, I wasn't going to do this, but I'm going to make an exception. I was in the middle of blow drying my hair when I read a post or was listening to a screen reader and just like lost it on the Panama issue. I'm, again, not surprised that people don't know history.

0:28 But I want you guys to have this as a bookmark to be able to share for people who are ignorant of the history in the Panama Canal. So, first point. In 1869, the Suez Canal was finished. The French company that built the Suez Canal was trying to replicate a canal in Panama. We had already decided, the U.S.,

0:56 to build a canal in Nicaragua. It had already been approved by Congress. It had already been started. They had already spent tons of money on it. And it was well on its way. But this French company, who tried to move on to build the Panama Canal, fell on financial hardship. And the embarrassment of it going bankrupt after...

1:31 Being so successful with the Suez Canal was a black mark on the French people. At least they viewed it that way. Because they viewed themselves having built the Eiffel Tower, the Suez Canal, that they were, you know, this was an area that they excelled in. So, the company was called, it was based in Paris, New Panama Canal Company.

2:00 They came to the United States and hired a man by the name Cromwell. You'll recognize that because it's Sullivan and Cromwell, the infamous John Foster Dulles, Alan Dulles law firm that was behind the overthrow of Nicaragua and a whole bunch of others, largely responsible for the Banana Republic Wars, all of that stuff, that same law firm.

2:31 had already excavated a huge portion of the Panama Canal area, and it had been left in disarray. They had $260 million invested, including roads, housing, hospitals, all rusting. They had already buried 4,000 Frenchmen who had died of yellow fever.

2:58 So they have a huge investment in the Panama Canal. So the French failure made Americans all the more determined to finish their Nicaraguan Canal, basically to kind of show them up. And the site for the Nicaraguan Canal had been chosen in 1850.

3:19 and had all of the support of the southern states because that's where all of the produce and stuff like that from the Banana Republics came into the United States, into New Orleans, Galveston, Biloxi, all of that. This was a huge boon for them to be able to have access through a Nicaraguan canal. So Cromwell accepted the job from the French company.

3:46 to go against what was in the best interest of the United States, especially the southern states because he hated them. So he goes to Washington on a crusade to persuade Congress to take over his client's lease of the Panama Canal project. So no one wanted to talk to him about it. William J. Curtis basically told him that no one was interested.

4:17 But Cromwell and Curtis went down there to argue about the Panama and that we just couldn't abandon it because he's now hired by the French company who's going bankrupt and wants to basically sell it and make some money off of it. Other investors would buy the French lease, finish the canal, and create competition for an American project, they continued. You have to do this.

4:49 Cromwell and Curtis tried to show as many legislators as possible all of the statistic maps and everything else that they had already done and that it was 40% finished, according to them. So he thought that he was going to be able to wear him down. Cromwell made the first presentation to Democrat Senator in Alabama, John Tyler Morgan, who was the chief proponent for the Nicaraguan Canal.

5:18 He had been a 30-year Senate veteran who had fought for the South in the Civil War and saw the Nicaraguan Canal as kind of his hallmark project. So he wasn't going to budge. Having taken the measure of his competition, Cromwell set himself up in a bar in the Willard Hotel. And he sought to talk to the Speaker of the House, who at the time was Thomas Reed.

5:48 lawyers into his suites at the Shoreham Hotel. And after Reed had presented the case for the Panama Canal to Reed, he and Curtis said, basically, what is it, what's in it for your company? Curtis said that we just want you to look at it. It is a perfectly fair proposition, Reed said.

6:17 In this crucial conversation, Senator Morgan tacked a simple rider onto a Senate version of the 1899 Rivers and Harbor Bill, asking for $2 million to start building the Nicaraguan Canal. The bill easily passed the Senate, but as an addition to the original House appropriation, it had to go to reconciliation. Reed pointed to the conference committee, three House members sympathetic to the Panama Canal.

6:45 not the Nicaraguan one. Not until the last frantic hour of the congressional session did the Senate understand that Reed would block the whole river and harbors bill if it had the Nicaraguan provision in it. The House version finally passed, giving $2 million for an investigation into both routes, the Panama and the Nicaraguan, even though the Nicaraguan, again, had been

7:11 in the works for decades at this point and had already been started. With the Investigation Commission to be appointed by the president, Cromwell ingratiated himself with President William McKinley. His right-hand man was Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio. Cromwell got an introduction to Hanna through Hanna's banker, Edward Simmons. They were old buddies because Cromwell

7:46 was involved with the Panama Railroad that was there to take advantage of the Panama Canal. Meeting Hannah in Simmons' office, Cromwell extended the benefits of the Panama Route and donated $60,000 of the new Panama Canal Company's money to the Republican Party. The effect was immediate. In 1900, the Republican platform abandoned

8:16 the previous Nicaraguan canal and advocated a canal be chosen by experts. Of the nine members of the commission that was going to be assembled, Admiral John Walker, it was named after John Walker, three were Cromwell's choices. Cromwell persuaded the group to go first, not to Central America, but to Paris to meet his clients.

8:47 in the new Panama Canal Company. Cromwell spent six months preparing the commission's visit to Paris, taking advantage of the French's 10 years experience in Panama. He gathered all of the information, he set up a press bureau, he had writers, hired a former journalist, Roger Farnham, and it was the lifelong, it began a lifelong association of Farnham, who eventually was called

9:15 to be the head of the Sullivan and Cromwell's political department as a journalist. That's weird. For Panama, Farnham released press releases throughout the entire time. He was basically softening up the opposition. He accompanied Cromwell to meetings, to appointments, everything. Cromwell made sure that Farnham's efforts were not ignored, writing bluntly,

9:46 at one point to McKinley saying, advise the Senate of the facts of the case. He then got the Senate to pass a resolution forcing the president to transmit all of the documents that he himself had produced with Farnham to Congress, which means they were not impartial. They were all drafted in order to get the Panama Canal established. Cromwell sailed ahead to France to meet the commission when they arrived.

10:16 Cromwell scheduled all of the key personnel to explain the work that had been done, what remained to be done, and each commissioner sat in front of 340 documents that the Sullivan and Cromwell's name was on top of. They were geological studies, blah, blah, blah. The second week that they were there, an American engineer by the name of General Henry Abbott told the commission that

10:44 another country would take over the canal and finish it before the U.S. could finish the Nicaraguan Canal, and that this was a dire need that needed to be done immediately. The final eight-course breakfast in Paris had Cromwell speaking. He summed up the evidence that had been produced in all of the glossy handouts for everyone that

11:17 A German consortium was thinking about taking over the Panama Canal and that they must act quickly. That was not true. Cromwell stayed in Paris to convince his clients to sell the canal to the Americans. He told the French company that on financial grounds, the commission would pick Panama. He was sure of it. The company president, Maurice Houghton, was not a businessman, but an engineer.

11:48 He let Cromwell speak, but he said nothing. Determined to make America build the canal on his terms with the fringe at least partners in the project, Cromwell rushed back to America to stop another bill pushing the Nicaraguan canal before the investigative commission could write the report. Cromwell and Curtis lobbied the Senate to delay its vote, and that won by a very narrow margin, and infuriated Senator Morgan.

12:19 was basically, he went off the charts. He said that Cromwell was interfering with everything and that he basically was in bed with the French. Senator Morgan should not have worried. The commission's preliminary report recommended Nicaragua for one reason. It was the only route the U.S. could own, control, and manage, period. And they had it already all locked up.

12:49 So it got the nod because there was going to be rights and everything else that was very laborious with the Panama Canal. Panama had its advantages, but complete control was the overriding factor for most of the people on the commission. But Cromwell had underestimated the old admiral who said that if the French company were to accept the commission's recommendation of a $40 million price

13:21 canal lease and all of the property, the final report due to be released the next month would opt for Panama. The commission valued the excavation at $27 million, which is what they had already done. The Panama Railroad stock at $6 million.

13:41 The maps, drawings, records, 2 million, and added an additional 10% for contingencies. Though the French had sunk 260 million into the Panama Canal, the new Panama Canal was capitalized at only 12 million, with an agreed division of any income of the 60% to the original canal company and 40% to Cromwell's client, which basically was them.

14:16 Cromwell cabled Paris the same day, urging the company to take the $40 million, even though they had a $270 million investment into it. Instead of French consent, Cromwell got back a letter firing him. The French company that had hired him to do all this shit, they fired him. So, Houghton arrived in America insisting on $109 million for the canal. The final Walker report overwhelmingly supported the Nicaraguan site.

14:45 American newspapers called for the French to basically get out of this entire conversation. They said that they were arrogant, obstinate, blah, blah, blah. Curtis, who had accompanied Cromwell to Washington, regretted that the firm was involved at all. He pleaded with Cromwell basically to drop everything. Cromwell continued to follow the issue on his own while the new Panama Canal Company had fired him.

15:16 He had been replaced with a banker and a creditor called Maurice Bowe. At his first shareholders meeting as president, Bowe pushed for them to accept the $4 million American offer. Police had to break up the riot as a result of this because all of the stockholders in the Panama Canal Company was going to lose everything because they were the basic.

15:44 backers of the 270 million that had already been dumped in there. So there's a big ruckus in Paris. But the offer came after the U.S. had already negotiated a treaty with Nicaragua and after congressional bills to appropriate the necessary funds had all been done. Congress awaited a full House and Senate vote.

16:12 The former engineer in Panama who had a $200,000 investment riding on the canal cabled Bo from America, and it said, failure to rehire Cromwell will alienate sympathies indispensable to saving this entire deal. On January 4th, Bo cabled Admiral Walker to inform him that the company was willing to accept the $40 million while reinstating Cromwell on the negotiating side.

16:41 for the Paris company. He added the insulting condition that Cromwell accepted fees set by the company. Three days before the debate on the Nicaraguan bill at the opening session, Wisconsin Senator John Spooner, one of the most powerful Republicans, submitted a simple amendment substituting the word Panama for Nicaragua in the canal bill. Spooner was Cromwell's secret weapon.

17:11 a leader of the most conservative Republican faction and a staunch admirer of Cromwell's. When the Northern Pacific went bankrupt in 1893, Cromwell had used Spooner's Milwaukee law firm. And at the time, Spooner had wrote admirably of Cromwell, quote, he is wonderful in his energy, in his quickness of comprehension, his mastery of details, his power of rapid generalization.

17:40 his fertility of resources, etc., etc. And with it, he is generous, full of good impulses, and altogether a lovable man. In addition to his other accomplishments, he can bulldoze like damnation when he wants to, and I have seen him when he wants to, unquote. The vote on Spooner's amendment was too close to call until the issue literally exploded when a volcano erupted in Nicaragua. No one was killed, but the damage

18:09 which was not anywhere near the canal, was a, and this is just a side note because this isn't in this book, but I found this on another search project. Cromwell had hired a PR firm that had sent, they drafted these and got approved an official stamp that had the Nicaraguan canal with a volcano in the background.

18:39 And so they had throughout this entire time set up a propaganda campaign throughout the House and Senate that the volcanoes in Nicaragua were perilously close to the Nicaraguan Canal and was going to be devastating if they ever erupted. And it just so happens that one erupted in the middle of the voting. It was not even close to where the canal was going to go in.

19:11 In the final debate, Senator Hanna gave an impassioned speech for the Panama, which notes Cromwell had basically prepared his speech for him. He spoke for hours, he was too exhausted to go on, and he brought out all of the factors of why it should be Panama and not Nicaragua. Under Cromwell's influence, Hanna rose to eloquently describe, quote,

19:43 It is the best broad liberal American policy for which we stand in the building of a world canal. I sympathize with all of those who in other days laboring for the canal had but one star to guide them, Nicaragua, and who must now naturally feel like giving up an old friend as it passes by. But in the age of progress and development, Mr. President, the American people are looking to Congress for answers.

20:10 To them on this question without regard to sentiment, unquote. To consider his finest speech, it was so convincing that some started referring to it as the Panama Canal, not the Panama Canal. The Spooner Bill passed with a vote of 42 to 34. It was signed in 1902 by President Teddy Roosevelt, who had assumed the presidency after.

20:39 the assassination of William McKinley, a bitter, defiant, and almost violent Senator Morgan got up on the floor and said, I traced this man Cromwell back to the beginning of the whole business. He has not failed to appear anywhere in the entire affair. So this entire thing was brought on by Sullivan and Cromwell, who was basically

21:06 Rockefellers, JP Morgan, all of their law firms, and Panama. That's the only reason we were even in Panama. Then you come into the whole issue of the Panama being a part of Colombia. And anybody that tells you that Colombia basically reneged on something they did not.

21:36 wanted a concession to be paid for in order for them to, for the U.S. to build that canal. And they wanted basically to do a similar to Nicaraguan deal where they could basically make some money on it. And the U.S.

22:00 I've seen a couple of different figures. The one that I see the most is $20 million to give the U.S. the concession. And the U.S. decided they weren't going to pay it. And so the U.S. did what it had been doing since the Spanish-American War and basically decided that they're going to take Panama. And they bring Navy ships to the coast, basically.

22:29 in a semi-blockade, they then launch people ashore. They have already contacted people in the Panama area and paid them off. So the Panama Railroad, which we just mentioned, basically under the control of Sullivan and Cromwell and his lackeys, when Columbia gets on the train to come into the area that

22:59 this destabilization effort from the United States has taken place in, the railroad company, the U.S. Railroad Company, sabotages most of their train cars and can only take a handful of the leaders into the area. Well, as soon as they come into the area, they're all arrested by the people that have been arranged by the U.S. Sullivan and Cromwell type companies.

23:29 So, they're arrested, and an already arranged leader says, okay, I'm in charge. We've segregated from Colombia. We're now our own country, and we want the U.S. to immediately recognize us, which they do. And that's how you even have a country called Panama, because it was part of Colombia. And by the way, any of you that thinks that's not true,

23:57 I dare you to go look up Katanga and the Congo because we did the exact same damn thing there. Prior to the Congo being granted its independence from Belgium, the CIA had deployed over there and set an entire thing up where they paid off the president.

24:27 to fire the prime minister, which he had no authority to do. So the prime minister, Lumumba, Patrice Lumumba, goes on the run and he's kidnapped by the CIA. He's murdered and he's driven around in the trunk of a CIA car for a couple of weeks. And then we boiled him in acid. And in the middle of all of that, when Lumumba took charge, he told the United States that

24:55 He would continue to recognize 100% of the sale of their uranium to the United States. He just wanted to cut out Belgium because they had been a Belgium colony for 350 years. He didn't want Belgium to continue to profit off of a former colony. He needed the money to buy hospitals and education and blah, blah, blah. Well, Belgium was pissed off and they came to America and said, don't do that. We don't want to lose our cut. So the United States, basically Eisenhower refused to meet with them.

25:23 Nixon met with him but basically told him they weren't interested in cutting Belgium out and they were going to leave the contract the way it is. And if Lumumba raised a fuss that they basically were just going to segregate the province called Katanga from the Congo and we will recognize it as its own country, which in fact they did. They did the exact same thing in Katanga for the resources of uranium that we did in...

25:50 Panama, this is not a unique thing. We did this all of the time. This is what we do. We go in and destabilize shit, and we steal shit. This is, for the Panama, was under the auspices of the Monroe Doctrine, where anything that happens in the Western Hemisphere, we basically are in charge of and can do whatever the hell we want. And that's bullshit, people. If these are sovereign countries, you have to negotiate with them, not steal their shit.

26:21 And not stage fake insurrections like we did in Panama. So we can steal their shit. And create whole countries out of nothing. So, I'm going to go finish blow drying my hair. I hope you enjoyed this.

Entities here

William Nelson Cromwell25 Panama25 Nicaragua17 New Panama Canal Company9 William J. Curtis6 John Tyler Morgan6 Sullivan & Cromwell5 Colombia5 Panama Railroad4 Congo4 Mark Hanna4 John Walker4 William McKinley3 John Spooner3 Patrice Lumumba3 Roger Farnham3 Thomas Brackett Reed3 Republican Party2 Edward Simmons2 Allen Dulles2 Maurice Houghton2 Maurice Bower2 Belgium2 Northern Pacific Railway1 Banana Wars1 Theodore Roosevelt1 Richard Nixon1 Dwight D. Eisenhower1 Henry Abbott1

Claims made here

Sullivan & Cromwell founded Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 2:00

“They came to the United States and hired a man by the name Cromwell. You'll recognize that because it's Sullivan and Cromwell, the infamous John Foster Dulles, Alan Dulles law firm that was behind the…”

Sullivan & Cromwell carried_out_attack Banana Wars host_asserted ▶ 2:00

New Panama Canal Company funded William Nelson Cromwell host_asserted ▶ 2:00

William Nelson Cromwell paid Republican Party host_asserted ▶ 7:46

“was involved with the Panama Railroad that was there to take advantage of the Panama Canal. Meeting Hannah in Simmons' office, Cromwell extended the benefits of the Panama Route and donated $60,000 of…”

William Nelson Cromwell recruited John Walker host_asserted ▶ 8:16

“the previous Nicaraguan canal and advocated a canal be chosen by experts. Of the nine members of the commission that was going to be assembled, Admiral John Walker, it was named after John Walker, thr…”

William Nelson Cromwell recruited Roger Farnham host_asserted ▶ 8:47

“in the new Panama Canal Company. Cromwell spent six months preparing the commission's visit to Paris, taking advantage of the French's 10 years experience in Panama. He gathered all of the information…”

New Panama Canal Company removed_from_power William Nelson Cromwell host_asserted ▶ 14:16

“Cromwell cabled Paris the same day, urging the company to take the $40 million, even though they had a $270 million investment into it. Instead of French consent, Cromwell got back a letter firing him…”

New Panama Canal Company recruited Maurice Bower host_asserted ▶ 15:16

“He had been replaced with a banker and a creditor called Maurice Bowe. At his first shareholders meeting as president, Bowe pushed for them to accept the $4 million American offer. Police had to break…”

New Panama Canal Company recruited William Nelson Cromwell host_asserted ▶ 16:12

“The former engineer in Panama who had a $200,000 investment riding on the canal cabled Bo from America, and it said, failure to rehire Cromwell will alienate sympathies indispensable to saving this en…”

William Nelson Cromwell recruited John Spooner host_asserted ▶ 16:41

“for the Paris company. He added the insulting condition that Cromwell accepted fees set by the company. Three days before the debate on the Nicaraguan bill at the opening session, Wisconsin Senator Jo…”

William Nelson Cromwell funded Mark Hanna host_asserted ▶ 19:11

“In the final debate, Senator Hanna gave an impassioned speech for the Panama, which notes Cromwell had basically prepared his speech for him. He spoke for hours, he was too exhausted to go on, and he …”