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 On their side the Panamanians have only logic. They ask us to approve a new treaty. They point out that total U.S. control over a portion of Panamanian territory is a vestige of colonialism. They ask us to understand how it offends their national honor and pride as a people to have a U.S. police force, U.S. courts, and U.S. jails enforcing U.S. laws on Panamanian citizens within their own country. How it offends their pride. They show us how total U.S. control over land area in the Canal Zone limits the urban growth of their two largest cities, how U.S. control of all deepwater port facilities restricts the productivity of their country.
 I was horrified when I found out that their ports, the best they have in their country, they do not even have access to. It is ours. It is the United States of. America that has their ports. And how U.S. commissaries unf airly compete with local businessmen.
 What Member of this body has not had a delegation from his State, from communities next to military bases, talking about the commissary problems? I think there is some knowledge and sympathy as to what is happening to the people of Panama, the business community of Panama, in this regard.
 How do we answer these ch arges ?
 The most common way of justifying the present treaty arrangements is to cite the benefits which have accrued to Panama, not what we have given them. Obviously, the most important of these, it can be conceded, is her independence.
 We say this unfortunately with a certain arrogance. They would not have a country if it were not for us.
 Without the United States where would they be? Admittedly, that is essentially what happened. We guaranteed at a point in time that they were able to become independent. But I think to be f air, we must recognize that they hankered f or their f reedom for some three-quarters of a century before our gunboats showed up on the scene. They had quite a few efforts of revolution before that. So, they were not johunie-come-latelys at thirsting for freedom and independence. Thereis no question that their freedom is a great blessing. What is doubtfl is that this justifies an arrangement under which she signed away "inl perpetuity" the most important part of her birthright. To say that it does is like saying that the United States should be forever indebted to France, without whom our own revolution could never have succeeded.
 And I think if you want to look close at history, you would know that -we would not be a free country today had it not been for the support of France, a royal government at'that time.
 This is history now.
 And the United States has profited immensely in the interim. The relevance of that history for today is that it shows the very structure of the relationship from the beginning was one in which we consciously took advantage of the Panamanians. All the real sacrifices were on their side. They yielded up, forever, their nation's greatest resource-the land over which the canal was constructed. What should have been theirs became ours.