The American Empire Part 15

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation is a typical industry that has built up foreign connections as a means of exploiting foreign resources. The Corporation has a huge organization in the United States which includes 10 manufacturing plants, a c.o.ke producing company, 11 s.h.i.+p building plants, six mines and quarries, and extensive coal deposits in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The Bethlehem Steel Corporation also controls ore properties near Santiago, Cuba, near Nipe Bay, Cuba, and extensive deposits along the northern coast of Cuba; large ore properties at Tofo, Chile, and the Ore Steams.h.i.+p Corporation, a carrying line for Chilean and Cuban ore.

The American Smelting and Refining Company is another ill.u.s.tration of expansion into a foreign country for the purpose of utilizing foreign resources. According to the record of the Company's properties, the Company was operating six refining plants, one located in New Jersey; one in Nebraska; one in California; one in Illinois; one in Maryland, and one in Was.h.i.+ngton. The Company owned 14 lead smelters and 11 copper smelters, located as follows: Colorado, 4; Utah, 2; Texas, 2; Arizona, 2; New Jersey, 2; Montana, 1; Was.h.i.+ngton, 1; Nebraska, 1; California, 1; Illinois, 1; Chile, 2; Mexico, 6. Among these 25 plants a third is located outside of the United States.

These are but two examples. The rubber, oil, tobacco and sugar interests have pursued a similar policy--extending their organization in such a way as to utilize foreign resources as a source for the raw materials that are destined to be manufactured in the United States.

8. _Manufacturing and Marketing Abroad_

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation and the American Smelting and Refining Company go outside of the United States for the resources upon which their industries depend. Their fabricating industries are carried on inside of the country. There are a number of the great industries of the country that have gone outside of the United States to do their manufacturing and to organize the marketing of their products.

The International Harvester Company has built a worldwide organization.

It manufactures harvesting machinery, farm implements, gasoline engines, tractors, wagons and separators at Springfield, Ohio; Rock Falls, Ill.; Chicago, Ill.; Auburn, New York; Akron, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisc., and West Pullman, Ill. It has iron mines, coal mines and steel plants operated by the Wisconsin Steel Company. It has three twine mills and four railways. Foreign plants and branches are listed as follows: Norrkoping, Sweden; Copenhagen, Denmark; Christiania, Norway; Paris, France; Croix, France; Berlin, Germany; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Zurich, Switzerland; Vienna, Austria; Lubertzy, Russia; Neuss, Germany; Melbourne, Australia; London, England; Christ Church, New Zealand.

One of the greatest industrial empires in the world is the Standard Oil Properties. It is not possible to go into detail with regard to their operations. s.p.a.ce will admit of a brief comment upon one of the const.i.tuent parts or "states" of the empire--The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. With a capital stock of $100,000,000, this Company, from the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company, December 15, 1911, to June 15, 1918, a period of six and a half years, paid dividends of $174,058,932.

The company describes itself as "a manufacturing enterprise with a large foreign business. The company drills oil wells, pumps them, refines the crude oil into many forms and sells the product--mostly abroad." (_The Lamp_, May, 1918.) The properties of the Company are thus listed:

1. The Company has 13 refineries, seven of them in New Jersey, Maryland, Oklahoma, Louisiana and West Virginia. Four of the remaining refineries are located in Canada, one is in Mexico and one in Peru.

2. Pipeline properties in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

3. A fleet of 54 ocean-going tank steamers with a capacity of 486,480 dead weight tons. (This is about two per cent of the total ocean-going tonnage of the world.)

4. Can and case factories, barrel factories, canning plants, glue factories and pipe shops.

5. Through its subsidiary corporations, the Company controls:

a. Oil wells in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, California, Peru and Mexico. In connection with many of these properties refineries are operated.

b. One subsidiary has 550 marketing stations in Canada. Others market in various parts of the United States; in the West Indies; in Central and South America; in Germany, Austria, Roumania, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Italy.

The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey comprises only one part--though a very successful part--of the Standard Oil Group of industries. It is one industrial state in a great industrial empire.

Foreign resources offer opportunities to the exploiter. Foreign markets beckon. Both calls have been heeded by the American business interests that are busy building the international machinery of business organization.

9. _International Business and Finance_

The steel, smelting, oil, sugar, tobacco, and harvester interests are confined to relatively narrow lines. In their wake have followed general business, and above all, financial activities.

The American International Corporation was described by its vice-president (Mr. Connick) before a Senate Committee on March 1, 1918.

"Until the Russian situation became too acute, they had offices in Petrograd, London, Paris, Rome, Mexico City. They sent commissions and agents and business men to South America to promote trade.... They were negotiating contracts for a thousand miles of railroad in China. They were practically rebuilding, you might say, the Grand Ca.n.a.l in China.

They had acquired the Pacific Mail.... They then bought the New York s.h.i.+pbuilding Corporation to provide s.h.i.+ps for their s.h.i.+pping interests."

By 1919 (_New York Times_, Oct. 31, 1919) the Company had acquired Carter Macy & Co., and the Rosin and Turpentine Export Co., and was interested in the International Mercantile Marine and the United Fruit Companies.

Another ill.u.s.tration of the same kind of general foreign business appeared in the form of an advertis.e.m.e.nt inserted on the financial page of the _New York Times_ (July 10, 1919) by three leading financial firms, which called attention to a $3,000,000 note issue of the Haytian American Corporation "Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, owning and operating sugar, railroad, wharf and public utility companies in the Republic of Hayti." Further, the advertisers note: "The diversity of the Company's operations a.s.sures stability of earnings."

American manufacturers, traders and industrial empire builders have not gone alone into the foreign field. The bankers have accompanied them.

Several of the great financial inst.i.tutions of the country are advertising their foreign connections.

The Guaranty Trust Company (_New York Times_, Jan. 10, 1919) advertises under the caption "Direct Foreign Banking Facilities" offering "a direct and comprehensive banking service for trade with all countries." These connections include:

1. Branches in London and Paris, which are designated United States depositories. "They are American inst.i.tutions conducted on American lines, and are especially well equipped to render banking service throughout Europe." There are additional branches in Liverpool and Brussels. The Company also has direct connections in Italy and Spain, and representatives in the Scandinavian countries.

2. "Direct connections with the leading financial inst.i.tutions in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil." A special representative in Buenos Ayres. "Through our affiliation with the Mercantile Bank of the Americas and its connections, we cover Peru, Northern Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and other South and Central American countries."

3. "Through the American Mercantile Bank of Cuba, at Havana, we cover direct Cuba and the West Indies."

4. "Direct banking and merchant service throughout British India,"

together with correspondents in the East Indies and the Straits Settlements.

5. "Direct connections with the National Bank of South Africa, at Cape Town, and its many branches in the Transvaal, Rhodesia, Natal, Mozambique, etc."

6. Direct banking connections and a special representative in Australia and New Zealand.

7. "Through our affiliations with the Asia Banking Corporation we negotiate, direct, banking transactions of every nature in China, Manchuria, Southeastern Siberia, and throughout the Far East. The Asia Banking Corporation has its main office in New York and is establis.h.i.+ng branches in these important trade centers: Shanghai, Pekin, Tientsin, Hankow, Harbin, Vladivostok. We are also official correspondents for leading j.a.panese banks."

The advertis.e.m.e.nt concludes with this statement: "Our Foreign Trade Bureau collects and makes available accurate and up-to-date information relating to foreign trade--export markets, foreign financial and economic conditions, s.h.i.+pping facilities, export technique, etc. It endeavors to bring into touch buyers and sellers here and abroad."

The same issue of the _Times_ carries a statement of the Mercantile Bank of the Americas which "offers the services of a banking organization with branches and affiliated banks in important trade centers throughout Central and South America, France and Spain." The Bank describes itself as "an American Bank for Foreign trade." Among its eleven directors are the President and two Vice-Presidents of the Guaranty Trust Company.

The Asia Banking Corporation, upon which the Guaranty Trust Company relies for its Eastern connections, was organized in 1918 "to engage in international and foreign banking in China, in the dependencies and insular possessions of the United States, and, ultimately in Siberia"

(_Standard Corporation Service_, May-August, 1918, p. 42). The officers elected in August 1918, were Charles H. Sabin, President of the Guaranty Trust Co., President; Albert Breton, Vice-President of the Guaranty Trust Co., and Ralph Dawson, a.s.sistant Secretary of the Guaranty Trust Company, Vice-Presidents, and Robert A. Shaw, of the overseas division of the Guaranty Trust Company, Treasurer. Among the directors are representatives of the Bankers Trust Company and of the Mercantile Bank of the Americas.

10. _The National City Bank_

The National City Bank of New York--the first bank in the history of the Western Hemisphere to show resources exceeding one billion dollars--ill.u.s.trates in its development the cyclonic changes that the past few years have brought into American business circles. The National City Bank, originally chartered in 1812, had resources of $16,750,929 in 1879 and of $18,214,823 in 1889. From that point its development has been electric. The resources of the Bank totaled 128 millions in 1899; 280 millions in 1909; $1,039,418,324 in 1919. Between 1889 and 1899 they increased 600 per cent; between 1899 and 1919 they increased 700 per cent; during the 40 years from 1889 and 1919 the increase in resources exceeded six thousand per cent.

The organization of the Bank is indicative of the organization of modern business. Among the twenty-one directors, all of whom are engaged in some form of business enterprise, there are the names of William Rockefeller, Percy A. Rockefeller, J. Ogden Armour, Cleveland H. Dodge of the Phelps-Dodge Corporation, Cyrus H. McCormick of the International Harvester Co., Philip A. S. Franklin, President of the International Mercantile Marine Co.; Earl D. Babst, President of the American Sugar Refining Co.; Edgar Palmer, President of the New Jersey Zinc Co.; Nathan C. Kingsbury, Vice-President of the Union Pacific Railroad Co., and Frank Krumball, Chairman of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Co. Some of the most powerful mining, manufacturing, transportation and public utility interests in the United States are represented, directly or indirectly, in this list.

The domestic organization of the Bank consists of five divisions, each one under a vice-president. New York City const.i.tutes the first division; the second division comprises New England and New York State outside of New York City; the three remaining divisions cover the other portions of the United States. Except for the size and the completeness of its organization, the National City Bank differs in no essential particulars from numerous other large banking inst.i.tutions. It is a financial superstructure built upon a ma.s.sive foundation of industrial enterprise.

The phase of the Bank's activity that is of peculiar significance at the present juncture is its foreign organization, all of which has been established since the outbreak of the European war.

The foreign business of the National City Bank is carried on by the National City Bank proper and the International Banking Corporation. The first foreign branch of the National City Bank was established at Buenos Aires on November 10th, 1914. On January 1st, 1919, the National City Bank had a total of 15 foreign branches; on December 31st, 1919, it had a total of 74 foreign branches.

The policy of the Bank in its establishment of foreign branches is described thus in its "Statement of Condition, December 31st, 1919": "The feature of branch development during the year was the expansion in Cuba, where twenty-two new branches were opened, making twenty-four in the island. Cuba is very prosperous, as a result of the expansion of the sugar industry, and as sugar is produced there under very favorable conditions economically, and the location is most convenient for supplying the United States, the industry is on a sound basis, and relations with the United States are likely to continue close and friendly. Cuba is a market of growing importance to the United States, and the system of branches established by the Bank is designed to serve the trade between the two countries." The trader and the Banker are to work hand in hand.

The National City Bank has branches in Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Italy, Porto Rico, Russia, Siberia, Spain, Trinidad, Uruguay and Venezuela, all of which have been established since 1914.

A portion of the foreign business of the National City Bank is conducted by the International Banking Corporation which was established in 1902 and which became a part of the National City Bank organization in 1915.

The International Banking Corporation has a total of twenty-eight branches located in California, China, England, France, India, j.a.pan, Java, Dominican Republic, Philippine Islands, Republic of Panama and the Straits Settlements. Under this arrangement, the financial relations with America are made by the National City Bank proper; while those with Europe and Asia are in the hands of the International Banking Corporation and the combination provides the Bank with 75 branches in addition to its vast organization within the United States.

The National City Bank of 1889, with its resources of eighteen millions, was a small affair compared with the billion dollar resources of 1920.

Thirty years sufficed for a growth from youth to robust adulthood.