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“THE SESAME THAT OPENS THE DOOR OF TRADE:” JOHN HAYS HAMMOND AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN MINING, 1880–1920
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2017
Abstract
In the last decades of the nineteenth century, American mining engineers fanned out around the globe to potential or existing mines in China, Mexico, Siberia, South Africa, and beyond. This article examines the rise and work of mining engineer John Hays Hammond and the mining engineers, geologists, and capitalists with whom he worked. The paper reveals ways that a segment of the investor class depended upon members of the emerging professional middle class of university-trained mining experts for collaboration—and even inspiration—regarding possible sources of remunerative investment. The search for raw materials abroad opens up a chapter in the history of U.S. capitalism in which mining engineers like Hammond encouraged and facilitated a new phase of export of redundant U.S. capital and manufactured goods in a direction where investment would be secure, labor recruitable, and profits attractive and subject to repatriation. Filling in this vital narrative makes an essential contribution to the ongoing recovery of the history of the U.S. and world capitalism in the era of rapid industrialization.
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- Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2017
Footnotes
I would like to thank a number of colleagues who commented on versions of this article, including Nathan Citino, Mary O. Furner, Paul Kramer, Larry Lankton, Mark Roberts, Emily Rosenberg, Richard Schneirov, Eric Van Young, and the two anonymous readers for the Journal of Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
References
NOTES
1 “The Development of our Foreign Trade: An Address at Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dec. 30, 1913,” John Hays Hammond Sr. Papers, Manuscript Division, Sterling Moss Library, Yale University (hereafter JHH Papers), Box 6, Folder 9.
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5 Emphasis in original. The United States ranked first in mineral production in all of the categories outlined in the chart below except for two, in which it ranked second: bauxite (France ranked first) and gold (Transvaal ranked first). Gavin Wright, “The Origins of American Industrial Success, 1879–1940,” 661.
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11 In his classic 1958 study of British finance and American mining, Clark C. Spence noted that with the exception of the Hammond's two-volume autobiography, “biographical data on Hammond is disappointingly scarce.” Spence, Clark C., British Investments and the American Mining Frontier (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958), 104 Google Scholar. With the exception of brief moments in Hammond's career—particularly his time in South Africa—not much has changed in this regard. To the extent that historians have integrated Hammond's story into a broader narrative, they have largely relied on Hammond's two-volume autobiography, which I use sparingly.
12 On Hoover's career as a mining engineer, see, for instance, Nash, George H., The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, 1874–1914 (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1983)Google Scholar; Phimister, Ian and Mouat, Jeremy, “Mining, Engineers and Risk Management: British Overseas Investment, 1894–1924,” South African Historical Journal 49 (Nov. 2003): 2–3 Google Scholar; and Phimester, and Mouat, , “The Engineering of Herbert Hoover,” Pacific Historical Review 77 (Nov. 2008): 553–84Google Scholar.
13 “A High-Salaried Expert,” Washington Post, Apr. 29, 1908, 6; and “Friends Honor John Hays Hammond,” Engineering and Mining Journal, (hereafter EMJ), May 8, 1926, 780–81. In the summer of 1908, Hoover, then thirty-four, had a solid reputation as a mining engineer and was about to begin, according to George H. Nash's biography, a six-year stretch devoted to making his fortune. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, 384. The only mention of Hoover in the pages of the Post, prior to 1908, that I can find is “In the World of Labor,” Washington Post, Jan. 5, 1902, 16.
14 On the technological change in mining and professionalization in mining engineering and geology, see Hovis, Logan and Mouat, Jeremy, “Mining, Engineers, and the Transformation of Work in the Western Mining Industry, 1880–1930,” Technology and Culture 37 (July 1996): 429–56Google Scholar; Nystrom, Eric, Seeing Underground: Maps, Models, and Mining Engineering in America (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Lucier, Paul, Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820–1890 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)Google Scholar. On speculation and fraud in mining in the American West that includes considerable discussion of Hammond's career, see Lingenfelter, Richard E., Bonanzas and Borrascas: Copper Kings and Stock Frenzies: 1885–1918 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012)Google Scholar. And on professionalization, engineering, and science more generally, Noble, David F., America By Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and Layton, Edwin T. Jr., The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession (Cleveland, OH: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1971), particularly 93–101 Google Scholar.
15 The efforts of these mining engineers are similar to that of the financial experts described by Emily Rosenberg. Rosenberg's financial experts and advisors worked with varying levels of success to create “a trading network greased by predictable financial infrastructures, encouraged by progressive government, and guided by experts who exemplified the business virtues of regularity and reliability.” Rosenberg, , Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy, 1900–1930 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 1, 93–96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rosenberg, , “Foundations of United States International Financial Power: Gold Standard Diplomacy, 1900–1905,” Business History Review 59 (Summer 1985): 169–202 Google Scholar.
16 Beckert, Sven, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.
17 Cronon, William, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991)Google Scholar.
18 Leach, William, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1993)Google Scholar.
19 Pletcher, David M., The Diplomacy of Trade and Investment: American Economic Expansion, 1865–1900 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), 22 Google Scholar. On the relationship between expertise and risk management in other fields, see, for instance, Levy, Jonathan, Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; and, in a related vein, Cowie, Jefferson, Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.
20 A focus on this group can also shed further light on a question Richard John posed in the pages of this journal. John, Richard R., “Who Were the Gilders? And other Seldom-Asked Questions about Business, Technology, and Political Economy, 1877–1900,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8 (Oct. 2009): 474–80Google Scholar.
21 Hammond and Cornell economist Jeremiah Jenks were among those who advocated limiting U.S. exports of raw materials. Jenks and Hammond, Great American Issues, 196. See also Hammond, John Hays, “Wanted—A Foreign Trade Policy,” The North American Review (June 1919): 755 Google Scholar.
22 “Unique,” Time, May 10, 1926, 11. For other coverage, see, for example, “Many High Tributes Paid J. H. Hammond,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), May 4, 1926, 21; “John Hays Hammond,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1926, A4.
23 Hammond, Autobiography, 1:17–62.
24 “Note on John Hays Hammond,” May 3, 1911, JHH Papers, Box 12, Folder 8.
25 Hammond, Autobiography, 2:41.
26 Furner, Mary O., Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science, 1865–1905 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1975), 44–45 Google Scholar.
27 Ibid., 46.
28 A generation earlier, Beckert's well-to-do New Yorkers sent their youth to Europe as a display of social capital and “to be ‘cultured,’” but Hammond and his cohort came, it appears, primarily for the for the training and credentials. See Beckert, Monied Metropolis, 43. The Columbia School of Mines and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did not produce their first graduates until 1867 and 1868 respectively (Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West, 40). On mining engineering education, see Nystrom, Seeing Underground, 46–49 and 192–220; Ochs, Kathleen H., “The Rise of American Mining Engineers: A Case Study of the Colorado School of Mines,” Technology and Culture 33 (Apr. 1992): 278–301 Google Scholar; Read, Thomas Thornton, The Development of Mineral Industry Education with Foreword by Hoover, Herbert (New York: The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1941)Google Scholar; and Wadsworth, M. E., “Some Statistics of Engineering Education,” and “The Michigan College of Mines” Transaction of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 27 (1898): 696–731 Google Scholar.
29 Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West, 25; and Nystrom, Seeing Underground, 54.
30 On the pursuit of graduate education in Europe, particularly Germany, and the professionalization of the social sciences, see, for instance, Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity. On the AIME, see Nystom, Seeing Underground, 59, 65–66; Parsons, A. B., ed., Seventy Years of Progress in the Mineral Industry, 1871–1946 (New York: The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1947)Google Scholar; and Layton, The Revolt of the Engineers, 93–101. For a useful and accessible summary of professionalization in other sectors of the economy and society in the Progressive Era, see Diner, Steven, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), 176–99, 290–93Google Scholar; Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967)Google Scholar, particularly ch. 5; Bledstein, Burton, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: Norton, 1976)Google Scholar; and Kimball, Bruce, The “True Professional Ideal” in America: A History (Cambridge, UK: Blackwell, 1992)Google Scholar.
31 Hammond, Autobiography, 2:83–86. Williams spent nearly twenty years in South Africa where he eventually served as manager for the De Beers Mining Company working for Cecil Rhodes; see T. A. Rickard, “Gardner F. Williams,” EMJ 114 (Sept. 23, 1922): 532–33. Hammond and Williams worked together in South Africa, Hammond to Williams, Feb. 28, 1894; and Hammond to C. J. Clark, Apr. 22, 1895, JHH Papers, Box 3, Folder 8.
32 This is a period during which the research of a number of American geophysists and geologists achieved international recognition, including the USGS's Clarence King, Clarence Dutton, and G. K. Gilbert. Evidence of increasing professionalization in these fields in this period abounds as well. For instance, the Geological Society of America was founded in 1888 and it received the Cuvier medal of the French Académie des Sciences. Oreskes, Naomi, The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 128–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The study of geology (and efforts to professionalize it) in the United States was not new to this period. Lucier describes geology as the “acknowledged queen of sciences in the early nineteenth century.” See Lucier, Scientists and Swindlers, 38, for quote and ch. 4 on mining science.
33 This is not to diminish the significance of state government bureaus; indeed, throughout Hammond's career, he would rely on California State Minerologist William Irelan for aid, and he at times returned the favor by conducting studies for California. See for instance, Hammond, John Hays, “The Milling of Gold Ores in California” in Annual Report of the State Mineralogist (Sacramento, CA: State Office, 1888), 696–715 Google Scholar. For a recent analysis of the emergence of the USGS, see Kelly, Andrew S., “The Political Development of Scientific Capacity in the United States,” Studies in American Political Development 28 (Apr. 2014): 1–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for classic treatment of the Great Surveys, see Goetzman, William H., Exploration and Empire (New York: Knopf, 1966)Google Scholar; and Stegner, Wallace, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West (New York: Penguin Books, 1953)Google Scholar.
34 On the currency issue and its relationship to changes in the U.S. economy, politics, and foreign policy, see Emily S. Rosenberg, “Foundations of United States International Financial Power,” 169–202; Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World; and Unger, Irwin, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.
35 Rabbit, Mary C., A Brief History of the U S Geological Survey (Arlington, TX: U.S. Geological Survey, 1979), 8–9 Google Scholar; Rabbit, Minerals, Lands, and Geology for the Common Defence and General Welfare: 1879–1904 (Washington DC, GPO, 1980), 2:17–56; and Wilkins, Thurman, Clarence King: A Biography Revised and Enlarged (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988), 271–92Google Scholar.
36 Historians of the USGS and its early leadership have described a dramatic change in the survey when John Wesley Powell replaced Clarence King as director. Under Powell's watch, they argue, the survey focused more on basic research and largely abandoned economic geology. While this general characterization of the survey's work is likely true, there were some USGS geologists whose work continued to be extremely relevant to the mining industry. In the pages that follow, George F. Becker is representative of this class of geologist. In Eric Nystrom's work, S. F. Emmons plays a somewhat similar role. See Nystrom, Seeing Underground, 88, and the whole book, particularly ch. three, on the changing relationship between mining engineering and geology in this period. On USGS, see Mary C. Rabbitt, Minerals, Lands, and Geology for the Common Defence and General Welfare: Volume 2, 1879–1904; Kelly, The Political Development of Scientific Capacity in the United States”; Wilkins, Thurman, Clarence King: Biography (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian; Dupree, A. Hunter, Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1957), ch. 10Google Scholar; and Worster, Donald, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.
37 Clarence King, The First Annual Report, 53, 56; and T. Wilkins, 275. On changes to the census more generally in this period, see Anderson, Margo J., The American Census: A Social History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 99–100 Google Scholar.
38 Clarence King, The First Annual Report, 53 and 56.
39 Clark C. Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West, 60.
40 On the Janin family, see Spence, Clark C., “The Janin Brothers: Mining Engineers,” Mining History Journal 3 (1996): 76–82 Google Scholar. On the Janin family, see Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West; and on Charles Janin, see Chaput, Donald, “Gold for the Commissars: Charles Janin's Siberian Ventures,” Huntington Library Quarterly 49 (Fall 1986): 386 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 A nod here to Eduardo Galeano's classic work, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent with a foreword to the 25th anniversary edition by Isabel Allende (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997).
42 EMJ, Sept. 2, 1882, 119.
43 Salas, Miguel Tinker, In the Shadow of the Eagles: Sonora and the Transformation of the Border During the Porfirato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 202 Google Scholar; and “Sonora: The Making of a Border Society, 1880–1910,” Journal of the Southwest 34 (Winter 1992): 434 Google Scholar. On cross-border economic development in this region, see Truett, Samuel, Fugitive Landscapes: The Forgotten History of U.S. Mexico Borderlands (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
44 “Mina De Mulatos,” Daily Alta, Sept. 26, 1889, 1. See also Grossman, Sarah E. M., “Mining Engineers and Fraud in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1860–1910,” Technology and Culture 55 (Oct. 2014), 840–44Google Scholar.
45 “Mr. Janin Explains,” Daily Alta, Mar. 20, 1890, 4; “The Mulatos Mine: A Letter from Alexis Janin” San Francisco Chronicle (hereafter SFC), Mar. 20, 1890, 5. As late as 1896, Alexis was still trying to separate himself from the original report on the Mulatos mine and, by then, his nephew's report; see “Louis Janin Jr. and the Mulatos Mine,” SFC, Sept. 25, 1896, 8.
46 Louis Janin, Jr., “The Mulatos Gold Mines, State of Sonora, Mexico,” EMJ, Feb. 1, 1890, 132; “Louis Janin Jr. and the Mulatos Mine,” SFC, Sept. 25, 1896, 8. The Janin stamp of approval caused the value of the mine to more than double and created a speculative flurry in Sonora, “Foreign Mining News,” EMJ, Feb. 15, 1890, 208.
47 A salted mine is one in which either the mine itself or the assay sample has been tampered with in a way that fraudulently enhances the apparent value of the property. In this case, there are differing accounts of how Janin evaluated the property and the assay, whether he was able to complete his inspection, and the degree to which his various parties oversold his findings. See Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” 840–44.
48 “Mulatos Mine Case,” San Francisco Call, Mar. 22, 1890, 6.
49 Joining Hammond in this investigation was California State minerologist William Irelan.
50 “The Mulatos Mine,” EMJ, Mar. 7, 1891, 279; “A Mexican Mining Suit Satisfactorily Adjusted,” Sacramento Daily Union, Jan. 17, 1891, 1. Lucier, Scientists and Swindlers (especially ch. 2) addresses the role of an earlier generation of geologists in resolving legal disputes in extractive industries.
51 Hammond to Harris, Oct. 8, 1895, JHH Papers, Box 1, Folder 10.
52 Referencing both Hammond's earlier service to the USGS under Becker and Becker's own service to Hammond in South Africa, Becker wrote on the back of a portrait of Hammond, “Mr. John Hays Hammond. Assistant to Geo. F. Becker in series of gold at $50 a month. Afterwards G. F. B. reported on Gold in Africa for J. H. H. at $500 a day.” George Ferdinand Becker Papers, 1814–1928, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter GFB Papers), Box 23, file: History: So Africa.
53 “The Gold Fields of South Africa,” The Cosmopolitan, Dec. 22, 1896, 22, 2; Los Angeles Herald, Nov. 20, 1896, 7; “Consolidated Goldfields of South Africa, Limited,” The Economist, Nov. 14, 1896, 1507; “The Present Value of the Witwatersand,” The Economist, Jan. 2, 1897, 4; “The Present Value of the Witwatersrand,” Jan. 9, 1897, 40; “Gold Incalculable in the Transvaal, NYT, Feb. 20, 1898; and “The Value of the Rand,” Wall Street Journal (hereafter WSJ), Jan. 12, 1897, 1. Meyer, Lysle E., The Farther Frontier: Six Case Studies of Americans and Africa, 1848–1936 (Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992), 228, fn. 23Google Scholar. Becker to George H. Benson, June 20, 1896, GFB Papers, container 17, no. 2. When Becker returned to the United States in the fall of 1896, he made a point of defending Hammond's work in South Africa. See G. F. Becker to Lecture on Transvaal,” Washington Post, Oct. 15, 1896, 4.
54 Hammond to Chalmers, JHH Papers, Apr. 2, 1894, Box 3, Folder 8; “W. J. Chalmers Dies; Maker of Mine Machinery,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 11, 1938. The organization of the Fraser and Chalmers Company is a complicated matter that space prevents me from addressing here, but it is clear that Hammond saw his work in South Africa as, in part, a way to further open up a market for American manufacturers. On Fraser and Chalmers Company, see Peterson, William F., An Industrial Age: Allis-Chalmers Corporation (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1976)Google Scholar; and Wilkins, The History of Foreign Investment in the United States to 1914, 429–30; There are several short, unpublished histories of the Fraser and Chalmers Company in Files 18 and 19, Box 4, Milwaukee County Historical Society Research Collection.
55 See the first twelve folders of the JHH papers in Box 1, which address the period leading up to his arrest. For arrest and efforts to secure his release see Box 1, folders 13 and 14 and Box 2, Folders 1 through 6. See also C. Tsehloane Keto, “The Aftermath of the Jameson Raid and American Decision Making” in Transaction of the American Philosophical Society, New Series Vol. 70 (1980); Thomas J. Noer, 44–68; and Teisch, Jessica B., Engineering Nature: Development, and the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 97–132 Google Scholar.
56 Hammond certainly had his critics in this period. The San Francisco Call and Sacramento Daily Union were among the papers that cast Hammond as a tool of a British empire bent on imposing its will over South African domestic issues. See “Attempt to Steal the Transvaal,” Sacramento Daily Union, Feb. 3, 1896, 2; “The African Issue,” San Francisco Call, Dec. 5, 1896, 6. John. P. Jones to Hammond, Aug, 20, 1896, Box 2, Folder Six, JHH Papers. Teisch comes to a different conclusion concerning Hammond's status when he left South Africa; see Teisch, Engineering Nature, 183.
57 “People Met in Hotel Lobbies,” Washington Post, Jan. 28, 1904, 6.
58 On coverage of Hammond's examination of mines, see, for instance, “Purchase of Mexican Gold Mine,” WSJ, July 2, 1903, 5; “United States Mining Co.: As to Mr. Hammond's Examination,” WSJ, Nov. 19, 1903, 5; “Cripple Creek Sensation: John Hay Hammond Reports Unfavorably on Its Leading Mine,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 27, 1902, 2x.
59 “Nipissing Mining: John Hays Hammond vs. Guggenheims,” WSJ, Dec. 10, 1906, 5.
60 Hammond, John Hays, “American Commercial Interests in the Far East,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 26 (July 1905): 85–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the address, see also, “Urge Need of Navy” New York Tribune, Apr. 9, 1905, 4; “Discuss Affairs of Other Lands,” SFC, Apr. 9, 1905, 20. Hammond would become a frequent contributor to Annals.
61 John Hays Hammond, “American Commercial Interests in the Far East,” 88. Hammond remained optimistic about the opportunities for investment in and exports to Russia, see, for instance, “Our South American Commerce: An Address at Banquet in Honor of the Republic of Argentine,” Nov. 3, 1915. JHH Papers, Box 10, Folder 5.
62 “Personal,” EMJ, Nov. 19, 1919, 1025; “Personal,” EMJ, Dec. 3, 1910, 1121. For more on Hammond's mission, see Askew, William C., “Efforts to Improve Russo-American Relations before the First World War: The John Hays Hammond Mission,” Slavonic and East European Review 31 (Jan. 1, 1952): 179–85Google Scholar.
63 Industrial Relations: Final Report and Testimony Submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations, Vol. VII (Washington, DC: GPO, 1916), 7989. Hammond's CIR testimony, which emphasized a more robust role for the state, was covered all major newspapers, including WSJ, NYT, Washington Post, and SFC. Hammond reiterated the saturation point on many occasions, for example, in the article cited in this article's epigraph; “The Expansion of our Latin American Trade,” The Independent, Dec. 14, 1914, 406; and John Hays Hammond, “The Needs of our Foreign Trade,” Modern Business Supplement (Jan.–Mar. 1916): 3. The increased demand for American goods during WW I would temporarily put these overproduction concerns to rest, but in many of the pieces cited above, Hammond warned that saturated market conditions would return upon the end of the war. During the 1920s, Hoover was among those who advocated increased consumption at home as a means of providing a market for abundant U.S. goods. See Hendrickson, Mark, American Labor and Economic Citizenship: New Capitalism from WWI to the Great Depression (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.
64 On Hammond's involvement in earlier conservation efforts—particularly his service along with Andrew Carnegie, Gifford Pinchot, and Irving Fischer on the minerals section of the Roosevelt's National Conservation Commission (NCC)—see Rossiter W. Raymond to John Hays Hammond, Feb. 18, 1908; Evan E. Olcott to Hammond, Feb. 28, 1908; Hammond to Raymond Mar. 1, 1908; and Hays, Samuel P., Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Movement, 1890–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 127–33Google Scholar.
65 Adams, Brooks, “Meaning of the Recent Expansion of Foreign Trade of the United States,” Publications of the American Economic Association 3 (Feb. 1902): 90–91 Google Scholar. On Adams, see Williams, William A., “Brooks Adams and American Expansion” in McCormick, Thomas J. and LaFeber, Walter, eds., Behind the Throne: Servant of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898–1968 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 21–34 Google Scholar.
66 Roberts, George E., Conant, Charles A., Willis, Henry P., Seligman, Edwin R. A., Gardner, Henry B., and Crowell, John F., “Meaning of the Recent Expansion of Foreign Trade of the United States: Discussion,” Publications of the American Economic Association 3 (Feb. 1902): 97–117, particularly 103 and 107Google Scholar. The role of natural resource abundance in shaping the development of nations has remained a contested issue; see Wright, Gavin and Czelusta, Jesse, “Resource-Based Growth Past and Present” in Lederman, Daniel and Maloney, William F., Natural Resources: Neither Curse nor Destiny (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 183–211 Google Scholar.
67 Changes to the Mexican mining code in 1882 and 1892, intended to further stimulate investment from abroad, dramatically strengthened the hand of foreign investors and mining companies. In the 1892 reforms, the Mexican government granted “unquestioned title to whatever subsoil deposits there might be.” In this context, investment flowed from the north and by 1896, American investors controlled a majority of the now nearly 7,000 mines working in Mexico. See Jason Mason Hart, 152; Bernstein, Marvin D., The Mexican Mining Industry: 1890–1950 (Albany: State University of New York, 1965), 27 Google Scholar.
68 EMJ, Dec. 13, 1913, 1138. See also Hammond, “The Economic Effects of Our Foreign Policy” Bulletin [for Hughes presidential campaign], Oct. 5, 1916. In private correspondence as well, Hammond was also critical of the Wilson administration's failure to protect American investment in Mexico; see Hammond to Frederick Russell Burnham, Feb. 15, 1919, Frederick Russell Burnham Papers, Yale University, Box 6 Folder 73.
69 “The Mexican Problem,” EMJ, Dec. 27, 1919, 935.
70 I stress direct investment here so as to distinguish Wilson's unwillingness to intervene in this sphere from his willingness to use military intervention in others, including the invasion of Vera Cruz and the decision to send General John J. Pershing-led troops into Northern Mexico in a futile effort to capture Francisco “Pancho” Villa. On American direct investors’ disappointment with Wilson, see Wilkins, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise, 37–39.
71 Quoted in Wilkins, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise, 37.
72 Hammond's efforts in this area echoes William Appleman Williams's observation that Latin American served as a laboratory for American foreign policy. Williams, William Appleman, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: Dell, 1962), 1–13 Google Scholar. On the need to cultivate markets in Central and South America, see, for instance, Hammond, “Our South American Commerce: An Address at Banquet in Honor of the Republic of Argentine,” Nov. 3, 1915, JHH Papers, Box 10, Folder 5.
73 Hammond joined a diverse and broad group of internationalists who developed transnational economic, social, and cultural networks that worked toward the formation of organizations such as the League of Nations and Permanent Court of International Justice that they believed might serve as the “kernel that might grow into a global legal system,” to borrow from Rosenberg. Emily S. Rosenberg, “Transnational Currents in a Shrinking World,” 841.
74 Edward Marshall, “John Hays Hammond Wants Pan-American Court,” NYT, Dec. 27, 1914, SM4.
75 Marshall, “John Hays Hammond Wants Pan-American Court,” NYT, Dec. 27, 1914, SM4. “Foreign Trade: Address Delivered before Governors and Mayors, New Interior Bldg., Washington,” JHH Papers, Box 11, Folder 2. For support of Hammond's position among mining engineers, see EMJ editorial “Mr. Hammond Proposes a Pan-American Court,” EMJ, Jan. 2, 1915, 32. On late nineteenth-century efforts to promote Pan Americanism, see David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Trade and Investment: American Expansion in the Hemisphere; and on efforts to strengthen international law in this period, see Wertheim, Stephen, “The League That Wasn't: American Designs for a Legalist-Sanctionist League of Nations and the Intellectual Origins of International Organization, 1914–1920,” Diplomatic History 35 (Nov. 2011): 797–836 Google Scholar.
76 Smith, George Otis, “The Economic Limits to Domestic Independence in Minerals” in Mineral Resources of the United States: 1917 Part I: Metals (Washington DC: GPO, 1921)Google Scholar, 1A. The WIB took an active interest in ensuring industry had a ready supply of a number of raw materials, particularly copper, manganese, zinc, aluminum, and tungsten. See WIB Papers, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NA), correspondence and papers on copper, manganese, zinc, aluminum, and tungsten, boxes 169–186. See also Limbaugh, Tungsten in Peace and War, 18–42; Eckes, The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals, 3–26; Shulman, Coal and Empire, 176–80 and 208–10; Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 125–26; and Priest, Global Gambits, 57–89.
77 George Otis Smith, “Theory and Practice of National Self-Sufficiency in Raw Materials,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in City of New York (July 1926): 122. For a similar assessment of the impact of the war on thinking about raw material access, see works cited in fn. 9.
78 Mary C. Rabbit, Minerals, Lands, and Geology for the Common Defence and General Welfare, 3:152 and 389.
79 John Hays Hammond, “Wanted—A foreign Trade Policy,” 755. During the spring of 1898, Hammond traveled extensively through Russia in an attempt to “secure the control of the platinum-mines in Russia.” See Hammond, “Russia of Yesterday and To-Morrow,” Scribner's Magazine LXXI (May 1922): 519–20.
80 “Orders Platinum Seized,” NYT, Mar. 1, 1918, 4.
81 “The Problem of Russia,” Current History, Apr. 1, 1920, 81.
82 “The Government Must Have Platinum,” NYT, July 23, 1918, 12.
83 “Status of Import and Export Restrictions as of October 15, 1918 of Minerals Named and Not Named in Mineral Act,” RG 194 War Mineral Relief Commission, Box 45, File “Imports and Export Restrictions,” NA.
84 “Shortage of Platinum Is Becoming Alarming,” NYT, June 30, 1918, 29; “The Government Must have Platinum,” NYT, July 23, 1918, 12; “Use of Platinum Restricted,” NYT, Oct. 1, 1918, 15. On metal price increases, see Limbaugh, Tungsten in Peace and War, 26–27; Eckes, The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals, 16–17; and Ingulstad, “Banging the Tin Drum,” 99.
85 “No More Platinum Needed,” NYT, Nov. 16, 1918, ; and “To Sell Surplus Platinum,” NYT, June 29, 1919, 10.
86 George Otis Smith, “Minerals as Essential Raw Materials,” 99.
87 George Otis Smith, “Theory and Practice of National Self-Sufficiency in Raw Materials,” 117. For an overview of government involvement in the mineral industry during the war, see “Technicians in Government Service,” EMJ, Feb. 1, 1919, 225–26.
88 Wilkins, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprises, 52–53.
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