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State Building Through Partnership: Delegation, Public-Private Partnerships, and the Political Development of American Imperialism, 1898–1916

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2011

Colin D. Moore*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the United States transformed itself from a commercial republic into a major international actor and acquired its first overseas colonies and dependencies. This article investigates the role of public-private partnerships between American state officials and American financiers in the management and expansion of American empire. Confronted with tepid support from Congress for further imperial expansion and development, colonial bureaucrats looked to investment bankers to accomplish goals for which they lacked the financial capacity and political support to achieve independently. These partnerships were soon formalized as “Dollar Diplomacy,” an arrangement that would govern America's imperial strategy in the Caribbean. This article highlights two theoretical processes: (1) the downstream effects of congressional delegation decisions and their role in motivating institutional adaptations, and (2) the formation of public-private partnerships as an alternative means of state development, and the unique pitfalls of this approach. To illustrate these mechanisms, this article presents historical narratives, based largely on archival research, on the emergence of this Dollar Diplomacy partnership in the formal American colonies, the spread of this system of imperialism to the Caribbean, and its partial collapse during the early Wilson administration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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41. It is in this way that state building through partnership differs from Carpenter's (Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy) theory of state building through reputation building.

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48. I thank Theda Skocpol for this phrasing.

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67. Healy, U.S. Expansionism, 207. When it was adopted, the new currency became known locally as “conants,” after the economist, to distinguish it from the old “mex” currency.

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69. Stanley, Nation in the Making, 96.

70. It seems that members of Congress themselves did not completely understand this provision when the bill was passed. The circulating coins were to be silver with a silver content worth less than their face value, and they were to be backed by a theoretical Philippine gold peso with 1/10 the gold of a U.S. five-dollar gold piece, thus fixing the pesos at exactly one-half of one dollar and allowing its value to fluctuate with other gold-standard currencies.

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72. Edwards to Wright, January 1, 1904, Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 3, Folder 14.

73. Root to Taft, April 1, 1903, Library of Congress, Root Papers, Box 165a.

74. Taft had visited the Vatican in 1902 to directly negotiate the price. This authorization was granted in the Organic Act. See Act of Congress, July 1, 1902, Sections 63–65.

75. Taft to Edwards, June 5, 1903; Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 3, Folder 1.

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77. Forbes, Philippine Islands, v. 1, 270. The many letters in the archival records inquiring as to the legal status of the Philippine bonds show that this issue was left somewhat ambiguous by colonial authorities. See, for example, Edmund Seymour to Edwards, Jan. 5, 1903; American National Bank to Edwards, April 3, 1906, NARA II, RG 350 (Serial 9436), Box 548.

78. Taft quoted in Congressional Record, 58th Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. Rep. 2227, part 2.

79. This early decision became the operating assumption of the BIA through the 1920s. As Edwards's successor at the BIA, Frank McIntyre, explained in 1926, “Congress has not specifically pledged the good faith of the United States to the payment of the principal and interest of Philippine Government bonds, but as all bonds have been issued pursuant to its specific authorization, the Department of Justice and the War Department have invariably held that such bonds constitute a moral obligation of the United States.” Letter reprinted in Congressional Record, 58th Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. Rep. 2227, part 2.

80. See Opposition Report, Congressional Record, 58th Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. Rep. 2227, part 2.

81. Edwards to Wright, March 25, 1904, Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 3, Folder 15. A further strategy employed by the insular state was to use its gold reserve fund deposits as an incentive for banks to provide capital; i.e., helpful banks received larger deposits. See Conant to Edwards, Jan. 25, 1906; Conant to McIntyre, May 1, 1906; Taft to McIntyre, Apr. 27, 1906, NARA II, RG 350 (Series 14077), Box 707.

82. Wright to Taft, April 1, 1904, Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 3, Folder 16.

83. Congressional Record, 58th Cong., 2nd sess., (April 13, 1904), 4776.

84. Ibid., 4778.

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86. Wright to Taft, Feb. 15, 1904, Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 3, Folder 15. At the time, the Philippines had one narrow-gauge railroad—“absurd English engines, little forty pound rails, English and American coaches, and ponderous cement stations,” Forbes sneered. “Truly Spanish, ponderous stations and light rails.” See Cameron Forbes Journal v. 1, September 10, 1904, Harvard University, Houghton LibraryGoogle Scholar, Cameron Forbes Papers.

87. Stanley, Nation in the Making, 105. For these negotiations, see Taft to Speyer & Co., Jan. 29, 1906; Edwards to Speyer & Co., Feb. 2, 1906, NARA II, RG 350 (Serial 13931), Box 6951. Also see Forbes to Wright, Nov. 11, 1908, NARA II, RG 350 (Serial 15196), Box 732.

88. Edwards to Wright, Sept. 19, 1904, Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 4, Folder 8.

89. See Stanley, Nation in the Making, 105. See also Solomon to Edwards, Nov. 20, 1908, NARA II, RG 350 (Serial 15196), Box 732.

90. The public-private distinction was further blurred in the railway issue, because as a guarantee to the bonds, a colonial state official was placed as a director of the Philippine Railway Company. See C. Lewis to Frank McIntyre, June 10, 1907, NARA II, RG 350 (Serial 12604), Box 666.

91. Edwards to Wright, March 25, 1904, Mass. Historical Society, Edwards Papers, Box 3, Folder 15.

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93. Clark, Victor S., Porto Rico and its Problems (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1930), 316Google Scholar.

94. Nearing and Freeman, Dollar Diplomacy, 180–81.

95. Theodore Roosevelt, Annual Message, 1904.

96. The continuity of foreign affairs leadership in this period is striking: Taft had left his position as governor of the Philippines in 1904 to replace Root as secretary of war. Root, after a brief return to his legal practice, became secretary of state in 1905.

97. Roosevelt, Theodore, An Autobiography (New York: MacMillan, 1913), 548Google Scholar.

98. Perkins, Whitney T., Constraint of Empire: The United States and Caribbean Interventions (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981), 40Google Scholar.

99. Munro, Dana G., Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100. Hay to Dawson, December 30, 1904, in Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1905)Google ScholarPubMed; Dawson to Hay, January 2, 1905, in Foreign Relations of the United States.

101. Hay to Dawson, February 6, 1905, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 322.

102. “President vs. Senate,” New York Times, January 26, 1905, 6.

103. Teller quoted in Holt, W. Stull, Treaties Defeated by the Senate (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1964), 215–16Google Scholar. Although Roosevelt denied these charges, there is every reason to believe that he did intend to begin the receivership without seeking Senate approval. The original January 20 agreement was scheduled to go into effect on February 1, and it was only when Senate hackles were raised that a new agreement was signed and drafted on February 7, which required Senate approval before it could begin.

104. Roosevelt, Autobiography, 552.

105. George Colton and William Pulliam, both of whom had previously served in the Philippines, became the first and second Receivers General.

106. Roosevelt to Charles Joseph Bonaparte, September 4, 1905, reprinted in Morison, Letters, v. 5, 10.

107. Root to Hollander, May 7, 1906, quoted in Jessup, Philip C., Elihu Root, vol.1 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1938), 547Google Scholar.

108. Root to Cullom, November 23, 1905, quoted in Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1, 543.

109. Quoted in Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 105. Hollander's employment status was somewhat ambiguous. Although he received $1,000 a month from the United States, he was also paid $100,000 by the Dominicans. This strange arrangement led to a congressional investigation three years later. See Veeser, Cyrus, A World Safe for Capitalism: Dollar Diplomacy and America's Rise to Global Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 154Google Scholar; Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 44.

110. Hollander quoted in Veeser, World Safe for Capitalism, 149, 152. Veeser provides an in-depth discussion of the colonial officials' efforts to distance themselves from the SDIC. The drafts of Hollander's report as well as a revealing “Confidential Memoranda” to Roosevelt can be found in Jacob Hollander Papers, NARA II, Box 2.

111. Roosevelt to Hollander, July 3, 1905, quoted in Veeser, World Safe for Capitalism, 149.

112. See Jessup interview with Jacob Hollander, April 7, 1934, Library of Congress, Jessup Papers, Box A231. Archival evidence indicates that the firm did represent the interests of the Dominican Republic aggressively throughout the negotiations; a large number of letters between Jennings and Hollander can be found in Jacob Hollander Papers, NARA II, Boxes 1–9. See also Personal Correspondence of George Colton, NARA II, RG 139, Box 2.

113. Root to Taft, Nov. 16, 1905, Dominican Receivership Records, NARA II, RG 350, Box 1.

114. Drew Carrel to Colton, May 23, 1906, Personal Correspondence of General Receiver George R. Colton, NARA II, RG 139, Box 1.

115. Hollander to Charles Allen, June 28, 1906, Jacob Hollander Papers, NARA II, Box 3.

116. Charles Allen to Hollander, July 9, 1906, Jacob Hollander Papers, NARA II, Box 3.

117. J. P. Morgan to Hollander, July 11, 1906, Jacob Hollander Papers, NARA II, Box 3.

118. Transcript of 1934 interview of Jacob Hollander, Jessup Papers, Library of Congress, Box A231.

119. Jacob Schiff to Robert Bacon, August 13, 1906, Jacob Hollander Papers, NARA II, Box 3.

120. Collin, Richard H., Theodore Roosevelt's Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 450Google Scholar.

121. When the Dominican Congress finally approved the convention, the panic of 1907 was underway and the loans had to be renegotiated with Kuhn, Loeb and Morton Trust—a complicated financial renegotiation that need not be rehashed here.

122. Report of the Dominican Customs Receivership (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1917)Google Scholar.

123. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 47–52.

124. The Investors Monthly Manual (August 1901), 449–50.

125. See Kindleberger, Charles P., “Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy: Exploitation, Public Goods, and Free Rides,” International Studies Quarterly 25, no. 2 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferguson, Niall and Schularick, Moritz, “The Empire Effect: The Determinants of Country Risk in the First Age of Globalization, 1880–1913,” The Journal of Economic History 66(2) (June 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an important critique of this body of literature, see Coyne, Christopher J. and Davies, Steven, “Empire: Public Goods and Bads,” Econ Journal Watch 4(1) (January 2007)Google Scholar.

126. Mitchener, Kris James and Weidenmier, Marc, “Empire, Public Goods, and the Roosevelt Corollary,” The Journal of Economic History 65(3) (September 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although my data are drawn from a different source, my results confirm those of Mitchener and Weidenmier, who also found significant effects on sovereign bond prices after the establishment of the Dominican receivership. For making available digital copies of The Investors Monthly Manual, I gratefully acknowledge William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst's London Stock Exchange Project at the International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management, http://icf.som.yale.edu/imm/index.shtml. Par value for all bonds for which I gathered data was 100 pounds sterling.

127. Costa Rican bonds are 5 percent A-series; Guatemala 4 percent.

128. The Investors Monthly Manual (January 1905), 5.

129. Although the countries I include in my index are different, my results here again confirm those of Mitchener and Weidenmier, “Empire, Public Goods.” Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela data come from previously noted bonds with the addition of 6 percent Nicaragua bonds and 10 percent Honduras bonds. All have a par value of 100 pounds sterling. European bonds are as follows: Britain, Consol 2.75 percent; France, Retes 3 percent; Germany, Imperial 3 percent. Mexico, 5 percent Consolidated 1899 bonds. All data are from The Investors Monthly Manual, 1900–1912.

130. Although Knox did not lack administrative experience, he had a low opinion of Latin Americans and Latin American culture in general, a fact that he felt no need to hide. Root later noted that he was “absolutely antipathetic to all Spanish-American modes of though and feeling and action, and pretty much everything he did with them was like mixing a Seidlitz powder.” Jessup, Elihu Root, vol.1, 251.

131. Munro, Intervention, 163; Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 58.

132. Philander Knox, “The Spirit and Purpose of American Diplomacy,” University of Pennsylvania, June 15, 1910, Library of Congress, Philander Knox Papers, Box 45; “Knox quoted in Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 60.

133. Philander Knox, “The Spirit and Purpose of American Diplomacy,” University of Pennsylvania, June 15, 1910, Library of Congress, Philander Knox Papers, Box 45.

134. See, for example, Oscar S. Straus, “American Commercial Diplomacy,” Report of the Seventeenth Annual Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration (May 1911), 171. Straus refers to it as “a diplomacy of exploitation.”

135. “Interview with the Honorable Philander G. Knox,” 1912. The draft of the statement with penciled edits demonstrates Knox's attempt to put a positive spin on the phrase “Dollar Diplomacy.” One sentence, for example, is edited as follows: “The meaning of the somewhat unfortunate phrase ‘Dollar Diplomacy…” Tellingly, “somewhat unfortunate” is crossed out. The edited typescript of this statement is available in Library of Congress, Philander Knox Papers, Box 29.

136. “Message of the President,” December 3, 1912, Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), xii.

137. Carosso, The Morgans, 591–92.

138. State Department Memorandum, September 1909, in Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 549Google ScholarPubMed.

139. Ibid., 550.

140. Ibid., 553.

141. Carosso, The Morgans, 590.

142. Ibid., 591.

143. Munro, Intervention, 225.

144. Charles Conant to Philander Knox, February 6, 1911, Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 565Google ScholarPubMed.

145. Taft, William Howard, “Message to the Senate,” Jan. 26, 1911, Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 559Google Scholar.

146. Philander Knox, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, May 24, 1911, Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 589 [my emphasis].

147. Philander Knox, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, May 24, 1911, Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 586Google ScholarPubMed.

148. Assistant Secretary of State to Alvey A. Adee, Jan. 13, 1911, quoted in Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 66.

149. Carosso, The Morgans, 591.

150. Healy, David, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1917 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 153Google Scholar.

151. Zelaya, who lived out his later years in New York City, later claimed that the State Department had encouraged the Bluefields revolution, although there is little hard evidence for this claim. See Zelaya, José Santos, La Revolución de Nicaragua y los Estados Unidos (Madrid: Impr. de B. Rodríguez, 1910)Google Scholar.

152. U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “The Convention between the United States and Nicaragua,” Hearings, 63rd Cong., 2nd Sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1914), part VI, 170–71.

153. The loan would go to pay off Zelaya's opponents, who had granted themselves lavish awards for supposed damages under Zelaya's rule. Munro, Intervention, 195; Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 67; Healy, Drive to Hegemony, 157.

154. The text of the treaty can be found in Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 1074Google ScholarPubMed.

155. Philander Knox, “Speech before the New York State Bar Association,” New York City, January 19, 1912, Library of Congress, Philander Knox Papers, Box 46.

156. Munro, Intervention, 203.

157. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 73.

158. The customs collector, Col. Clifford D. Ham, was at the time employed as a customs collector in the Philippines. Foreign Relations of the United States (1912), 1080Google ScholarPubMed.

159. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries, 75–77.

160. Healy, Drive to Hegemony, 161. The rising conflict between the receivership and the Dominican government can be traced in NARA II, RG 139 (SD-1-261-351), Box 4.

161. Foreign Relations of the United States (1911), 389Google ScholarPubMed, 1091; cited in Whitney, Constraint of Empire, 46.

162. Huntington Wilson to Taft, September 19, 1912, NARA II, RG 139, Box 5.

163. Quoted in Munro, Intervention, 263.

164. Quoted in Perkins, Constraint of Empire, 47.

165. Perkins, Constraint of Empire, 48.

166. Hart, Albert B., ed., Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1918), 18Google Scholar.

167. Quoted in Schoultz, Lars, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 220Google Scholar.

168. Quoted in Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 220.

169. Ibid., 209.

170. Bryan to Wilson, October 28, 1913; Bryan to Wilson, July 17, 1913; William Jennings Bryan Papers, LOC, Box 29. See also Bryan to Wilson, August 6, 1913; Bryan to Wilson, February 21, 1914, William Jennings Bryan Papers, LOC, Box 45.

171. Wilson to Bryan, March 20, 1914, William Jennings Bryan Papers, LOC, Box 45.

172. Bryan to Wilson, Jan. 7, 1915, William Jennings Bryan Papers, LOC, Box 45.

173. New York Times, June 19, 1914, Cited in Adler, Selig, “Bryan and Wilsonian Caribbean Penetration,” Hispanic American Historical Review 20 (May 1940): 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

174. 67th Cong., Senate Select Committee on Haiti and Domingo, Santo, Inquiry into Occupation and Administration of Haiti and Santo Domingo (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922)Google Scholar.

175. Stallings, Barbara, Banker to the Third World: U.S. Portfolio Investment in Latin America, 1900–1986 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar.