Louisiana's "Sugar Tramps" in the Caribbean Sugar Industry

Louisiana’s “Sugar Tramps” in the Caribbean Sugar Industry Humberto García-Muñiz The linkage of the Caribbean and the United States in the international sugar economy has been long noted, specifically in connection with trade, technology and ownership. Yet the management aspect has been overlooked. This article attempts to redress this historical lacuna by analyzing the development of the LouisianaCaribbean connection following the introduction of the central factory in that southern state and in the Hispanic and British Caribbean. As we will see, Louisiana-born and trained managerial, technical and skilled personnel, known as "sugar tramps," played key roles in the development of the Caribbean sugar industry until their substitution by locals well into the twentieth century.1 The largest sugar factories were located in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The South Porto Rico Sugar Company of New Jersey (SPRSCO/NJ), one of the most enterprising and innovative U.S. corporations in the region, will be used as a case study. Historical Context During the second half of the nineteenth century, sugar self-sufficiency by the United States seemed an attainable goal to government officials, sugar planters, and scientists.2 During the Civil War, to counter the scarce cane sugar and molasses coming from the South, the Department of Agriculture started experiments with sugar beets. In 1876, a Louisiana cane planter wrote: “it is beyond a doubt that the United States could produce all the sugar needed for their consumption.”3 Dr. Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930), appointed chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture in 1883 and a staunch believer in sugar self-sufficiency, pursued a three-pronged policy of promoting sugar production on the U.S. mainland, specifically sugar cane in Louisiana, sugar beet in the West, and 1 W.S. Daubert, “The Passing of the Sugar Tramp,” Sugar Journal (June 1950): 17. William Lloyd Fox, “Harvey W. Wiley's Search for American Sugar SelfSufficiency,” Agricultural History 54 (1980): 516. 3 M.A. Montejo, American Central Sugar Factories (New Orleans, LA: Pelican Book and Job Printing Office, 1876), 7. 2 sorghum, mainly in Kansas.4 Sorghum experiments failed, but those with sugar beets and sugar cane succeeded. The beet and cane sugar industries really took off during the 1890s, thanks in great part to the tariff protection against lower-cost Caribbean and Pacific imports.5 U.S. sugar interests were not confined to cane and beet sugar producers however. Also included was the refining sector, dominated by the American Sugar Refining Co. (ASRCO or the Sugar Trust). Sugar refining predated raw sugar production in the continental United States by a century.6 Established in 1887, the Sugar Trust brought together 17 of the 23 U.S.-based sugar refineries into one corporation, achieving a virtual monopoly that controlled 98 percent of U.S. refined sugar output.7 In 1891, to contest litigation for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the company changed form and incorporated in New Jersey as a holding company. ASRCO was a new corporate name for the same industrial organization. With his penchant for coining the right phrase, its president, Henry O. Havemeyer, said: “Well, from being illegal as we were, we are now legal as we are; change enough, isn't so?”8 The domestic beet and sugar cane industries and the Sugar Trust had contrary positions regarding the raw sugar tariff, with the former favoring a high one to protect its home market and the latter advocating a low tariff to import low-cost raw material. The price of raw sugar obviously was crucial to production costs for sugar refiners, being the major input into the refining process. Refiners' profitability depended largely on maintaining a hefty supply of low cost raw sugars. Accordingly, the Sugar Trust aimed “to keep supply within demand and thus insure a comfortable margin for the refining industry.”9 U.S. government protection and promotion of cane and beet sugar succeeded only partially. The Sugar Trust needed imported raw sugar to meet U.S. market demand, and to forestall any opposition went on to buy a controlling share in the continental beet and cane sugar industries. The imperial war of 1898 ended U.S. 4 John Searles, “American Sugar,” in Chauncey M. Depwe, ed., One Hundred Years of American Commerce (New York, NY: D.O. Haynes & Co., 1895), 257-61. 5 Wilton Harry Spencer, “Economics of the American Sugar Industry: Market Behavior and Government Policy,” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1954, 5. 6 See C.A. Browne, “The Early Sugar Refining Industry of New York,” The Reference Book of the World Sugar Industry (New York, NY: Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer Co., 1924), 31-8. 7 See Alfred S. Eichner, The Emergence of Oligopoly: Sugar Refining as a Case Study (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969). 8 Quoted in Jack Simpson Mullins, “The Sugar Trust: Henry O. Havemeyer and the American Sugar Refining Company,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina, 1964, 73. 9 Paul L. Vogt, The Sugar Refining Industry in the United States. Its Development and Present Condition (Philadelphia, PA: Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, 1908), 54. bad dreams about sugar scarcity, but gave nightmares to continental producers, particularly Louisiana planters.10 By 1909 raw sugars from Hawaii, the Philippines and Puerto Rico entered duty-free and Cuba's with a reduced rate of 20 percent, all areas with dependencies or quasi-dependencies status with the United States. Thus, the U.S. sugar complex included sugar factories in the Caribbean, the continental United States and the Pacific Ocean, and sugar refineries in cities of the U.S. eastern, southern and western coasts. The oligopoly exercised by the Sugar Trust, managed from New York City, connected and controlled several parts of this complicated structure. The Development of Louisiana's Sugar Industry Noël Deere advanced that Louisiana may be “the last of the sugar colonies.”11 Starting in 1816, the tariff protected and fomented a small, unstable sugar cane industry in the southeast quarter of Louisiana, although soil and climate conditions were not entirely favorable. Louisiana was the most important producer for the U.S. market until 1850.12 The U.S. Civil War destroyed Louisiana's sugar industry, already struck by disease since 1854, yet it recovered quickly. Still, Louisiana could not retain the same share of the U.S. market. The surge of the Sugar Trust in controlling the U.S. sugar market partially hides the success story of Louisiana planters during the second part of the nineteenth century, and its impact on the Caribbean sugar industry. Louisiana's sugar industry expanded significantly while its Caribbean counterparts became stagnant, even experiencing a downturn, because of the fall in prices due to the competition of European subsidized beet sugar. The development of Louisiana's sugar industry since the 1870s is linked closely with the Louisiana Sugar Planters' Association (LSPA), established in 1877. The LSPA convinced the Department of Agriculture to investigate cultivation and manufacturing problems of sugar cane and established a private sugar experiment station, the first of its kind in the world. It also began publishing a weekly trade journal, The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer (LPSM) in 1988.13 To foster the use of scientific methods in agriculture, the Department of Agriculture 10 Glenn R. Conrad & Ray F. Lucas, White Gold: A Brief History of the Louisiana Sugar Industry 1795-1995 (Lafayette, LA: The Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1995), 59. 11 Noël Deere, The History of Sugar, Vol. 1 (London: Chapman & Hall Ltd., 1949), 248. 12 J. Carlyle Sitterson, “Expansion, Reversion and Revolution in the Southern Sugar Industry: 1850-1910,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 27(3)(September 1953): 129. 13 See W.C. Stubbs, "Origin and Evolution of the Sugar Industry in Louisiana," in Henry Rightor, ed., Standard History of New Orleans, Louisiana (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1900), 645-726. and the LSPA concurred in the establishment of a sugar experiment station in 1885, which led to the creation of the Audubon Sugar School in 1891.14 Calumet Experiments The Department of Agriculture also found fertile ground in the LSPA for its plans for national sufficiency. Dr. Wiley assigned chemists Hubert Edson, his nephew, and Dr. Guilford L. Spencer to sugar factories of LSPA's leading members.15 In 1888-1889, Edson went to the Calumet sugar factory. Calumet was owned and managed by Daniel Thompson (a civil engineer-turned businessperson), with his son Wibray J. Thompson (a graduate of Cornell University, with a postgraduate course in the School of Mines of Columbia University, and Associated Editor of the LPSM) serving as superintendent.16 Daniel Thompson was born in Maine in 1821 and educated at Norwich University, Vermont. Thompson was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade from 1854 to 1882 and a director in the Union and First National Banks of Chicago from 1869 to 1871. In the 1870s, he moved to Louisiana and acquired Calumet in St. Mary's Parish. As an LSPA member, Daniel Thompson was an advocate of the scientific culture and manufacture of sugar cane. He pioneered the application of fertilizers by employing Dr. C. A. Goessman, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, who had previously studied soil conditions and methods of sugar manufacture in Cuba. However, the results of the experiments turned out to be inconclusive.17 Wibray J. Thompson had been for a time a practical student at one of the New York sugar refineries. He later traveled to Germany and Cuba to study sugar industries there. In relation to his trip to Cuba in 1887, his father wrote that “he learned little of use to us in the business.”18 Wibray J. Thompson introduced a complete system of statistical data, which led him to realize the value of chemical analysis for factory work. He applied to the Department of Agriculture for a chemist and they assigned Edson to Calumet. Edson's work opened a new phase in sugar cane milling, leading to the introduction of more powerful and efficient 14 See Alfred Charles True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States 1607-1925 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1937), 104-5. 15 Charles E. Coates, “Guilford Lawson Spencer,” LPSM 34(14)(4 April 1925): 267. 16 LPSM 23(22)(25 November 1899): 349; LPSM 69(3)(20 July 1912): 50; and H. Edson, “Wibray J. Thompson,” LPSM 79(1)(2 July 1927): 18-19. 17 See John Alfred Heitmann, The Modernization of the Louisiana Sugar Industry, 1830-1910 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 65. 18 C.L. Marquette, ed., “Letters of a Yankee Sugar Planter,” The Journal of Southern History 6(4) (November, 1940): 543. grinding tandems and the end of interest in the application of the diffusion process in the sugar cane industry.19 With the able management of Daniel Thompson, the scientific acumen of Wibray J. Thompson, and the flawless execution of Hubert Edson, Calumet Plantation became Louisiana's leading private research center, with many experiments in field and factory carried on during the 1890s. For example, 1891 and 1892 experiments on cane seed selection which concluded that the planting of sugar cane of high sucrose content produced better cane, had to wait until 1900 for confirmation by the Sugar Experiment Station.20 In a letter to The Sugar Beet calling attention to this discovery, Wibray J. Thompson noted that “the ultimate effect upon the world's sugar cane industry of the improvement thus demonstrated possibly should, it seems to me, be revolutionary in its character.”21 Centralization At the end of the nineteenth century, southern Louisiana underwent the same centralization process in its sugar industry that was taking place in several Caribbean territories. In 1892, Wibray J. Thompson echoed Caribbean planters when he declared that the main obstacle facing Louisiana's industry was the combination of cane cultivation and manufacture under the same management and that the remedy was the establishment of central factories.22 The centralization process caused a change in the personnel required to manage the field and the factory. The introduction of chemists into the factory in the 1880s was a transition stage in the modernization of the industry. Chemists were “able to point the losses” in the manufacture process, but “unable to apply the remedy,” while the engineers were unable to apply “the remedy . . . owing of their lack of technical knowledge of the subject.” The development of a new professional, the chemical engineer, combining "both the chemical knowledge and the technical training," was the key to the complete modernization of the industry.23 In response to the centralization process, the Sugar Experiment Station included the sugar-manufacturing processes in its research agenda. The Audubon Sugar School did not fare well. The depression in the Louisiana sugar industry and the Cuban war of independence, both starting in the mid-1890s, dried up the 19 Hubert Edson, Sugar from Scarcity to Surplus (New York, NY: Chemical Publishing Co., 1958), 56-7. 20 J. Carlyle Sitterson, Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 17531950 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1953), 269-70. 21 Wibray J. Thompson, Calumet Plantation, to The Sugar Beet, 3 August 1893, Lewis A. Ware Collection, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. 22 Sitterson, op. cit., 259. 23 Magnus Swenson, “The Chemical Engineer,” Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Engineering Series 2 (1900): 199-200. number of students. When the Cuban independence war broke out, 15 Cuban students attending the School were suddenly recalled.24 Louisiana-Hispanic Caribbean Links The Audubon Sugar School could not survive as a privately funded institution. Louisiana State University (LSU) president, Thomas D. Boyd Sr., incorporated the School as a five-year program starting in 1897.25 In 1900, the School was proud of the numbers of students coming from foreign countries, such as Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Venezuela, Spain, Mexico, Hawaii, England and Scotland. By 1908, the School's success led to its reorganization as a college of the LSU. As the School matured in the university environment, the original objective of training planters' sons for future employment in Louisiana changed: “it now trained experts for the international sugar industry, particularly Cuba's large sugar factories.”26 John Heitmann's assessment, unsupported by evidence in his valuable work, is correct regarding the Cuban sugar industry in 192027 (see Table 1). Talking about Cuba, President Thomas D. Boyd, Sr., said The factories, over which these LSU alumni exercise more or less supervision and control, manufactured this year one third of the total sugar crop of the island. These men are paid high salaries, one of them receiving as much as seventy-five thousand dollars a year.28 The Louisiana link with the Caribbean sugar industry extended farther than Cuba. In Puerto Rico, more than half of the centrales engaged Louisiana men, more than in Cuba (see Table 2).29 In 1913, they supervised or controlled at least 24 See “Audubon Sugar School,” Gumbo 1 (1900): 73. Also Tulane University, a private university in New Orleans, offered at the turn of the century a program in sugar chemistry and sugar engineering. Cuban students again comprised most of the student body. See Heitmann, Modernization, 230-43, 260-2. 26 Heitmann, ibid., 230. 27 Noted Cuban historian, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, ignores the Louisiana presence at Cuban mills and instead writes that a white, native and immigrant labor force handled the new technologically complicated equipment of the centrales. See Manuel Moreno Fraginals, “Agricultural Backwardness--Industrial Development: Experiences of Sugar Production in the Caribbean,” in Mats Lundahl & Thommy Svensson, eds., Agrarian Society in History, Essays in Honor of Magnus Mörner (London: Routledge, 1990), 135. 28 Thomas D. Boyd, “Notice!, 6 July 1920,” T.D. Boyd Private Papers, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, LSU [hereinafter referred to as TDBPP,LSU]. 29 A small number of Puerto Rican laborers migrated to Louisiana but it was not satisfactory. See LPSM 37(12))22 Sep 1906): 178; LPSM 37(14)(6 Oct 1906): 710-11; 25 155,000 tons of a total production of nearly 400,00 tons. The predominance of U.S. managers and technicians was also documented in the Dominican Republic. In 1912, H.C. Prinsen Geerligs noted that, except for “the Cristóbal Colón factory, which belongs to the Cubans, all sugar factories are under American management.”30 Again, as seen in Table 3, Louisiana-trained managers and personnel occupied important positions, with Romana Central leading the pack. Louisiana-British Caribbean Links Few Louisiana men worked on the British sugar circuit. Yet, in 1970, J.W. Waldron was called to introduce Louisiana cane methods in the sugar factory cane field of Antigua.31 Others were L. Litty, a sugar boiler, and L.J.B. Mestier, chief chemist and superintendent in the Colonial Company's Usine Ste. Madelaine in Trinidad.32 Articles about the Louisiana sugar industry published in LPSM were reprinted in the leading papers of Trinidad.33 In 1924, Overton D. Boyd, younger son of T.D. Boyd, Sr., president of LSU, was appointed a sugar technologist in charge of the experimental sugar station at the Imperial College of Agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago. His appointment was considered a “compliment to the work of the sugar school” at LSU. 34 Before his appointment, he had been a chemist with Standard Oil and worked in the sugar industry in Louisiana, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the sugar beet industry in California. Generally, the different Caribbean sugar industries fell within their respective colonial or neo-colonial spheres. The employment of Lsu-educated men was recognition of their knowledge of the sugar trade at a time of “backwardness” in the British Caribbean sugar industry. Norman Lamont blamed the abundance of laborers working for a low wage and “the extreme rarity of skilled scientific direction” for this state.35 and LPSM 38(1)(5 Jan 1907):2. 30 H.C. Prinsen Geerligs, The World's Cane Sugar Industry: Past and Present (New York, NY: Norman Rodger, 1912), 195. 31 See LPSM 39(17)(26 Oct 1907): 259. 32 See LPSM 50(17)(26 Ap 1913): 268. 33 Howard Johnson, “The Origins of Cane Farming in Trinidad,” The Journal of Caribbean History 5 (November 1972): 48. 34 “Overton F. Boyd Appointed Sugar Technologist of the Agricultural College of Trinidad,” LPSM 72(17)(26 Apr 1924): 339. See also Arthur Rosenfeld to Overton F. Boyd, 17 August 1924, Family Papers, Box 1, TDBPP,LSU, and “Overton Boyd,” Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, 27 November 1951. He was the author of “Plantation Granulated Sugar Direct from the Cane,” LPSM 70(20)(22 Sep 1923): 387-8; “Sir Francis Watts--An Appreciation,” LPSM 72(20)(16 May 1924): 392; and “The Model Sugar Factory of the Imperial College of Agriculture, Trinidad, B.W.I.,” LPSM 75(2)(11 Jul 1925): 28-30. 35 Norman Lamont, “The West Indies: A Warning and A Way,” The Empire Review (Great Britain) 4(19)(August, 1902): 83. South Porto Rico Sugar Company Of New Jersey: A Case Study No company better illustrates the Louisiana-Hispanic Caribbean link than the SPRSCO/NJ, a U.S. multinational corporation that owned Guanica Central in Puerto Rico and Romana Central in the Dominican Republic, the largest sugar factories in both islands.36 SPRSCO/NJ recruited its top and middle management as well as its technical and skilled personnel right at home, in Louisiana. Louisiana's sugar industry provided Guanica Central with its share of experienced personnel. Furthermore, LSU supplied SPRSCO/NJ with competent graduates, some of whom attained the company's highest positions in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Caribbean. The Louisiana connection with Guanica Central started early, centering on management and sugar manufacture, namely, the factory side. In this article, I will limit myself to the most important, such as Adrian J. Greif, general manager and vice-president of Guanica Central, his successor, French T. Maxwell, and of Calumet fame, the Thompsons and Hubert Edson, who considered himself “a transplanted Louisianan to some extent.”37 Adrian Greif, a Louisiana native, became general manager on Guanica Central's second year of operation. Greif had been a superintendent at the Southern Division of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad.38 He left the railroad business in 1902 and became general superintendent at Central Constancia in Cuba.39 While in Cuba, he attracted SPRSCO/NJ's attention and was asked to take charge of Guanica Central. Because of Guanica Central's huge milling capacity, Greif's railroad experience was vital for SPRSCO/NJ's expansion. His obituary stated that Guanica Central “was but a small plant, but, under Mr. Greif's management, soon became one of the leading sugar factories of the world.”40 Greif's impact on Guanica Central's management system was long lasting. Modern managerial systems started in the railroads, a business enterprise whose complexity required the appointment of salaried managers and the organization of functional departments and continual flow of information for its operation.41 Greif 36 See Humberto García Muñiz, “The South Porto Rico Sugar Company: The History of a U.S. Multinational Corporation in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, 1900-1921,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1997. 37 Edson, Sugar, 58. 38 LPSM 30(26)(29 Jul 1903): 406. 39 Ibid. 40 “Adrian J. Greif,” LPSM 73(15)(11 Oct 1924): 292. 41 Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), 81-121. applied a similar system at Guanica Central by dividing “Guanica operations into many departments, each of which had a supervisor who reported directly to him.”42 French T. Maxwell, Greif's successor, was the most prominent of the graduates in the sugar profession from the LSU. Maxwell graduated in 1894 with a Bachelor of Science degree and was the first to appear under the denomination of “sugar chemist” in the Catalogue of the university.43 A member of the Alumni Society, he later urged T. D. Boyd Sr. to accept the presidency of LSU.44 During the mid-1890s and early 1900s, Maxwell was a chemist in several sugar estates in Louisiana. He advised his father-in-law, Senator J. D. Fisher, of Baton Rouge, during the purchase of a large Mexican estate as he “had long experience in connection with the sugar industry of our sister Republic.”45 From 1902 to 1910, he was engaged by the Cuban American Sugar Company as manufacturing superintendent of the Centrales Chaparra and Delicias “where some remarkable records as to yield and outputs were accomplished under his management.”46 He also acquired a large Cuban plantation, in a district “which will be favorably affected by the operation of the Manati Sugar Company's factory.”47 In 1911, he became a superintendent at Guanica Central.48 Paradoxically, the Thompsons of Calumet Plantation, forerunners of private sugar cane research in Louisiana, ended working for Guanica Central. Daniel Thompson died in 1900, and his son Wibray J. Thompson took over Calumet Plantation, but, because of indebtedness, lost it in 1903.49 Other sugar companies engaged Wibray J. Thompson to work at the managerial level. In 1909, he had six sugar houses under his supervision, belonging or affiliated with the Louisiana Sugar Company.50 He also worked in Mexico and Cuba.51 In 1911, after 42 Edson, Sugar, 95. Before the integration of the Audubon Sugar School, the university offered postgraduate courses in agricultural chemistry. Trips to sugar houses in the vicinity during the grinding season were part of the course. Catalogue of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Baton Rouge, Louisnana, for 189394 (Baton Rouge, LA: The Advocate, 1894), 41. 44 Marcus M. Wilkerson, Thomas Duckett Boyd: The Story of a Southern Educator (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 1935), 135. 45 LPSM 24(3)(20 Jan 1900): 367. 46 LPSM 47(1)(1 Jul 1911): 4. 47 See LPSM 49(11)(14 Sep 1912): 176, and W.R. Dobson, Director, Sugar Experiment Station, to Dr. W.H. Dalrymple, Baton Rouge, 5 January 1905, TDBPP,LSU. 48 See Catalogue of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for 1912 (Baton Rouge, LA: The Advocate, 1912), 281., and “French T. Maxwell,” The New York Times, 21 March 1946, 25. 49 See A. Bouchereau, Statement of the Sugar Crop Made in Louisiana in 1902-03 (New Orleans, LA: M.F. Dunn & Bro., Stationers & Printers, 1904), 11. 50 "Personal," LPSM 43(20))13 November 1909): 309. 51 In Mexico, he was employed in building a modern sugar factory for a U.S. company and was contracted by some Chicago capitalists to look at several ventures. See 43 SPRSCO/NJ's acquisition of Central Fortuna, Thompson took the same position there. Wibray J.'s son, Daniel Thompson, came to the employ of Guanica Central in the early 1900s. His experience included a month's research and study in the Glenwield factory and work as assistant chemist at Cinclare central factory, both in Louisiana.52 He had also been in Camagüey in Cuba and Mexico. Father and son dismantled Central Fortuna.53 Wibray J. Thompson retired after the Fortuna closed and resided with his son in the sugar town of Ensenada, where he died on 20 May 1927.54 In a nostalgic remembrance, when receiving the wedding invitation of Daniel Thompson in 1912, John Dymond, editor of the LPSM, wrote that The occasion brings memories of years back when this Daniel Thompson was a baby boy in the arms of his nurse when we were visiting Calumet plantation…55 In 1918, responding to market needs during the World War I, SPRSCO/NJ completed the construction of Central Romana in La Romana, Dominican Republic. On 5 June 1916 Louisiana-trained chemical engineer Ernest L. Klock had been appointed the administrator to supervise factory construction and manage field and factory operations.56 SPRSCO/NJ also named Louisiana-trained T. D. Boyd Jr. general superintendent of Guanica Central in October 1918.57 Born in Ontario, Canada, in the late 1880s and raised in a plantation in Cheneyville, Louisiana, Klock came from a sugar background. In 1888, his father, John C. Klock, a sugar planter, developed the first mechanical cane-loader in the Cheneyville area, which he later patented.58 Ernest L. Klock studied at LSU, LPSM 34(12)(25 Mar 1905): 184; LPSM 36(2)(13 Jan 1906): 31; LPSM 43(15)(9 Oct 1909): 228; LPSM 46(26)(17 Jun 1913): 382; LPSM 47(12)(16 Sep 1911): 193; and LPSM 50(26)(28 Jun 1913): 411. 52 LPSM 43(21)(20 Nov 1909): 324. 53 Faith Thompson Schall, interview with author, 2 September 1982, Cataño, Puerto Rico, Author's Files. Also present Betsaida Vélez Natal. Born at Central Fortuna, Faith Chompson Schall was the daughter of Daniel Thompson, Jr. 54 “Wibray J. Thompson,” LPSM 78(22)(28 May 1927): 434. 55 “Daniel Thompson,” LPSM 49(3)(20 Jul 1912): 50. 56 Francisco Richiez Dicoudray, “Registro de La Romana,” 65. The author thanks Dr. Frank Moya Pons for lending him the original copy of the register. 57 “South Porto Rico Sugar Company. Minutes of Adjourned Special Meeting of Board of Directors, 27 September 1918,” Colección South Porto Rico Sugar Company/New Jersey, Fideicomiso de Conservaciíon de Puerto Rico. 58 “Ernest Lorne Klock,” The Story of Louisiana, Vol. 2, Biographical (New Orleans, LA: J.F. Hyer Publishing Co., 1960). The author thanks John C. Klock and Thomas S. Klock for answering a detailed questionnaire about their father, Ernest L. Klock, and mother, Hazel Sewell Klock. receiving degrees in mechanical engineering and in sugar chemistry.59 In 1905, he worked as chemist in the Shadyside Sugar Factory in Louisiana, and in 1906 at the El Dorado Sugar Co. in Mexico. Klock then moved for several seasons to Cuba, working as superintendent in Central Vertientes and Central Niquero.60 Like other so-called “sugar tramps,” he returned to Louisiana for the crop there. In 1909, for instance, he was an assistant fabrication superintendent of the Gramercy plant of the ASRCO.61 Maxwell persuaded Klock to leave Cuba and join Central Romana for the construction of the sugar mill at La Romana. He arrived, with his wife Hazel Sewell, two sons, and a servant.62 The appointment of T.D. Boyd, Jr. as general superintendent perhaps best personifies the Louisiana connection, however. Hubert Edson, president of West India Management and Consultation Co., had tried to lure Boyd Jr. to work in the construction of central factories in Cuba and the Dominican Republic in 1915. He considered the offer “an excellent one,” but voiced reservations: “I have visions of spending 4 years in the tropics if I join them. This I am not at all willing to do.”63 Still, by 1918, Boyd Jr. was working with SPRSCO/NJ in the tropics, under Maxwell and with responsibilities in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Boyd Jr. was very well known and respected in sugar circles in the Caribbean, Central and North America. It helped that he was the oldest son of T.D. Boyd, president of LSU, who had given ample support and promotion to the Audubon Sugar School. Yet, in a short time, Boyd Jr. had created an independent name for himself. Born in Baton Rouge, on 3 November 1882, he graduated from LSU with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1901. He completed four full years in general science, specializing in chemistry. After graduation, between sugar seasons, he also studied mechanics and chemistry related to the manufacture of sugar and alcohol at the Audubon Sugar School, Cornell University, and the Fermentation Institute in Berlin, Germany. His first job came as an assistant chemist, working under French T. Maxwell on the plantation of James A. Ware, of Louisiana's Iberville Parish. He also worked in laboratories at Calumet and Shadyside plantations.64 The profession also took him to Central Tinguaro in Cuba, Ingenio San Antonio in Nicaragua, and Central Constancia in Mexico. Boyd Jr. settled in Mexico for five years. The United Sugar Companies engaged him to run two sugar factories in Los Mochis in Sinaloa. He earned a 59 Gumbo 1906-1907 (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU, 1907), 108. See LPSM 47(1)(1 Jul 1911): 9; LPSM 49(5)(3 Aug 1912): 21, 82; LPSM 21 (22 Nov 1913): 353; LPSM 55(3)(3 Jul 1915): 9; and LPSM 57(7)(12 Aug 1916): 106. 61 LPSM 43(19)(6 Nov 1909): 299. 62 Clarence Mathews to J.H. Edwards, 16 June 1919, and Mathews to Consul, Santo Domingo, 6 August 1919, Record Group 84, Consular Correspondence of La Romana, National Archives, Washington, DC. 63 T.D. Boyd, Jr., to T.D. Boyd, 12 October 1912. See also T.D. Boyd, Jr., to T.D. Boyd, 9 September 1915, TDBPP, LSU. 64 See LPSM 31(11)(17 Sep 1903): 163; and LPSM 33(15)(5 Oct 1904): 243. 60 salary of $10,000, plus living and traveling expenses and a commission on the factories' output. When he resigned in 1916, he formed a mercantile and commission business that exported sugar and other Mexican products and imported U.S. merchandise into Mexico.65 In 1917, he went to the Officers’ Training Camp at Presidio, California, but resigned to accept an SPRSCO/NJ's proposal in early 1918.66 Within SPRSCO/NJ's Caribbean operations, Boyd Jr. became the most important official after Maxwell, and handled jobs in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In 1918, 1919 and 1920, Boyd, Jr. supervised field experiments at Central Romana. Conscious of the devastation caused by the mosaic disease in SPRSCO/NJ's cane fields in Puerto Rico, he wanted, but failed, to conduct small experiments on varieties.67 Boyd Jr. spent four years at SPRSCO/NJ's service, leaving in 1922 to accept a more important position in Cuba. He became supervising manager of the centrales that the National City Bank took over and managed under Cuban Sugar Plantations, Inc.68 Sugar Tramps In 1908, the so-called “sugar tramps” formed the Louisiana Engineers, Chemists' and Sugar Makers' Association (LECSMA), an unchartered association until legally incorporated in October 1913. It grouped most sugar tramps, namely, “the men who operate all the important stations in the great factories of Cuba, Porto Rico, Louisiana, Mexico and the tropical sugar world overall.”69 In 1911, LECSMA listed 115 members, with 104 residing in Louisiana.70 In 1914, LECSMA hired a professor of Spanish, M.L. Piedra, to teach the language to its members.71 The trip from New Orleans to the Caribbean islands was an experience to remember. Old sugar tramps exchanged stories, while newcomers sought to learn about their future working places. At the end of every Caribbean crop season, the sugar tramps left for new destinations: Every outgoing steamer now carries a number of owners, chemists, superintendents and a few of the engineers for a 65 Information taken from letters of recommendation deposited in T.D. Boyd, Jr.'s Private Papers, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, LSU [hereinafter TDBJrPP,LSU]. 66 See T.D. Boyd to L.S. Boyd, 8 Nov 1917, TDBPP,LSU 67 See Humberto García Muñiz, “Interregional Transfer of Biological Technology in the Caribbean: The Impact of Barbados' John R. Bovell's Cane Research on the Puerto Rican Sugar Industry, 1888-1920s,” Revista Mexicana del Caribe II(3)(1997): 6-40. 68 LPSM 69(16)(14 Oct 1912): 271. 69 LPSM 41(23)(5 Dec 1908): 365; and LPSM 51(16)(18 Oct 1913): 280. 70 See LPSM 47(17)(21 Oct 1921): 272-3. 71 See LPSM 58(8)(22 Aug 1914): 120. well-earned holiday, and within the next few weeks things will be very quiet on the plantations.72 Only two known exceptions in the tropical tour of sugar tramps broke the rule of male exclusivity. Guanica Central took the lead with the employment of Miss Jessie Farr as chief chemist in 1911.73 The other took place in 1920 when the Haitian American Sugar Co., with a factory outside Port-au-Prince, contracted five “Louisiana girls...who will be the first women to engage in sugar factory work in the western world.” 74 The women were Inez Greenwood, Sidonia Gingry, Anne Haggerty, Irma Stevens and Alice Dean. Ms. Greenwood, daughter of a manager of the Belle Alliance plantation, had been head chemist at the Tally-Ho plant of the Murrels at Bayou Goula in the previous Louisiana campaign. This could have been an initiative of A.J. Greif since he occupied high positions in both companies.75 The different seasonality in cane and beet sugar regions allowed commuting by sugar tramps. A typical annual schedule of a sugar tramp started with the Louisiana campaign, which lasted from October to January, then he traveled to Cuba, the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico for the crop months of January to June. The most enterprising ones continued to the beet campaign in the Midwestern states or California. Thus, the seasons were not competitive but complementary, with important differences between the Louisiana and Caribbean crops. Trade unions did not welcome the coming of the sugar tramps. In 1914, the leading trade union in Puerto Rico, the Free Federation of Workingmen (Federación Libre de Trabajadores), criticized the outflow of monies implied by the hiring of U.S. technical personnel, specifically chemists, sugar boilers and mechanics.76 As local labor started to replace some of them, initially those in technical factory jobs, the number of sugar tramps dwindled. In 1916, the New York-Porto Rico Steamship Line eliminated the New Orleans-Caribbean route because it was a losing proposition.77 72 “Porto Rico,” LPSM 48(24)(15 Jun 1912): 428. LPSM 47(19)(7 Nov 1911): 319. 74 LPSM 59(4)(24 Jan 1920): 57. A.J. Grief was the first general manager of the Haitian American Sugar Co. See Edson, Sugar, 152-60. 75 LPSM 57(3)(15 Jul 1916): 36. 76 “La riqueza de Puerto Rico, ¿qué puede hacer la Legislatura?” Justicia (official organ of the Free Federation of Workingmen), 4 October 1914, 4. LSU also prepared Puerto Ricans, who went on to hold positions in local colleges and sugar companies. For instance, Edmundo D. Colón, who obtained a Masters of Science, was a professor of chemistry at the College of Agriculture in Mayagüez, chemist at the Insular Experiment Station, director of the Bureau of Agriculture of the Department of Agriculture, and administrator and superintendent of field operations in Central Plazuela. Another graduate with an impressive sugar career was Francisco López Domínguez. See LPSM 50(13)(30 Mar 1918): 194-5, and “Francisco López Domínguez, Secretary of Industry and Commerce,”The Economic Review (June 1939): 34-38. 77 Franklin D. Mooney, President of the New York-Porto Rico Steamship Line, to 73 Some claim that the Vieques sugar strike of 1920 heralded the end of the sugar tramps who were dedicated to the technical work related to sugar manufacture and cane supply. Puerto Rican chemists and sugar makers reportedly formed a union and were ready to strike for an eight-hour day, a 100 percent salary increase, better living conditions, accident insurance, and contracts lasting for the entire crop season instead of monthly accords. Louisiana's John P. Connolly, superintendent of Central Playa Grande, told Louisiana chemists: “it looks as if they will demand that the union reign supreme with regard to the Porto Rican work in which the unionists are engaged.”78 By the 1920s, the sugar tramps started to disappear, with only those in top management as SPRSCO/NJ's French T. Maxwell or highly skilled ones like Daniel Thompson settling in one central and spending their professional life there. U.S. companies employed most of the sugar tramps that worked permanently or came seasonally. Puerto Rico's Association of Sugar Technologists was organized in 1922. Although Americans and other foreigners were members (its first president was Central Aguirre's Frank Sumner Earle), Puerto Ricans held the majority in the executive board.79 That decade the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Mayagüez improved its equipment and course offerings. By 1927, Puerto Rican sugar expert Francisco López Domínguez said it “is materially helping to solve our field and factory problems, by supplying trained chemists and agriculturists to supervise the work at the factory and in the field.”80 To conclude, the Louisiana sugar planters profiting from the growth of the sugar industry during the second half of the nineteenth century spurred the establishment of an institutional infrastructure that provided the managerial, technical and other skilled people necessary to efficiently operate the new technology of the central factory. The consecutive nature of the crop seasons of Louisiana, the Caribbean and beet sugar in the continental United States allowed the sugar tramps to move from one to the other. Sugar tramps took over field and factory operations in the Hispanic Caribbean as U.S. capital opened new factories in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Capital from the eastern United States financed the new centrales, while Louisiana's sugar tramps managed and operated them. The end of Louisiana's sugar tramps came slowly; substitution by Frank McIntyre, 6 April 1916, Record Group 350 Bureau of Insular Affairs, Entry 5, Box 417, Document 2339-81, National Archives, Washington, DC. 78 "Louisiana Sugar News," LPSM 55(3)(17 Jul 1920): 41. 79 Francisco López Domínguez, "The Association of Sugar Technologists," in E.Fernández García, ed., El libro de Puerto Rico/The Book of Porto Rico (San Juan, PR: El Libro Azul Publishing Co., 1923), 943-5. 80 F.A. López Domínguez, "The Origin and Development of the Sugar Industry in Porto Rico," LPSM 79(7)(13 Aug 1917): 124. local personnel hinged on the establishment of courses related to the sugar industry in the local technical schools, colleges or universities. Acknowledgements The author thanks Betsaida Vélez Natal and Faye Phillips, Assistant Dean for Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, for their assistance. Table 1 Louisiana State University Alumni Working in Central Factories in Cuba, 1920 Name Bergman, C.A. Best, Alfred Mallen, Francisco Walsh, Henry Adam, Maurice Domínguez, E.E. Tarleton, P.C. Keller, A.J. Klock, A.E. Pressburg, C.N. Dracket, E.W. Jacobs, H.J. Kahn, M.B. Hancock, J.M. Jolly, J.H. Seip, J.J. Torrent, J.L. Chiquelin, S.C. Isacks, A.J. Klaus, S. Cade, Overton Byrd, C.R. Holmes, R.H. Perkins, C. Stevens, A.J. Labayen, S.D. Matthews, A.C. Year of Graduation Position Central Delicias, Delicias, Oriente 1914 Engineer Dept. 1898 Superintendent 1916 and 1919 Engineer Dept. 1906 Chemist Central Moron, Pina, Camaguey 1916 Ass’t Superintendent 1916 Chief Chemist 1905 Superintendent Central Stewart, Camaguey 1911 Superintendent 1910 Chief Chemist 1915 Ass’t Superintendent Central Jagueyal, Jagueyal, Camaguey 1915 Assistant Chemist 1917 Chief Chemist 1914 Ass’t Superintendent Central Lugareño, Lugareño, Camaguey 1906 Superintendent Central Socorro, Matanzas 1913 Chemist 1910 and 1911 Superintendent Central Alava, Matanzas 1915 Acting Superintendent Central Mercedes, Matanzas Sugar Experimental Station Superintendent 1894 Central Francisco, Camaguez 1912 Superintendent 1919 Chemist Central Washington, Santa Clara 1906 Superintendent Central Florida, Camaguey 1920 ---1913 Superintendent 1915 Ass't Superintendent 1918 ---Central Alto Cedro, Oriente 1917 ---1911 Superintendent Table 1, continued. Bolin, D.C. Central Santa Cecilia, Guantanamo, Oriente 1916 ---- Punta Alegre, Sugar Co., Punta San Juan, Camaguey 1911 ---1918 Chief Chemist 1914 Superintendent 1908 Assistant Manager Central Hershey, Havana Brian, W.L. 1907 ---Eckard, V.H. 1913 Superintendent Magruder, N. 1913 Ass’t Superintendent Central Manati, Oriente Fridge, E. 1905 Superintendent Mundinger, W.G. 1912 Ass’t Superintendent Central Teresa, Oriente Chioco, J. 1919 Chemist Gianelloni, V.J. 1913 Superintendent Tiglao, José 1920 Chemist Central Isabel, Oriente Butler, S. 1908 ---Cuba Cane Sugar Co., Barrague Munson, J.J. 1914 Ass’t Chief Engineer Nadler, Carl 1912 and 1913 ---Central Baragua, Camaguey Hale, T.F. 1919 Chief Chemist Capdeville, C.C. Etheredge, J.C. Ferro, B.J. Hochenedel, B.F. Blouin, F.R. Moore, E.R. Levy, E.S. Gunther, J.F. Jumonville, L.J. Roger, W.L. Smith, Walker Albright, A.J. Ferro, Ernesto Sánchez, A.C. Table 1, continued Central Elia, Camaguey 1909 Superintendent 1916 Ass’t Superintendent Central Tainucu, Santa Clara 1914 Chief Chemist Central Niquero, Oriente 1911 and 1912 Ass’t Superintendent 1917 Chemist 1911 ---1910 and 1913 Superintendent Central Fe, Santa Clara 1911 ---Central Progreso, Matanzas 1908 ---Central Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia, Oriente 1918 Superintendent Dickerson, A.L. Reid, A.J. Rolston, W.A. Nelson, E.E. McConnell, S. Díaz, L.G. Brian, W.L. Central Soledad, Matanzas 1917 1917 1916 Central Tinguero, Matanzas 1906 Ass’t Superintendent Chief Chemist Superintendent ---- Guantanamo, Sugar Co., Oriente 1880-1882 and Sugar General Experiment Station Superintendent Central Sagua la Grande, Santa Clara 1917 ---Central Santa Isabel, Oriente 1914 ---- Central Hormiguero 1915 ---1919 ---Central Dos Rosas Spiller, D.D. 1910 Superintendent Cuba Cane Sugar Cooperage, Edificio Barrague, Havana Walsh, Dudley 1892 Gen. Superintendent Edgerton, C.E. Tibau, A.C. Source: Thomas D. Boyd, President, Louisiana State University, “Notice!!,” 6 July 1920, TDBJrPP, LSUA. Table 2 Louisiana Sugar Men Working in the Sugar Industry in Puerto Rico, 1904-1924 Name Carl Altsmanberger J. Dalfares J.C. Falcon Charles R. Gaines Alexis O. Smith F. Vives A.P. Gaiennie W.C. Miller Position or Affiliation Central Aguirre LECSMA n.a. LECSMA Assistant Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Factory Engineer Chief Engineer LECSMA Central Ana Maria Factory Superintendent Central Arkadia n.a. Central Cambalache Year 1911 1914 1909 1911 1912 1913 1914 1923 1909 1914 1914 H.E. Fridge J.W. Joyce Joseph Pearson L.J.B. Mestier Henry Dugas Emile Fucich H.E. Fridge John F. Hafemeyer W.D. Jundlin J.E. Mestier Ulysse Rome Alfred Rousseau Ben Bremerman H.A. Kreh Louis Copponex A.B. Dautrive E.R. Moore Michael Phillips Table 2, continued Central Camuy General Superintendent Central Canovanas n.a. n.a. n.a. LECSMA n.a. Chief Chemist n.a. n.a. Sugar Boiler n.a. n.a. Central Carmen LECSMA LECSMA Central Cayey Engineer Chemist Factory Superintendent n.a. 1912 1916 1914 1915 1911 1914 1911 1914 1916 1911 1913 1914 1909 1911 1911 1911 1915 1914 A.B. Dauterive D.B. Rogan Louis Thoman E.D. Vignes E.R. Moore Thomas J. Flanagan John F. Hafemeyer Thomas J. Flanagan A. Gondolfo Hubert Edson J.J. Munson H.A. Nadler Wibray J. Thompson Henry Arnold C.C. Capdevielle John Dardis I.H. Gottlieb French T. Maxwell W.P. Miller C.S. Nadler B.T. Nase C.N. Pressburg Curtis Richardson Daniel Thompson C.L. Wagner H.J. Bjerg H.J. Norman John J. Shea Central Colombia LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA Factory Superintendent Factory Superintendent n.a. Central Corsica Chief Chemist Central Cortada n.a. LECSMA Central El Ejemplo LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA Central Fortuna Manager Engineer Chief Engineer Superintendent Guanica Central n.a. n.a. Chemist n.a. n.a. Chief Engineer n.a. Superintendent Chief Engineer Assistant Engineer Factory Engineer Engineer n.a. n.a. n.a. Central Juncos n.a. n.a. LECSMA 1909 1911 1909 1911 1915 1918 1914 1916 1910 1910 1909 1911 1909 1911 1912 1912 1914 1912 1914 1913 1914 1915 1916 1904 1914 1912 1912 1916 1909 1916 1922 1912 n.a. 1914 1914 1911 Table 2, continued John Dibbs John Fuchs Adam Krupenbacher J.R. Biggar J.H. Bommemer Louis Copponex John J. Helmke Adam Krupenbacher W.C. Mavor J.A. Rome Alex O. Smith R.M. Stewart Charles Vives E. Girod J.D. Helmke D.A. Richardson Tom Rome Geo. B. Grimsal Henry J. LeJeune L.J.B. Mestier John P. Connolly Henry Dahling Henry Dickman A.M. de Andino S.S. Eiger Table 2, continued Central Lafayette LECSMA Factory Superintendent n.a. Factory Superintendent LECSMA Central Machete LECSMA LECSMA Engineer Engineer LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA Chief Engineer Chief Engineer Sugar Boiler Superintendent Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Superintendent Central Mercedita (Ponce) n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Central Mercedita (Yabucoa) LECSMA Central Pasto Viejo LECSMA n.a. Central Playa Grande (Vieques) LECSMA LECSMA Factory Superintendent Factory Superintendent Factory Superintendent Factory Superintendent Factory Superintendent LECSMA LECSMA Central Plazuela Factory Superintendent Factory Superintendent 1909 1911 1912 1914 1909 1911 1911 1912 1913 1909 1910 1911 n.a. 1924 1913 1916 1917 1923 1920 1914 1924 1914 1915. 1909 1911 1911 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1920 1909 1909 1914 1913 Alex O. Smith Carl Thoman Henry O. Thoman C.B. Thompson C.J. Benoist W.J. DeVries Jos. Lissard C.L. Wagner James Wilkinson Andrew Martin Thomas J. Flanagan A.M. de Andino L.J. Barthelemy Felix Delaune J.C. Falcon Adam Krupenbacher James McCaffery John Molden John J. Shea Fred Smith E.B. Stafford J.M.E. Stow Carl Thoman Central Providencia LECSMA Chief Engineer LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA LECSMA Assistant Chief Chemist Central San Cristobal n.a. Superintendent n.a. n.a. n.a. Central San Vicente n.a. Central Utuado n.a. Unknown Central Chemist n.a. n.a. Superintendent n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. LECSMA Chemist n.a. Chemist 1911 1912 1909 1911 1909 1911 1913 1915 1913 1914 n.a. 1914 1915 1914 1913 1907-16 1918 1912 1918 1918 1914 1912 1911 1918 1916 1915 LECSMA = Member of the Louisiana Engineers’, Chemists’ and Sugar Makers’ Association. n.a. = information not available. Source: Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, various years. Table 3 Louisiana Sugar Men Working in the Sugar Industry in the Dominican Republic, 1912-1921 Name Lewin, M. Wadenhut, M. Goller, John Hanaway, S.J. Goller, John, Jr. Klock, Arthur Klock, Ernest L. Miller, Stanley L. Lear, George M. Lejeune, H.E. Boyd, Overton Burke, Thomas Dardis, John Vollrath Yeager Williams, W.J. Fleetwood, James Goller, John Searight, F.A. Spiller, T.D. Windgrave Ong, L. Flanagan, Thomas J. Source: Position or Affiliation Central Ansonia n.a. n.a. Central San Isidro Sugar Boiler n.a. Central Romana n.a. n.a. Administrator Civil Engineer Ingenio Angelina Chief Engineer n.a. Ingenio Consuelo n.a. Sugar Boiler Chief Engineer Centrifugals Centrifugals n.a. Central Porvenir Sugar Boiler Assistant Superintendent Chief Chemist Superintendent Chief Engineer Ingenio Santa Fe n.a.. Unknown Central n.a. Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, various years. Year 1914 1913 1912 1912 1920 1915 1916 1917 1913 1914 1917 1913 1913 1913 1913 1921 1913 1920 1920 1920 1913 1913 1917