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American Investment in Tropical Mexico: Rubber Plantations, Fraud, and Dollar Diplomacy, 1897–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

William Schell Jr
William Schell Jr
Affiliation:
William Schell, Jr., is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American-Iberian history at theUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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Extract

The following article examines U.S. investment in Mexico at the turn of the century, focusing on the tropical plantation companies and their promises of enormous profits. Viewed in the light—or shadow—of Dollar Diplomacy, the usual interpretation of such events has been that American investors exported profits and undermined internal development while the U.S. government established political hegemony. This article calls both of these outcomes into question.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , Summer 1990 , pp. 217 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1990

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References

1 “Mexican Rubber,” and “Rubber Is Scarce,” Mexican Herald, 15 and 24 Jan. 1899, and “Great Demand for Rubber,” New York Times, 12 Oct. 1903, 7. Production figures are available in Phelps, D. M., Rubber Development in Latin America (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1957), 171–73Google Scholar; Wilson, Charles M., Trees and Test Tubes: The Story of Rubber (New York, 1943), 146Google Scholar; Resor, Randolph R., “Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876·1945,” Business History Review 51 (Autumn 1977): 341–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 “American” in this article is used to mean a resident of the United States or pertaining to the United States.

3 Taft, quoted by Faulkner, Harold U. in The Decline of Laissez Faire, 1897–1917 (New York, 1951), 70Google Scholar.

4 For the quote, see Meyer, Michael, one of the most influential proponents of this view, in his introduction to Essays on the Mexican Revolution: Revisionist Views of the Leaders, ed. Wolfskill, George and Richmond, Douglas W. (Austin, Texas, 1979), xivGoogle Scholar; and a similar statement more recently in “Mexican Views of the United States,” in Twentieth-Century Mexico, ed. Raat, W. Dirk and Beezley, William H. (Lincoln, Nebr., 1986), 290.Google Scholar Textbooks, the repositories of conventional wisdom, by and large accept the leyenda negra; see Meyer, Michael and Sherman, William L., The Course of Mexican History (New York, 1979), 453–64Google Scholar; Keen, Benjamin and Wasserman, Mark, A Short History of Latin America (Boston, Mass., 1984), 199–206Google Scholar; most general accounts do as well; see, for example, James, Daniel, Mexico and the Americans (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Davids, Jules, American Political and Economic Penetration of Mexico, 1877–1920 (New York, 1976)Google Scholar. Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo, The People of Sonora and Yankee Capitalists (Tucson, Ariz., 1988)Google Scholar, and Hart, John Mason, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley, Calif., 1987), ixGoogle Scholar and passim, are some of the most recent monographic statements of what I call the leyenda negra.

5 Armstrong, Christopher and Nelles, H. V., “A Curious Capital Flow: Canadian Investment in Mexico, 1902–1910,” Business History Review 58 (Summer 1984): 178–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mark Wasserman, “Enrique C. Creel: Business and Politics in Mexico, 1880–1939,” ibid. 59 (Winter 1985): 645–62; and Jonathan C. Brown, “Domestic Politics and Foreign Investment: British Development of Mexican Petroleum, 1889–1911,” ibid. 61 (Autumn 1987): 387–416.

6 Bazant, Jan, A Concise History of Mexico from Hidalgo to Cardenas, 1805–1940 (New York, 1978), 116Google Scholar; Lebergott, Stanley, “The Returns to U.S. Imperialism, 1890–1929,” Journal of Economic History 40 (1980): 229CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and William Schell, Jr., “Col. R. C. Pate: Mexico's First Modern Sports Promoter,” paper presented at the South Eastern Conference of Latin Americans, Myrtle Beach, S. C., 1989. Knight, Alan, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (New York, 1986)Google Scholar, dismisses anti-Americanism as a contributing factor to the 1910 revolution. His debate with John M. Hart is ongoing; see Knight, “The U.S. and the Mexican Peasantry c. 1880–1940,” and Hart, “U.S. Economic Expansion and Social Unrest in the Mexican Countryside, 1876–1920,” from the research workshop, “Rural Revolt, the Mexican State and the U.S.: Historical and Contemporary Views,” Feb. 1987, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies.

7 The quote is from Donathon C. Olliff, Reform Mexico and the United States: A Search for Alternatives to Annexation, 1854–1861 (n.p., 1981), 7. Also, see Deger, Robert J. Jr., “Porfirian Foreign Policy and Mexican Nationalism: A Study in Cooperation and Conflict in Mexican-American Relations, 1884–1904” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1979), 38 and passimGoogle Scholar.

8 For example, see “The Tiempo of Yesterday,” The Two Republics, 1 Jan. 1887. At the close of the century, it was the subject of monthly editorial exchanges between the conservative El Tiempo and the semi-official El Imparcial, the Mexican Herald, and Modern Mexico.

9 Romero, Matías, “The Annexation of Mexico by the US,” North American Review 148 (1889): 525–37Google Scholar; Cott, Kenneth S., “Porfirian Investment Policies, 1876–1910” (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1979), 142 and passimGoogle Scholar.

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11 Olney to Ransom, 27 Jan. 1897, Diplomatic Instructions of the Dept. of State, 1801–1906: Mexico [hereafter cited as Instruction], vol. 24, M–72, roll 120,182–86, instruction 21.

12 “Loans of States,” Mexican Herald, 12 April 1901.

13 Brown, “Politics and Foreign Investment”; on the Díaz-Huntington friendship, see Pletcher, David, Rails, Mines and Progress: Seven American Promoters in Mexico, 1876–1911 (New York, 1958), 217Google Scholar; Hanrahan, Gene Z., The Bad Yankee (El Peligro Yankee): American Entrepreneurs and Financiers in Mexico, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1985), 1: 71Google Scholar; and Cott, “Porfirian Investment Policy,” 155. Also see Callahan, James M., American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations (New York, 1932), 493–94Google Scholar.

14 This push-pull relationship of means and ends is still the subject of debate by proponents of dependency and mode of production (MOP) theories, two of the most influential paradigms in Latin American studies; see the introduction to Dependency and Marxism: Toward a Resolution of the Debate, ed. Chilcote, R. H. (Boulder, Colo., 1982), ixGoogle Scholar.

15 Livingston, James, “The Social Analysis of Economic History and Theory: Conjectures on Late Nineteenth-Century American Development,” American Historical Review 92 (1987): 77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Parrini, Carl P. and Sklar, Martin J., “Thinking about the Market, 1896–1904: Some American Economists on Investment and the Theory of Surplus Capital,” Journal of Economic History 43 (1983): 578CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Cochran, Thomas C. and Miller, William, The Age of Enterprise: A Social History of Industrial America (New York, 1961): 208–10Google Scholar; and Lebergott, “Returns to U.S. Imperialism,” 231.

18 Wiebe, Robert H., The Search for Order, 1877–1929 (New York, 1967), 230–31Google Scholar; and Williamson, Jeffrey G., “Late Nineteenth-Century American Retardation: A Neo-Classical Analysis,” Journal of Economic History 33 (1973): 581–607CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Callahan, American Foreign Policy, 494–98. Most of the remaining American capital invested abroad was in Canada for the same reasons.

20 Richard J. Salvucci, “Aspects of United States–Mexico Trade, 1825–80: A Preliminary Study,” paper delivered at the American Historical Association Meeting, Chicago, 1986.

21 Matías Romero, Coffee and India-Rubber Culture in Mexico, Mexico and the United States, and Geographical and Statistical Notes on Mexico, all (New York, 1898)Google Scholar. In these books, Romero discusses his efforts over some fifteen years to bring U.S. capital to Mexico. Bernstein, Harry, Matías Romero, 1837–1898 (Mexico City, 1973), 230–41, 259Google Scholar.

22 Bishop, Old Mexico, 201–2.

23 Spenser, “Soconusco,” 130, table 1.

24 Parsons to Loomis, 15 March 1905, Records of the Dept. of State, Record Group 59; Despatches from US Consuls in Mexico City, 1897–1899 [hereafter cited by microfilm as Consular Despatch], M269, roll 15, 98.

25 “The India Rubber World…,” Modern Mexico, Dec. 1902, 41–42.

26 Faulkner, Decline of Laissez Faire, 25; Pratt, Sereno S., The Work of Wall Street: An Account of the Functions…, 3d ed., rev. Crowell, J. F. (New York, 1928), 130, 201.Google Scholar

27 Michie, Ranald C., “The New York and London Stock Exchanges, 1850–1914,” Journal of Economic History 46 (1986): 185–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sobel, Robert, The Big Board: A History of the New York Stock Market (New York, 1967), 180–81Google Scholar; Cowing, Cedric B., Populists, Plungers and Progressives: A Social History of Stock and Commodity Speculation, 1890–1936 (Princeton, N. J., 1965), 67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Fowler, William W., Inside Life of Wall Street, or How Fortunes Are Won and Lost… (1874; New York, 1971), 298–325.Google Scholar

29 Pratt, Work of Wall Street, 211. Some of the prominent men involved in these ventures were senator Charles Fairbanks and governor W. T. Durbin of Indiana; Charles Foster, former governor of Ohio and U.S. Treasury secretary; George W. Peck, ex-governor of Wisconsin; W. W. Cargill of the giant Cargill Grain Company; Thomas A. Edison; and many others.

30 Whitaker, Herman, The Planter (New York, 1909), 2–3.Google Scholar

31 “The Aztec Plantation Company,” Modern Mexico, March 1902, 4, advertisement.

32 The story was chronicled in the Mexican Herald; see “India Rubber Co.,” 29 April 1898; “Tropic Mexico,” 22 Sept. 1898; “Rubber Muddle,” 14 Oct. 1898; “Neighbors' Talk—Rubber Bubble,” 22 Oct. 1898; “Mexican Rubber,” 15 Jan. 1899; “Notes in the Rubber Muddle,” 16 Jan. 1899; and “Rubber Still,” 22 Jan. 1899.

33 “India Rubber,” Mexican Herald, 2 Jan. 1899.

34 Michie, “The New York and London Stock Exchanges,” 184.

35 Romero, Matías in The Tehuantepec Isthmus Railway (Washington, D.C., 1894), 3–15Google Scholar.

36 Senate, U.S., Investigation of Mexican Affairs—Preliminary Report and Hearings of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Sen. doc. 285, 66th Cong., 2d sess., (Washington, D.C., 1919–1920), 1:1708Google Scholar [hereafter cited as Fall Report].

37 For the case of Panama, see Cochran and Miller, Age of Enterprise, 209; advertisement for the International Land and Colonization Co., “Humboldt's Prediction,” in Modern Mexico, April 1905, 7.

38 Augustin Barroso, “Tierra Caliente,” Modern Mexico, May 1906, 20. Barroso also supplied text for J. J. Fitzgerrell's Fitzgerrell's Guide to Tropical Mexico, published to push Fitzgerrell's company lands.

39 Navarro, Moises González, La Colonizatión en México (Mexico, 1960), 11–12.Google Scholar

40 On the shift in agricultural policies from 1902 to 1908, see Cott, “Porfirian Investment Policies,” 317–18.

41 “Important Move,” Mexican Herald, 28 Dec. 1901; and Parsons to Loomis, 15 April 1905, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 15, 115.

42 “A Mexican Rubber Estimate,” Modern Mexico, Jan. 1905, 25–26, by Miguel A. Logo, an agricultural engineer with the Ministry of Development, offers “conclusive” proof that plantation cultivation of Ule was profitable.

43 “Better than a Savings Bank,” Modern Mexico, Sept. 1902, 29; “Three Questions,” Modern Mexico, Oct. 1901, 11, an advertisement for the Isthmus Planters Association.

44 Pletcher, David M., “The Fall of Silver in Mexico, 1870–1910 and Its Effects on American Investments,” Journal of Economic History 18 (1958): 33–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 The price of the peso ranged from near parity with the U.S. gold dollar in 1890 to a low of 39 cents. Hart's characterization of Limantour's reform as a 50 percent devaluation of the peso, Revolutionary Mexico, 96, 166, 171–73, is incorrect.

46 Parsons to Loomis, 17 March and 21 April 1905, Consular Despatch, roll 14, 100, and roll 15, 123, 124.

47 Fall Report, 1: 1685–90.

48 Parsons to Loomis, 2 June 1905, Consular Despatch, roll 15, 148, and Parsons to Loomis, 15 June 1905, ibid., 153.

49 One of the earliest descriptions of the investor-tourist junket is John F. Finnerty Reports Porfirian Mexico, 1879, ed. Timmons, Wilbert H. (El Paso, Texas, 1974).Google Scholar Such trips were well reported by the American press; see, for example, “Big Excursion to Mexico,” New York Times, 4 Jan. 1893, 3: 4. The tourist-investor junket developed in Mexico was used in the United States to promote the Florida bubble of the 1920s and other projects; see Paulson, Morton C., The Great Land Hustle (Chicago, Ill., 1974), 46–48Google Scholar; and Glass, Charles N. and Brown, A. Theodore, A History of Urban America (New York, 1976), 256–57Google Scholar.

50 “At the Palace,” “Saw Gen. Díaz,” “An Amateur,” Mexican Herald, 23 Feb., 4 March, 27 Aug. 1899.

51 Fall Report, 1: 1050–52. After Díaz's fell, provisional president Francisco de la Barra continued meeting North American tourist-investors. After the revolution, Cárdenas and his successors resumed meeting with tourist groups, remarkable given the state of official relations over the nationalization of U.S. oil fields in Mexico. See Murphy, Douglas, “Mexican Tourism, 1876–1940: The Socio-Economic, Political, and Infrastructural Effects of a Developing Leisure Industry” (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1988).Google Scholar

52 “About Tehuantepec,” Mexican Herald, 4 April 1899.

53 Advertisement, “Paul Fahle and Company…,” Modern Mexico, Sept. 1905, 14.

54 “Consul Headen Praised,” and “Talks of Mexico,” Mexican Herald, 4 Sept. and 6 Oct. 1901; and J. Herbert Foster, “A Little Journey by a Rubber Planter,” Mexican Investor, reprinted in Modern Mexico, Feb. 1907, 22.

55 Advertisement for William Vernon Backus Co., Mexican Herald, 20 May 1901.

56 George S. Montgomery, “One Lonely Rubber Tree in a Vast Mexican Wilderness,” San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Sept. 1900, 12.

57 A. J. Lesfrinasse (consul at Tuxpam, Veracruz) to State, 20 Dec. 1907, Numerical and Minor Files, roll 746, case 10845/8, reports: the “pilfering of chicle and other products throughout this region is an unchecked evil.”

58 Harper, Henry H., A Journey in Southeastern Mexico: Narrative of Experiences, and Observations on Agricultural and Industrial Conditions (Boston, Mass., 1910), 50–100Google Scholar; also Blichfeldt, E. H., A Mexican Journey (New York, 1912), 88–91Google Scholar.

59 For example, see Harvey, J. C. to Wm. Canada, 23 Aug. 1912, in Abajo El Gringo: Anti-American Sentiment during the Mexican Revolution, ed. Hanrahan, Gene Z. (Salisbury, N. C., 1982), 131–32.Google Scholar

60 Thompson, Wallace, The People of Mexico: Who They Are and How They Live (New York, 1921), 326Google Scholar.

61 Romero, Matías, “Wages in Mexico,” North American Review 154 (1892): 39.Google Scholar

62 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System, 1: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1974), 91Google Scholar, might say “coerced cash-crop labor.” Katz, Friedrich, “Mexico: Restored Republic and Porfiriato, 1867–1910,” Cambridge History of Latin America, c. 1879 to 1930, ed. Bethell, Leslie, 5 vols. (New York, 1986), 5: 54–55Google Scholar; and Knight, , Mexican Revolution, 1: 88–89Google Scholar.

63 On the Yaqui, see Hu-DeHart, Evelyn, Yaqui Resistance and Survival: The Struggle for Land and Autonomy, 1821–1910 (Madison, Wis., 1984)Google Scholar. Some representative articles on the labor shortage from the Mexican Herald are: “Italian Laborers,” 24 May 1900; “Chiapas Planter,” 20 April 1900; “Interested in Mexico,” 31 May 1900; “Work for All,” 27 Oct. 1900; “The Japanese,” 17 Aug. 1899; “Labor Problem… Jamaica Negroes to be Imported,” 6 Sept. 1899; “Ratero Labor,” 13 Oct. 1899; “The Treatment of Labor,” 21 May 1901; and “Planters Find Labor Scarce,” 20 Oct. 1907. On Chinese labor, see Modern Mexico, Oct. 1901, 14.

64 Parsons to Loomis, 10 Aug. 1904, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 14, 26.

65 “Chinese Smuggling,” Mexican Herald, 13 Oct. 1901.

66 Dunn, Frederick S., The Diplomatic Protection of Americans in Mexico (New York, 1933), 300–302Google Scholar.

67 Barlow to Peirce, 26 May 1903, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 14, 504.

68 Ibid.

69 “Contract Laborers,” Mexican Herald, 4 July 1899; and El Imparcial, quoted in “Contract Labor,” Mexican Herald, 1 July 1899; “Observations in the Tropics,” Modern Mexico, Feb. 1906, 13–14.

70 “Irrepressible—Lic. Zuñíga y Miranda,” Mexican Herald, 14 Oct. 1897; ibid., “Contract Laborers,” 4 July 1899; and El Imparcial, quoted in “Contract Labor,” Mexican Herald, 1 July 1899. “Observations in the Tropics,” Modern Mexico, Feb. 1906, 13–14, condemns contract labor as slavery. It took some courage to take this position, as Díaz regarded charges of slavery in Mexico as “the grossest calumny”; see Knight, Alan, “Mexican Peonage: What Was It and Why Was It?” Journal of Latin American Studies 18 (1986): 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Knight has the “strong impression” that Anglo-Americans relied more on wage labor than did Mexicans and Spaniards, 59.

71 Turner, John K., Barbarous Mexico (Austin, Texas, 1969)Google Scholar; Whitaker, Herman, “The Rubber Slavery of the Mexican Tropics,” American Magazine 69: 4 (1910): 546–55.Google Scholar On coerced labor under Madero, see Fall Report, 2: 2204 and Knight, , Mexican Revolution, 1: 420.Google Scholar

72 “Labor Question,” Mexican Herald, 2 May 1901.

73 “A Mexican Rubber Estimate,” Modern Mexico, Jan. 1905, 25–26.

74 Parsons to Loomis, 15 March 1905, Consular Despatch, M269, roll 15, vols. 26–27, 98,; and Foster, “A Little Journey,” 22.

75 Wilson, Trees and Test Tubes, 1–14.

76 “Mexican Rubber,” “Better Rubber,” Mexican Herald, 27 Sept., 10 Nov. 1900; F. M. Guernsey, “Orizaba in Summer,” Modern Mexico, June 1906, 28–29; and “About Chicle Gum,” Mexican Herald, 18 Aug. 1901.

77 For example, “To Look Up Trade,” Mexican Herald, 18 May 1901.

78 Harper, A Journey, 52.

79 On the Mexican origins of Guayule technology, see vice-consul Ernesto Lux to Loomis, 28 Oct. 1904, Despatches from U.S. Consul in Veracruz, 1822–1906, M183, roll 18, vol. 18, 394. Phelps, Rubber Developments, 171, gives the U.S. consumption for this period as 81,668 long tons. Total reported exports of rubber for fiscal year 1908 and 1909 were $10,702,839 (Guayule) and $690,968 (Ule), at about 50 cents a pound. “American Investments and Economic Conditions in Mexico, 1909–1910,” report by consul general Arnold Shanklin, reprinted in Gene Hanrahan, Z., The Bad Yankee (El Peligro Yankee): American Entrepreneurs and Financiers in Mexico, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1985), 1: D–73Google Scholar.

80 Howard, and Wolf, Ralph, Rubber: A Story of Glory and Greed (New York, 1936), 271 and passimGoogle Scholar; Schell, William, “The U.S. and the Fall of Porfirio Díaz: Changing Interpretations of the U.S. Neutrality Acts, 1911” (unpub. MS, 1987)Google Scholar.

81 Wilson, Trees and Test Tubes, 10; also see Vernon Herbert and Basio, Attilio, Synthetic Rubber: A Project That Had to Succeed (Westport, Conn., 1985)Google Scholar.

82 Matt Ransom to Matt, Jr., 14 April 1895, box 39, folder 465, Matt Ransom Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.; William Schell, Jr., “Matt Ransom: Last of the Romans,” The State 55 (Feb. 1988): 29–28; and Schell, “Evaluating Matt Ransom,” ibid. (April 1988), 6–7.

83 Despatch, Crittenden to W. Rockhill, 22 Feb. 1897, Consular Despatch, M296, roll II.

84 Item, Mexican Herald, 6 April 1904; “Andrew D. Barlow,” Mexican Herald, 6 June 1897; J. F. Bennett to Sec. of State, 12 Nov. 1898, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 12. All subsequent despatches and the local press confirm this opinion of Barlow, as does Lummis, Charles F., The Awakening of a Nation: Mexico To-Day (New York, 1902), 101Google Scholar.

85 Lummis, Awakening of a Nation; also “[Col. Bennett] Is Vindicated,” Mexican Herald, 13 Jan. 1899; and Bennett to Sec. of State, 24 Jan. 1899, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 12. On consular reform, see Paterson, Thomas G., “American Businessmen and Consular Service Reform, 1890's to 1906,” Business History Review 40 (Spring 1966): 75–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 Bulnes, Francisco, The Whole Truth About Mexico: President Wilson's Responsibility (New York, 1916), 123Google Scholar.

87 E. G. Church to State, 15 Dec. 1909, Numerical and Minor Files, roll 495, case 8183/308. After the subsidy was ended in 1909, the Herald became much more critical of the Díaz regime. Herald clippings were commonly used as the text of despatches. William Schell, Jr., “The Díaz Doctrine: A Vision of Greater Mexico?” Lecture 1 in his series on Porfirian Mexico for the UNC–Chapel Hill Institute of Latin American Studies, Dec. 1987; “Clearing the Atmosphere,” Mexican Herald, 5 July 1905.

88 “It Is to Laugh,” Mexican Herald, 13 June 1899.

89 Barlow to Cridler, 30 May 1901, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 13, vol. 23, 341.

90 “Attack Answered,” Mexican Herald, 1 Oct. 1900.

91 “Visited Chiapas,” and “Mr. Hardey Resigns,” Mexican Herald, 15 May and 31 June 1901; and Barlow to Cridler, 30 May 1901.

92 Barlow's report was published in Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries (Washington, D.C., 1905), 1: 403–533Google Scholar, reprinted in Hanrahan, The Bad Yankee, 1: D-1-D-71. The report is not comprehensive and must be viewed with care, but it is a useful guide to U.S. investment in Mexico.

93 Callahan, American Foreign Policy, 519.

94 Fitzgerrell's advertisement ran daily in the Mexican Herald from 1900; for example, see 18 May 1901; “Deprecates the Streets,” Mexican Herald, 25 May 1901.

95 Fall Report, 2: 2432–33, the testimony of William W. Canada, who was for over a decade U.S. consul in Veracruz.

96 Parsons to Loomis, 17 March 1905, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 14, 100.

97 “The Wealth of Mexico in 1911…,” Albert B. Fall, in Hanrahan, The Bad Yankee, 2: D–381.

98 Martin, Percy F., Mexico of the XXth Century, 2 vols. (New York, 1908), 2: 242Google Scholar.

99 Schubert, Eric S., “Innovations, Debts, and Bubbles: International Integration of Financial Markets in Western Europe, 1688–1720,” Journal of Economic History 48 (1988): 299–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 “Bank Concession Granted,” Mexican Herald, 29 Sept. 1901.

101 Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 140, notes the drying up of European capital. Cott, “Porfirian Investment,” 301, notes the positive effect of direct foreign investment; also see Vernon, Raymond, The Dilemma of Mexico's Development: The Role of the Private and Public Sectors (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 46Google Scholar.

102 Parsons to Loomis, 15 July 1904, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 14, 14.

103 For example, Frank L. Torres, manager of the Isthmus Rubber Co., was a director of the Mexican Trust Co. of Mexico City. Paul Hudson, editor of Modern Mexico, was a director of Mexico City Banking Co., S.A. Limantour dated the rise of corporations and modern banking from 1900 and feared their collusion would result in trusts in Mexico. See Dufoo, Carlos Díaz, Limantour (Mexico, 1922), 150–54Google Scholar.

104 A. J. Lesfrinasse to State, 19 March 1910, Numerical and Minor Files, roll 1159, case 24155.

105 “Concessionaires Are Sad,” Mexican Herald, 28 Oct. 1901; and Martin, Mexico of the XXth Century, 1: 172; “Chiapas' New Bank,” Mexican Herald, 21 March 1902.

106 Coatsworth, John, “Obstacles to Economic Growth in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” American Historical Review 83 (1978): 80–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 “A Big Enterprise,” “River Navigation,” and “River Steamers,” Mexican Herald, 14, 28 April, 18 May 1901.

108 Conley, Edward M., “The Americanization of Mexico,” Review of Reviews 32 (1905): 724–25Google Scholar.

109 Barlow Report, in The Bad Yankee, 1: D–5.

110 “The Production of Rubber in Mexico,” Modern Mexico, Nov. 1902, 38; and “A Rubber Grower Speaks Regarding Profits,” Modern Mexico, Feb. 1903, 29.

111 Wm. Ryder, general manager, Mexican Development and Construction Co., in Modern Mexico, March 1903, 46; and “Tropical Agricultural Companies,” Modern Mexico, Feb. 1903, 25.

112 “The Laguna Chica Plantation,” Modern Mexico, Oct. 1902, 39.

113 “Many Inquiries,” Modern Mexico, Dec. 1902, 24.

114 “…Bryan and McKinley agreed on the necessity and desirability of expanding the American marketplace, and of extending American power and influence around the globe. Their disagreements concerned the means, not the ends.” See “Anticolonial Imperialism and the Open Door Policy,” in The Shaping of American Diplomacy, ed. Williams, William A., 2 vols. (Chicago, Ill., 1971), 1: 336Google Scholar. As President Woodrow Wilson's secretary of state, Bryan supported the U.S. invasion of Veracruz.

115 William J. Bryan, Commoner, Jan. 1903, reprinted in the Mexican Herald.

116 “With Col. Bryan and Family in Tropical Mexico,” Modern Mexico, Feb. 1903, 32. Some details of Bryan's property holdings in Mexico are contained in Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 137. During Florida's land boom, Bryan was retained at $50,000 a year as a pitchman by the developer of Coral Gables; see Paulson, Gnat Land Hustle.

117 Fall Report, 2: 1709.

118 Item, Mexican Herald, 13 Dec. 1903.

119 Barlow to H. D. Peirce, 20 Dec. 1903, Consular Despatch, roll 14, vols. 24–25, M296, 569.

120 Telegram (cipher), John Hay to Powell Clayton, 10 March 1904, Diplomatic Instructions of the Dept. of State, 1801–1906, Mexico, microfilm 77, roll 121, vol. 25, 679.

121 C. C. Eberhardt to Robert Bacon, 9 Dec. 1905, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 15, 212; Parsons wrote Prussian Schools Through American Eyes, French Schools Through American Eyes, and Professional Education in the United Slates.

122 Conley to Peirce, 11 April 1904, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 14, vols. 24–25, 612.

123 “Cultivated Rubber,” Modern Mexico, Oct. 1904, 28.

124 “Through Consular Eyes,” Charles H. Arthur, U.S. consul, Oaxaca, Modern Mexico, Nov. 1904, 36. The title is a jab at Parsons, a parody of his book titles (see note 121).

125 Parsons to Charles Loomis, 23 July 1904, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 14, 20.

126 Parsons to Loomis, 15 July 1904, 14, ibid.

127 Ibid.

128 Ibid.; “Ban on Ubero Companies,” New York Times, 18 April 1905, 6: 2.

129 “Interested in the Isthmus,” Mexican Herald, 15 Feb. 1901.

130 Parsons to Loomis, 21 April 1905, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 15,123–24; ibid., 24 April, 125; ibid., 16 May, 139; Whitaker, “Rubber Slavery,” 549.

131 Parsons to Loomis, 24 April 1905.

132 Parsons to Loomis, 17 March 1905, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 15, 100; “Ban on Ubero Companies.”

133 Item, Mexican Herald, 8 Aug. 1905.

134 Parsons to Loomis, 21 April 1905.

135 Item, Mexican Herald, 12 Jan. 1905, quoted in Romney, Joseph B., “American Interests in Mexico: Development and Impact during the Rule of Porfirio Díaz, 1876–1911” (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1969), 31–32Google Scholar.

136 Quote from “Plan for Mexican Bank,” New York Times, 11 June 1903, 3. See also, all in the New York Times: “A Pan-American Railroad Company,” 9 June 1901, 5; “The All-Rail Route to South America,” 17 April 1904; and “Pan-American Railway,” 14 March 1904, 5.

137 Martin, Mexico of the XXth Century, 1: 168.

138 Parsons to Loomis, 17 March 1905.

139 Ibid., 15 March 1905, 98.

140 “An Extended Tour,” Mexican Herald, 24 April 1901; Parsons to Loomis, 29 May 1905, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 15, 145.

141 Flandrau, Charles M., Viva Mexico! (Urbana, Ill., 1964), 222Google Scholar.

142 A. J. Lesfrinasse (consul at Frontera) to State, 19 March 1910, Numerical and Minor Files, roll 1159, case 24155. Despite repeated complaints about the “Giant Banana Company,” the consul reported to State only after local creditors “put attachments on the property.”

143 Fall Report, 2: 1396, testimony of W. B. Loucks. Another statement to this effect may be found in the testimony of Wm. W. Canada, long-time U.S. consul at Veracruz: “Those stock companies in the United States, selling their stock to school ma'arms, barbers, clerks… some of them lost it all, but the Mexicans got the benefit of it all.” Ibid., 2: 2432.

144 Anglo-American, 3 Dec. 1905.

145 Parsons to Bacon, 5 Dec. 1905, Consular Despatch, roll 15, 206, and ibid., roll 14, 100.

146 “Buying Tropical Lands,” Modern Mexico, Dec. 1906, 26.

147 “Foreign Companies in Mexico,” Modern Mexico, March 1904, 44.

148 Mexican Investor, 2 Dec. 1905.

149 John H. Cornyn, “The South Country,” Modern Mexico, Oct. 1906, 32.

150 Eberhardt to Bacon, 9 Dec. 1905, encl. 3, Consular Despatch, M296, roll 15, 212.

151 Eberhardt to Bacon, 9 Dec. 1905.

152 Eberhardt to Bacon, 7 Dec. 1905, ibid., 211.

153 Blichfeldt, Mexican Journey, 88–89.

154 Romney, “American Interests,” 31–32.

155 The U.S. legation in Brazil was raised to embassy status immediately before Thompson's appointment.

156 Foster, John W. (former minister to Mexico), Diplomatic Memoirs, 2 vols. (Boston, Mass., 1909), 1: 120Google Scholar.

157 Letter, H. A. Harrison to President's Secretary, 11 Jan. 1906; Memorandum by Root, 27 Dec. 1905; and “His First Public Office,” Washington Star, 31 Jan. 1902 (clipping); all in the D. E. Thompson Archive, Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, Nebr.

158 The testimony of Wallace Thompson, former Mexican Herald news editor, in Fall Report, 2: 1915.

159 Advertisement, “International Land and Colonization Co.,” Mexican Herald, 19 May 1901. On protocolization, see Fall Report, 1: 231–32, testimony of E. L. Doheny.

160 For another example, see Despatch, Thompson to State, 3 June 1907, Numerical and Minor Files, M862, roll 1217.

161 “Assail on Ambassador,” New York Times, 23 Oct. 1906, 1.

162 Fall Report, 2: 2559–60; Martin, Mexico of the XXth Century, 2: 290; Powell, Fred W., The Railroads of Mexico (Boston, Mass., 1921), 154Google Scholar; and Sands, William F., Our Jungle Diplomacy (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1944), 133Google Scholar.

163 “The Ubero Plantation Company of Boston,” Modern Mexico, March 1902, 11.

164 Martin, Mexico of the XXth Century, 1: 167–68; and “Tehuantepec Railroad,” Mexican Herald, 4 Feb. 1901.

165 Thompson to State, 22 Dec. 1906, concerning transit of U.S. goods across the isthmus, Numerical and Minor Files, M862, roll 1216, case unnum.

166 “Sir W. Pearson,” Mexican Herald, 26 May 1901.

167 Thompson to Root, 11 Jan. 1907, Numerical and Minor Files, M862, roll 1217, Despatch 389.

168 Cott, “Porfirian Investment,” 317.

169 Former first secretary at the U.S. embassy under Thompson, Sands, Jungle Diplomacy, 133–34, portrays Thompson as Díaz's informal minister. For an example of Thompson's manipulation of internal U.S. policies for Mexican ends, see Numerical and Minor Files, roll 42, case 333, urging application of neutrality acts to arms sales to Yaqui Indians, and roll 1217, Instruction 91, Bacon to Thompson, 9 Aug. 1906, for State's rebuke to the Mexican government and (by implication) to Thompson. Also, see Raat, W. Dirk, Revoltosos: Mexico's Rebels in the United States, 1903–1923 (College Station, Texas, 1981), 107 and passimGoogle Scholar.

170 Schell, William Jr., “The Creelman Conspiracy: Towards a Reappraisal of the Fall of the Porfiriato,” South Eastern Latin Americanist 24 (1985): 47–63Google Scholar. The language used in Despatch, Thompson to State, 3 Aug. 1908, Numerical and Minor Files, roll 594, case 8183/124–25, suggests that Thompson is reporting his participation in the Creelman interview for the first time.

171 D. Wright to Theodore Roosevelt, 19 Nov. 1905, D. E. Thompson Archive; also, see Raat, Revoltosos.

172 Letter, private and confidential, unnamed senator to Thompson, 7 May 1909, Thompson Archives.

173 Sands, Jungle Diplomacy, 196.

174 The Mexican Revolution, 1: 485, refers t o Wilson's “freelance role” as “an exception.”

175 Gadow, Hans, Through Southern Mexico… The Travels of a Naturalist (New York, 1908), 163Google Scholar; and Hart, John M., “The Peasants' War in Southeastern Mexico,” in Riot, Rebellion and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico, ed. Katz, Friedrich (Princeton, N. J., 1988), 265–68.Google Scholar

176 Bazant, A Concise History of Mexico, 116.

177 Lebergott, “The Returns to U.S. Imperialism,” 229£53. Vazquez, Josefina Zoraida and Meyer, Lorenzo, The United States and Mexico (Chicago, Ill., 1985), 91Google Scholar, seem to be reevaluating the assumption that American investment was inherently exploitative.

178 “Mexico's Finances,” and “Mexico's Business,” Mexican Herald, 21 Jan. and 23 March 1901; “Rubber Planting in Mexico,” Modern Mexico, March 1903, 57; Benjamin, Thomas L., “Passages to Leviathan: Chiapas and the Mexican State, 1891£1941” (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1981), 93–95Google Scholar.

179 Mexico's economy grew from 1873 to 1878, a period of contraction in the United States. From 1878 to 1882, the two economies both expanded. Mexico continued to grow through 1883, while the U.S. economy declined and crashed in 1884, coinciding with a downturn in Mexico. The U.S. economy revived the following year, whereas recession lingered in Mexico until 1887. Thereafter, Mexico held its own and then grew rapidly, while the United States suffered a flat economy and two severe depressions in 1893 and 1895. Salvucci, “Aspects of United States–Mexico Trade,” 38–39. For an indication of the performance of Mexico's economy, see Estadísticas Históricas de México, ed. Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografíae Informática, 2 vols. (1986), 2: 501, 603, 663, 665, and Estadisticas Economicas del Porfiriato: Comercio Exterior de Mexico (Mexico City, 1960)Google Scholar.

180 In spite of U.S. efforts to replace it, the peso was the universal trade coin in the Far East; see “The Mexican Dollar,” and “Mexico in the Orient,” Mexican Herald, 6 Feb. and 28 March 1901; also, Cockcroft, James D., Mexico: Class Formation, Capital Accumulation and the State (New York, 1983), 89Google Scholar.

181 Dufoo Díaz, Limantour, 200–202, 227–29.

182 Item, Mexican Herald, 30 June 1908; and Cott, “Porfirian Investment,” 302.

183 A fact noted by others; see Healy, David, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1917 (Madison, Wis., 1988), 282–83Google Scholar.

184 Joseph, Gilbert M., Revolution from Without: Yucatan, Mexico and the United States, 1880–1924 (New York, 1982), 40–41Google Scholar; Wells, Allen, Yucatan's Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen and International Harvester, 1860–1915 (Albuquerque, N. M., 1985), 44 and passimGoogle Scholar; and Wasserman, Mark, Capitalists, Caciques and Revolution (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1984)Google Scholar, describe the relationship between foreign investment and elite political power.

185 See Martin, , Mexico of the XXth Century, 2: 242Google Scholar; Winton, G. B., A New Era in Old Mexico (Nashville, Tenn., 1905), 12Google Scholar; and Blichfeldt, Mexican Journey, 88 and passim; see the advertisements in any Modern Mexico from 1906 on; Shanklin report, reprinted in Hanrahan, The Bad Yankee, 1: D-73–D-74; Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 8.

186 Hanrahan, , The Bad Yankee, 1: 120Google Scholar.