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Organization for Foreign Trade Expansion in the Mississippi Valley, 1900–1920*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Burton I. Kaufman
Burton I. Kaufman
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, Louisiana State University in New Orleans
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Abstract

Recent historians of the early twentieth century United States have called attention to the growing nationalization of American life, as well as to the importance of an eastern corporate elite in shaping foreign policy during that period. This study indicates the residual strength of the regional impulse and offers a counterweight to the national and eastern emphasis of those historians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , Winter 1972 , pp. 444 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 On this point see Galambos, Louis, “The Emerging Organizational Synthesis in Modern American History,” Business History Review, XLV (Autumn, 1970), 279–290CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Williams, William Appleman, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 St. Louis banking and business interests also played a significant role in promoting inland commerce abroad. See, for example, St. Louis Business Men's League, The Foreign Trade of St. Louis (St. Louis, 1912), 5–6Google Scholar; Purdy, H. L., An Historical Analysis of the Economic Growth of St. Louis (n.p., n.d.,), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But — perhaps because they were more interested in the developing areas of America's Southwest — these community leaders appear to have generally deferred to Chicago and New Orleans in promoting overseas trade. Speaking in Chicago, John Barrett of the Pan American Union thus referred to Chicago and New Orleans as the two cities most interested in Pan American commerce. Significantly, he did not mention St. Louis. See Chicago Commerce, X (October 16, 1914), 10–11 and 40–46Google Scholar. On St. Louis' interest in the Southwest, see Purdy, An Historical Analysis of the Economic Growth of St. Louis, 62–63.

3 Schonberger, Howard B., Transportation to the Seaboard: The “Communication Revolution” and American Foreign Policy, 1860–1900 (Westport, Conn., 1971), esp. 88–114Google Scholar; Williams, William Appleman, The Roots of the Modern American Empire: A Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Economy (New York, 1969), esp. 175–231Google Scholar; Jackson, Joy J., New Orleans in the Gilded Age: Politics and Urban Progress, 1880–1896 (Baton Rouge, La., 1969), 210–15.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, Sixty-Fifth Annual Report 1913 (Cincinnati, 1914), 36–37, 46–47, and 73–74Google Scholar; St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce for the Year 1905 (St. Louis, 1905), 78–84Google Scholar; editorial reprinted from Commercial West in Trade Index, XIX (February, 1907), 31Google Scholar; ibid., XVIII (May, 1905), 16. See also Gulf State Banker, VI (November, 1911), 35Google Scholar; Kinley, David, “Mississippi Valley Waterways and Manufactures as Related to South American West Coast Trade via Panama Canal,” Chicago Commerce, VII (February 16, 1912), 21–25.Google Scholar

5 Chicago Harbor Commission, Report to the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Chicago (Chicago, 1909), 149–161Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce, VI (July 22, 1910), 9–12Google Scholar; ibid., (November 4, 1910), 20; ibid., VII (May 12, 1911), 28. See also L. Ruskin (traffic manager, Quaker Oats Co.) to James Porch, October 6, 1911 in Prospectus of the Mississippi Valley, South America, and Orient Steamship Company (New Orleans, 1912), 78Google Scholar.

6 First National Bank of Chicago, “Reports of the Foreign Banking Department from 1882–1930,” reports for 1882–1900 (First National Bank of Chicago Library, Chicago, III.)Google Scholar. Mr. Donald Marks, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, discovered this bound volume of reports while doing research in the bank's library. The reports are an indispensable source for the student of foreign and commercial matters in the United States. See also James, F. Cyril, The Growth of Chicago Banks (2 vols., New York, 1938), I, 700–701 and 886Google Scholar; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, LXXXVI (April 12, 1913), 1062Google Scholar; Chicago Banker, XXX (October 7, 1911), 16Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce, VI (July 21, 1911), 21Google Scholar; ibid., VII (April 12, 1912), 21–30. On Chicago's interest in expanding its foreign trade operations see also Abrahams, Paul Philip, “The Foreign Expansion of American Finance and Its Relationship to the Foreign Economic Policies of the United States, 1907–1921,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1967), 10–11.Google Scholar

7 New Orleans Board of Trade, Correspondence, Reports and Addresses on the Subject of the Commercial and Industrial Value of an Inter-Oceanic Canal (New Orleans, 1900)Google Scholar; New Orleans Maritime Association, First Annual Report (New Orleans, 1901), esp. 94–101, 131–35 and 199–200Google Scholar; Porch, James W. and Muller, Fred, Panama via New Orleans: Report of the Board of Trade Committee (New Orleans, 1904)Google Scholar; Nockton, Susan Harris, “The Influence of the Panama Canal on the Development of the Port of New Orleans, 1900–1915,” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Louisiana State University in New Orleans, 1971), 5–43Google Scholar. For typical pamphlets sent out by commercial organizations in New Orleans to similar organizations throughout the valley, see New Orleans (n.p., and n.d.) and I Talk for New Orleans (n.p., 1906) (Louisiana Division, New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans, La.).

8 Moulton, Harold G., Waterways versus Railways (Chicago, 1912), 1–44Google Scholar; Trade Index, XIX (February, 1907), 31Google Scholar; St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce for the Year 1907 (St. Louis, 1907), 12Google Scholar; Hays, Samuel P., Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 100–105Google Scholar.

9 More ambitious schemes called for a twenty-one-foot channel which, it was argued, would allow ocean vessels to reach the Great Lakes from the Gulf of Mexico. Moulton, Waterways versus Railways, 324–416. See also St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce for the Year 1901 (St. Louis, 1901), 23Google Scholar; Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, 95–99; The Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterways Association, First Annual Convention 1906 (Chicago, 1906), 5–6Google Scholar.

10 See, for example, Hill, James J., Highways of Progress (New York, 1910), 208–233Google Scholar; St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce for the Year 1907, 12. See also Knox, Philander C., The Future of Commerce: Address of Senator Philander C. Knox Before the Chamber of Commerce of Pittsburgh, Wednesday, February 12, 1908 (Washington, 1908), 6–7Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce VI (July 22, 1910), 9–12Google Scholar.

11 On these several points see, for example, “Report of the Panama Canal Committee of the New Orleans Board of Trade” in Trade Index, XVIII (February, 1906), 32Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce, VII (October 20, 1911), 5Google Scholar; Gulf State Banker, VI (November, 1911), 142–44Google Scholar; Kinley, “Mississippi Valley Waterways and Manufactures,” 21–25; Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, Sixty-Fifth Annual Report, 73–74; Chicago Banker, XXXVI (February 7, 1914), 16.Google Scholar

12 Trade Index, XVIII (May, 1905), 16Google Scholar; Kinley, “Mississippi Valley Waterways and Manufactures,” 21–25; Chicago Commerce, VI (February 3, 1911), 19Google Scholar; ibid., X (May 15, 1914), 26; ibid., (September 25, 1914), 21.

13 Prospectus of the Mississippi Valley, South America, and Orient Steamship Company, 24–26; St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce for the Year 1911 (St. Louis, 1911), 28Google Scholar; “Pan American Mail Section,” New Orleans Times-Democrat, January 14, 1912; New Orleans Daily States, April 7, 1912; Hurley, Edward, Banking and Credit in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series No. 90 (Washington, 1914), 39–40Google Scholar; “Seeking Better Steamer Service,” in For New Orleans, I (April, 1914), 1.Google Scholar

14 Abrahams, “The Foreign Expansion of American Finance,” 20–32; William C. Redfield (Secretary of Commerce) to F. B. Whitney, June 1, 1914 and to editor, Brooklyn Times, September 18, 1914, Files 70801 and 7229, General Records of the Department of Commerce, RG 40 (National Archives, Washington, D.C.).

15 In fact, most inland banks did not have the knowledge to conduct a foreign banking business. In an effort to remedy this situation, the First National Bank of Chicago offered its inland correspondents a foreign training program. First National Bank of Chicago, “Reports of the Foreign Banking Department from 1882–1930,” report for 1916.

16 William H. Lough, “Preliminary Report as to Financial Relations with South America,” (1914), Series IV, Case File 3, Box 4, Woodrow Wilson Papers (Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.); Lough, William H., Banking Opportunities in South America, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series No. 106 (Washington, 1915), 145–48Google Scholar; Chicago Banker, XXXIX (April 7, 1915), 1Google Scholar; James Forgan (president, First National Bank of Chicago) to R. Gierach, March 17, 1914, Volume 22, James B. Forgan Papers (First National Bank of Chicago Library).

17 See footnote 11 and remarks of George M. Reynolds (president, the Continental and Commercial National Bank of Chicago) and Samuel M. Hastings (president, Illinois Manufacturers Association) before a hearing of the Federal Trade Commission in Chicago as reported in Commercial and Financial Chronicle, CI (July 31, 1915), 341Google Scholar.

18 For New Orleans, I (September 1, 1914), 1–3Google Scholar; ibid., (October 15, 1914) 1; Southern Banker, XXII (September, 1914), 36Google Scholar; Chicago Banker, XXVIII (September 9, 1914), 7–8Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce, X (October 9, 1914), 4Google Scholar; ibid., (October 23, 1914), 2.

19 For New Orleans, I (December 1, 1914), 1–3Google Scholar; Southern Banker, XXII (December, 1914), 23Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce, X (November 27, 1914), 20–22Google Scholar.

20 For New Orleans, I (December 1, 1914), 1–3Google Scholar; Southern Banker, XXII (December, 1914), 23Google Scholar; Chicago Commerce, X (November 27, 1914), 20–22Google Scholar.

21 In September 1916 it was reported that the Lloyd Braziliero Steamship Company had decided to begin regular ocean service between New Orleans and Brazil, but there is no indication that this line ever began actual operations in the Crescent City. See Southern Lumberman, LXXXII (September 16, 1916), 32Google Scholar.

22 The Federal Reserve Board resisted a similar proposal applying to all federal reserve banks. Phelps, Clyde William, The Foreign Expansion of American Banks: American Branch Banking Abroad (New York, 1927), 167–68Google Scholar.

23 Chicago Commerce, XI (December 24, 1915), 23.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., (November 5, 1915), 19–21. See also William McAdoo to E. E. Dunne (Governor of Illinois), November 6, 1915, William Gibbs McAdoo Papers, Letterbook 487–3 (Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress).

25 New Orleans Board of Trade, “Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors,” meeting of July 24, 1918 (Board of Trade Building, New Orleans La.).

26 Ever since they had received news of the war, Minneapolis-St. Paul businessmen had been converned with restoring navigation on the Mississippi River in order to develop export trade through the Gulf of Mexico. See Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, Third Annual Report 1914 (Minneapolis, 1914), 99–100Google Scholar and Fourth Annual Report 1915 (Minneapolis, 1915), 104–105Google Scholar. They had also cooperated with New Orleans, Chicago, and Memphis businessmen in planning the Memphis conference of 1914. Chicago Commerce, X (October 15, 1914), 2.Google Scholar

27 New Orleans Board of Trade, “Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors,” meeting of July 24, 1918.

28 See, for example, William McAdoo to (?) Krell, May 29, 1915 and McAdoo to Frank I. Cobb, June 28, 1915, Letterbooks 485–3 and 487–3, McAdoo Papers; R. L. Crampton to William C. Redfield, March 5, 1915 in response to Redfield's letter of March 3, 1915, File 72626, Department of Commerce Records; remarks of Hurley as reported in New York Times, February 6, 1915. Before joining the administration Hurley had been a Chicago manufacturer and president of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association.

29 Woodland, Don, “Financing Under the Edge Act,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1962), 64–66Google Scholar. A report on foreign banking by William Lough of the Department of Commerce emphasized the need for the Mississippi Valley to enter the foreign banking field in order to prevent it from being monopolized by the National City Bank of New York, which had already established branches in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. “[I]t would be especially distasteful and harmful to the banks of the Mississippi Valley and to the port of New Orleans to have the West Coast [of South America] exclusively occupied… by the National City,” Lough wrote in “Confidential Memorandum for the Bureau [of Foreign and Domestic Commerce],” n.d., File 67006, General Records of the Department of Commerce. See also Lough, Banking Opportunities in South America, 145–48; Lough, “Preliminary Report as to Financial Relations with South America,” (1914), Series IV, Case File 3, Box 4, Wilson Papers. For a similar view see Edward N. Hurley to William C. Redfield, May 25, 1915, File No. 72055, General Records of the Department of Commerce.

30 American Banker, LXXXI (April 15, 1916), 1207.Google Scholar

31 The last of these ships, however, was not removed until November 1918, after the war had ended. See Southern Banker, XXVIII (December, 1918), 59–60Google Scholar; New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 26, 1918.

32 The First National Bank of Chicago, for example, decided to cancel a planned trip to South America to study trade opportunities. First National Bank of Chicago, “Reports of the Foreign Banking Department from 1882–1930,” report for 1917; Chicago Banker, XLIV (August 25, 1917). 19.Google Scholar

33 Even before the meeting the New Orleans Board of Trade and St. Louis Merchants' Exchange had both subscribed $25,000 towards the creation of a barge line between New Orleans and St. Louis. On this and the St. Louis meeting see New Orleans Board of Trade, “Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors,” meetings of May 24, 1917, June 13, 1917, and July 11, 1917. See also Southern Lumberman, LXXXIV (May 5, 1917), 20Google Scholar.

34 New Orleans Board of Trade, “Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors,” meetings of September 12, 1917, November 15, 1917, January 16, 1918, and July 24, 1918; Johnson, Emory R., Government Regulation of Transportation (New York, 1938), 423–24Google Scholar. See also St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce for the Year 1918 (St. Louis, 1918), 14–15Google Scholar; Redfield, William C., With Congress and Cabinet (New York, 1924), 239–243Google Scholar.

35 Winter, Everett T., “People, Soil, Water, and the Washington Establishment,” in Clayton, Charles C. (ed.), History of the Mississippi Valley Association (unpublished manuscript in possession of Water Resources Congress, Washington, D.C.), 7Google Scholar. See also New Orleans Board of Trade, “Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors,” meeting of November 19, 1918; Chicago Commerce, XV (April 5, 1919), 53Google Scholar; ibid., (April 19, 1919), 33.

36 Herb, C. F. (vice-president, Hibemia Bank and Trust Co. of New Orleans), “Mississippi Valley Development,” Journal of the American Bankers Association, XII (August, 1919), 75–76Google Scholar; Mississippi Valley Association, Mississippi Valley Trade Giant For Economic War, Business Men Organize to Build a Great Empire Along Lines of Low Resistance: The Functions and Obligations of Gulf Ports, The Relation of Trade Centers Throughout the Water Shed and Their Common Problems [reprinted from Chicago Daily Tribune, April 24, 1919] (New Orleans, 1919)Google Scholar. See also New York Times, April 24, 1919 and May 1, 1919; New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 23 and 27, 1919; Chicago Commerce, XV (April 26, 1919), 23Google Scholar; ibid., (May 10, 1919), 15–16; ibid., (May 31, 1919), 21.

37 Ibid.; Mississippi Valley Magazine, I (June 16, 1919), 31.Google Scholar

38 See, for example, Parker, John M. (honorary president, MVA), “The Mississippi Valley and Foreign Trade,” Official Report of the Sixth National Foreign Trade Convention (New York, 1919), 66–68Google Scholar, reprinted as Parker, , Relations of the Mississippi Valley Association to the National Foreign Trade Convention: Constructive Work of the Valley Region for Over Seas Development (New Orleans, n.d.)Google Scholar.

39 In 1926 the convention attracted more than 800 delegates who heard addresses from such public officials as Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Dunlap, R. W.. Mississippi Valley Magazine, VIII (November-December, 1926)Google Scholar.

40 This happened, however, even before the merger of the two organizations. Ibid., (June 19, 1919), 12.

41 Mississippi Valley Magazine, V (December, 1923), 26–27Google Scholar. This estimate of the MVA's membership is most likely too conservative considering the attendance at the association's annual conventions.

42 War Department, Transportation on the Great Lakes, Transportation Series No. 1 [revised], (Washington, 1937), esp. 114–18Google Scholar; E. S. Gregg and A. Lane Cricher, Great Lakes-to-Ocean Waterways: Some Economic Aspects of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence, Lakes-to-Hudson, and All American Waterways Project, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Domestic Commerce Series No. 4 (Washington, 1927), 23–63 and 89–107Google Scholar. A study made in 1937 of New Orleans' water-borne commerce thus noted, “The Port of New Orleans serves primarily an area adjacent to it. The exports leaving the city originate within a rather limited region where the rate structure is particularly favorable to its movement.” Bradbury, R. W., “The Water-Borne Commerce of New Orleans,” Louisiana Business Bulletin, XXIX (September, 1937), 70.Google Scholar

43 Tables 1 and 2 are compiled from figures on imports and exports by countries and custom districts and reported annually in Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Foreign Commerce and Navigation of the United States, 1914–1929 (Washington, 1915–1930)Google Scholar. Until 1919 figures are for years ending June 30; thereafter, figures are for calendar years. Columbia, Venezuela, British Guiana, Surinam, and French Guiana are included with east coast countries because their foreign trade was conducted entirely or almost entirely through ports located east of the Panama Canal.

44 Noyes, Alexander D., The War Period of American Finance (New York, 1926), 303–348 and 382–402Google Scholar; Soule, George, Prosperity Decade: From War to Depression, 1917–1920 (New York, 1947), 86–87 and 93–95Google Scholar; Wilson, Joan Hoff, American Business and Foreign Policy, 1920–1933 (Lexington, Ky., 1971), 102Google Scholar.

45 For a list of those attending the MVA's annual convention in 1923 see Mississippi Valley Magazine, V (December, 1923), 26–27.Google Scholar

46 Ibid.

47 Mississippi Valley Magazine, V (June, 1923), 9Google Scholar; ibid., (December 23, 1923), 40.

48 It is, perhaps, indicative of the MVA's growing disinterest in trade expansion abroad that in an editorial its official journal opposed a proposal to build a second isthmian canal through Nicaragua. “Let's hope we see the day,” the journal remarked, “when the capacity of the present canal is reached before we undertake the construction of another canal.” Ibid., (August 23, 1923), 10.

49 With respect to the First National Bank's ties with the National City Bank of New York, the head of its foreign banking department even remarked in 1916, “We have formed very close and intimate connections with the National City Bank of New York, and the International Banking Corporation [one of its subsidiaries] as a result of which these institutions located in foreign countries are placed at our disposal in a similar manner as though they were actually our own.” “Reports of the Foreign Banking Department from 1882–1930,” report for 1916. See also James, , The Growth of Chicago Banks, II, 886Google Scholar.

50 It is difficult to document this point precisely, especially since representatives from the South did attend MVA meetings and Walter Parker of the New Orleans Association of Commerce continued to be one of the association's most active members. Moreover, the Mississippi Valley Magazine stopped printing the lists of delegates attending the association's conventions. Nevertheless, in terms of advertising and of articles appearing in the magazine there does seem to have been a decline in interest. Furthermore, of a thirty-one member committee on resolutions and a twenty-six member committee on nominations at the 1926 convention only eight and seven members respectively were from the former Confederate states. Mississippi Valley Magazine, VIII (November-December, 1926), 41.Google Scholar

51 MacElwee, Roy S. and Ritter, Alfred H., Economic Aspects of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Ship Channel (New York, 1921), 100–106Google Scholar; Mississippi Valley Magazine, V (April, 1923), 23–34Google Scholar. See also Willoughby, William R., The St. Lawrence Waterway: A Study in Politics and Diplomacy (Madison, Wis., 1961), 57–67 and 74–89Google Scholar.

52 Department of Commerce, Inland Water Transportation in the United States, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Miscellaneous Series No. 119 (Washington, 1923), 19–22 and 33–38Google Scholar. See also War Department, Development of Transportation Facilities on Inland Waterways Under Terms of Transportation Act of 1920 (Washington, 1922), 8–38Google Scholar.

53 Financial Age, XXXIX (April 19, 1919), 569Google Scholar; Chicago Banker, XLVIII (September 5, 1919), 19Google Scholar; First National Bank of Chicago, “Reports of the Foreign Banking Department from 1882–1930,” report for 1919.

54 New Orleans Board of Trade, “Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors,” meeting of April 9, 1919; Merchants Trade Index, XXXI (June, 1921), 22Google Scholar; Long, W. R., Steamship Service from United States Ports, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Miscellaneous Series No. 116 (Washington, 1922)Google Scholar.

55 War Department and United States Shipping Board, Transportation in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, Transportation Series No. 2 (Washington, 1929), 54–81Google Scholar; Johnson, Government Regulation of Transportation, 431–38; Ashburn, T. Q., Annual Report of the Inland Waterways Corporation to the Secretary of War, Calendar Year, 1928 (Washington, 1929)Google Scholar; Mississippi Valley Magazine, V (September, 1923), 5.Google Scholar

56 War Department and United States Shipping Board, Transportation in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, 184–88.

57 War Department and United States Shipping Board, Transportation in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, 200–252; War Department, Transportation on the Great Lakes, 117–18. See also Gregg and Cricher, Great Lakes-to-Ocean Waterways, 23–31; Mississippi Valley Magazine, V January, 1923), 1Google Scholar; ibid., (February, 1923), 27; ibid., (May 9, 1923), 6–7 and 27.

58 These percentages are based on figures reported by the Army Corps of 14,900,000 tons of exports leaving Gulf ports in 1920 and 18,471,000 tons in 1929 as compared to 72,869,000 tons and 69,534,000 tons respectively for all ports. See Bradbury, “The Water-Borne Commerce of New Orleans,” 72.

59 Ibid., 24–35 and 72–73. See also Caldwell, S. A., “The New Orleans Trade Area,” University Bulletin, Louisiana State University, XXVIII (September, 1936), 12–23Google Scholar.

60 Galambos, “The Emerging Organizational Synthesis of Modern American History,” 279–290; Wiebe, The Search for Order; Williams, The Roots of Modern American Empire; Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy.