Submarines in the Great Lakes
One of the most important reasons why WWI happened is a reason that many people in the Anglo-American camp feel uncomfortable talking about: by 1910 British shipping, their famous “carrying trade”, had lost its edge and Imperial German fleets had superseded them. The ramifications of this went beyond the shipping business because the British government relied on income from its empire, which in turn was built on a partnership between the Navy, nationalized East India Co. trading networks, and the insurance market which supported them (Lloyd’s). When British shipping began to fail, many privileged people in London faced losing power and money.
“North German Lloyd, Bremen, ca. 1906” by Themistokles Von Eckenbrecher. omnibusgallery.com A confident, global Imperial German shipping industry is exactly what some quarters of London dreaded.
London’s power and money came via Continental Europe. Britain did not become wealthy through trading with her colonies in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, but by bringing colonial goods to already-developed markets in Continental Europe. When the Germans became better at delivering these goods, all hell broke loose. Desperate British shipping tycoons-- many of whom were not ethnically English, Scottish nor Welsh, but descendants of immigrants to London during the 1780-mid 1800s period-- looked to their US allies for salvation. The complicating factor was that the American people wanted nothing to do with these struggling British millionaires and their war.
Back doors were used to get around public distaste for foreign political interference. From at least 1900 interested legislators tried to craft subsidies for the US shipbuilding industry so that it would act in British interests. These attempts were for the most part not successful. The majority of Americans, and the majority of lawmakers, did not wish to chose sides against Germany in this foreign matter. The same went for a great many British subjects, the “tariff reformers” lead by Joseph Chamberlain from 1903, who did not feel that it served British national interests to fight Germany on behalf of these London merchants. These “tariff reformers” were the hated political enemies of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, whom I've written about before with reference to Lady Duff Gordon.
(When Asquith lost power in late 1916 the international political situation became more dangerous because his successor Lloyd George was willing meet Zionist goals to establish a Jewish homeland in Ottoman lands. This changed the US political landscape, especially in that Milwaukee-Chicago axis which is so important to the story of Leon Goetz. Going to war, irrespective of what the majority of American people wanted, was now on the table. If readers are interested in why this change happened, please see my post Imperial German Active Measures and the Founding of the NSA. )
These fin de siècle London merchants' desire to adopt the USA as their new “sponsor” via shipping industry subsidies is entirely in keeping with their historical role in the U.K.: the British East India Company, and other charted companies, were always exercises in political favor and rarely self-sustaining through 'free market' forces. One could say that in 1900 a London-based government-sponsored syndicate began its migration to a new host using shipping subsidies as the “vector”. Here is a 1922 description by Margeurite M. McKee of what that host-jumping looked like:
At President [Theodore] Roosevelt's suggestion Congress appointed a committee of five senators and five representatives to make inquiries into the causes for the decline of our [USA] merchant marine and to decide upon some means of regenerating it. The committee was appointed in April, 1904, and began investigations at once.
Much attention was given to the alleged differences between the initial and subsequent costs of United States ships and of those of other nations. Ship owners, ship builders, merchants and seamen were summoned to testify.
The general consensus of those summoned was that it was cheaper to build ships in Great Britain than the USA, so therefore US taxpayers should subsidize ship construction in the USA so that the industry is more like that in the U.K.. How this subsidy should happen was the only question:
In 1909 all materials of foreign production, necessary for the construction of vessels for foreign account or for employment in our foreign trade, including the trade between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States, were admitted duty free as were all materials necessary for the construction of machinery or articles of equipment or for the repair of such ships.
The Panama Canal Act sounded the final victory of this group and the partial victory of the numerous persons desiring the complete renovation of our registry law. This act, passed in 1912, permitted vessels owned by United States citizens or by corporations, organized and chartered under the laws of the United States or of any state thereof wherever built, not over five years old at the time of application for registry, if certified by the Steamship Inspection Service as safe to carry dry and perishable cargo to be registered in the United States. Such vessels might only engage in trade with foreign countries, Guam, Tutila and the Philippines and could in no instance enter the coasting trade. All vessels built in the United states and registered under our flag, whether constructed of imported or domestic materials were to be freely admitted to the coasting trade.
When war broke out in 1914, Congress was considering two measures for the further encouragement of our marine. The first was the repeal of the five year restriction in the Panama Canal Act. This had been suggested in march 1914 by the Secretary of Commerce and was still pending in August. The other was for the purpose of providing some means of breaking the influence of the very powerful “Shipping Trust” which was getting control of the South American trade, under the lead of Herr Ballin of the North German Lloyd and of the firm of Lampert & Holt of Liverpool. No successful measure had been formulated when the war ended the need of it for the time.
Given the nature and context of how the shipping subsidy was discussed, it's clear that cooperating with British carrying trade interests was paramount to relevant policy-makers. Let's put some names and faces to these policies.
Senator Marcus ‘Mark’ Alonzo Hanna and Teddy Roosevelt talk business after McKinley died of a gunshot inflicted by an assassin inspired by Russian immigrant anarchist Emma Goldman. Teddy’s tenement reforms directly affected the Galician prostitution business which flourished— financially and politically— while Roosevelt was governor of NY. McKinley’s death made way for Teddy Roosevelt’s career, even though “kingmaker” Hanna considered Teddy a dangerous, war-hungry “madman”. When Hanna heard of Teddy’s nomination as VP, he said:
“Matter! Matter! Why, everybody's gone crazy! What is the matter with all of you? Here's this convention going headlong for Roosevelt for Vice President. Don't any of you realize that there's only one life between that madman and the Presidency? Platt and Quay are no better than idiots! What harm can he do as Governor of New York compared to the damage he will do as President if McKinley should die?”
Of course, none of that stopped Hanna from doing business with the new VP! Image courtesy of Senate.gov.
Mark Hanna in 1896 by W.J. Root. Wikipedia
Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States from the time of President McKinley's assassination in September 1901 to March 1909. McKinley's most powerful supporter, the “king-maker” Marcus Alonzo Hanna, was an Ohio politician and the controlling investor in the American Shipbuilding Company, as well as a champion of Roosevelt's Panama Canal policies. Roosevelt needed Hanna to further his political career; the British needed Hanna’s resources for their Navy.
In 1909 Hanna's American Shipbuilding Company planned to work with the British to build submarines in the Great Lakes on the Canadian cost, specifically the town of Port Arthur. This would allow American money to build British warships, even when it was politically unpopular in the USA. The wisdom of this course was proven just a few years later, when such contracts would have violated US neutrality, a political third-rail between 1912 and late 1916.
In order to supply these British submarines, The American Shipbuilding Company (ASC) built a subsidiary in Port Arthur named “Western Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company”. Western Dry Dock was issued letters of patent in February 1909 (a Canadian version of ‘being incorporated’) and by 1910 had begun constructing vessels. The ASC supplied the management and skilled workmen for this endeavor.
Readers will remember that 19 year-old Leon Goetz applied for his submarine escape pod patent on December 1st, 1909 and was awarded that patent on June 7th 1910— just when Hanna’s submarine company kicked into gear. So while I still cannot say who Leon Goetz’s 1909 submarine contact in Monroe was, I can place his mysterious patent in context as part of quasi-local submarine development on the Great Lakes.
The “front-man” for the ASC was Canadian James Whalen, who later relocated permanently to Duluth, MN. The Canadian backer for the firm was James Conmee, an amateur inventor and professional fixer like Col. George Fabyan, who had served in a New York Calvary regiment for a short time at the end of the US Civil War. Conmee went on to become a railway magnate involved in the Canadian Pacific Railway in northern Ontario; the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway; and others. Conmee was a leading Liberal politician and able to guarantee Canadian government money for the development of the harbor at Port Arthur. This 2016 article from Elle Andra-Warner elucidates the politicking:
Over 100 years ago, the Ottawa Citizen newspaper had the headline, “Submarines May Be Built in Ontario” and went on to specifically identify the Western Dry Dock Company plant (later became Port Arthur Shipbuilding Company) in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay). It said the Canadian plant “was the most up-to-date shipbuilding factory in Canada,” emphasizing it was “particularly equipped” to build big submarines and employ hundreds of men. The First World War was occurring and Great Britain needed more subs.
Apparently, it was almost a done-deal that the British subs would be built in the U.S. by Bethlehem Steel Company. However, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson declared it would violate American neutrality if subs were built by an American company for the British, or any nation at war. So, the Canadians proposed the British subs be built in the Western Dry Dock Company, which had already built ships like the Noronic and large freighters. The company was actually one of the plants of the American Shipbuilding Co., although mostly owned by Canadian investors.
The plan was for the subs to be built in sections and then shipped to other places to be put together. There’s no record that the subs were ever built in Port Arthur, although rumours crop up of war subs being secretly built somewhere on Lake Superior.
I will point out that “mostly owned” is not the same as “owning a controlling interest” so Andra-Warner’s information does not necessarily conflict with Hanna’s controlling stake in parent company ASC. At the end of the day, this Great Lakes sub factory had US presidential backing; financing from of Ohio’s leading Republican Party figure; as well as support from a Canadian railway magnate/Liberal politician and investment money from the Canadian government. Western Dry Dock stayed in business as “Port Arthur Shipbuilding Company” until 1993.
Great Lakes: A map showing points of interest to this post as well as Goetz, Shallenberger areas of operation. Funding for the Port Arthur endeavor came mostly from Cleveland, OH via Hanna interests.
Now this post gets really weird, because ASC was not McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt and Hanna's first attempt at supplying the British with warships. The first attempt started in 1901 when Mormon leader Brigham Young's son John Willard Young set up the United States Shipbuilding Company (USSC). The USSC represents an informal relationship between Mormon leadership and the Federal government.
John Willard Young courtesy Wikipedia. “President Brigham Young ordained his 11-year-old son John Willard Young as an apostle shortly after John received his temple endowment, though John never joined the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.” ldsliving.com
John Willard Young was Brigham's son by his second of fifty-four wives. John Willard grew up ‘on the road’, that is, during Brigham's odyssey to establish his own theocracy in the wild Utah Territory. Brigham Young did not expect Washington D.C. to tolerate his fiefdom and anticipated that Federal troops would come to assert central authority. Consequently, Brigham's soldiers would murder travelers in the Utah Territory-- anyone they suspected of having sympathy for the Federal Government, women and infants included. These were not isolated acts of violence but mass murders, see Mountain Meadows Massacre for an example. By 1901 however, Mormon leadership came to understand the benefits of working with the Federal government and John Willard Young's USSC was among the first fruits of that tree.
The USSC did not have popular support, despite strident lobbying by the president and Vice President Roosevelt, who claimed his experiences during the Spanish American War (Rough Riders!) proved shipbuilding subsidies were needed. Young's USSC would have benefited from these subsidies, as it was a vertically integrated monopoly, “combination” as it was then called, which blended Bethlehem Steel assets; the two Yankee shipyards able to build submarines (Crescent in Elizabeth, NJ and Union Iron Works of San Francisco); with mythical French investment to create a warship factory capable of supplying the British Navy-- British arms manufacturer Vickers Sons & Maxim was even a partner for a short time.
There’s a Chapman born every minute. Image of unsaleable United States Shipbuilding Company common stock, issued December 28th 1902. invaluable.com
The sticking point was that few investors had faith in this outfit and selling shares to the wider public proved difficult. The USSC quickly degenerated into a financial scheme where the quantity of borrowed money outstripped the value of any real assets. The bubble burst in a tide of litigation and scandals, including that of John Willard Young's son William Hooper Young, who was arrested for murdering a former prostitute in his dad's apartment while his dad was scrounging USSC money in France. Anna Nilsen Pulitzer, the victim, was killed with a knife in what appeared to be a bizarre Mormon “blood atonement” ritual that involved chloryl hydrate, a sedative and “hypnotic” pharmaceutical drug.
A motive for Anna Pulitzer's murder was never established, but it turned out that W. Hooper Young had likely murdered in the past-- a French diamond merchant/collector named Prosper Chazzell-- but that this crime had been covered up. NYC law enforcement had a dim view of Mormon leadership at the time:
“Jewels of Murdered Anna Pulitzer Found” excerpt. From The New York Times, September 21st, 1902. Rumors of a “Mormon Mafia” in the CIA, Department of Homeland Security and FBI— all organizations with political troubles— still circulate.
When the air had cleared, bankruptcy proceedings for USSC began. The receiver (person who decides which creditors get compensated with what) was New Jersey Senator James Smith Jr., who is widely credited with giving Woodrow Wilson his boost into politics by recommending him as New Jersey Governor in 1910. Wilson gained the presidency because Teddy Roosevelt “split the vote” for Republicans by running as an independent in 1912-- his campaign was perceived by many as an act of treachery against Republicans in favor of Democrats that also undermined the Progressive movement. My point is the USSC had a creepy, deep-state-like presence that knew no party boundaries. What we can say for certain is that Woodrow Wilson and the USSC shared common sponsors.
Puck magazine cover from September 12, 1900. (When President McKinley was still alive). The figure following Teddy with a lasso is Mark Hanna.
I’m going to wrap this post up today by pointing out that Wilson was elected on a pacifist ticket— the American people made it clear that they didn’t want war— but much like McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson ignored the electorate and listened to special interests instead. Behind-the-scenes skulduggery undermined the voice of the American people. Fortunately for the ruling elite, prosperity distracted voters from the disconnect between their vote and subsequent policy. What would save Washington D.C. should democracy fail now?
