Spooner Act

{{short description|1902 act of the United States Congress}}

[[File:Portrait of John Coit Spooner.jpg|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){{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}} 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.{{cite web|title=Panama Canal Act [1902]|url=http://www.historycentral.com/documents/PanamaCanalact.html|publisher=History Central|accessdate=12 January 2014}}{{cite web|title=AMERICAN CANAL CONSTRUCTION|url=http://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/american.html|publisher=Panama Canal Authority|accessdate=12 January 2014}}{{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}}

The Spooner Act was followed by the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of November 18, 1903.