Word: colombia
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...debate in the Senate on the "indemnity" treaty with Colombia, which was recently ratified, has aroused considerable interest in the present status of American investments in that republic. Some critics have gone so far as to imply that much of the agitation in favor of the treaty was due to the pressure from American interests, especially banks and petroleum corporations, which are of course especially concerned oyer any issue affecting the future attitude of Colombia toward American enterprises. An appraisal of the present status of the latter is, therefore, a matter of timely concern...
American merchants and bankers have been making surprising progress in the expansion of their activities in Colombia. Before the war we were supplying 27 per cent of the total imports of that country, and but little effective headway was being made toward improvement, primarily because of the entire absence of American branch banks and of thoroughly American mercantile agencies. Today our commercial interests in Colombia are being aggressively developed through fifteen branch banks, an American Chamber of Commerce, and at least twenty large and well planned distributing organizations. This explains in large measure the growth in our share of Colombia...
...most significant feature of American penetration into Colombia during the past few years has been in connection with the petroleum industry. Thus far the Colombian oil production has been amounting only to a few thousand barrels for local consumption. The rich possibilities of these deposits, however, and the relation of the American concessionaires to the Colombian government are factors which will figure conspicuously in the future relations between the United States and Colombia...
Theodore Roosevelt, who was then president, recorded his contempt of the Bogota Treaty which was made after this revolution. He expressed himself in these words: "I did not lift my finger to incite the revolutionists. Colombia was solely responsible for her own humiliation, and she had not then and has not now, one shadow of claim upon us moral or legal; all the wrong that was done, was done by her." And now certain interests are trying to "rail-road" this treaty--which has never been ratified--through the present Congress...
...Bogota Treaty promises the South American republic twenty-five million dollars, together with certain other concessions as an indemnity for any injury which Colombia might have suffered through the loss of Panama and the building of the Panama canal. The attempt of the present Administration to obtain its immediate ratification recently failed and the Roosevelt senators have served notice on President Harding that they would not allow the treaty to go to vote until the people had a chance to read and hear the question debated in the senate...