You will please inform the Panaman Foreign Office that the Government of
the United States will, in virtue of the congressional authorization
above cited, abrogate on May 1, 1924, the International Agreement,
commonly called the Taft Agreement, embodied in the executive orders
mentioned in the Senate Joint Resolution.
[Enclosure]
Senate Joint Resolution 259 Authorizing the
President to Abrogate the International Agreement Embodied in
Certain Executive Orders Relating to the Panama
Canal
Whereas it is provided in the act entitled
“An act to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and
operation of the Panama Canal, and the sanitation and government of
the Canal Zone,” approved August 24, 1912, “that all laws, orders,
regulations, and ordinances adopted and promulgated in the Canal
Zone by order of the President for the government and sanitation of
the Canal Zone and the construction of the Panama Canal are hereby
ratified and confirmed as valid and binding until Congress shall
otherwise provide”; and
Whereas among the orders so ratified and
confirmed as valid and binding are Executive orders, issued by the
Secretary of War, by direction of the President, on December 3,
December 6, and December 28, 1904, January 7, 1905, and January 5,
1911, in which were embodied the terms of an agreement reached
between the Secretary of War and officials of the Panama Government
to serve as a modus operandi during the
construction of the canal; and
Whereas the purpose of the agreement in
question has passed with the formal opening of the canal, and the
agreement no longer provides an adequate basis for the adjustment of
questions arising out of the relations between the Canal Zone
authorities and the Government of Panama, and should be replaced by
a more permanent agreement:
Resolved, etc., That the President be
authorized to abrogate the international agreement embodied in the
Executive orders issued as aforesaid, on December 3, December 6, and
December 28, 1904, January 7, 1905, and January 5, 1911.
Sec. 2. That when the President shall
exercise the authority hereby granted, such orders shall no longer
be valid and binding, and the legal effect of these orders given to
them by the said act of Congress approved August 24, 1912, shall be
repealed.