An amendment by Senator Norris to reduce the purchase price from $10,000,000 to $10,000,000 was defeated by an overwhelming vote, and the treaty was approved just as it was signed by Secretary Lansing and Minister Brim in New York on August 1. Negotiations for the purchase of the islands, a little group east of Puerto Rico, have been in progress intermittently for half a century. Because of their strategic value, particularly since the construction of the Panama Canal, the American government has been anxious to acquire them, to prevent the islands from falling into the hands of any foreign power. General Interference was credited with block-trading negotiations on the subject in 1902, after the United States had ratified a treaty.

Praetically nothing was known about the recent conferences between Secretary Lansing and Minister Prun, and there was no announcement of the fact that the negotiations had been renewed until shortly before the pact was signed. Even the terms of the purchase were kept secret until one of the confidential copies of the treaty sent to the Senate had disappeared and its substance published.

In Denmark, the treaty has developed a political crisis that may result in a new general election of members of Parliament and reorganization of the Cabinet. Under the terms of the treaty, Denmark would sell to the United States the Islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St.  Croix, together with adjacent islands and rocks. 