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The Pressure of Shortage: Platinum Policy and the Wilson Administration During World War I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Richard L. Lael  and
Linda Killen
Richard L. Lael
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Westminster College
Linda Killen
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, Radford University
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Abstract

Mobilization for World War I carried the United States government into an unprecedented role in the American economy. Entire industries came under the regulation, if not outright control, of new federal boards and bureaucracies. Although this was a vast departure from American tradition, it was naturally justified by the exigencies of global warfare. Platinum was hardly a well-known commodity, but it was indeed a strategic metal that came into increasing demand as burgeoning military needs overwhelmed consumer uses. The result was that platinum gradually came under federal controls. Domestic supplies were limited, however, and as the war continued, worried federal officials looked abroad for additional sources in case of a prolonged conflict, a turn of events that subtly carried them far beyond the ken of domestic regulation. In this article professors Lael and Killen look in detail at the development of platinum controls. Aside from presenting a case study in the evolving relations between business, government, and international politics, they offer new insights into the philosophical assumptions and managerial skills of those who ostensibly masterminded the American economy during World War I.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , Winter 1982 , pp. 545 - 558
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982

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References

1 For other studies of business-government relations during World War I, see Cuff's, Robert D. “Woodrow Wilson and Business-Government Relations during World War I,” Review of Politics, XXXI (July 1969), 385–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Harry Garfield, The Fuel Administration, and the Search for a Cooperative Order during World War I,” American Quarterly, XXX (Spring 1978), 39–53; and The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations during World War I (Baltimore, 1973). Also see Hall, Tom, “Wilson and the Food Crisis: Agricultural Price Control during World War I,” Agricultural History, XLVII (January 1973), 25–46Google Scholar; and Koistinen, Paul A.C., “‘The Industrial-Military Complex’ in Historical Perspective: World War I,” Business History Review, XLI (Winter 1967), 378–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Lane to Redfield, April 2, 1917, Department of Commerce File # 71652/32, RG 40, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as D/C File # 71652/32).

3 Clarkson, Grosvenor B., Industrial America in the World War: The Strategy Behind the Line, 1917–1918 (Boston, 1923), 369.Google Scholar That list, although undated, probably originated in the Economic Liaison Committee on June 4, 1919. See Records of the Office of the Economic Advisor, Box 2, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, D.C. and Clarkson, Industrial America, 370.

4 Clarkson, Industrial America, 369; Stratton to Redfield, March 3, 1917 and Redfield to Stratton, March 8, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

5 Redfield to Kunz, April 3, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

6 Kunz to Redfield, April 11, 1917 and file material on the Vigilance Committee, D/C File # 71652/32.

7 Redfield to Kunz, July 31, and August 24, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32. Industrial users of platinum were equally upset by the rumors, and Redfield apparently took the same stance with inquiries from that source.

8 L.L. Summers, of Advisory Commission, to Redfield, May 3, 1917, and Redfield and Stratton correspondence, May 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

9 Shaw Scott to Parsons of American Chemical Society, June 26, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32. In early 1917 Secretary of War Newton Baker had tentatively broached the possibility of a government platinum stockpile but no action was taken. See correspondence between Redfield, Baker, and Stratton, late March 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

10 Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce to Redfield, December 12, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

11 Redfield to Kunz, December 17, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

12 Lane to Redfield, December 26, and Redfield to Lane, December 29, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

13 Clarkson, Industrial America, 372.

14 U.S. Department of the Interior, Rules and Regulations … Limiting the Sale, Possession and Use of Platinum, Iridium, and Palladium and Compounds Thereof (Washington, 1918); U.S. Department of the lnterior, Mineral Resources of the United States, 1918 (Washington, 1922), 201Google Scholar; Clarkson, Industrial America, 372–73.

15 Clarkson, Industrial America, 372–73. The “platinum group” is composed of platinum, iridium, palladium, and rhodium. The latter three metals are extracted from crude platinum – obviously in rather small quantities relative to the amount of platinum. Indium was much the most important of the three.

16 Russell Thayer to Redfield, April 14, 1917, and reply, D/C File # 71652/32; H.S. Mudd to Lane M. Wootan, December 17, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32; Clarkson, Industrial America, 374.

17 Redfield to Kunz, April 23, 1917, Retffield to Engelhard of Baker and Co., May 31, and Engelhard to Baker and Co., June 15, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

18 Pratt, of Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, relaying cable from Petrograd, to Redfield, May 17, 1917 and Redfield to Pratt, May 19, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32; Redfield to Engelhard, June 14, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32; Cutler, of Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, to Redfield, September 10, 1917, and attached memoranda; Snow, of Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, to Redfield, October 18, 1917; Redfield to President Wilson, October 23, and Wilson's reply, October 24, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32.

19 U.S. War Industries Board, Munitions Industry: Final Report of the Chairman of the United States War Industries Board (1919) (Washington, 1935), 463.

20 Quoted in Clarkson, Industrial America, 371–72; R.H. Van Deman, Chief, Military Intelligence Section of the General Staff to Counselor Leland Harrison, January 9, 1918, Department of State File # 711.21/644, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as D/S File #). The Geological Survey also qualified its assertions about the abundance of platinum by pointing out that two of the four platinum processing facilities in the country were run by Germans. Should those facilities (and the platinum in them) be sabotaged, then, of course, there would be a platinum shortage. Clarkson, Industrial America, 371–72.

21 Redfield to Lane, January 9, 1918, Redfield to Col. Pierce, USA General Staff Director of Purchase, Council of National Defense, January 18, 1918, Redfield to Secretary of State, January 19, 1918, Department of Commerce to Department of State, April 3, 1918, D/C File # 71652/32.

22 The almost weekly list of commodities available in Russia which the United States might be interested in acquiring and for which import licenses could be obtained was inevitably headed by platinum. See records of the Russian Bureau, Incorporated, RG 182, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

23 Clarkson, Industrial America, 365.

24 Redfield to Baruch, December 19, 1917, D/C File # 71652/32; Charles Preston to Cutler, of Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, June 1, 1918, records of the Russian Bureau, Incorporated, RG 182. For additional information on Preston's Russian mission see Redfield, William C., With Congress and Cabinet (Garden City, N.Y., 1924), 190–204.Google Scholar

25 Mineral Resources, 1918, 1, 207.

26 Interior Department estimates of production:

Ibid., 203, The 1919 report provides somewhat different figures for Russia but nonetheless shows a marked drop. Mineral Resources, 1919, 17.

27 Redfield to Secretary of State, April 10, 1917, D/S File # 821.6343/1; Polk to Charge Perry Belden, April 17, 1917, D/S File # 821.6343/1; Carr to Consul Claude Guyant at Barranquilla, May 2, 1917, Carr to Consul Alphonse Lespinasse at Cartagena, May 2, 1917, and Polk to Belden, April 24, 1917, D/S File # 821.6343/2. Mineral Resources, 1917, 15, and Mineral Resources, 1918, 203.

28 Adee to Council of National Defense, February 11, 1918, D/S File # 821.6343/14A. The council responded, noting its complete willingness to cooperate with State in this matter. L.L. Summers to Adee, February 15, 1918, D/S File # 821.6343/15.

29 Rumor reached State from a source other than the Bogotá legation. See Lansing to the American Legation in Bogotá (ALB), June 3, 1918, D/S File # 611.216/2A.

30 Polk to ALB, July 17, 1918, RG 84, Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State: Cables and Telegrams Received and Sent, National Archives, Washington, D.C. A similar warning had accompanied the earlier June 3, 1918 telegram to Bogotá, but it had been for the minister's information only.

31 Untitled Memo, July 1918, D/S File # 821.6343/33. Harding had made an earlier preliminary probe. See June 4, 1918 memo, D/S File # 821.6343/24.

32 F. Mayer, Latin American Division of State, memo on talk with Harding, July 20, 1918, D/S File # 821.6343/32; Comer to Stabler, July 23, 1918, D/S File # 821.6343/31.

33 F. Mayer memo on the conference, July 31, 1918, D/S File # 611.216/22. Also see Polk to HT. Rainey, August 2, 1918, D/S File # 821.6343/29. There is a contradiction in the conferees line of reasoning. If the Bogotá government was all that weak, then why had Lansing gotten upset about rumors of creating a government monopoly? If it wasn't all that weak, then might it not undercut the private venture by in fact declaring a government monopoly?

34 U.S. War Trade Board, Report of the War Trade Board (Washington, 1920), 390.Google Scholar Also see Colombian Minister Urueta to Lansing, October 8, 1918, D/S File # 611.216/12; and Lansing to Urueta, October 20, ibid. Belden to Secretary of State, September 13, 1918, D/S File # 611.216/12.

35 Report of the War Trade Board, 393.