{{short description|1902 act of the United States Congress}} {{Use American English|date=June 2025}} thumb|right| John Coit Spooner, United States Senator from Wisconsin The '''First Spooner Act''' of 1902 (also referred to as the '''Panama Canal Act''', 32 Stat. 481)<ref name=USNA-PCrec>{{cite web|title=Records of the Panama Canal|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/185.html|publisher=US National Archives|accessdate=12 January 2014}}</ref> was written by a United States senator from Wisconsin, John Coit Spooner, enacted on June 28, 1902, and signed by President Roosevelt the following day. It authorized purchasing the assets of a French syndicate called the ''Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama'', provided that a treaty could be negotiated with the Republic of Colombia.
The syndicate, headed by Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, sold at a price reduced from $110 million to only $40 million. US lawyer William Nelson Cromwell subsequently received a commission of $800,000 for his lobbying.<ref name=HC-PCA>{{cite web|title=Panama Canal Act [1902]|url=http://www.historycentral.com/documents/PanamaCanalact.html|publisher=History Central|accessdate=12 January 2014}}</ref><ref name=PCA>{{cite web|title=AMERICAN CANAL CONSTRUCTION|url=http://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/american.html|publisher=Panama Canal Authority|accessdate=12 January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Kinzer|first=Stephen|title=Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq|url=https://archive.org/details/overthrow00step|url-access=registration|year=2007|pages=[https://archive.org/details/overthrow00step/page/56 56-62]|chapter=3. From a Whorehouse to a White House}}</ref>
The Spooner Act was followed by the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of November 18, 1903.
==See also== * History of the Panama Canal * Panama Canal Railway * Ferdinand de Lesseps
==References== <references/>
==External links== * http://www.czbrats.com/Builders/spooner.htm * http://www.answers.com/topic/panama-canal-purchase-act-1902
Category:Panama Canal Category:United States federal admiralty and maritime legislation Category:United States foreign relations legislation
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