Humberto Garcia Muniz - "Louisiana ´Sugar Tramps´in the Caribbean Sugar Industry

8/13/2019 Humberto Garcia Muniz - "Louisiana Sugar Trampsin the Caribbean Sugar Industry

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Louisianas Sugar Tramps in the

Caribbean Sugar Industry

Humberto Garca-Muiz

The linkage of the Caribbean and the United States in the international sugar

economy has been long noted, specifically in connection with trade, technology andownership. Yet the management aspect has been overlooked. This article attemptsto redress this historical lacuna by analyzing the development of the Louisiana-Caribbean connection following the introduction of the central factory in thatsouthern 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 sugarindustry until their substitution by locals well into the twentieth century.1Thelargest sugar factories were located in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.The South Porto Rico Sugar Company of New Jersey (SPRSCO/NJ), one of themost enterprising and innovative U.S. corporations in the region, will be used as acase study.

Historical Context

During the second half of the nineteenth century, sugar self-sufficiency by theUnited States seemed an attainable goal to government officials, sugar planters, andscientists.2 During the Civil War, to counter the scarce cane sugar and molassescoming from the South, the Department of Agriculture started experiments withsugar beets. In 1876, a Louisiana cane planter wrote: it is beyond a doubt that theUnited States could produce all the sugar needed for their consumption.3

Dr. Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930), appointed chief chemist of theDepartment 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): 17.2William Lloyd Fox, Harvey W. Wiley's Search for American Sugar Self-

Sufficiency,Agricultural History54 (1980): 516.3M.A. Montejo,American Central Sugar Factories(New Orleans, LA: Pelican

Book and Job Printing Office, 1876), 7.


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sorghum, mainly in Kansas.4Sorghum experiments failed, but those with sugarbeets and sugar cane succeeded. The beet and cane sugar industries really took offduring the 1890s, thanks in great part to the tariff protection against lower-costCaribbean and Pacific imports.5

U.S. sugar interests were not confined to cane and beet sugar producershowever. Also included was the refining sector, dominated by the American SugarRefining Co. (ASRCO or the Sugar Trust). Sugar refining predated raw sugarproduction in the continental United States by a century.6Established in 1887, theSugar Trust brought together 17 of the 23 U.S.-based sugar refineries into onecorporation, achieving a virtual monopoly that controlled 98 percent of U.S. refinedsugar output.7In 1891, to contest litigation for violations of the Sherman Anti-TrustAct, 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; changeenough, isn't so?8

The domestic beet and sugar cane industries and the Sugar Trust had contrarypositions regarding the raw sugar tariff, with the former favoring a high one toprotect its home market and the latter advocating a low tariff to import low-cost rawmaterial. The price of raw sugar obviously was crucial to production costs for sugarrefiners, being the major input into the refining process. Refiners' profitabilitydepended largely on maintaining a hefty supply of low cost raw sugars.Accordingly, the Sugar Trust aimed to keep supply within demand and thus insurea 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. marketdemand, and to forestall any opposition went on to buy a controlling share in thecontinental beet and cane sugar industries. The imperial war of 1898 ended U.S.

4John Searles, American Sugar, in Chauncey M. Depwe, ed., One Hundred Years

of American Commerce(New York, NY: D.O. Haynes & Co., 1895), 257-61.5Wilton Harry Spencer, Economics of the American Sugar Industry: Market

Behavior and Government Policy, Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1954, 5.6See C.A. Browne, The Early Sugar Refining Industry of New York, The

Reference Book of the World Sugar Industry (New York, NY: Louisiana Planter andSugar Manufacturer Co., 1924), 31-8.

7See Alfred S. Eichner, The Emergence of Oligopoly: Sugar Refining as a CaseStudy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969).

8Quoted 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.

9Paul 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.


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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 itsplans for national sufficiency. Dr. Wiley assigned chemists Hubert Edson, hisnephew, and Dr. Guilford L. Spencer to sugar factories of LSPA's leadingmembers.15 In 1888-1889, Edson went to the Calumet sugar factory. Calumet wasowned and managed by Daniel Thompson (a civil engineer-turned businessperson),with his son Wibray J. Thompson (a graduate of Cornell University, with apostgraduate course in the School of Mines of Columbia University, and

Associated Editor of theLPSM) serving as superintendent.16

Daniel Thompson was born in Maine in 1821 and educated at NorwichUniversity, Vermont. Thompson was a member of the Chicago Board of Tradefrom 1854 to 1882 and a director in the Union and First National Banks of Chicagofrom 1869 to 1871. In the 1870s, he moved to Louisiana and acquired Calumet inSt. Mary's Parish. As an LSPA member, Daniel Thompson was an advocate of thescientific culture and manufacture of sugar cane. He pioneered the application offertilizers by employing Dr. C. A. Goessman, of the Massachusetts AgriculturalCollege, who had previously studied soil conditions and methods of sugarmanufacture in Cuba. However, the results of the experiments turned out to beinconclusive.17

Wibray J. Thompson had been for a time a practical student at one of the NewYork 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 helearned little of use to us in the business.18Wibray J. Thompson introduced acomplete system of statistical data, which led him to realize the value of chemicalanalysis for factory work. He applied to the Department of Agriculture for achemist and they assigned Edson to Calumet. Edson's work opened a new phase insugar cane milling, leading to the introduction of more powerful and efficient

14See Alfred Charles True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and

Research in the United States 1607-1925 (Washington, DC: Government PrintingOffice, 1937), 104-5.

15Charles E. Coates, Guilford Lawson Spencer,LPSM34(14)(4 April 1925): 267.16LPSM 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): 18-19.17See John Alfred Heitmann, The Modernization of the Louisiana Sugar Industry,

1830-1910(Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 65.18C.L. Marquette, ed., Letters of a Yankee Sugar Planter, The Journal of Southern

History6(4) (November, 1940): 543.


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grinding tandems and the end of interest in the application of the diffusion processin the sugar cane industry.19

With the able management of Daniel Thompson, the scientific acumen ofWibray J. Thompson, and the flawless execution of Hubert Edson, CalumetPlantation became Louisiana's leading private research center, with manyexperiments in field and factory carried on during the 1890s. For example, 1891and 1892 experiments on cane seed selection which concluded that the planting ofsugar cane of high sucrose content produced better cane, had to wait until 1900 forconfirmation by the Sugar Experiment Station.20 In a letter to The Sugar Beetcalling attention to this discovery, Wibray J. Thompson noted that the ultimateeffect upon the world's sugar cane industry of the improvement thus demonstratedpossibly should, it seems to me, be revolutionary in its character.21

Centralization

At the end of the nineteenth century, southern Louisiana underwent the samecentralization process in its sugar industry that was taking place in severalCaribbean territories. In 1892, Wibray J. Thompson echoed Caribbean planterswhen he declared that the main obstacle facing Louisiana's industry was thecombination of cane cultivation and manufacture under the same management andthat the remedy was the establishment of central factories.22

The centralization process caused a change in the personnel required tomanage the field and the factory. The introduction of chemists into the factory inthe 1880s was a transition stage in the modernization of the industry. Chemistswere able to point the losses in the manufacture process, but unable to apply theremedy, while the engineers were unable to apply the remedy . . . owing of their

lack of technical knowledge of the subject. The development of a newprofessional, the chemical engineer, combining "both the chemical knowledge andthe technical training," was the key to the complete modernization of the industry. 23

In response to the centralization process, the Sugar Experiment Stationincluded the sugar-manufacturing processes in its research agenda. The AudubonSugar School did not fare well. The depression in the Louisiana sugar industry andthe Cuban war of independence, both starting in the mid-1890s, dried up the

19Hubert Edson, Sugar from Scarcity to Surplus (New York, NY: Chemical

Publishing Co., 1958), 56-7.20J. Carlyle Sitterson, Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 1753-

1950(Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1953), 269-70.21Wibray J. Thompson, Calumet Plantation, to The Sugar Beet, 3 August 1893,

Lewis A. Ware Collection, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.22Sitterson, op. cit., 259.23Magnus Swenson, The Chemical Engineer, Bulletin of the University of

Wisconsin, Engineering Series 2 (1900): 199-200.


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number of students. When the Cuban independence war broke out, 15 Cubanstudents attending the School were suddenly recalled.24

Louisiana-Hispanic Caribbean Links

The Audubon Sugar School could not survive as a privately fundedinstitution. Louisiana State University (LSU) president, Thomas D. Boyd Sr.,incorporated the School as a five-year program starting in 1897.25In 1900, theSchool was proud of the numbers of students coming from foreign countries, suchas Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Venezuela,Spain, Mexico, Hawaii, England and Scotland. By 1908, the School's success led toits reorganization as a college of the LSU.

As the School matured in the university environment, the original objective oftraining planters' sons for future employment in Louisiana changed: it now trainedexperts for the international sugar industry, particularly Cuba's large sugarfactories.26John Heitmann's assessment, unsupported by evidence in his valuablework, 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 lesssupervision and control, manufactured this year one third of thetotal sugar crop of the island. These men are paid high salaries, oneof them receiving as much as seventy-five thousand dollars ayear.28

The Louisiana link with the Caribbean sugar industry extended farther thanCuba. 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

24See Audubon Sugar School, Gumbo1 (1900): 73.25Also 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 againcomprised most of the student body. See Heitmann,Modernization, 230-43, 260-2.

26Heitmann, ibid., 230.27Noted Cuban historian, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, ignores the Louisiana presence

at Cuban mills and instead writes that a white, native and immigrant labor force handledthe new technologically complicated equipment of the centrales. See Manuel Moreno

Fraginals, Agricultural Backwardness--Industrial Development: Experiences of SugarProduction in the Caribbean, in Mats Lundahl & Thommy Svensson, eds., AgrarianSociety in History, Essays in Honor of Magnus Mrner(London: Routledge, 1990), 135.

28Thomas D. Boyd, Notice!, 6 July 1920, T.D. Boyd Private Papers, SpecialCollections, Hill Memorial Library, LSU [hereinafter referred to as TDBPP,LSU].

29A small number of Puerto Rican laborers migrated to Louisiana but it was notsatisfactory. See LPSM37(12))22 Sep 1906): 178; LPSM37(14)(6 Oct 1906): 710-11;


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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. In1912, H.C. Prinsen Geerligs noted that, except for the Cristbal Coln factory,which belongs to the Cubans, all sugar factories are under Americanmanagement.30 Again, as seen in Table 3, Louisiana-trained managers andpersonnel 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 canefield of Antigua.31 Others were L. Litty, a sugar boiler, and L.J.B. Mestier, chiefchemist and superintendent in the Colonial Company's Usine Ste. Madelaine in

Trinidad.32 Articles about the Louisiana sugar industry published in LPSMwerereprinted 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 atthe Imperial College of Agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago. His appointment wasconsidered a compliment to the work of the sugar school at LSU.34Before hisappointment, he had been a chemist with Standard Oil and worked in the sugarindustry in Louisiana, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the sugarbeet industry in California.

Generally, the different Caribbean sugar industries fell within their respectivecolonial or neo-colonial spheres. The employment of Lsu-educated men wasrecognition of their knowledge of the sugar trade at a time of backwardness in theBritish Caribbean sugar industry. Norman Lamont blamed the abundance of

laborers working for a low wage and the extreme rarity of skilled scientificdirection for this state.35

andLPSM38(1)(5 Jan 1907):2.

30H.C. Prinsen Geerligs, The World's Cane Sugar Industry: Past and Present(New

York, NY: Norman Rodger, 1912), 195.31SeeLPSM39(17)(26 Oct 1907): 259.32SeeLPSM50(17)(26 Ap 1913): 268.33Howard Johnson, The Origins of Cane Farming in Trinidad, The Journal of

Caribbean History5 (November 1972): 48.34Overton 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 PlantationGranulated Sugar Direct from the Cane,LPSM70(20)(22 Sep 1923): 387-8; Sir FrancisWatts--An Appreciation, LPSM 72(20)(16 May 1924): 392; and The Model SugarFactory of the Imperial College of Agriculture, Trinidad, B.W.I., LPSM 75(2)(11 Jul1925): 28-30.

35Norman Lamont, The West Indies: A Warning and A Way, The EmpireReview(Great Britain) 4(19)(August, 1902): 83.


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South Porto Rico Sugar Company Of New Jersey: A Case Study

No company better illustrates the Louisiana-Hispanic Caribbean link than theSPRSCO/NJ, a U.S. multinational corporation that owned Guanica Central inPuerto Rico and Romana Central in the Dominican Republic, the largest sugarfactories in both islands.36 SPRSCO/NJ recruited its top and middle managementas well as its technical and skilled personnel right at home, in Louisiana.Louisiana's sugar industry provided Guanica Central with its share of experiencedpersonnel. Furthermore, LSU supplied SPRSCO/NJ with competent graduates,some of whom attained the company's highest positions in Puerto Rico andelsewhere in the Caribbean.

The Louisiana connection with Guanica Central started early, centering onmanagement and sugar manufacture, namely, the factory side. In this article, I willlimit myself to the most important, such as Adrian J. Greif, general manager andvice-president of Guanica Central, his successor, French T. Maxwell, and ofCalumet fame, the Thompsons and Hubert Edson, who considered himself atransplanted Louisianan to some extent.37

Adrian Greif, a Louisiana native, became general manager on GuanicaCentral's second year of operation. Greif had been a superintendent at the SouthernDivision of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad.38 He left the railroadbusiness in 1902 and became general superintendent at Central Constancia inCuba.39While in Cuba, he attracted SPRSCO/NJ's attention and was asked to takecharge 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'smanagement, 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 whosecomplexity required the appointment of salaried managers and the organization offunctional departments and continual flow of information for its operation.41 Greif

36See Humberto Garca Muiz, 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.

37Edson, Sugar, 58.38LPSM30(26)(29 Jul 1903): 406.

39Ibid.40Adrian J. Greif,LPSM 73(15)(11 Oct 1924): 292.41Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in

American Business(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,1977), 81-121.


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SPRSCO/NJ's acquisition of Central Fortuna, Thompson took the same positionthere.

Wibray J.'s son, Daniel Thompson, came to the employ of Guanica Central inthe early 1900s. His experience included a month's research and study in theGlenwield factory and work as assistant chemist at Cinclare central factory, both inLouisiana.52 He had also been in Camagey in Cuba and Mexico. Father and sondismantled Central Fortuna.53 Wibray J. Thompson retired after the Fortuna closedand resided with his son in the sugar town of Ensenada, where he died on 20 May1927.54In a nostalgic remembrance, when receiving the wedding invitation ofDaniel Thompson in 1912, John Dymond, editor of theLPSM, wrote that

The occasion brings memories of years back when this Daniel

Thompson was a baby boy in the arms of his nurse when wewere visiting Calumet plantation55

In 1918, responding to market needs during the World War I, SPRSCO/NJcompleted the construction of Central Romana in La Romana, DominicanRepublic. On 5 June 1916 Louisiana-trained chemical engineer Ernest L. Klock hadbeen appointed the administrator to supervise factory construction and manage fieldand factory operations.56SPRSCO/NJ also named Louisiana-trained T. D. Boyd Jr.general superintendent of Guanica Centralin October 1918.57

Born in Ontario, Canada, in the late 1880s and raised in a plantation inCheneyville, Louisiana, Klock came from a sugar background. In 1888, his father,John C. Klock, a sugar planter, developed the first mechanical cane-loader in theCheneyville 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; andLPSM50(26)(28 Jun 1913): 411.

52LPSM43(21)(20 Nov 1909): 324.53Faith Thompson Schall, interview with author, 2 September 1982, Catao, Puerto

Rico, Author's Files. Also present Betsaida Vlez Natal. Born at Central Fortuna, FaithChompson Schall was the daughter of Daniel Thompson, Jr.

54Wibray J. Thompson,LPSM78(22)(28 May 1927): 434.55Daniel Thompson,LPSM49(3)(20 Jul 1912): 50.56Francisco Richiez Dicoudray, Registro de La Romana, 65. The author thanks

Dr. Frank Moya Pons for lending him the original copy of the register.57South Porto Rico Sugar Company. Minutes of Adjourned Special Meeting of

Board of Directors, 27 September 1918, Coleccin South Porto Rico SugarCompany/New Jersey, Fideicomiso de Conservacion de Puerto Rico.

58Ernest Lorne Klock, The Story of Louisiana, Vol. 2, Biographical (NewOrleans, LA: J.F. Hyer Publishing Co., 1960). The author thanks John C. Klock andThomas S. Klock for answering a detailed questionnaire about their father, Ernest L.Klock, and mother, Hazel Sewell Klock.


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salary of $10,000, plus living and traveling expenses and a commission on thefactories' output. When he resigned in 1916, he formed a mercantile andcommission business that exported sugar and other Mexican products and importedU.S. merchandise into Mexico.65 In 1917, he went to the Officers Training Campat Presidio, California, but resigned to accept an SPRSCO/NJ's proposal in early1918.66

Within SPRSCO/NJ's Caribbean operations, Boyd Jr. became the mostimportant official after Maxwell, and handled jobs in Puerto Rico and theDominican Republic. In 1918, 1919 and 1920, Boyd, Jr. supervised fieldexperiments at Central Romana. Conscious of the devastation caused by the mosaicdisease in SPRSCO/NJ's cane fields in Puerto Rico, he wanted, but failed, toconduct 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 tookover 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 associationuntil 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, PortoRico, Louisiana, Mexico and the tropical sugar world overall.69

In 1911, LECSMA listed 115 members, with 104 residing in Louisiana.70In1914, 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 anexperience to remember. Old sugar tramps exchanged stories, while newcomerssought to learn about their future working places. At the end of every Caribbeancrop 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

65Information taken from letters of recommendation deposited in T.D. Boyd, Jr.'s

Private Papers, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, LSU [hereinafterTDBJrPP,LSU].

66See T.D. Boyd to L.S. Boyd, 8 Nov 1917, TDBPP,LSU67See Humberto Garca Muiz, Interregional Transfer of Biological Technology in

the Caribbean: The Impact of Barbados' John R. Bovell's Cane Research on the PuertoRican Sugar Industry, 1888-1920s,Revista Mexicana del CaribeII(3)(1997): 6-40.

68LPSM69(16)(14 Oct 1912): 271.

69LPSM41(23)(5 Dec 1908): 365; andLPSM51(16)(18 Oct 1913): 280.70SeeLPSM 47(17)(21 Oct 1921): 272-3.71SeeLPSM58(8)(22 Aug 1914): 120.


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well-earned holiday, and within the next few weeks things willbe very quiet on the plantations.72

Only two known exceptions in the tropical tour of sugar tramps broke the ruleof male exclusivity. Guanica Central took the lead with the employment of MissJessie Farr as chief chemist in 1911.73The other took place in 1920 when theHaitian American Sugar Co., with a factory outside Port-au-Prince, contracted fiveLouisiana girls...who will be the first women to engage in sugar factory work inthe western world.74The women were Inez Greenwood, Sidonia Gingry, AnneHaggerty, Irma Stevens and Alice Dean. Ms. Greenwood, daughter of a manager ofthe Belle Alliance plantation, had been head chemist at the Tally-Ho plant of theMurrels at Bayou Goula in the previous Louisiana campaign. This could have beenan initiative of A.J. Greif since he occupied high positions in both companies.75

The different seasonality in cane and beet sugar regions allowed commutingby sugar tramps. A typical annual schedule of a sugar tramp started with theLouisiana campaign, which lasted from October to January, then he traveled toCuba, the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico for the crop months of January toJune. The most enterprising ones continued to the beet campaign in the Midwesternstates 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, theleading trade union in Puerto Rico, the Free Federation of Workingmen(Federacin Libre de Trabajadores), criticized the outflow of monies implied bythe hiring of U.S. technical personnel, specifically chemists, sugar boilers andmechanics.76As local labor started to replace some of them, initially those intechnical factory jobs, the number of sugar tramps dwindled. In 1916, the New

York-Porto Rico Steamship Line eliminated the New Orleans-Caribbean routebecause it was a losing proposition.77

72Porto Rico,LPSM48(24)(15 Jun 1912): 428.73LPSM 47(19)(7 Nov 1911): 319.74LPSM 59(4)(24 Jan 1920): 57. A.J. Grief was the first general manager of the

Haitian American Sugar Co. See Edson, Sugar, 152-60.75LPSM57(3)(15 Jul 1916): 36.76La riqueza de Puerto Rico, qu puede hacer la Legislatura? Justicia(official

organ of the Free Federation of Workingmen), 4 October 1914, 4. LSU also preparedPuerto Ricans, who went on to hold positions in local colleges and sugar companies. Forinstance, Edmundo D. Coln, who obtained a Masters of Science, was a professor of

chemistry at the College of Agriculture in Mayagez, chemist at the Insular ExperimentStation, director of the Bureau of Agriculture of the Department of Agriculture, andadministrator and superintendent of field operations in Central Plazuela. Anothergraduate with an impressive sugar career was Francisco Lpez Domnguez. See LPSM50(13)(30 Mar 1918): 194-5, and Francisco Lpez Domnguez, Secretary of Industryand Commerce,The Economic Review(June 1939): 34-38.

77Franklin D. Mooney, President of the New York-Porto Rico Steamship Line, to


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Some claim that the Vieques sugar strike of 1920 heralded the end of thesugar tramps who were dedicated to the technical work related to sugarmanufacture and cane supply. Puerto Rican chemists and sugar makers reportedlyformed a union and were ready to strike for an eight-hour day, a 100 percent salaryincrease, better living conditions, accident insurance, and contracts lasting for theentire crop season instead of monthly accords. Louisiana's John P. Connolly,superintendent of Central Playa Grande, told Louisiana chemists: it looks as ifthey will demand that the union reign supreme with regard to the Porto Rican workin which the unionists are engaged.78

By the 1920s, the sugar tramps started to disappear, with only those in topmanagement as SPRSCO/NJ's French T. Maxwell or highly skilled ones likeDaniel Thompson settling in one central and spending their professional life there.

U.S. companies employed most of the sugar tramps that worked permanently orcame seasonally. Puerto Rico's Association of Sugar Technologists was organized in 1922.Although Americans and other foreigners were members (its first president wasCentral Aguirre's Frank Sumner Earle), Puerto Ricans held the majority in theexecutive board.79That decade the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts inMayagez improved its equipment and course offerings. By 1927, Puerto Ricansugar expert Francisco Lpez Domnguez said it is materially helping to solve ourfield and factory problems, by supplying trained chemists and agriculturists tosupervise the work at the factory and in the field.80

To conclude, the Louisiana sugar planters profiting from the growth of thesugar industry during the second half of the nineteenth century spurred theestablishment of an institutional infrastructure that provided the managerial,

technical and other skilled people necessary to efficiently operate the newtechnology of the central factory. The consecutive nature of the crop seasons ofLouisiana, the Caribbean and beet sugar in the continental United States allowedthe sugar tramps to move from one to the other. Sugar tramps took over field andfactory operations in the Hispanic Caribbean as U.S. capital opened new factoriesin Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Capital from the eastern UnitedStates financed the new centrales, while Louisiana's sugar tramps managed andoperated 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, Box417, Document 2339-81, National Archives, Washington, DC.

78"Louisiana Sugar News,"LPSM55(3)(17 Jul 1920): 41.

79Francisco Lpez Domnguez, "The Association of Sugar Technologists," inE.Fernndez Garca, ed., El libro de Puerto Rico/The Book of Porto Rico(San Juan, PR:El Libro Azul Publishing Co., 1923), 943-5.

80F.A. Lpez Domnguez, "The Origin and Development of the Sugar Industry inPorto Rico,"LPSM79(7)(13 Aug 1917): 124.


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local personnel hinged on the establishment of courses related to the sugar industryin the local technical schools, colleges or universities.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Betsaida Vlez Natal and Faye Phillips, Assistant Dean forSpecial Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, for theirassistance.


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Table 1

Louisiana State University Alumni Workingin Central Factories in Cuba, 1920

Name Year of Graduation Position

Central Delicias, Delicias, Oriente

Bergman, C.A.Best, AlfredMallen, FranciscoWalsh, Henry

19141898

1916 and 19191906

Engineer Dept.SuperintendentEngineer Dept.Chemist

Central Moron, Pina, Camaguey

Adam, MauriceDomnguez, E.E.Tarleton, P.C.

191619161905

Asst SuperintendentChief ChemistSuperintendent

Central Stewart, Camaguey

Keller, A.J.Klock, A.E.

Pressburg, C.N.

19111910

1915

SuperintendentChief Chemist

Asst Superintendent

Central Jagueyal, Jagueyal, Camaguey

Dracket, E.W.Jacobs, H.J.Kahn, M.B.

191519171914

Assistant ChemistChief ChemistAsst Superintendent

Central Lugareo, Lugareo, Camaguey

Hancock, J.M. 1906 Superintendent

Central Socorro, Matanzas

Jolly, J.H.Seip, J.J.

19131910 and 1911

ChemistSuperintendent

Central Alava, Matanzas

Torrent, J.L. 1915 Acting Superintendent

Central Mercedes, Matanzas

Chiquelin, S.C. Sugar Experimental Station1894

Superintendent

Central Francisco, Camaguez

Isacks, A.J.Klaus, S.

19121919

SuperintendentChemist

Central Washington, Santa Clara

Cade, Overton 1906 Superintendent

Central Florida, Camaguey

Byrd, C.R.Holmes, R.H.

Perkins, C.Stevens, A.J.

19201913

19151918

----Superintendent

Ass't Superintendent----

Central Alto Cedro, Oriente

Labayen, S.D.Matthews, A.C.

19171911

----Superintendent


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Table 1, continued.

Central Santa Cecilia, Guantanamo, Oriente

Bolin, D.C. 1916 ----

Punta Alegre, Sugar Co., Punta San Juan, Camaguey

Capdeville, C.C.Etheredge, J.C.Ferro, B.J.Hochenedel, B.F.

1911191819141908

----Chief ChemistSuperintendentAssistant Manager

Central Hershey, Havana

Brian, W.L.

Eckard, V.H.Magruder, N.

1907

19131913

----

SuperintendentAsst Superintendent

Central Manati, OrienteFridge, E.Mundinger, W.G.

19051912


Central Teresa, Oriente

Chioco, J.Gianelloni, V.J.Tiglao, Jos

191919131920

ChemistSuperintendentChemist

Central Isabel, Oriente

Butler, S. 1908 ----

Cuba Cane Sugar Co., Barrague

Munson, J.J.Nadler, Carl

19141912 and 1913

Asst Chief Engineer----

Central Baragua, Camaguey

Hale, T.F. 1919 Chief Chemist

Central Elia, CamagueyBlouin, F.R.Moore, E.R.

19091916


Central Tainucu, Santa Clara

Levy, E.S. 1914 Chief Chemist

Central Niquero, Oriente

Gunther, J.F.Jumonville, L.J.Roger, W.L.Smith, Walker

1911 and 191219171911

1910 and 1913

Asst SuperintendentChemist----Superintendent

Central Fe, Santa Clara

Albright, A.J. 1911 ----

Central Progreso, Matanzas

Ferro, Ernesto 1908 ----

Central Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia, Oriente

Snchez, A.C. 1918 Superintendent

Table 1, continued


18/23

Central Soledad, Matanzas

Dickerson, A.L.Reid, A.J.Rolston, W.A.

191719171916

Asst SuperintendentChief ChemistSuperintendent

Central Tinguero, Matanzas

Nelson, E.E. 1906 ----

Guantanamo, Sugar Co., Oriente

McConnell, S. 1880-1882 and Sugar Experiment Station

GeneralSuperintendent

Central Sagua la Grande, Santa Clara

Daz, L.G. 1917 ----

Central Santa Isabel, Oriente

Brian, W.L. 1914 ----

Central Hormiguero

Edgerton, C.E.Tibau, A.C.

19151919

--------

Central Dos Rosas

Spiller, D.D. 1910 Superintendent

Cuba Cane Sugar Cooperage, Edificio Barrague, Havana

Walsh, Dudley 1892 Gen. Superintendent

Source: Thomas D. Boyd, President, Louisiana State University, Notice!!, 6 July1920, TDBJrPP, LSUA.


19/23

Table 2Louisiana Sugar Men Working in the Sugar

Industry in Puerto Rico, 1904-1924

Name Position or Affiliation Year

Central Aguirre

Carl AltsmanbergerJ. DalfaresJ.C. FalconCharles R. Gaines

Alexis O. Smith

F. Vives

LECSMAn.a.LECSMAAssistant SuperintendentAssistant SuperintendentAssistant SuperintendentFactory EngineerChief Engineer

LECSMA

19111914190919111912191319141923

1909

Central Ana Maria

A.P. Gaiennie Factory Superintendent 1914

Central Arkadia

W.C. Miller n.a. 1914

Central Cambalache

H.E. FridgeJ.W. JoyceJoseph Pearson

Central Camuy

L.J.B. Mestier General Superintendent 1912

Central Canovanas

Henry Dugas

Emile FucichH.E. FridgeJohn F. HafemeyerW.D. JundlinJ.E. Mestier

Ulysse RomeAlfred Rousseau

n.a.

n.a.n.a.LECSMAn.a.Chief Chemistn.a.n.a.Sugar Boilern.a.n.a.

1916

1914191519111914191119141916191119131914

Central Carmen

Ben BremermanH.A. Kreh

LECSMALECSMA

19091911

Central Cayey

Louis CopponexA.B. DautriveE.R. MooreMichael Phillips

EngineerChemistFactory Superintendentn.a.

1911191119151914

Table 2, continued


20/23

Central Colombia

A.B. DauteriveD.B. RoganLouis Thoman

E.D. Vignes

LECSMALECSMALECSMALECSMAFactory SuperintendentFactory Superintendentn.a.

1909191119091911191519181914

Central Corsica

E.R. Moore Chief Chemist 1916

Central Cortada

Thomas J. Flanagan

John F. Hafemeyer

n.a.

LECSMA

1910

1910Central El Ejemplo

Thomas J. Flanagan

A. GondolfoLECSMALECSMALECSMALECSMA

1909191119091911

Central Fortuna

Hubert EdsonJ.J. MunsonH.A. Nadler

Wibray J. Thompson

ManagerEngineerChief Engineer

Superintendent

191219121914

1912

Guanica Central

Henry Arnold

C.C. Capdevielle

John DardisI.H. GottliebFrench T. MaxwellW.P. MillerC.S. NadlerB.T. NaseC.N. PressburgCurtis RichardsonDaniel Thompson

C.L. Wagner

n.a.

n.a.

Chemistn.a.n.a.Chief Engineern.a.SuperintendentChief EngineerAssistant EngineerFactory EngineerEngineern.a.n.a.

n.a.

1914

1913

191419151916190419141912191219161909191619221912

n.a.

Central Juncos

H.J. Bjerg

H.J. NormanJohn J. Shea

n.a.

n.a.LECSMA

1914

19141911


21/23

Table 2, continued

Central Lafayette

John DibbsJohn Fuchs

Adam Krupenbacher

LECSMAFactory Superintendentn.a.Factory SuperintendentLECSMA

19091911191219141909

Central Machete

J.R. BiggarJ.H. BommemerLouis Copponex

John J. Helmke

Adam KrupenbacherW.C. Mavor

J.A. RomeAlex O. Smith

R.M. Stewart

Charles Vives

LECSMALECSMAEngineerEngineerLECSMA

LECSMALECSMAChief EngineerChief EngineerSugar BoilerSuperintendentSuperintendentAssistant Superintendent

Superintendent

19111911191219131909

19101911n.a.19241913191619171923

1920

Central Mercedita (Ponce)

E. GirodJ.D. HelmkeD.A. Richardson

Tom Rome

n.a.n.a.n.a.

n.a.

191419241914

1915.

Central Mercedita (Yabucoa)

Geo. B. Grimsal LECSMA 1909

Central Pasto Viejo

Henry J. LeJeune

L.J.B. Mestier

LECSMA

n.a.

1911

1911

Central Playa Grande (Vieques)

John P. Connolly

Henry Dahling

Henry Dickman

LECSMALECSMAFactory SuperintendentFactory SuperintendentFactory SuperintendentFactory Superintendent

Factory SuperintendentLECSMA

LECSMA

191319141915191619171918

19201909

1909

Central PlazuelaA.M. de Andino

S.S. Eiger

Factory Superintendent

Factory Superintendent

1914

1913

Table 2, continued


22/23

Central Providencia

Alex O. Smith

Carl Thoman

Henry O. Thoman

C.B. Thompson

LECSMAChief Engineer

LECSMALECSMALECSMALECSMAAssistant Chief Chemist

19111912

19091911190919111913

Central San Cristobal

C.J. BenoistW.J. DeVries

Jos. Lissard

C.L. WagnerJames Wilkinson

n.a.Superintendent

n.a.

n.a.n.a.

19151913

1914

n.a.1914

Central San Vicente

Andrew Martin n.a. 1915

Central Utuado

Thomas J. Flanagan n.a. 1914

Unknown Central

A.M. de AndinoL.J. Barthelemy

Felix DelauneJ.C. Falcon

Adam KrupenbacherJames McCafferyJohn Molden

John J. SheaFred SmithE.B. StaffordJ.M.E. StowCarl Thoman

Chemistn.a.

n.a.Superintendent

n.a.n.a.n.a.

n.a.LECSMAChemistn.a.Chemist

19131907-16

19181912

191819181914

19121911191819161915

LECSMA = Member of the Louisiana Engineers, Chemists and Sugar MakersAssociation.

n.a. = information not available.

Source: Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, various years.


23/23

Table 3

Louisiana Sugar Men Working in the Sugar Industryin the Dominican Republic, 1912-1921

Name Position or Affiliation Year

Central Ansonia

Lewin, M.Wadenhut, M.

n.a.n.a.

19141913

Central San Isidro

Goller, JohnHanaway, S.J.

Sugar Boilern.a.

19121912

Central Romana

Goller, John, Jr.Klock, ArthurKlock, Ernest L.Miller, Stanley L.

n.a.n.a.AdministratorCivil Engineer

1920191519161917

Ingenio Angelina

Lear, George M.Lejeune, H.E.

Chief Engineern.a.

19131914

Ingenio Consuelo

Boyd, OvertonBurke, ThomasDardis, JohnVollrath

YeagerWilliams, W.J.

n.a.Sugar BoilerChief EngineerCentrifugals

Centrifugalsn.a.

1917191319131913

19131921

Central Porvenir

Fleetwood, JamesGoller, JohnSearight, F.A.Spiller, T.D.Windgrave

Sugar BoilerAssistant SuperintendentChief ChemistSuperintendentChief Engineer

19131920192019201913

Ingenio Santa Fe

Ong, L. n.a.. 1913

Unknown Central

Flanagan, Thomas J. n.a. 1917

Source: Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, various years.

Documents

Humberto Garcia Muniz - "Louisiana ´Sugar Tramps´in the Caribbean Sugar Industry