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CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

READY FOR A THREE-THOUSAND-MILE JOURNEY

Romance of Big Business. Vol. I .

CONQUEST OF THE
TROPICS •

The story of the Creative Enterprises conducted by the
United Fruit Company

By FREDERICK UPHAM ADAMS

Author of ''John Burt,'' ''The Kidnapped Millionaires,''
''The Bottom of the Well;' etc.

ILLUSTRATED

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1914

0^"^

^^/^. cu.

of translatiortr into foreign

languages, including the

Scandinavian

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

This book is the first of a series planned to describe certain
big businesses whose histories and operations concern and
should interest the public. The publishers do not wish any
one to be deceived into believing that this series is any
different from what it pretends to be as now announced.
It is planned as an open and above-board presentation
frankly putting forth the interesting points of large business
enterprises. In the chapters which follow, a large portion
of the information as to facts has been obtained through
courtesy of officials of the United Fruit Company. The
deductions of the author stand on his reputation as a student
and an analyst of issues of public concern. This method
will be pursued in the preparation of the books of this series,
which later will be announced. It is the belief of the pub-
lishers that a series of books thus planned will possess an
interest and have a real value not only to those who are
investors in these great enterprises, but also to a public
which is demanding that far-reaching corporations shall give
an account of their stewardship.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

Our Neglected Tropical Neighbors .

II.

The Modest but Mighty Banana

20 •

III.

Attacking the Wilderness ....

■ 3S-

IV.

Laying the Foundations ....

54-

Birth of The United Fruit Company

69-

VI.

Growth of a Great Enterprise .

86-

VII.

Twelve Years of Creative Work

. 98-

VIII.

In the Wake of Columbus

123

IX.

Where the Banana Is King ....

. 141-

In Beautiful Costa Rica ....

. 163

XI.

The Awakening of Guatemala .

• 194

XII.

Along the Coast of South America .

220

XIII.

Exploring the Sugar Bowl of Cuba .

243

XIV.

Health Conquest of the Tropics

264-

XV.

An International Tropical Farm

. 296-

XVI.

Lessons Taught by the Banana

334*

Index

361

ILLUSTRATIONS

Ready for a three-thousand mile journey .... Frontispiece

PAGE

The coast near Port Antonio 4

A morning stroll in the tropics 5

Clearing a jungle for a banana plantation 8

A typical scene in Central America 11

Brewing a tropical storm 15

Washday in Jamaica 18

United Fruit Company hospital at Bocas del Tore ... 22

Under the shade of banana fronds 24

Record bunch of bananas, with 22 " hands" and 300 pieces of fruit 25

Scene in Guatemala 27

The food "trust" of Jamaica 31

Tunnel formed by arching banana fronds 33

Cocoanut tree 37

How the jungle has been conquered 40

Glimpse of the jungle 44

Heart of a banana plantation 46

Why the tropical death-rate once was high 49

On the edge of a tropical jungle 52

A. village plaza in Guatemala 57

Small growers bringing in bananas 60

On the beach at Bocas del Toro 63

A country road in Jamaica 65

Wives of Jamaica banana farmers 67

Beyond the reach of frost and snow 71

Family life in Jamaica 75

Street scene in San Jose, Costa Rica 77

Glimpse of the interior of the SS. Sixaola 79

A temple in Costa Rica 81

A tropical fern bank 83

Constructing the hull of a modern banana ship .... 84

The modern fruit ship 87

Scene along the sea wall in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica . 89

Repairing a bridge on a banana railroad 90

Washday in Costa Rica 93

Stateroom of modern fruit boat 95

A nook on the United Fruit Company's SS. Calamares . 96

Street scene in Guatemala 100

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Banana-unloading machines in New Orleans 103

Old method of loading bananas 105

One of the luxuries of the Great White Fleet ..... io§'

Building a bridge for a banana railroad no

In Jamaica 112

The United Fruit Company's SS. Pastores in her New York dock 1 14

A sea of bananas 117

The beach near Port Antonio 119

Rolling River Falls, Jamaica 121

One of the ships of the Great White Fleet 125

Tropical splendors of Castleton Gardens 127

Hope Gardens, Kingston, Jamaica 129

Port Antonio, Jamaica (map) 130

Cane River Falls, Jamaica . . . 132

The famous ''Tom Cringle Tree" 135

East part of Jamaica (map) 137:'

Kingston Harbor 13^*

Kingston, Jamaica (map) . . . . . . , . . 142^

Dining-room of the SS. Metapan i43»

A superb row of Royal Palms . . 14$^,

Almirante Bay and Chiriqui Lagoon, Panama 147J

Early morning on Almirante Bay 148'

Bocas del Toro (map) 150

Site of Almirante 151

Typical cottage in Panama banana plantation 154

Residence of a banana plantation official 157

United Fruit Company's hospital at Bocas del Toro . . 160

A church in San Jose 164

Scene in Puerto Limon's beautiful park 166

On the way to San Jose, Costa Rica 167

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica (map) 169

On the Reventazon River, Costa Rica 170

Headquarters of United Fruit Company at Puerto Limon . 172

Bananas on inspection 175

Vargas Park, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica 178

One way of transporting bananas 181

Feeding the banana-loading machines 184

The beach north of Puerto Limon 186.

Mysore cattle in Costa Rica 189

Hospital buildings and wireless masts in Puerto Limon . . 191

Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, and vicinity (map) .... 195

Typical scene at Guatemala railway station 197

Antigua, Guatemala 199

Guatemalan Indian musicians 201

Guatemalan Indian dandy 2oi

Indian marimba, drum, and flute 204

ILLUSTRATIONS ri

PAGE

Glimpse of the ruins of Quirigua 206

Uncovering the ruins of Quirigua 208

One of the superb monoHths of Quirigua 210

An ornate carving in Quirigua 212

One of the mysteries of Quirigua's ruins 214

Getting ready for a fiesta 215

Street scene in Guatemala City 217

Indian marimba, drum, and flute (Guatemala) .... 218

Street scene in historic Cartagena 221

Cartagena and its harbors (map) 223

Cemetery and city wall of Cartagena 224

The cathedral of Cartagena 226

In ancient Cartagena .228

Entering the harbor of Santa Marta 229

The volcanic cliffs of Santa Marta 231

Santa Marta, Colombia (map) 233

Harbor of Santa Marta, Colombia 234

United Fruit Headquarters at Rio Frio, Colombia 236

Headquarters of United Fruit Company in Santa Marta 239

Houses built of fibre of banana plants 241

In the great Cuban sugar mill, the "Central Preston" 245

Loading sugar cane in Cuba 246

United Fruit Company park in Banes, Cuba 247

Scene in "Central Preston" sugar mill 249

Nipe and Banes bays (map) 251

Scene in the "Central Preston" 253

General view of a section of Preston, Cuba 255

A part of the great sugar mill, the "Central Boston" 257
Scene in Preston, Cuba, with the "Central Preston" in back-
ground 259

Tennis courts in Banes, Cuba 260

Type of residence in Preston, Cuba 262

Conditions before United Fruit Company began its sanitary

work in Guatemala 266

One of the smaller hospitals of the United Fruit Company . 269

United Fruit Company hospital buildings at Puerto Limon . 271

Quirigua hospital in process of erection 275

United Fruit Company hospital in Quirigua 277

Hospital at Santa Marta 280

Hospital grounds in Puerta Limon 283

A branch headquarters in Panama 286

Bocas del Toro before sanitation 288

Bocas del Toro after being reclaimed by sanitation . . . 289

How Bocas del Toro was reclaimed .- . . 291

Types of sanitary cottages erected by the United Fruit Company 293

Expensive work in constructing a banana railroad 298

xii ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A battery of banana-loading machines 301

The picturesque plateau of Costa Rica 303

Bringing bananas to the awaiting fruit ship 305

The broad decks of a ship of the Great White Fleet. . . 308

Costa Rica (map) 312

Where the bananas come from (map) 313

A banana car 315

The banana railroads are equipped with motor cars . . 319

An experiment in bananas 323

Hospital grounds in Puerto Limon 325

On the way to market 329

A banana carrier 331

Type of Central American architecture 336

Palm garden of the SS. Pastores 338

Pleasing bit of steamship architecture 344

Busy scene on arrival of banana cargo at New Orleans . 347

Indian and marimbo 350

Myrtle Bank Hotel, Kingston, Jamaica . 354

The United Fruit Company SS. Tenadores 358

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

"/ am not jealous of the size of any business. I am
not jealous of any progress or growth no matter how huge
the result, provided the result was indeed obtained by the
processes of wholesome development, which are the proc-
esses of efficiency, of economy, of intelligence, and of
invention.'^

— President Woodrow Wilson.

CHAPTER I
Our Neglected Tropical Neighbors

T is a peculiar and mysterious trait
of a considerable portion of the
people of the United States
that they know little and seem
to care little about their na-
tional neighbors to the tropical
south. This is a regrettable,
expensive, and inexcusable
fault. Our insular indifference
concerning the sentiments,
problems, and aspirations of the
southern peoples on this con-
tinent is construed by them to
imply contempt. This has
engendered in most of Latin
America a feeling of resentment, suspicion, and unfriend-
liness toward the United States. It certainly is not an asset
to acquire and retain the ill-will of those who should be allied
with us in ties of friendly intercourse.

The plain truth of the matter is that we have over-culti-
vated and over-expressed an attitude of self-sufficiency.
We are so sure that the United States is the greatest country
in the world that we are inclined at times to act as if it were
the only country in the world. Some of us are so narrow
that we find it impossible to understand why a citizen of the
United States cares to live or dares_jto^n\^est a dollar
outside of^the confines of his native country. The broad
spirit of initiative and^nterprise recognizes no national
lines.

The great nations of history are those which encouraged
their citizens to go out into the world and develop it com-
mercially and industrially. Carthage was great because of
citizens who dared to be the pioneers in the developments

•:*;

eOIS^QUEST OF THE TROPICS

which created Its stupendous commerce. Spain became
great because of merchants who followed fast on the heels
of her military adventurers, and because of colonies which
sprung up in all parts of the world. Great Britain is great
because her sons have been trained for centuries to know and
act on the truth that there are no geographical boundaries
and no national limitations to the enterprise of a British
subject.

The coast near Port Antonio

All the world pours its wealth into London. Why.^*
Because Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen have had
the bold spirit of enterprise which has impelled them to
undertake the development of natural resources in every part
of the habitable globe. And the protection of the British
flag and the unanimous defensive spirit of the British
people follow its adventurous sons wherever they may go.
There is not a nation on earth, no matter how crude
and insecure its form of government, whose executives do
not know and respect the fact that the British Govern-

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS

ment stands ever ready to protect the lives and the
properties of its subjects, no matter where they may be.

This is a splendid racial ^
trait, a just and righteous
national spirit. No nation is
sufficient unto itself. We of
the United States of America
have great resources, we pos-
sess wonderfully varied prod-
ucts of the soil, but despite
the boastings of the unin-
formed we cannot create from
them all of the necessities
which belong to modern
civilization and which are
at the easy command of com-
merce.

We are of the temperate
zone. Not even the most
southerly points of Florida,
Texas, or California contain
districts which partake of the
true characteristics of the trop-
ics. It is doubtful if there be
a square foot of tillable soil in
the United States which has
not been stricken with frost
within the present generation.
It therefore follows that we
are dependent on the real trop-
ics for the numerous indispen-
sable foods and fruits foreign
to our own soil. Even Cuba is
not a tropical island. It is
true that there is no record of
frost on its plains and fertile

valleys, but Cuba is only subtropical, and does not possess
those climatic qualifications which render practical the ex-
tensive and permanent cultivation of coiTee, cocoanuts.

A morning stroll in the tropics

6 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

chocolate, bananas, and other delicacies which long ago
ceased to be luxuries and became necessities.

A part of the low coast lands of southern Mexico and sec-
tions of its interior are truly tropical, but Central America
and the north coast of South America constitute the real
tropical domain from which the United States naturally
should draw its supplies of indigenous products.

The New World has a very small and sparsely inhabited
tropical area, and one wofuUy disproportionate to that of
Europe, Asia, and Africa. If we include in the tropics of
the New World the countries of Central America, and the
West Indies, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru,
Brazil, Bolivia, and the British, Dutch, and French Guianas, ,
we have an area of approximately 6,361,000 square miles, |
and with a total population of about 57,000,000 people,
most of whom are Indians and negroes.

The tropics of the Old World cover an area of not less
than 21,000,000 square miles, and they support more than |
halfof the population of the earth, or not less than 800,000,000 >
people. To put it another way, only 7 per cent, of the tropi-
cal inhabitants of the earth live in the Western Hemisphere.

The disproportion in area is vastly greater in reality than
is indicated even by these startling figures. I have included
■ in the tropical area of the New World the vast undeveloped
and unexplored wildernesses of South America, a large
portion of which can nqyer be reclaimed by cultivation.
The problems raised by the Andes and by the swamps and
jungles of the Amazon and its tributaries will not be solved
in generations, if ever.

In a practical sense, and so far as the United States and its
people are concerned, the tropical districts within commercial
reach include southern Mexico, all of Central America, the
coast lands of Colombia, Venezuela, and the British, Dutch,
and French Guianas, together with Cuba, San Domingo,
Porto Rico, Jamaica, and the remainder of the West Indies.
This constitutes an area which roughly may be estimated
at 600,000 square miles. Barren mountains and unwatered
plains constitute a considerable portion of this area, and it
is extremely doubtful if more than 300,000 square miles

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS

will ever be available for cultivation in what may be termed
the American Tropics.

In other words, the tillable acreage of our tropics is about
equal to that of Texas and Louisiana combined, or that in-
cluded in the states of Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and
Kentucky. With the exception of Porto Rico and the few
square miles of the Panama Canal Zone, not a foot of this
300,000 square miles of tropical possibility belongs to the
territorial domain of the United States. True, we own
Hawaii and exercise sovereignty over the Philippines, but
geographical barriers shut these islands from easy contact
and a large commerce.

Contrast this situation with that of Great Britain. Pos-
sessed of only nominal natural
advantages, the wonderful in-
habitants of that nation have
extended their rule over 4,500,-
000 square miles of tropics in a
broad belt which circles the
world. The flagof Great Britain
floats over 325,000,000 tropical
natives, and the seas are dotted
with British ships which furnish
tropical products to the world,
and bring untold annual profits
to her merchants.

Germany has reached out into
the tropics in recent years and has accomplished commercial
miracles. Her merchants, farmers, miners, and engineers are
in Africa, Asia, South America, Central America, Mexico, and
are scattered over the tropical islands of the Pacific. Millions
of the surplus population of the German Empire are par-
ticipating in the development of neglected tropical oppor-
tunities, and are adding immeasurably to the total
productivity of this small earth of ours.

France is engaged in this work on a smaller scale. Within
the memory of men who deny that they are old, the miracle
has been accomplished of linking commercially the temperate
and the tropical zones. Only a few decades ago the mer-

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS 9

chants who sent ships to the tropics with cargoes or for
cargoes were classed as adventurers. It was not deemed
legitimate trade, but a gamble. The man who made his
residence in the tropics was regarded by his relatives and
friends practically as one dead.

The commercial conquest by Europe of the tropics of Africa,
Asia, and the islands of the Pacific will be recounted by future
historians as the monumental achievement of this age. That
development is still in progress. It consists in applying the
methods of a high civilization and scientific industry to great
tropical sections which have remained undeveloped.

There is one dominant reason why the American tropics j
have not participated in the stupendous progress of all other j
tropical sections, and that reason is this: Instability of/
their governmental conditions has estopped the capital and I
the enterprise of the world from undertaking the develop- '
ment of their wonderful tropical resources. For this state
of affairs the United States is largely to blame. Our national
sins are not those of commission, but of omission. We have
paid no attention to the welfare of our tropical neighbors for
the purely selfish and ignorant reason that we did not con- I
sider the matter worth our while.

It has not yet dawned on our political leaders that our
tropics are a great but unused asset. We are so accustomed
to the careless or wilful destruction of forests and other of our
own natural resources that it is a matter of slight interest to
us whether our tropical neighbors make a specialty of anarchy
or of productive peace. We will one day learn, as financiers
already have learned at their bitter cost, that each civilized
nation shares in the prosperity or distress of all other nations.
We of the United States pay our share of the losses in the
periods of lawlessness which blight Mexico and, other tropi-
cal republics. The revolution, equally with the hurricane
which destroys crops in the adjacent tropics, adds to the cost
of living of the dwellers in every city, village, and section in
the United States. On the other hand, any enterprise or
any statesmanship which increases the productivity of these
tropical sections adds directly to the assets and welfare of all
of the people of the United States.

^-^

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

The United States is and always will be the chief market
for the agricultural products of these tropical nations. The
United States should supply to them in return the innumer-
able much needed products of its factories and mills, but
even the share of this trade which we now hold will be lost
unless we meet this situation with intelligence and sympathy.
Our school-books and our histories dwell with pride on the
records of the pioneers who braved the wildernesses and

paved the way of our empire from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Our
national prosperity is founded largely
on the achievements of those who
risked their lives in the conquest of
nature. These men did not stop at
a river because it marked the then
existing territorial limits of the
United States. France and Spain
were the owners of the domains which
now constitute the great Middle West
when the men from New England
and from the Atlantic Coast colonies
cut their paths through the solitude
and laid the foundations of that
galaxy of States which now contain
more than half of the populatioHfof
the United States.

These hardy men had no thought
of adding to the territory of the
United States. Opportunity called
them, and they heeded its invitation.
We praise them in story and song, and teach our children
that much of the glory of the Republic is due to their con-
quest of the then Unknown West.

The instinct which lured them to plant the flag of progress
in new fields still exists. The untilled plains of the Canadian
Northwest have drawn from the United States hundreds of
thousands of American farmers who unhesitatingly act on
the principle that opportunity and enterprise halt not at
national boundary lines. These men love their native coun-

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS

try, but they obey the instinct which makes of some men,
and the best of men, pioneers.

' Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies beckoned
to others, and they responded. They dared to cast their lot
amongst peoples who spake other tongues and followed cus-
toms strange to the Anglo-Saxon. It was inevitable that
the American tropics should demand its quota of pioneers.
It would naturally be supposed that the Government of

A typical scene in Central America

the United States, the press, and the popular sentiment of the
people would encourage all effort and applaud any move-
ment looking to the development of the tropics. We have
no tropics of our own.

Great Britain, Germany, France, and other progressive
nations were eager to undertake this work, but they realized
that the proximity of the United States gave its citizens an
overwhelming commercial and financial advantage. The
world accepted it as a certainty that the United States would
be swift and alert to complete the commercial and industrial

12 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

conquest of the American tropics. There was no thought
and no necessity for the annexation of territory, but the
world assumed that the Monroe Doctrine and the Panamia
Canal both implied that the United States was fully awake
to the urgency of exerting every fair effort and using every
legitimate influence to encourage its citizens to embrace
this obvious and patriotic duty.

Every consideration, selfish and unselfish, political, com-
mercial, social, economical, practical, and sentimental, de-
manded that the Government of the United States and its
people should give loyal support and every possible en-
couragement to those of its citizens who were willing and
abk to undertake this task.
A The reverse has happened. Successive administrations
/ have treated the questions arising from our relations with our
/ tropical neighbors in a manner calculated to convince them
/ that we took slight interest either in their welfare or in that
/ of the Americans who had cast their lot with them. No
official in recent years has greatly distinguished himself in
1 tropical affairs, and we are in sad need of men who will take
\ sufficient interest in these questions to qualify as experts. "
\ What has been the consequence of all this.^ There has
\ been inculcated in the public mind an impression that the
Atfierican who ventures into the tropics is either a fool or a
knave. It has openly been afllirmed by public men of in-
( fluence that American citizens have no rights which tropical
nations are bound to respect or our Government obligated to
protect. If an individual attains in the tropics a measure of
success after great risks and hardships, and despite absolute
lack of sympathy or support from his home Government or
his home people, he is likely to be rewarded with the insinua-
tion that he has "exploited" the tropics and its natives.

It is high time that the sober, thoughtful, and just ma-
jority of the America people called a halt on this discrimina-
tion against the pioneers in the development of the tropics
bisected by the Panama Canal. The day has arrived when
we have the choice of accepting and profiting by a legitimate
opportunity, or of neglecting it and reaping thereby a har-
vest of misfortune and a loss of national prestige.

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS

Every American citizen should In this connection know,
consider, and profit by the history of the inception and de-
velopment of the United Fruit Company. It is a story of
the peaceful and honorable conquest of a portion of the
American tropics, and one of which every citizen should be
proud. It is a record of a monumental constructive work
performed amid surroundings so
difficult that the plain narrative
seems more like a romance than
the account of deeds actually
performed.

It is an accepted truism that
within the borders of the United
States and in the last quarter
century, private initiative has
mounted to heights of achieve-
ment not reached in any nation
at any time in history.

When the shock and stress of
the Civil War were over, there
was witnessed the birth of an era
of invention. War was declared
on useless labor, and the peaceful
genius of the nation set itself to
the problem of perfecting the
Machine.

The future historian will rec-
ognize the fact that the thirty
years from 1 870 to 1 900 constitute
a distinct and wonderful period
worthy to be designated as "The
Age of Invention." In these
short thirty years invention gave
to. the world most of the basic mechanical and electrical dis-
coveries whose services we now enjoy. The telephone, the
typewriter, the linotype, the phonograph, the wireless tele-
graph, the automobile, the electric light, the trolley car,
the third-rail, the innumerable forms of electrical power and
communication, the air-brake, the turbine, elevated and

14 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

underground railroads, the steel-constructed building —
practically all of the mechanical marvels wliich now are
familiar were unknown and undreamed of by the dwellers
in the United States prior to 1870.

This Age of Invention came to a close, as a distinct era,
in or about 19CX). Since that time there have been no great
inventions comparable with those announced to the world
jn the marvelous period of 1 870-1 900. The reason is plain.
pThe Machine was perfected, or practically so. It still was
possible to add a detail or eliminate a slight defect, but the
model of 1900 still retains its approximate proportions,*and
posterity will credit its perfections to the inventive genius
of the thirty years ending in 1900.

The Age of Invention was also an "Age of Panics," and
thg b^sic cause was the rapid development and approximate
perfection of what may be expressed as "The Machine.'*
By, the "Machine'* I mean the aggregate result of the work
o^ .ifee thousands of inventors and experimenters who had
striven to attain mechanical efficiency, and who had wonder-
fully succeeded. It was the Machine which precipitated a
series of devastating industrial and financial panics, but the
fault lay with the system, or, rather, the lack of an adequate
system for handling and distributing the enormously in-
creased products of the Machine. It was like placing the
turbine engines of a Maurstaiia in the warped and weakened
hull of an antique Coney Island excursion boat. The
obsolete and planless institution of " cut-throat competition'*
shuddered and intermittently broke down under the impulse
of the new machinery of production bequeathed to the world
by its brilliant corps of inventors.

The Machine thundered the doom of the type of competi-
tion which prevailed in the years devoted to its perfection.
The Machine was the relentless incarnation of efficiency.
It had no useless parts. It made no useless motions. It
made no mistakes. The quantity and quality of its output
was a known factor. It had been created to perform a mis-
sion. The outworn institution of petty, planless, and waste-
ful Competition stood in the way, and the Machine crushed
in its massive cogs the type which prevailed prior to 1900.

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS 15

Another type of competition has succeeded it, and still other
types may follow, but the Competition which was crushed
in the maw of the Machine is as extinct as the fabled dodo,
and will continue so despite all the laws and all the court
decisions which may be invoked for its resurrection.

The Machine was a big thing. It was immeasurably the
greatest achievement of Man. Only those who can remem-
ber back of 1870 can realize its colossal proportions. With-
in the last fifty years this world of ours has made a material
advancement greater far than was accomplished in the pre-
ceding twenty centuries, and the sole cause for this phenom-
enon was the perfection of the Machine in the thirty and

Brewing a tropical storm

odd years prior to 1900. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin,
and all of the revered figures in our early national history
lived and died years before our present form of material
civilization was born.

At the risk of an abrupt descent let us consider the hum-
ble banana in this connection. The banana, as an article!
of import and consumption in the United States, is purely a/
product of what I designate as the Machine. Jefferson and
Franklin nev^er had a chance to eat a banana. There didi
not then exist the machinery of production and distribution)
by which it was possible to raise bananas in commercial
quantities in the tropics and transport them to Philadelphia,^
New York, and Boston and deliver them to our ancestors in

16 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

an edible condition. Bananas might as well have been
solely a product of Mars so far as the people of the temper-
ate zones were concerned.

The masses of the people who lived in the United States
in 1870 were as unfamiliar with bananas as they were with
electric lights and automobiles. It was known to them
that bananas grew in the tropics, but the Machine had not
yet been constructed which commercially merged New
York, Chicago, and San Francisco with the fertile valleys of
Costa Rica and Colombia. If a famine had occurred in the
United States in the years prior to the birth of the Age of
Invention, it would have been practically impossible to have
levied on the fruits of the tropics.

I But there is another and equally important reason why
the banana could not have been transported from its native
tropics and offered at retail prices which would have placed
it at the command of the consuming public. There were no
industrial enterprises with a capital and a scope fitted to
undertake the huge task of producing and importing ba-

^ nanas. Industrial production was still on a small scale, prac-
tically local. The revolution which made industry national
and international in its scope had not yet occurred.

V The reorganization and amalgamation of productive

\ energy which marked the period of 1 898-1901 was not the
result of a conspiracy on the part of unscrupulous business

\men. The small industrial units of the United States and
of other countries did not merge into corporations national
in their scope because of a desire to despoil the public. The
so-called "trusts" which were incorporated in and around
1900 were not forts; they were shelters to which produc-
tivity had fled for protection against a welter of warring and
wasteful effort.

This reorganization of corporate industry was, whether its
participants knew it or not, an evolutionary movement cal-
culated to build for the Machine a foundation fitted to its
stupendous energy and possible productivity. The creation
of monopolies did not enter into this evolutionary movement.
Evolutions are natural; monopolies are artificial.
^ The new order of things decreed that production should

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS 17

be on the largest practical scale, and that distribution should
be on a national or international scale. This presupposed
a large amount of capital, ample credit, the speedy adoption
of improved processes, the elimination of waste effort; in a
word, the highest possible efficiency in all of the details of
financing, production, and marketing. None of these attri-
butes precluded competition, but the new order of produc-
tive energy made it imperative that the new competition
should be based on carefully planned efficiency and not, as in
former years, on the test of a blind and savage struggle in the
dark.

The great enterprises conducted by the United Fruit
Company are worthy of a careful study in this connection.
A better example could not be found to indicate the vast gulf
which exists between the industrial and commercial methods
which now prevail as contrasted with those in operation
prior to 1899, the year of the corporate organization of this
company.

The United Fruit Company is not an industrial "trust''
in the economic or legal sense of the word. It does not
operate as a monopoly, it having many capable and alert
competitors, but it is by far the largest factor in its particular
field and ranks as one of the conspicuous industrial corpora-
tions of the time. Its productive operations are entirely,
confined to the tropics, none of them being within the limits
of the legal jurisdiction of the United States. The latter
is, however, the chief consumer of its products, but most of
the civilized world is now served by the commerce orig-
inated by its American founders and owners.

It is a mere coincidence that the birth of this great cor-
poration occurred in the period of the national reconstruc-
tion of industry. The prime causes which impelled the
hundred or more leading industries of the United States to
abandon old competitive methods and adopt new ones were
absent and without effect in the incorporation of the United
Fruit Company.

The vast and complicated manufacturing interests of the/
nation were constantly menaced with over-production. The
Socialist declares that the fault lay with "under-consumpj

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

tion," and asserts that this was due to the fact that the
worker was unable to purchase with his wages his share of
the product of the machine he operated. Be this as it may,

Washday in Jamaica

there was no method then known by which prices could be
adjusted to secure a fair profit and a steady market for manu-
factured goods, and over-production and panics ensued.
[The problem which confronted the banana industry in

OUR NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS

1899 was an entirely different one. The producers and im-
porters of bananas were constantly confronted with the
problems of under-production. They were constantly men-
aced with the fact that they were unable to obtain bananas
with which to hold the trade already won, to say nothing
of meeting the constantly increasing demands of new con-
sumers attracted by the quality and cheapness of a tropical
fruit to which they had been strangers.

The contrast was vital and interesting.

The manufacturing interests of the nation merged in de-
fense against creative possibilities so great that they were
destructive of profits. Certain of the banana producers and
importers united for the purpose of insuring the production
and speedy distribution of an increased output of that trop-
ical fruit. "Too many manufactured shoes and no pro-
tection against lessened demand," was a typical industrial
problem in the United States. "Not enough bananas, and
no protection against the destruction of what we have got
by floods and hurricanes," was the vital problem in the
tropics.

I have had an exceptional opportunity to study the work
and the results obtained by the great tropical enterprise
known as the United Fruit Company. Students of social
and political economy and all who are sincerely desirous 01
aiding in the solution of the problems involved in the phe-
nomenon of the increased cost of living should find much of
interest in the chapters that follow. The statistics quoted
have been obtained from authoritative sources and can
easily be verified, and I am under obligations to many offi-
cials of the Government and heads of the competing ba-
nana corporations for aid extended in preparing this history.

CHAPTER II
The Modest but Mighty Banana

RETAIN a fairly vivid recol-
lection of eating my first
1^ "Y^V^^HH^^I banana. It was in 1876, and
Wf/ ^^^HI^^I ^^ ^^^^ ^ youngster, was visit-

P -^I^Bill^H ^"^ ^^^ Centennial Exposi-

* ^^^^^^MIj^ t:ion in Philadelphia with my

father as guide and treasurer.
When a young man, my father
had spent some time in the
tropical sections of Central
America and the West Indies,
and I had often heard him
talk of revelling in bananas
and other fruits of those then
fever-stricken districts.

On the afternoon of the
day when I encountered my
first imported banana we had visited the horticultural de-
partment of the great exposition, and there was then pointed
out to me one of the leading attractions of that exhibit, a
scrubby banana tree from beneath whose fronds actually
grew a diminutive bunch of bananas. My recollection is
that this was a part of the government exhibit. In any event
it was surrounded by a crowd of spectators, most of whom
would have been delighted to have plucked a banana, a strip
of bark, or even a bit of the earth which surrounded its
roots in the huge box which served that purpose. The craze
for the collection of "souvenirs," regardless of property rights
or possible damage, was then already in vogue, though it had
not sunk its victims to such deplorable depths of peculation
as at present.

An attendant restrained the bolder of those who longed to
touch or dissect this banana tree which was doing its feebly

THE MIGHTY BANANA 21

best under artificial conditions far removed from its native
habitat. To my young and impressionable mind this was
the most romantic of all the innumerable things I had seen
in any of the vast buildings. It was the tangible, living, and
expressive symbol of the far-distant and mysterious tropics.
I had seen pictures of banana trees in text and Sunday-
school books, and I had derived from them the pleasing but
— as I have since learned — inaccurate information that the
fortunate natives of the tropics have nothing to do but roam
the flowery glades and live on bananas. I had no diffi-
culty in picturing such natives lounging beneath the small
banana tree now before me, and I conjured from my imagi-
nation a boa constrictor emerging from the surrounding
jungle and making away with a swarthy savage who was
about to pluck his evening meal from the ripened bunch of
bananas.

I presume my father was the only one there who had ever
seen bananas growing in the tropics. He explained to me
the difference between this hot-house product and that of
the warm and humid coast lands near the equator, and as he
talked the throng gathered about him and asked questions.

The "long arm of coincidence," as* literary experts term
it, was extended to me that day. On the same evening we
took a walk along one of the business streets of Philadelphia.
Aly father was fond of fruits, and he paused at a store and
we looked over the tempting array. He was about to buy
some peaches, when his attention was diverted to a basket
containing small, cylindrical objects wrapped in tin foil.

"What are those .^" he asked of the clerk, taking one from
the basket and looking at it curiously.

" Bananas," proudly replied the salesman. ** Bananas just
imported from South America. They are a great luxury,
sir, and this is the only place in Philadelphia which handles
them."

"Bananas in tin foil!" exclaimed my father. "I presume
most of your customers think they grow that way.^"

"They are a novelty, sir, and only our best customers call
for them. May I wrap up some for you?"

"How much are they?"

United Fruit Company Hospital at Bocas del Toro

THE MIGHTY BANANA 23

"Ten cents apiece, or six for half a dollar."

"That is rik)re money than the native wha raised them
could earn in a month," laughed my father. '*I will take
half a dollar's worth."

Back in the room in our hotel I stripped the tin foil from
one of them and revealed a substance which looked like the
bananas I had seen that afternoon, save that this one was
nearly black and the growing ones were green. I was about
to bite into the skin when my father interfered and removed
the peel, looked at the interior critically and rather doubt-
fully, tasted it, and gave it to me.

"It is not very good, but it is a banana," he said, peeling
one for himself. "How do you like it.^"

I assured him that it was delicious, but I presume that the
novelty of the thing gave my taste a zest and the fruit a
flavor not justified by its condition. Two of the six bananas
^w,cre in such an advanced stage of decay that they were re-
jected, but we shared the others. They were small bananas,
and it would have taken three of them to make the bulk of
one of the delicious yellow bananas now at the cheap com-
mand of practically every consumer in the United States.

Thus in 1876 we paid about twenty times the present re-
tail price of bananas, considering the bulk alone. The
bananas which we bought and ate as a curiosity would now
be condemned by the first food inspector who took a glance
at them, but I sufl'ered no harm and fell into pleasant dreams
of tropics through which I roamed and ate lavishly of ba-
nanas which drooped from graceful trees and asked me to
pick them.

We lived in Illinois and it was a number of years before
I ever had a chance to see or eat another banana. It is my
recollection that on various occasions I boasted to my school-
mates and others of having eaten my full of bananas in
Philadelphia during the wonderful Centennial, and it is
also my recollection that this recital of mine was greeted
with mingled doubt and envy. I brought the banana peels
back with me, but they did not survive in a shape to verify
conclusively the tale of my gastronomic distinction.

In the thirty years which followed this experience I read

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

and heard considerable about bananas. It was not until the
middle eighties that we of the Middle West became fairly
familiar with the banana as a fruit. The price still made it a
luxury, and it occupied the relative position now held by the
grapefruit and other tropical or subtropical products which
have established their places in our ever-increasing national

PItoto by A . Duperly b" Son, Kingston, Jamaica

Under the shade of banana fronds

menu. With my youthful start as a banana expert I took
more than. the average interest in bananas, and managed to
accumulate by reading and listening a mass of impressions,
most of which I ascertained to be false on my first visit to
the tropics.

One of my most cherished delusions was that the banana
which comes to us is a vastly inferior article to that which is
enjoyed in the tropics. You doubtless have heard many

THE MIGHTY BANANA

times the same assertion made with calm superiority by some

person who pretended to familiarity with the tropics. The

subject of bananas arises. You

express your like or dislike of

the banana. With this as a cue

the presumed globe-trotter, who

claim.s that he knows the tropics

as you know the arrangement of

your bedroom, turns on you and

asks: **What do you know about

bananas.'^ These things which

are sold here in the United States

neither look nor taste like the

banana known to the tropics.

The banana which you eat was

picked green from the trees and

was ripened artificially. Nature

did not have a chance to perfect

her work. It is true that some

of the bananas offered for sale

here in the United States are fair

— just fair, mind you — but you

should eat a banana picked from

its native stem, its glossy, smooth

coat a golden yellow, and its

tender pulp a food fit for the

gods. I plucked some bananas

in Costa Rica which "

But enough of this recital.
You have heard or read some-
thing like it many times. The
next time you listen to such a
narrative or read such a state-
ment you will be safe in assum-
ing that the author never saw
a growing banana and knows
nothing about the tropics.

The natives of the tropics do not permit a banana to ripen
on its stem for the good and sufficient reason that such a

Record bunch of bananas,
with 22 "hands" and 3CX)
pieces of fruit

26 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

banana is Hardly lit to eat. A chemical process sets in which
partially disintegrates the pulp, destroys the fine flavor, and
renders it insipid and almost tasteless. More than that, the
rind cracks when the banana starts to ripen on the plant, and
insects burrow in the pulp and thus mar or spoil the fruit.
,The natives pluck the bunches from the- stem at about the
same period of their development that the leading importers
do, and there is so little difference between an exported
banana and one sold in the native markets that even an ex-
pert could not be sure which is which.
A The same thing is true of most other tropical fruits. As a
\ rule they are picked green by the natives and allowed to
/ ripen artificially. The fecundity of the tropical soil and the
I forcing powers of the humidity and the sun are so great that
I most tropical fruits are likely to break their envelopes under
Hhe pressure of an accelerated ripening process.

Therefore do not continue to think you are getting the
worst of it because the bananas which you eat at home come
here green. The high grade bananas brought to the United
States by the United Fruit Company and its competitors are
. fully equal to most of those offered for sale in the mar-
kets of Havana, Kingston, or Panama City. Nature knows ,
how to grow bananas; man had to learn how to ripen them. I
Tropical nature left to herself creates foodless jungles and
miasmic swamps. The banana of commerce is one of Man's
proud triumphs over Nature.

Possibly the reader still entertains another of my former
delusions; one to the effect that bananas grow wild and that
the lucky native need only venture into the jungle to find
this fruit awaiting him. This is another myth which I ac-
quired in school-book days. The authors of my favorite
works of fiction and of fact in those days educated me to
believe that the wild banana was food, drink, raiment, and
shelter to the fortunate and indolent natives of these sections.

It is possible that there are parts of the globe in which wild
banana plants bear edible fruit, but none of the banana au-»
thorities knows of any such section, and I have never met"
any ©ne who claims that he ever saw or heard of a wild ba-
nana plant which bore anything fit to eat. The jungles of

28 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Central and South America are filled with wild banana
plants, and there are districts covered so thickly with the
tangle of their vegetation that they cannot be penetrated,
but these indigenous plants bear no fruit and do not respond
to attempts to develop them by cultivation.

Banana fruit is the product of cultivated banana plants,
and the cultivatedjbanana of cojnmerce was introduced into
certain Actions of the American tropics several hundred^
years ago by their Spanish conquerors. The seeds or bulbs
s^ere brought from Asia or Africa. The native of our trop-
ics who cares to feed on bananas must either raise them or
obtain them from some one who has the enterprise and
energy tb do so. Despite a cherished popular delusion to the
contrary, the jungle is not much of an asset or convenience
even to the native. Its only free gifts are choice assort-
ments of pests and fevers.

The popular writers and text-book makers of a generation
ago doubtless confused the banana with the plantain. The
latter is also a cultivated product, but it is purely a vegetable
and not a fruit. The banana is both, but until recently it
has had little utility save as a fruit.

For centuries the plantain has been the leading food
staple of hundreds of millions of people. It has performed
for them the double function which bread and potatoes do
for us of the temperate zone. The plantain has the appear-
ance of a very large banana, but does not much resemble
it in flavor, texture, or uses. It is cultivated more exten-
sively than the banana and over a wider area, and ranks
in the tropics as an indispensable food product. The
tim-e is not far distant when the plantain will take its place
in our menu. It has already secured a foothold in the
southern section of the United States, and there is no reason
why it should not play an important part in checking the
rise in the cost of living. Humboldt must have confused the
plantain with the banana when he ascribed to the latter a
productivity to the acre forty times that of potatoes. Even
under most favorable conditions this is not so with the ba-
nana, but it is possible that Humboldt established this com-
parison with the plantain.

THE MIGHTY BANANA

The early missionaries doubtless
fell into the same error. Many of
them probably never saw a banana
either at home or in the tropics, and
confused it with the plantain. The
banana never was extensively cul-
tivated in the American tropics until
the founders of the United Fruit
Company and its competitors es-
tablished for it a market in the United
States. Grim necessity had ever I
forced the natives to cultivate the
plantain, but the banana was con-
sidered more of a luxury, and tropical
negroes and Indian tribes spend little
time or effort in the quest for things
not absolutely needed. It is prob-
ably not an exaggeration to assert
that the people of the United States
eat ten times more bananas than arc
consumed in the Latin-American
countries which produce them.

The "American Encyclopaedia,"
published in 1873, in its article de-
scriptive of the banana, makes no
mention or hint that this fruit was
known outside of the tropics. There
was then no thought that the banana
would create a commerce amounting
to tens of millions of dollars annually.
The misinformation contained in
most of the encyclopaedias of that
period now seems amusing, but there
was not enough ^popular interest in
the subject to warrant investigation
by the compilers of these presum-
ably authoritative volumes.

Botanical history still gropes in the dark in the search for
accurate knowledge concerning the origin and development

30 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

of the banana. Where it came from, what it was called in
olden times, who was responsible for its transplanting' from
one country to another, the part it played in va/ious stages
of the world's history? — all these are mysteries/yet hid from
those who seek to learn the truth. Some botanist gave the
banana the title of Musa sapientium, and we/ are informed
that it is intended to convey an allusion to aj statement by
Theophrastus concerning a fruit which served as food for the
wise men of India, and which, from his description, is sup-
posed to have been the plantain or banana. Certain authori-
ties try to prove that the banana originated in India, but
there is little" to show that this s;ection of the globe has any
just claim which sets aside those of equally favored tropical
localities.

Some primordial Burbank back in the buried centuries
undertook the cultivation of the wild banana plant, was
greeted with the jibes of his cave-dwelling neighbors, but
attained a measure of success which warranted others in
following him. This first banana expert may have been a
native of India, but there is nothing to prove that he did not
conduct his experiments in Central or South America. There
is good historical authority to prove that banana cultivation
flourished in parts of South America long before Vespucius,
Pinzon, Magalhaes, Balboa, Cabot, Cortes, Pizarro, and
other Spanish explorers, adventurers, and soldiers first laid
foot on the southern half of the New World. It is true that
later Spanish colonists brought and planted Asiatic and
African types of bananas, but it is a certainty that the wild
banana plant is indigenous to the New World tropics, and It
is probable that the highly advanced people ruled by the In-

.cas had added the banana to their natural resources.., ,<^ nic**'

Fifty centuries or fifty thousand centuries; may have
passed since man plucked the first edible banana from its
drooping stem. Science will never master this riddle. The
^e^nderful thing is that in all these centuries there is no
record that any traveller from the tropics ever was able to
convey a banana from its place of growth to the temperate
zone. Rome extended its rule over the world and its soldiers
and merchants levied tribute on the tropics. The luxurious

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

emperors and nobles of Rome ransacked the world for food
delicacies, but not even the power of the Caesars was suf-
ficient to place the banana on their banquet tables. It was
necessary to annihilate time and space to transport this
perishable fruit from its parent stock to distant clime, and
civilization was compelled to await the mastery of trans-
portation before the banana became a world food product.

Since the origin of the banana is lost in the shadows ofi an-
tiquity there is no reason why we should not entertain the
theory that it was the banana and not the apple which played
so important a part in the Garden of Eden. Certain it is
that the early botanists had this thought in mind when they

gave the fruit its names, Musa
paradisiaca " Fruit of Paradise,'^
and Musa sapientium "Fruit of
Knowledge."

It is generally accepted by
'authorities on this subject that
the banana was not a native
of the West Indies. Sloanesays:
"The banana was brought to
Hispaniola (Hayti and San
Domingo) from the Canary
Islands by one Thomas di
Berlanga, a friar, in the year
1 516, from whence they were
sent to the other islands in the Spanish Main, and they,
being very useful and taking extremely, were planted every-
where, but in all probability this plant came first from
Guinea to the Canaries."

The Canary Island banana {Musa Cavendishii) is better
known to the American trade as the "dwarf Chinese
banana," and has been quite extensively raised in sections of
\ Central and South America in sections where other types of
bananas have been destroyed by a soil disease peculiar to
this fruit — the Chinese banana being immune to the par-
asite responsible for this disease. But the fruit lovers of the
United States are familiar with and partial to the "Gros
Michel," which roughly may be translated as "Big Mike,"

Tunnel formed by arching banana fronds

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

the large, smooth and yellow product of Jamaica and Cen-
tral America, and it has been found difficult to introduce
the smaller but equally well flavored Canary or Chinese
^ banana.
I The "Claret" or red banana is grown in various parts of
/the world, including the American tropics, and seems to be
I popular with the public, but this fruit is difficult to ship be-
I cause of the fact that the individual bananas do not cling
/ firmly to the stem. This is a fatal defect, shippers having
I established the rule that the bunches must be delivered in
^ perfect condition.

Not more than twenty-five years have passed since the
banana became generally known to the consumers of the
United States. Less than half that short span of years has
elapsed since the banana became an article of import in
Great Britain and the nations of Europe. Fate had de-
creed that it should be the lot of a small group of American
citizens, most of whom are now living and active in this mis-
sion, to give to the peoples of the temperate zones a fruit
and food product denied to their ancestors through all the
ages. This is a real achievement. It is a part of the contri-
bution of our age to the sum total of human progress.

CHAPTER III
Attacking the Wilderness

UST when or how the first banana
was brought into the United
States is a matter of conjecture.
Bananas were introduced in
Cuba several centuries ago by
the Spanish conquerors of that
island, and some ship may have
brought a few over-ripe speci-
mens of this fruit to a port of
one of the colonies prior to the
War of the Revolution, and its
owner might have done this
without knowing that he had
the distinction of indicating the
possibilities of a new commerce.

It is asserted that in 1804

the schooner Reynard, on a voy-
age from Cuba, brought thirty bunches of bananas to New
York. If this be true, the feat was rendered possible by
favorable temperatures and kindly winds. There are records
that at long and irregular intervals small consignments of red
bananas arrived at Atlantic coast ports from Cuba, but in
all of the years prior to the advent of steam navigation the
banana necessarily remained a curiosity and not an extensive
article of commerce.

The actual inception of the banana trade dates back to
1866, immediately following the close of the Civil War. In
that year Carl B. Franc entered into an arrangement with
a steamship company and began on a small scale the importa-
tion of bananas from Colombia, South America, to New
York City. He shipped from Colon, and his plantations
were in or near the present Panama Canal Zone.

For a number of years Mr. Franc and his associates had

36 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

New York, Philadelphia, and other eastern markets to them-
selves. Being the sole producers and importers of bananas,
they had a monopoly, and this was the only time a monop-
oly ever existed in the banana trade. It was not, however, a
grasping and merciless monopoly. The banana was then
recognized as a luxury of a rare type, and it was not dreamed
that a day ever would come when this delicacy would be at
the command of every consumer in the United States, and
that it would be offered for retail sale at prices a fraction of
those charged for native fruits. No one thought of accusing
Mr. Franc and his associates of "exploiting the tropics."
It was then deemed an admirable thing for Americans to
venture their lives and their fortunes in the development of
natural resources within commercial reach of the United
States. This is still deemed an admirable thing by all of
our citizens who are capable of broad and enlightened
'Jtfaought and who have no political or legal axes to grind.

This proved a profitable venture for these pioneers in the
banana industry, but fully six years passed before they were
confronted with anything resembling competition. And
they were shipping bananas to New York from South
America! Here is something for the reader to ponder.
Bananas are now raised on most of the islands of the West
Indies, and along all of the Gulf and Caribbean coasts from
Vera Cruz to the mouths of the Amazon. Why did not
rival importers rush into competition with Mr. Franc .^ Why
did such rivals not embrace this glittering chance to "ex-
ploit the tropics" and cheat the natives of the fruits of their
flourishing banana groves and plantations .f*

There was a very simple reason why this was not done.
The natives of the American tropics raised no bananas in com-
mercial quantities. They had no extensive banana groves and
plantations, flourishing or otherwise. There was no native
agriculture in the American tropics to "exploit," and it may
astound the reader to know that there never has been and that
none exists to-day. These tropics are productive just about in
proportion as Am"erican initiative, American capital, and
. American enterprise make them productive.
^ The sooner the people of the United States come to know

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS

this fundamental fact, the sooner will they be able to meet
the problems which the tropics present.

Cuba, with its unrivalled natural resources of soil and
climate, offered no chance to those who would compete with
Carl B. Franc in the New York banana market. Cuba was

Cocoanut tree

raising what General Sherman fittingly characterized as
**hell," and a people cannot raise that and sugar, tobacco,
and bananas at the same time. Cuba raised nothing but
revolutions, anarchy, and chaos until the United States
was compelled, against its will, to interfere for the purpose
of eradicating an international nuisance. Hayti and San

38 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Domingo were confining their activities almost exclusively
to pillage and bloodshed. Central America was not yet on
the commercial map.- Jamaica was in the happy position of
not enjoying self-government — being under the domina-
tion of Great Britain and denied the pastime of ** revolu-
tions" — but her people were devoting their lands and energy
to the cultivation of sugar-cane, pending the time when
enforced peace would permit Cuba to take her proper place
as the great sugar-producing section of the globe. Mexico
— well, Mexico was in its normal condition. Porfirio Diaz
had not yet clubbed its semi-savage factions into a coma of
temporary peace and prosperity.

These are some of the reasons why Mr. Franc and his
associates were able to control the banana market. They
had preempted the only known spot in the American tropics
where it seemed safe to raise and export bananas. The
great stream of the world's commerce beat up against Colon.
The Panama railroad was in operation, and the demands of
international trade automatically decreed that peace and
order should prevail in the territory adjacent to that natural
pathway of commerce.

Thus it was that Mr. Franc became the commercial
pioneer in the banana industry, and thus it was that a num-
ber of years passed before any rivals entered the field he had
chosen. It is likely that the bananas wrapped in tin foil
which I encountered in Philadelphia in 1876 were imported
by his company, and he acquired a modest competence with
an equipment and prices which would seem grotesque to-day.

But Mr. Franc was not the founder of the banana industry
as we know it. He formulated no plan and took no effec-
tive steps to bring about a production of bananas adequate
to meet the demands of a people ready to accept this fruit
as a commodity and not as a high-priced luxury. He treated
. the banana as a specialty, and the business which he reared
I was lost sight of when others took the logical steps to en-
' large and systematize this industry.

In 1870 Captain Lorenzo D. Baker, owner of a Cape Cod
schooner, took a contract to convey a party of gold miners
and their machinery and supplies 300 miles up the Orinoco

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 39

River in Venezuela. Captain Baker was a native of New
England, born on Boundbrook Island, Wellfleet, Massachu-
setts, in 1840, of a mother who bore the old-fashioned Yan-
kee name of Thankful Rich.

On his return from South America, Captain Baker stopped
at Kingston, Jamaica, and looked about for a cargo fit for
Boston consumption. Trade was dull and freights scarce.
Whether or not he knew that Carl B. Franc was making
occasional banana shipments to New York is uncertain,
but the fact that he took a chance on carrying bananas by
schooner from Kingston to Boston indicates conclusively
either that he knew little about the perishable nature of
bananas or that he was willing to take a decided specula-
tive risk.

At any event, Captain Baker purchased a few bunches of
bananas from a local dealer, loaded them on the deck of his
schooner, and set sail for Boston. He made a quick voyage
and docked in Boston with the bananas ripened and in
eatable and salable condition. It is claimed that these
were the first commercial bananas ever imported to Boston.

The important eff"ect of this small shipment was to call the
attention of shrewd fruit merchants to the possibilities of
Jamaica as a banana competitor to Colombia.

Andrew W. Preston — who later became president of
the United Fruit Company • — and other New England
investors made investigations which warranted them in
stimulating and participating in the cultivation of ba-
nanas in Jamaica, and thus laid the secure foundations of
an industry which bequeaths to that island most of its
present prosperity, and which has saved its people from the
bankruptcy that threatened to follow the supremacy of
Cuba in the sugar trade. The tremendous importance of
the enterprise thus started may dimly be realized when it is
stated that, in the year when this is written, Jamaica will
export probably 18,000,000 bunches of bananas, most of
which will be sold at cheap prices to the consumers of aver-
age means in the United States. Bear in mind that Jamaica
took slight part in the initiation of this vast industry. The
credit for the decided benefits which mutually have accrued

3
C

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 41

to her people and ours belongs to New England merchants
who dared venture into uncharted commercial seas.

Andrew VV. Preston comes from hardy New England stock
of English origin, and he inherited from his ancestors an
iron constitution which has stood him in good stead in
upbuilding and directing the vast and far-reaching enter-
prises which now constitute the United Fruit Company.
He was born in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, on June
29, 1846, the son of Benjamin and Sarah Poland Preston.
He received his education in the public schools of his
native village, but as a youth determined that the local
horizon was too contracted. Boston was not far away, and
its greater and broader activities laid their spell on him even
when he was poring over his books in the district school.

As a mere boy he left home ties and village associa-
tions and took his chance in the New England metrop-
olis, obtaining a job in a Boston produce commission
house which handled fruits among other things. Ships
from all parts of the world came to Boston loaded with
strange foods and fruits, with coffee and spices fragrant with
the odors and charms of the tropics. But practical com-
mon-sense told him that the tropics could not be won by
dreaming and that Boston was the place first to conquer.
The time came when the young man went into business
for himself on a modest scale, but he was quick to realize
that the American tropics offered rewards to those Ameri-
can merchants who would develop their neglected valleys
and offer their food and fruit products for sale in the
northern markets.

An incident which illustrates the capacity of Mr. Preston
to adapt himself to new duties and responsibilities occurred
while he was managing the affairs of the Boston Fruit Com-
pany. The latter was a depositor in the Hancock National
Bank of Boston, and Mr. Preston was a director and one
of the vice-presidents of this bank. He was not, however,
one of the more active officials in the bank, neither did he
pretend to intimate familiarity with its affairs or expert
knowledge of the banking business in general.

A United States bank examiner, after a rigid examination

42 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

of the affairs of the Bank, expressed dissatisfaction with the
manner in which its business had been conducted. The
matter was referred to the Comptroller of the Currency who,
after a careful study of the conditions, stipulated that the
bank should be permitted to continue business on the condi-
tion that Andrew W. Preston would assume active manage-
ment of it. Despite the fact that the affairs of the Boston
Fruit Company demanded his thought and time, Mr. Pres-
ton deemed it his duty to assume the additional burden
suggested, and without hesitation agreed to do his best to
reorganize the Hancock National Bank. For months he
worked day and night, and was finally able to bring the
matter to a succesful conclusion. This incident is still re-
called by Boston business men who have not been surprised
at the success of the United Fruit Company under the execu-
tive management oi a man who has a genius for doing big
things in a big and honorable way.

From 1870, when Captain Baker made his first famous
shipment of a few bunches of Jamaican bananas to Boston,
until 1885 there was no systematic attempt made to develop
the production and transportation of this fruit from the
tropical sections nearer the Atlantic coast line. Intermit-
tent shipments were made by sailing ships from Cuba or
Jamaica, but not in quantities sufficient to create a steady
demand or a fixed market price for this tropical luxury. Mr.
Franc, as has been explained, had a contract with a steam-
ship company which gave him exclusive rights of shipment
to New York, and his success in that line proved that there
was a chance for a well managed competition.

In 1884 Andrew W. Preston was a fruit merchant in
Boston. He purchased and sold bananas whenever he had
a chance, and regretted the fact that the supply was incap-
able of giving this fruit the value of a staple commodity. A
careful personal study and investigation of this subject con-
vinced Mr. Preston that there was a promising business op-
portunity for a concern which would undertake the stimula-
tion of the production and transportation of bananas from*
Jamaica, San Domingo, and Cuba, the three tropical islands
within easier reach of the Atlantic seaboard.

i^f^-

r^^ ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 43

'^ut Mr. Preston was not financially able to undertake
any such enterprise. There was a large amount of idle
money in Boston. There were many. New England capital-
ists who were able to advance the money which would have
insured the speedy success of the plans which Mr. Preston
was eager to put into effect. A half a million of dollars
would have put the enterprise on a secure foundation in 1884,
but Mr. Preston might as well have pleaded for that amount
of money to construct a bridge to Mars.

After many efforts Mr. Preston finally induced nine men
to join him in an association to promote the banana busi-
ness with Boston as the port of entry. This association was
formed in 1885. Mr. Preston and each of his nine associ-
ates advanced ^2,000, giving this enterprise an original
capital of ^20,000. With the exception of Mr. Preston, all
of the gentlemen contributing to this fund were engaged in
lines of business which had no connection whatever with
the fruit trade. This would seem to indicate that the
"experts" in the fruit business shared with the men of
large available capital the opinion that the American
tropics was the last place in the world in which to invest
money.

It is also evident that Mr. Preston had slight expecta-
tion of adding to the list of the nine men who had risked
$2,000 each on this desperate speculation. It was at his
suggestion that all of them should agree to waive dividends
for a period of five years, and to reinvest all possible profits
in the business. Such was the basis of organization of the
association of the ten men who had a hope that it would be
possible to raise bananas in the tropics and' bring them to
Boston. The amount of money t-hen risked by these Boston
merchants would not defray the expenses of a 'round trip of
one of the steamships which constitute the Great White
Fleet of the United Fruit Company. Mr. Preston is the
sole living survivor of the ten who endowed the New Eng-
land branch of the banana industry with $20,000.

The venture was a success from the start. Under the
active management of Mr. Preston every honorable busi-
ness expedient was employed to bring about an increased

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

production of bananas in Jamaica and other sections, also
to secure an increased consumption in Boston and other
parts of New England. From the very beginning the policy
of this partnership (it was not then a corporation) was to
maintain the lowest possible retail prices consistent with fair
profits. The problem was to create a demand for this trop-
ical fruit, and no large demand was possible with fancy
prices. Here is the key to the mystery of the success of the
banana industry — small profits on enormous sales — and

Glimpse of the jungle

back in 1885 Mr. Preston and his nine associates initiated
^this policy and did not deviate from it.

The most beautiful bu^ness structure in the world, the
wonderful Woolworth Building, was reared to the clouds by
a man who derived a fortune by conducting a chain of "Five
and Ten Cent Stores," in which millions of people buy thou-
sands of things which are sold at a fraction of a cent profit
on each article.

The United Fruit Company stands as the greatest agri-
cultural enterprise in the world because it so handles its
products' that they reach the consumer with a unit of profit

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 45

per banana so small that it cannot readily be comprehended.

When the banana growers of Jamaica, Cuba, and else-
where learned that there was an increasing demand for their
fruit they increased their acreage and adopted better sys-
tems of cultivation. But Mr. Preston did not intend to
rely solely on the native growers. Investigation had con-
vinced him that it would be more profitable to buy tracts of
suitable lands and raise bananas than to buy them from
others. A portion of the profits was set aside for this experi-
ment. It was successful. By this time all of the gentle-
men who had contributed to the $20,000 pool were convinced
that they were on the right track and that there was
business warrant to invest more in the project. Instead of
depending entirely on the profits for reinvestment they
added the further sum of $100,000 before the five years
specified in their agreement of 1885 had elapsed. With this
fund new plantations were developed in San Domingo,
Jamaica, and Cuba, and new expedients were installed to
facilitate production and distribution. Encouragement was
given to the native growers. The secrets of refrigeration
were studied and better methods installed to bring the fruit
to market in prime condition.

When the five years had passed a careful appraisal showed
that the association was the owner of properties conser-
vatively estimated at a value of $531,000. This was the
flattering result of the judicious management of an invest-
ment of $120,000 and the reinvestment of profits as they
accrued. Good luck had played its share in attaining this
success. Floods and high winds had not greatly damaged
the new plantations, and the men who founded this enter-
prise had yet to learn the lessons df such disasters.

These men had called their association or partnership the
" Boston^ ruit Company," and when it was decided to in-
corporate the enterprise it was given the same name. This
was in 1890, and the Boston Fruit Company was duly or-
ganized under the laws of Massachusetts with a capital
stock of $500,000, and a surplus of $31,000.

The managing director of the newly incorporated Boston
Fruit Company was Andrew W. Preston. He was peculiarly

OS '

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O M-.
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ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 47

fitted for the responsibilities of his position. For five years
he had met and mastered the many problems which had
arisen in the development of a new industry; an industry
complicated by the fact that the sources of production and
supply were fai* removed from the home sections of distri-
bution and consumption.

The Boston Fruit Company did not depart from the policy
of converting earnings into betterments, and the United
Fruit Company has since followed in its footsteps. The
steadily increasing consumption of bananas in the United
States called for added sources of production in the tropics,
and dividend rates were kept low, and the surplus devoted
to the conquest of the tropics. Mr. Preston has ever
adhered to this policy of devoting a large share of the
earnings of the company to new banana plantings which
would keep pace with the rapidly increasing consumption
of this fruit and food product.

During all of the years from 1885, when the Boston Fruit
Company was informally started, up to 1899, when the
United Fruit Company purchased its corporate holdings,
there were active competitors in the banana trade. There
was competition to secure the fruit of the native raisers of
bananas; there was competition in the planting of new fields
of supply; there was competition in transportation and in
marketing and in all of the branches of the industry. The
field was one in which monopoly was impossible. There was
practically an unlimited amount of virgin land fitted for
the cultivation of bananas. Thousands of new independent
growers were offering their fruit to those importers who
would grant the best prices. There was an unlimited num-
ber of steamships eager to accept banana freight from any
one able to pay for it, and the field was an open one to any
individual or interest that cared to invade it.

But none of the competitors of the Boston Fruit Company
imitated the far-seeing policy of Mr. Preston in building for
the future. Most of those who took part in this competition
seemed to regard it more as a speculation than as an enter-
prise requiring broad but conservative management. It
soon became known that luck was a vital factor with the

48 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

small planter or the small importer. A given district would
be favored with bountiful banana harvests for a year or a
period of years, then disaster would come from flood, drought,
or hurricane. The average importer would pin his faith to
the luck of a certain district. He would gamble that there
would be no weather calamities in a certain year or period
of years. If he won, his profits would be large, and he
would put these winnings in his pockets or disburse them in
dividends to his associates. If he lost, he usually went into
bankruptcy.

Mr. Preston fully realized the nature of all of these risks,
but bent every effort to reduce their effects to a minimum.
The initial disasters which befell the Boston Fruit Company
in the tropics and in the New England markets told him
clearly that safety lay in securing the widest possible source
of supply and the widest possible market outlet. In most
lines of business the concern which scatters its energies and
resources over a wide territory Invites disaster. Mr. Preston
made the discovery that the banana business was a startling
exception to this time-honored rule. Concentration in any
producing field or in any consuming market constituted a
deadly risk. Minor C. Keith learned the same lesson in ba-
nana districts far remote from those which served the Boston
Fruit Company, and every individual who engaged in the
banana trade had this palpable truth shoved in his face
sooner or later, but it is a remarkable fact that Mr. Preston
and Mr. Keith were the only executive heads of banana
enterprises who took the obvious precautionary measures to
insure their interests against inevitable climatic disasters.

When Mr. Franc and Captain Baker discovered that It
was possible to transport bananas from South America and
Jamaica, there were few citizens of the United States who
could boast that they had ever penetrated Central America.
The word "penetrate" exactly describes the process then
necessary to reach the cities and settlements of Guatemala,
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Though
all of these countries had extensive coastlines, their natives
actually shunned them. The peoples of Central America
were highlanders In the true sense of the word. Nothing

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS

)Ut absolute necessity could induce them to venture into
the disease-stricken wildernesses which bounded them on
(he Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. These desolate

egions had for them an absolute terror, and that dread of
the lowlands still exists in all classes.

Why the tropical death-rate once was high

In all of the centuries from the discovery of America down
to a comparatively few years ago, the hundreds of miles of
coast from Colon to Belize and from Panama City to Salina
Cruz have remained practically uninhabited. There are
unmistakable signs that thousands of years ago other races
thrived and reared great cities and splendid palaces in the

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

fertile valleys along both coasts, but it is certain that their
conquerors were unable to master the problems of sanitation
and were compelled to take refuge on the high plateaus
where now stand the capitals and cities of their descend-
ants.

No words can describe the horrors and dangers of the few]
squalid villages which once lay on the water edge of thes(
jungles. Nature had infested these wastes with most of th<
enemies of mankind, but the ignorance and indiflference ol
those who clustered there added new and more deadly men-
aces. The normal death-rate of a typical Central America]
seaport, in the years prior to the advent of the banana in-
dustry, was not less than 150 annually out of a population oi
1 ,000 ! This is fully ten times what it is now. It was almosi
sure death for an unacclimated foreigner to remain a wee!
in these unsanitary surroundings. The wealthy citizen oi
Costa Rica or Guatemala who wished to go to London, Parisj
or New York on business or pleasure approached the Pacifi<
port from which he was to sail in fear and trembling, an<
thousands who longed to make such trips could not be in-
duced to take the risk.

/ In 1 87 1 there was not a mile of railroad in all of Central

I America, with the exception of a short line having its terminal

[at Puerto Cortez, Honduras. There were no dependabh

/ foot or wagon roads from its capitals to either coast. L

1 87 1 there was no steamship service from the United State?

or from any part of the world to any port in Central America^

There probably was no inhabited spot on earth mon

isolated. These republics were cut off not only by the seaj

but also by barriers of pestilential lands, which the natives

dreaded to cross and which the outside world could not

enter.

To-day these former wildernesses constitute one of th<
most productive agricultural sections of the globe. To-da]
the shi^s from all the world enter the beautiful harbors oi
Central America and land their passengers in ports which are]
as sanitary as those of Massachusetts. To-day most repul
lies in Central America are served with well-managed and]
modernly equipped railway lines. The day is near at han(

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 51

when one will be able to travel by rail from New York or
San Francisco to Panama City in safety and luxury.

Who performed these miracles ?

They were wrought by American citizens who had the
imagination, the courage, and the ability to attack and con-
quer the countless dangers and problems of the tropical
wildernesses, and who did this through the organization of
enterprises which helped lay the foundations of the United
Fruit Company.

The people of the United States have been slow to give
just credit to those who have made this splendid contribu-
tion to the world's advancement. It is one of the things
which cannot be dismissed with the sneer that it was under-
taken in expectation of money profits. We give acclaim to
the achievements of Morse, Field, McCormick, Edison, and
honor the men whose constructive genius projected rail-
ways, into the once trackless West and who set the pace for
the most wonderful material progress the world has ever
known. All of these men were inspired by hope and con-
fident expectation of money gains, but something bigger and
better led them on.

They devoted their lives to adding some new and great
things to the world's assets. The world owes nothing to the
man who attains money success by devoting his time and
talents to a business or an avocation the mysteries and prob-
lems of which were already solved. It is not an important
thing that an individual is able so to conduct a dry goods busi-
ness that he amasses twenty or fifty millions of dollars. He
can do this fairly and honestly, and die without having added
anything of value to the era in which he mounted to rare
heights of money success.

But the man who acquires riches by discovering and prov-
ing that some new method of production will vastly cur-
tail human labor and increase human comfort stands on an
entirely different plane. He has given the world a quid pro
quo for the wealth which he has gained. The men who toiled
and struggled and finally won in the campaign to prove that
the Canadian Northwest was fitted to become one of the
world's great harvest fields should be granted every honor

ATTACKING THE WILDERNESS 53

n the gift of the British Empire, but current fame hardly
mows their names. The men who turned the unused jun-
rles of Cuba into sugar-cane plantations are well entitled to
ecompense and distinction for having placed an absolute
lecessity withi» the reach of all.

By the same token, the men who believed that it was pos-
;ible to convert the miasmic swamps and jungles of Central
\merica into vast plantations of nodding banana plants,
md who had the courage and fortitude to act on that belief,
leed not fear that honest and intelligent men will fail to
rive them credit when the facts are known. It was not
olely a desire for profits which caused these men to combat
he seen and invisible dangers of the tropical fastnesses,
fhey did it in response to that instinctive spirit which ever
las urged the American to face and conquer the frontier.

CHAPTER IV
Laying the Foundations '

EYOND question the best known
man in Central America is not
a native of any one of her five
republics, but a plain American
business man, a resident of New
York City — Minor C. Keith.
There is not a Central American
of any consequence from the
Mexican border line to Colom-
bia who is not aware that Mr.
Keith is the particular Ameri-
cano who made the commercial
discovery of that section of the
world, and there is not a fair-
minded Central American who
does not cheerfully admit that
a large share of the prosperity
of the five republics is due to the vast enterprises initiated
by him.

MinaiJCL-Keith was born in Brooklyn on January 19, 1848,
ancTis the active head of most of the great enterprises with
which his name is identified. He is vic^e-president of the
United Fruit Company, and shares with its president, An-
dre wWrPresTQn, the distinction of having brought about
the conditions which made that wonderful business organi-
zation possible. Mr. Keith is better known to the informed
public as the head of what is popularly called the ''Pan-
American Railway," the tracks of which will soon connect
the United States with the Panama Canal, and which, in the
not distant future, will link New York with Rio Janeiro and
Buenos Aires.

The two leading officials of the United Fruit Company
started in life with none of the advantages which wealth and

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS

55.

•osition are supposed to give. They had the inheritance of
lealth, physique, energy, and that persistence which lends
uccess to ambition. Both Mr. Preston and Mr. Keith took
heir first steps in business before they were of legal age, and
)oth determined in their youth to seek opportunity for ad-
vancement in new and undeveloped fields. They were of
:he hardy American type which
istens and responds eagerly to the
:all of the wild.

Before he was entitled to vote,
we find young Keith in Texas, strug-
gling to win and hold a place in the
attle business. He secured a foot-
bold in 1869. The only railroad
then in Texas was a short line, less
than forty miles in all, connecting
Galveston and Houston. It was
then that this young man became
possessed of an ambition to build
a chain of railroads which would
open up new and strange territories,
but he stuck to the cattle trade as
the most promising chance of mak-
ing his dream possible. The time
speedily came when the young
cattleman owned 4,000 head of
stock, also a cash surplus which
lured him to begin the attempt to
construct railroads through virgin
lands. .

In 1 871 Mr. Keith went to Costa Rica to join his brotherV
Henry M. Keith, in the construction of a railway froni
Puerto Limon on the Atlantic coast to San Jose, the capital!
on the Pacific slope. Henry Meigga, of Peru, had contracts
with the Costa Rica government to construct the railway,
and transferred the contracts to Henry. M. Keith, his
nephew.

There was then not a mile of railroad in operation south
of the Rio Grande to the Isthmus of Panama with the excep-

56 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

tion of the short line in Honduras. Two years were yet to
pass before Mexico could boast of her first railway line, the
product of British capital and enterprise, which connected
Vera Cruz and Mexico City. It therefore stands to the
credit of Minor C. Keith that he was the first citizen of the
United States who had the courage and the enterprise to
build a railroad in the American tropics, and it is a matter of
history that he executed this work against handicaps and
perils which cannot be imagined, much less described.

The Costa Rican railroad planned by Mr. Keith and his
brother began in a jungle and for years ended in a jungle. ^
It was necessary to traverse flood-swept valleys and deadl;
swamps, and then to climb a jutting barricade of loft]
mountains to an altitude exceeding 5,000 feet in order to gain
the plateau on which is located the city of San Jose. Th<
reader should reflect that Minor C. Keith was then onh
twenty-three years old, all age at which many favored moden
American lads are more interested in college athletic events
than they are in tackling a great engineering problem in
tropical wilderness.

The appalling hardships and risks of this enterprise may"
faintly be understood when it is stated that the construction
of the first twenty-five miles of this railroad cost the lives of
more than 4,000 men. This was the tribute demanded by
the fever-infested jungles, and it was obtained despite the
fact that 'the average working force did not exceed 1,500
men. Almost three full corps of laborers gave up their lives
in the fight to conquer the mere fringe of the wilderness.
Only a very few of these were natives of Costa Rica or
inhabitants of Central America, for nothing could induce the
average native to enter the deadly zone of the tierras calien-
tes, the dreaded hot lands of the Caribbean coastal region.
The laborers therefore were drawn from Jamaica, and it is
the Jamaican negro who does the bulk of the manual work
in the banana districts of Central America to-day.

But it was not these humble Jamaican negroes who'm'ade
up all of this death roll. Scores of young American engi-
neers and others of skilled professions gave up their lives in
this attempt to subdue the jungle. In the long list of those

58 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

who fell in this industrial battle were three of the brothers of
Minor C. Keith, and only a splendid physique and a calm
faith in his destiny preserved the latter in the long nineteen
years while the railroad was climbing its tortuous way to
San Jose on the Pacific slope of the plateau. Those Ameri-
can tourists and travellers who now journey in comfort over
this railroad, and who are enchanted by scenic beauties not
surpassed in any part of this beautiful world of ours, should
pause and reflect that the trip which they make in a few
happy hours was made possible by men who did not hesitate
to risk and sacrifice their lives in a work which will ever
stand as a monument to the constructive genius of American
citizenship.

At one time the government of Costa Rica was unable to
.((][1 A pay Mr. Keith a considerable sum of money which was due
^ S^^ to him under the terms of the official agreement. Mr. Keith
njD^' rnet the pay-roll of the 1,500 Jamaican negroes until most
jfi^ of his available funds were exhausted. He then called this
small army together and explained to them the exact situa-
tion, and asked them if they would continue to work with-
out pay until he could make financial arrangements which
would permit a settlement, and pledged his word that not a
man should lose thereby. Mr. Keith offered full pay and
transportation to Jamaica to those who wished to quit.

Mr. Keith had every reason to believe that Costa Rica
would quickly emerge from its financial difficulties, but event
after event made it impossible for its officials to meet their
obligations to Mr. Keith. It was a year of financial disaster
and money scarcity all over the world. Month after month
passed, and still the negro laborers worked on without pay.
It was not the fault of Costa Rica; it was the fault of a
panic which had chased the mobile money of the world into
hiding.

Six months passed, and still no pay day for the 1,500
negroes. It was possible for Mr. Keith to feed and clothe
them, but that was all. He called them together again, ex-
plained the situation, assured them of his belief that the
financial skies soon would clear, and asked them if they still
had confidence in his word. By an unanimous vote they

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS 59

again pledged their faith in the American who had attempted
the seeming impossible. Many of them had wives and
children back in Jamaica, but they stuck. Three more
months passed before outside capital was ready or able to
come to the aid of the young railroad builder, and then Mr.
Keith paid his faithful army of men in full, and added a
substantial bonus.

I doubt if a finer tribute ever was paid to a mere business
man. For nine long months these Jamaican negroes per-
formed their difficult and dangerous duties in the firm con-
fidence that "Mistah Keith would make good." He was
not of their race or of their country, but they had for him
the faith and allegiance which inspired the soldiers of Na-
poleon to conquer Europe.

This incident had an interesting sequel. At the earliest
opportunity the Republic of Costa Rica not only paid to
Mr. Keith all that was due under his contract, but also reim-
bursed him for the losses sustained at the time he was denied
the amounts due him. I will detail later how Costa Rica
in after years proved in another most striking and substan-
tial way that there are exceptions to the traditional rule that
"Republics are ungrateful."

Passengers for Costa Rica now land at the beautiful and
healthful city of Puerto Limon, and from there take a train
for San Jose and other points between the Caribbean and
the Pacific. Mr. Keith did not select Puerto Limon by
reason of the fact that it was the principal eastern seaport of
Costa Rica. That nation had no seaport, and little need of a
seaport. Its few imports and exports were carried by row-
boats to and from sailing ships which anchored at safe dis-
tances from shore.

The name of Limon was given on account of a lemon tree
found in the jungle, and there was then nothing to dis-
tinguish the site from the dreary miles of uninhabited beach.
At long intervals there may have been found the huts of a
few Caribs and other Indians who existed by the primitive
methods handed down by their ancestors. The real Re-
public of Costa Rica was far inland, as has been explained.

The manner in which Mr. Keith entered into the banana

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS 61

business is peculiar and interesting. He had many ambi-
tious plans, but the truth of the matter is that the banana
did not originally enter into them. He went to Central
America to build railroads, and from 1871 until the present
day he has continued at that task, and will doubtless pursue
his ambition until younger hands complete this great under-
taking. It is very likely that Mr. Keith underestimated
the difficulties which were ahead of him. There was no
possible traffic from the outside for his new railroad until
he came into touch with the populous interior of Costa
Rica. It soon became apparent that for a number of years
the railroad which started in a jungle would remain in the
jungle, and the traffic possibilities of such a road are about
equal to that of a *' merry-go-round" with the North Pole
as an axis.

Mr. Keith probably did not dream that nineteen years
would pass before his road would reach San Jose, less than
100 miles away, but with every mile presenting some new,
and difficult problem. He soon realized, however, that he
must secure some article of freight for his railroad and that
this article must be found or developed in the jungle, and
this is how Minor C. Keith became identified with the
banana industry and stands as one of the pioneers of its
systematic production on a large scale.

It was in 1872 that Mr. Keith planted the first marketable
bananas which ever grew in Central American soil. Less
than two years had passed since this youth quit Texas, and
he never had seen a banana until he paid a visit to Panama.
Therefore he was not an expert on bananas, but since there
were no experts on this fruit he was not handicapped. Carl
B. Franc was the sole importer probably in all the world,
and it was from this pioneer that Mr. Keith obtained the
bulb with which to make the experiment in the Costa Rican
jungles.

Without waiting for these small plantations to develop,
Mr. Keith decided to test New Orleans as a possible market
for a fruit then absolutely unknown to its people. His
brother owned the small steamship Juan G. Meiggs, and in
1872 Mr. Keith shipped on it 200 bunches of bananas pur-

62 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

chased in Colon. These were sold in New Orleans at high
prices and a large profit, and for some time he continued to
make monthly shipments of from 250 to 400 bunches, which
was all that the market consumed at the fancy prices then
charged.

At this time the total shipment of bananas from all the
tropics did not amount annually to more than 300,000
bunches, imported from the West Indies, Colon, and the Bay
Islands off the coast of Honduras. To-day the importa-
tions amount to more than 50,000,000 bunches.
1 The experiment of planting bananas in Costa Rica was a
\success from the start. The partly completed railroad gave
iMr. Keith a chance to initiate a system of rapid transporta-
tion from the fields to the ships, which system is the prime
/requisite in modern banana production. Thus was founded
in the deadly jungles of Costa Rica an enterprise which was
destined to make these waste lands not only highly produc-
tive but also sanitary. Instead of remaining an enemy the
jungle became a friend — a friend who came bearing gifts
of delicious fruit. It was not necessary for the railroad to
await revenue until the peopled plateau was reached. Such
waiting probably would have spelled disaster to Mr. Keith.
This forcing the jungle to pay tribute was business genius
of a high order. It helped to found a gigantic industry, and
brought prosperity and an awakening to all of Central
America.

Mr. Keith continued to extend his banana plantations in
Costa Rica and to search for new districts where the soil
and climate promised success. He discovered such a location
in the beautiful region about Bocas del Toro, then a part of
Colombia, but now a prosperous community in the Repub-
lic of Panama. He ^Iso decided to acquire banana interests
in Santa Marta, Colombia, along the north coast of South
America, the agricultural wonders of which will be described
in a later chapter.
f In 1878 Mr. Keith opened the first store in Bluefields,
\ Nicaragua, and conducted a trade in rubber, sarsa and tor-
\ toise shell. No bananas had yet been planted in Nicaragua,
\ but Mr. Keith induced friends to make the experiment.

and in 1882 he shipped the first bananas from Bluefields toy
New Orleans by the steamship Heredia, owned by him. Mr.
Keith subsequently turned his banana interests in Nicaragua

On the beach at Bocas del Toro

over to a business associate, and devoted his attention to
other sections in Central and South America.

From 1872 until 1899, the latter being the date of the
organization of the United Fruit Company, Mr. Keith
devoted all of the time he could spare from his railroad enter-
prises to the development of the banana industry. As the

64 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

years passed, and the demand for bananas stimulated by
Mr. Keith and the New England pioneers increased, other
Americans were attracted by the possibilities of this new
industry, and competing concerns established footholds
along various points of the coast of Central America. Some
of these quickly failed from crop disasters, inexperience, lack
of capital or credit, and from the causes which exist in all
forms of business. Others succeeded and are in profitable
operation to-day.

From the day that the Boston importers and Mr. Keith
entered the field against Mr. Franc there has been active
competition in the banana industry. In Central America
Mr. Keith had certain natural advantages, but these were the
ones which belong of right to the man who is first in a new field.
The miner who has the daring, fortitude, and energy to pros-
pect in a country which others ignore, and who has the good
fortune to discover outcroppings of gold or silver which have
escaped other eyes, acts within his legal and moral rights in
locating claims which seem most promising to him. Others
may come later and attain an even greater success because
of taking advantage of the discovery made by this pioneer
prospector in a virgin field, but fair-minded individuals
and public opinion does not begrudge the discoverer of
this wealth the share which is his because of his rights of
priority.

The same just rule holds true everywhere. The hardy
men who explored the Mississippi Valley would have been
fools, and despised as such, had they not have claimed and
pre-empted the choicer locations for farms and town sites.
This is in accord with the unassailable rule, "First come, first
served." Deny to the pioneer and the explorer these just
rewards of risks and hardships and you put a brake and drag
on material progress.

The men who first undertook the banana business in the
American tropics had every right to acquire and hold the
sections which seemed to give most promise for success in
banana production and quick transportation. The field was
so enormous and the then existing demand for bananas so
small that the early advantages of the pioneers were about

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS

the same as those possessed by the original corn and wheat
growers of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Minor C. Keith saw into the banana future and builded

A country road in Jamaica

for it. He foresaw that bananas would be carried from the^
tropics to the markets entirely by steamships. That meant
that the fruit must be raised in districts adjacent to deep
water harbors. There are only five natural harbors on alL

66 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

{of the Caribbean coast of Central America. These are as
ollows: Trujillo, Honduras; Puerto Barrios, Guatemala;
uerto Cortez, Honduras; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, and
ocas del Toro, Republic of Panama. Within close reach
f all of these natural harbors are large tracts of land well
dapted to the cultivation of bananas. All five of these
arbors are the logical starting points of railroads built to reach
into the populated highlands of their respective republics^.

The opportunity was obvious. Every condition was in
harmony. There were four locations possessed of deep
water, banana lands, and river valleys through which rail-
roads could reach the interior plateaus. None of these
natural resources had b^en touched. There was a small
settlement of negroes at Bocas del Toro, but only slight
signs of villages where now are located the thriving cities of
Limon, Barrios, and Cortez. The swamps and jungles were
the property of anyone who cared to pay a small price for
them. Mr. Keith was then the only man in the world who
was willing to risk money in an attempt to make them of
value. A somewhat similar situation existed in Santa Marta,
the only seaport of consequence along the north coast of
Colombia, South America. Mr. Keith purchased banana
interests in and near Santa Marta.

Such was the manner in which Mr. Keith acquired what-
ever of natural advantage he possessed, and such was the
manner in which a part of the foundation was laid for the
great business structure which has been reared by the United
Fruit Company. There are vast areas of banana lands re-
maining in all of these countries, areas which are as fertile
as those selected for cultivation and sanitation by Mr.
Keith, but they lack some of the advantages of the lands
chosen by Mr. Preston and Mr. Keith in the years when the
world thought them crazy for spending time and money in
the swamps and jungles of an unknown section of the globe.
/' In 1898, after a continuous residence of twenty-seven
years in Costa Rica, Minor C. Keith was the controlling
factor in three banana enterprises. It is rather a significant
fact that his associates in one of the corporations were
English investors, and that the company was incorpor-

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS 67

ated In London. It was, for reasons already stated and
which should be deplored, almost impossible to interest the
capital of the United States in the development of the sec-
tions over which was extended the uncertain sway of the

Fholo by .1. Duperly ^ Son, Kingston, Jamaica

Wives of Jamaica banana farmers

Monroe Doctrine. Our men of money shut their eyes to
the facts and declined to listen to the arguments of Mr.
Keith and others who attempted to enlist their wealthy
countrymen in the development of the American tropics.

68 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

The Tropical Trading & Transport Company, Limited, was
a Costa Rican corporation formed for the purpose of handling
the properties which Mr. Keith had acquired in Costa Rica.
The Colombian Land Company, Limited, was a British cor-
poration formed for the purpose of developing the banana
industry in and about Santa Marta, and Mr. Keith was the
general manager and controlling factor in that company.
The Snyder Banana Company, a New Jersey corporation,
owned the plantations in Chiriqui Lagoon, of the Bocas del
Toro district of Panama, and Mr. Keith owned a half interest
and control of this company. Sir Alexander Henderson,
Sir Thomas Kitson, Mr. Copperthwaite, Mr. James Lind-
say, and other English investors were associated with Mr.
Keith in the companies which were developing Santa Marta,
and a group of London capitalists gave support to his
operations in Costa Rica.
"^ The regular ports of entry for the bananas produced
/by these companies were New Orleans, Mobile, and other
I Gulf and southern ports. The demand for bananas in the
/ United States was limited because of the fact that there were
I no proper facilities for the transportation and distribution
J of this fruit to the interior markets. The three Keith
companies made money in years when no disasters befell
their growing crops, and lost money when floods droughts
and high winds afliicted them.

CHAPTER V

Birth of the United Fruit Company

INLY those who have lived in the
tropics and are familiar with
the hazards which confront the
cultivation and marketing of
its fruits can readily under-
stand the motives which im-
pelled a union of the interests
of the Boston Fruit Company
and those headed by Minor C.
Keith. It was not a move
calculated to control competi-
tion or to rear a monopoly; it
was the business step impera-
tively required to secure the
permanency of the banana in-
dustry.

In 1898, the year preceding
the organization of the United
Fruit Company, the total importation of bananas from the
American tropics did not exceed 12,000,000 bunches, or
about one-fourth of those imported in 191 3. It is doubtful
if any food product has shown a similar increase in any equal
period in the world's history. The sole reason why more
bananas were not imported in 1898 is that this was the total
product available for importation. The sole reason why the
year 191 3 did not exceed the figure of 50,000,000 bunches of
imported bananas is that no more were available for ship-
ment to the consuming sections of the United States and
Europe.

The problem in 1898 was to produce more bananas for a
steadily mounting popular demand. That is the problem
to-day. The field was open to all comers in 1898. It is open
to all who care to enter it to-day. Under such conditions the

70 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

presumption that a banana monopoly ever existed, now
exists, or is possible cannot be entertained by those who
understand the first rudiments of the laws of business and
commerce.

At the time of the organization of the United Fruit Com-
pany the following firms, corporations, and persons were
engaged in importing bananas into the United States :

/^Boston Fruit Company,

) Tropical Trading and Transport Company, Ltd.,

) Colombian Land Company, Ltd.,'

v^nyder Banana Company,

J. D. Hart Company, "^ »

J. M. Ceballos & Company,

Orr & Laubenheimer Company, Ltd.,

Camors, McConnell & Company,

New Orleans Belize Royal Mail & Central American Steam-
ship Company,

W. W. & C. R. Noyes,

John E. Kerr & Company,

J. H. Seward Importing & Steamship Company,

Aspinwall Fruit Company,

West Indian Fruit Company,

Monumental Trading Company,

West India Trading Company,

Henry Bayer & Son,

Camors-Weinberger Banana Company, Ltd.,

J. B.Cefalu& Brother,

S.Oteri,

The Bluefields Steamship Company, Ltd.,

W. L. Rathbun & Company.

There were undoubtedly other firms and individuals en-
gaged in a small scale in the banana business, but the above
list includes all those of consequence in the trade. The first
four were merged into the United Fruit Company. Some of
the others have retired, others have been absorbed by the
companies which now compete with the United Fruit Com-
I pany, but not a firm, corporation, or individual engaged in

THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

the banana business at the time of the incorporation of the
United Fruit Company has failed because of the operations
of that company.

Photo by A. Duperly 6* Son, Kingston, Jamaica

Beyond the reach of frost and snow

Prior to 1899, the year of the formation of the United
Fruit Company, there had been organized, according to the
best available information, not less thaa 114 companies or

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

firms which engaged In the importation of bananas to the
United States. Of this large list — as has been stated —
only twenty-two of any consequence were still in existence
when the United Fruit Company was formed.

Most of these banana companies were inadequately fi-
nanced, and most of them were under the management of
men who had no practical knowledge of the banana indus-
try. Few had been in business for as long a period as ten
years, and most of them handled insignificant quantities of
bananas. With monotonous regularity these mushroom
\ banana companies would spring into being, struggle along
for a short time, and then drop out of existence, leaving
I behind no assets for their stockholders.

Such experimental banana companies still are founded,
most of them with capital stock ranging from $50,000 to
$200,000. These amounts of money are sufficient to fi-
nance a banana plantation, but it is as idle to expect to
become a producer, importer, and national distributor of
bananas with such capital as it would be to expect to com-
pete successfully with the Western Union and the Postal
Telegraph with a new company thus financed.

When the banana industry was in its infancy there was
a possibility of temporary success even with the most crude
and wasteful of methods. The cargoes were small, and it
was not difficult to dispose of the fruit over the ship's sides
a few bunches at a time. The market was largely confined
to the port in which the ship docked, the prices were high,
and the consumption small.

The fruit was generally secured by purchase from the
native tropical planters, sometimes by contract, but more
' often in the open market. Few companies, even in the
late 90's, grew any bananas on their own plantations, and
when they did, these formed merely the nuclei of their
cargoes, the remainder being secured by purchase. Prac-
tically all of the importers of this early period looked to one
source of supply and had only one port of entry in the United
States. In some instances, the importer simply chartered
space on steamers and stored it with bananas; the more
ambitious importers chartered ships, but these were of low

THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY 73

Ieed and had a capacity for a comparatively small number
stems of bananas.

Arriving in the United States, the fruit was unloaded by
hand, and in the early days the prospective purchasers
would assemble on the wharves to secure their supplies.
Naturally, they chose their own fruit, buying as they did
only a few bunches at a time. In later years, however,
the importers adopted the custom of selling the fruit by
"steamer run," viz: as it came out of the steamer, declin-
ing to permit the buyer to pick out the best bunches.
Some importers had stores and ripening rooms where
they could keep a portion of their fruit and sell it
gradually. What was left, aften every possible local der
mand had been satisfied, was then shipped to various
interior points usually consigned to some broker. Some-
times the fruit was shipped a long distance, from New
Orleans to Chicago, but it was not often necessary to as-
sume such risks.

The importers knew little concerning the business as a
whole; they were not familiar with the interior markets or
how to reach them, and the industry in all of its depart-
ments was conducted in a wasteful and haphazard manner,
the public paying their share of these blunders in high prices
for bananas, and the importers paying their share in losses
which generally ended in bankruptcy.

New Orleans took the first step for a business organization
designed to secure a proper distribution of bananas in 1896,
three years prior to the formation of the United Fruit Com-
pany. In this year, four of the New Orleans companies
formed the New Orleans Importing Company, a selling
organization intended to dispose of the fruit imported by
its members. The New Orleans experiment was successful
while it lasted, but jealousies and dissensions among the
heads of the four companies requiring its services caused
its dissolution after a few months.

Another effort in the same direction was made early in
1899 when similar problems resulted in the formation of
the Southern Banana Exchange. Like its predecessor, it
worked satisfactorily, but its usefulness was cut short in

74 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

three or four months by the inability of its members to get
along without friction.

The truth of the matter is, that the banana industry,
prior to the formation of the United Fruit Company, had
made sorry progress compared with other importing enter-
prises. The Boston Fruit Company and those concerns
headed by Mr. Keith were the most progressive in their
methods, but they were handicapped by conditions which
will now be considered.

I The Boston Fruit Company and the Keith interests were
'the leading factors in the banana industry. The Boston
Fruit Company derived its product solely from the West
Indies and confined its market to the Atlantic coast and to
the northern sections of the interior of the United States.
The Keith interests cultivated bananas in Central America
and Colombia and shipped them mainly to New Orleans and
other Gulf ports, but lacked the facilities for reaching far
into the southern and western territory naturally tributary
to these shipping and railroad termini. The conditions
[were such that there was nothing approaching competition
)etween the Boston Fruit Company and the Keith inter-
ests, nor was there any prospect that their activities would

►nflict.

Neither of these interests had the capital with which to
take advantage of obvious opportunities, but the time had
arrived when moneyed men were willing to listen to the possi-
bilities of the banana as an investment. They still declined
to class it as a conservative investment, and, such is the
proverbial timidity of capital, it is not so considered to-day,
as stock quotations eloquently testify. Your cautious man
of money seeks investments which he can look at and study
personally from day to day, the securities of which he can
convert into cash almost at a moment's notice, and the
tropics — ^well, the tropics are far from New York and Boston.

Hence a tropical investment must prove and double-
prove itself before the average man of money will consider it,
and then the lure must be attractive, in dividend per cents.
But in the years which had passed since Carl B. Franc,
Captain Lorenzo D. Baker, Andrew W. Preston, Minor

THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

C. Keith, and others faced the hardships and risks of the pio-
neer, certain things had been proved beyond possibility of
doubt.

The most favorable thing proved by these pioneers was
that the people of the United States liked bananas and would
eat them in unlimited quantities if offered at prices which

Photo by A . Duperly Sr Son, Kingston, Jamaica
Family life in Jamaica

would compete with such home fruits as apples, peaches,
pears, and oranges. The second favorable consideration
proved was that bananas could be grown cheaply and in
large quantities in certain tropical sections, provided weather
conditions continued favorable.

The disturbing and discouraging element was found in the
fact that a flood, drought, or high wind would destroy a crop

76 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

in a given section and eliminate it as a source of production
for a year or more. Capital pays more attention to one flaw
in a new proposition than it does to ten of its glowing prdm-
\ises. Possibly this is the reason why we have such a thing
)as capital. In any event, capital in 1898 declined to enthuse
over an enterprise which could not prove its ability to supply
at all times the commodity in which a large investment was
to be made.

There was ample justification for this attitude. The Bos-
ton Fruit Company had learned by grim and expensive ex-
yperience that the tropics could frown as well as smile. Hur-
jricanes levelled some of their best plantations in Jamaica.
The replanted tracts would later be swept away by roaring
floods. Droughts shrivelled the fronds of the banana plant's
in Cuba and San Domingo. Nor was nature the only one to
strike blows. Warring factions waged revolutions and
counter-revolutions in Cuba and San Domingo. There was
bo stability of governments, no assurance that the field
Workers of to-day would not follow some ambitious "general"
bn the morrow in the quest of "liberty" or loot. The Boston
Fruit Company did not have a source of banana supply
which it could insure against sweeping disaster without warn-
ing. Under the most favorable circumstances its total supply
was insufficient to meet the rapidly increasing demand, and
any curtailment meant not only money losses but damaged
prestige as well.

The enterprises headed by Mr. Keith faced the same men-
aces. Terrific floods in Costa Rica and Panama swept away
the railroad tracks and bridges and overwhelmed the loaded
banana plants in large districts. In one year a protracted
drought in the Santa Marta district of Colombia practically
killed all of the plantations. Revolutions in some of the
Central American republics played their part in determining
whether crops would be harvested or not.

But luck, chance, or the law of average decreed that these
disasters to the banana crops should be local, and that a
large portion in the American tropics would survive in any
year despite the rage of the elements and the fury of warring
political factions. The obvious remedy of a banana import-

.-./^»

__^

r
1

riF

C-— "

/ite^

■^

Wh^

1^, '

^s^

— ~

78 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

ing concern was to provide for sources of supply in many dis-
tricts scattered all over the American tropics. This expe-
dient was so obvious and so imperative that it should have
suggested itself and been adopted years prior to the forma-
tion of the United Fruit Company. It was the natural, rea-
sonable, sensible, and logical thing to do.

The consolidation of the interests of the Boston Fruit
Company and the companies controlled by Minor C. Keith
was brought about, as a matter of fact, not as the result of a
carefully considered plan, but through a financial disaster
which seriously threatened Mr. Keith. In the latter part
of 1898 the firm of Hoadley & Company failed. Mr.
Keith had drawn bills against this company to the amount of
more than ^1,500,000. He was conducting extensive opera-
tions in many tropical sections, and this failure was a serious
blow. For years Mr. Keith had consigned his bananas to
Hoadley & Company, through the port of New Orleans.
There was a consequent shattering of his plans for the
marketing of bananas.

I told in a former ^^apter of the time when 1,500 Jamaica
negroes worked nine months for Mr. Keith without wages
owing to the inability of the Government of Costa Rica to
pay money due for railroad construction. The failure of
Hoadley & Company and the financial crippling of Mr.
Keith gave Costa Rica a chance to prove that republics are
not always. ungrateful. This crisis found Mr. Keith obli-
gated to Costa Rica, which held his drafts in large amounts,
but this made no difi'erence. The government officials of
that republic promptly offered to lend Mr. Keith any reason-
able amount of money to tide him over his difficulties, and
he accepted their aid. The Costa Rican banks and others
cooperated, and two weeks after the failure Mr. Keith ar-
arrived in New York City and made a settlement in full with
his creditors.

f Mr. Keith, on account of the failure of his agents, was
compelled to make new arrangements for the sale of his fruit
and entered into negotiations with Andrew W. Preston,
president of the Boston Fruit Company. The letter organ-
ization had just formed the Fruit Dispatch Company for the

THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

purpose of expediting and extending the distribution and sale |
of bananas. An arrangement was made by which a portion of
Mr. Keith's product would be handled by the Boston Fruit
Company or its branches, and it was in this manner that
Mr. Preston and Mr. Keith came in closer business contact..
It has been explained that Mr. Keith took up banana

Glimpse of the interior of the SS. Sixaola

cultivation and transportation as a means to supply freight
for his tropical railroads, but in the years which had passed
since 1872 his banana enterprises had progressed to a stage
which demanded a large share of his time. Instead of being
a secondary interest, as Mr. Keith had intended it to be,
his banana enterprises .threatened to divert his whole time
from the railroad, projects on which he had set his -ambition.

80 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Andrew W. Preston, president and directing spirit of the
Boston Fruit Company and its branches, was anxious to
secure new sources of banana supply, and was fully aware
that some of these should come from Central and South
America.

Under such conditions it was easy to initiate and conclude
negotiations looking to the lawful consolidation of the prop-
erties of these two non-competitive groups of banana com-
panies. Mr. Preston, Mr. Keith, and their associates were
also influenced by a hope that such an amalgamation would
create an enterprise sufficiently conservative and devoid of
risks to attract the outside capital required to place the
banana business on a more secure financial foundation.

It had been obvious for years that the banana industry
was one which must be conducted on a large scale. It could
be gambled in on a small scale, but there is a wide difference
between rearing a conservative banana enterprise and taking
a chance on the luck of a ship and a local banana plantation.
Most agricultural products can be raised on a small scale.
Wheat, corn, oats, barley, garden truck, apples, pears, grapes,
and scores of other food and fruit products can be brought
from the soil by individuals of limited means, who can com-
pete successfully with those who cultivate much larger tracts.
Cotton is in the same class, but sugar and bananas are in an
entirely different class.

Sugar arid bananas can be produced on a small scale, but
their economical production positively demands vast acreage
and vast expenditures for the complicated equipment of
handling and transportation. It was a demonstrated fact
in 1899 that no banana enterprise could hope for permanent
success unless financially equipped to insure a widely scat-
tered source of supply, adequate means of transportation,
and, finally, methods of distribution which would place
bananas within speedy reach of all of the consuming centres
in the United States.

Investors had never been off"ered a chance in a banana
enterprise of this character. Would it prove attractive?
Mr. Keith, Mr. Preston, and their associates discussed the
question of a consolidation of interests and gave careful

THE UNITED ERUIT COMPANY

A temple in Costa Rica

consideration to the various details. It was found possible
to enlist financial support for the organization of a prop-
erly equipped banana enterprise. The United Fruit Com-
pany was not, strictly speaking, a consolidation of the
interests of the northern and southern groups headed /

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

respectively by Andrew W. Preston and Minor C.
Keith. The United Fruit Company was incorporated
on March 30, 1899, under the laws of New Jersey, as a sin-
gle, individual corporation, with an authorized capital of
^20,000,000. Shortly thereafter ^1,650,000 capital was sub-
scribed and paid for in cash at par, and during the first year
^11,230,000 in stock was subscribed. It was authorized
under its charter to acquire, by purchase or development,
banana and other properties and to conduct them in the
manner provided by law. ;,

\ Under this charter the United Fruit Company, on April X,
1899, offered to purchase all the property, business, and
shares of the Boston Fruit Company and of its associated
companies for $5,200,000 cash. This offer was later accepted
and resulted in the acquisition by the United Fruit Company
of the assets of the Boston Fruit Company, and its seven

/ branch companies, viz: the American Fruit Company, Banes
Fruit Company, Buckman Fruit Company, Dominican Fruit

\ Company, Quaker City Fruit Company, and Sama Fruit

) Company, also the Fruit Dispatch Company.

These seven branches of the Boston Fruit Company were
organized from time to time for business convenience, and
were owned outright or largely controlled by the parent
company. This system of branch companies was the
conventional expedient of the time and was not a subject of
comment or criticism.

The Banes Fruit Company, Dominican Fruit Company,
and Sama Fruit Company were companies organized and
owned by the Boston Fruit Company, and were operated
solely for the purpose of owning plantations and growing
bananas in Cuba and San Domingo. They were strictly
agricultural propositions. The American Fruit Company,
Buckman Fruit Company, and Quaker City Fruit Com-
pany were organized by the Boston Fruit Company to trans-
port bananas from Cuba, San Domingo, and Jamaica to
the United States, and to sell them in different points in
the northern and northeastern sections of the country.
The Boston 'Fruit Company imported bananas into the
port of Boston; the American Fruit Company imported

THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

Ipianas to New York City, the Quaker City Fruit Com-
iny to Philadelphia, and the Buckman Fruit Company
[-Baltimore. The Boston Fruit Company furnished to the
merican, Quaker City, and Buckman companies all of the

Plwto by A. DuPerly 3* Son, Kingston. Jamaica

A tropical fern bank

bananas imported and sold by them. In other words, all of
these companies were merely branches of the Boston Fruit
Company.

The Fruit Dispatch Company was organized and wholly
owned by the Boston Fruit Company, and was a selling j

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

corporation only. It still maintains a separate corporate
existence, but is owned outright by the United Fruit Com-
pany.

To all intents and purposes the Boston Fruit Company and
the branches organized and owned by it were one corpora-
tion in 1899. The branches were organized and maintained
for purposes of convenience and for conventional business
reasons, mainly local. It was within the power and the right

Constructing the hull of a modern banana ship

of the Boston Fruit Company to absorb its branches at any
time, or to make such other disposition of them as it saw fit.
Despite this obvious fact, it has been alleged that the United
Fruit Company acquired these branch companies because
they were competitive with the Boston Fruit Company —
an absurd and utterly unfounded statement. The source
of banana supply did not extend south of Jamaica and
there was no port of entry south of Baltimore. So much for
the northern or Boston group.

THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY 85

On April 5, 1899, the United Fruit Company purchased
from Minor C. Keith and his associates all of the properties
owned by the Tropical Trading and Transport Company, Ltd.,
the Colombian Land Company, Ltd., and the Snyder Banana
Company, all three of which had been under the manage-
ment and control of Mr. Keith. These three properties
were acquired for about ^4,cxx),ooo. The Colombian Land
Company, Ltd., and the Tropical Trading and Transport
Company, Ltd., were corporations whose operations were
restricted solely to the cultivation of banana plantations in
Colombia and Costa Rica respectively. The Snyder Banana
Company owned plantations in Panama and chartered a few
steamers which carried its fruit and other freight from Bocas
del Toro to New Orleans and Mobile. The width of the
Caribbean separated this group from the one to which it had
been united, and the ports of entry and distribution were
no nearer than Baltimore and Mobile.

Such is the plain history of the organization of the United/^ '
Fruit Company. Its legal incorporation meant more than/
the birth of a corporation. It w,:s the actual birth of the
banana industry. It had taken thTrty-four^iars'of blun-
ders^ experiments, disasters, partial successes, and the assump-
tion of the innumerable risks and hardships incident to a
struggle with the virgin tropics to create an enterprise fit
to take advantage of the experience which had so dearly been
bought. The great experiment of whether bananas could
be produced and handled on a vastly larger scale had yet
to be made, and there were many who did not hesitate to
predict that the ambitious plans of the heads of the newly
organized United Fruit Company would end in overwhelm-
ing failure.

CHAPTER VI
Growth of a Great Enterprise

VERY reader of the preceding
chapter must be aware that the
United Fruit Company started
its career without any of the
advantages which conduce to
monopoly. It was the owner of
no patents. It had the benefit
of no tariff favors. Its land
holdings in the tropics were in-
significant compared with the
total of banana tracts available
for cultivation. It held no ex-
clusive concessions from any of
the governments of the tropical
countries in which it operated.
It had no contracts — and never has entered into contracts
— with steamship or railway lines giving it any advantages
over its competitors. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean
Sea were open waters to all of the ships of the world which
•cared to engage in the banana trade. The ports of the
tropics and of the United States were open to such ships.
] There was nothing to prevent other groups of investors
from entering the field against the newly organized United
Fruit Company. Such interests might have purchased the
properties of the companies which were already in competi-
tion with the United Fruit Company, or they could have
acquired most of the lands on which now are located the
banana plantations which give to the United Fruit Company
the bulk of its supply.

The United Fruit Company was formed in the year when
the American public was possessed of a mania for risking its
money in new and vast undertakings. Any plan of reor-
ganization or consolidation of industry which could be so

GROWTH OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE 87

presented as to offer a reasonable chance of success had its
securities snapped up by thousands of investors who be-
sieged the offices of the underwriters and deluged them with
letters containing remittances. It was a period when bil-
lions of dollars were turned into the coffers of the "New
Industry." It goes without saying that the newly formed
United Fruit Company had no prestige, advantage or finan-
cial backing which would deter promoters from organizing
an even more powerful company along the same lines and
for the purpose of entering the same broad field of enterprise.

No, it was not fear of the com-
petition of the newly launched
United Fruit Company which pre-
vented the great captains of finance
and industry from bidding for
popular support for a corporation
which would rival and possibly
supplant the one then in the field.
They made no move because the
lacked faith both in the success o
such an undertaking and in the
support of the investing public

There was another reason. Itl
was impossible to draft a prospectus/
which would convince an intelligent
investor that one banana producinj \
concern would have any marke( I
natural advantage over anothei .
The investing public was in a frenzy

to escape the effects of a system of cut-throat competition ^
which had brought ruin to producer and consumer alike.
The most popular of the new stock and bond securities were
those which gave assurance that their holders would be
immune from profit-destroying competition. No industry
based on agriculture offered that inducement. What had
bananas to offer .^^ The public had been educated to believe,
that bananas flourish in most parts of the tropics, and care-j
ful investors knew that the price of bananas would ever bel
fixed by competition. Competition was very unpopular in'

The modern fruit ship

88 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

1899, and the average investor and underwriter looked with
suspicion on any security based on the alleged possibilities
of the banana industry.

The blunt truth of the matter is that the United Fruit
Company was forced into its present leadership in the ba-
nana industry because of the ignorance and indifference of
the investing public of the United States concerning the
tropics at their southern gates.

The United Fruit Company to-day has certain assured
advantages, and these advantages must be taken into
account by any new rival which bids for its trade and busi-
ness. How did the United Fruit Company obtain these
advantages? By what right does it exercise these advan-
tages ?

The great wholesale dry goods firm of Marshall Field &
Company has certain decided advantages over all of its
competitors in the United States. How did this corpora-
tion obtain these advantages and by what right does it
exercise them? Here is the answer: Marshall Field &
Company created these advantages by the exercise of con-
structive business genius in a field open to the investment
capital of all the world. Marshall Field & Company holds
these advantages by the right of honorable business con-
quest.

The same thing is true of hundreds of other corporations,
concerns, and individuals who have reared great business
enterprises in fields where monopoly is impossible, and who
now possess the legitimate advantages which come from good
will and prestige honestly won and fairly exercised.

The annual reports of the company during the thirteen
years of its corporate existence form an interesting study.
President Preston has condensed in these reports a frank
and lucid history of a progress which has been halted at
times by climatic disasters, sweeping calamities which
would have spelled ruin to a concern not fortified by a wide
distribution of its sources of supply.

\ The reading public has always associated the United
Fruit Company solely with the banana industry, and there
prevails a popular belief that its success has been due en-

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

tirely to a mastery of the production and distribution of that
tropical fruit. This is not so. From the very beginning the
company was engaged in other forms of activities. It was
a carrier of freight and passengers. It was a raiser of cattle

AFTER A TROPICAL FLOOD

Repairing a bridge on a banana railroad

/and other live stock; it was an owner and builder of railroads;
lit was preparing to engage in the extensive production of
Isugar in Cuba, and it was cultivating many tropical products
Ibesides bananas.

On August 31, 1900, we learn from the first annual report

GROWTH OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE 91

I 'the United Fruit Company that it owned 212,394 ^cres of
nd in Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Jamaica, San Do-
mingo, and Colombia. It had leased lands in Costa Rica and
Jamaica to the extent of 23,807 acres, making its total hold-
ings 236,201 acres. Of this area 66,294 were under cultiva-
tion of some sort, and 169,907 acres were unimproved. Much
of this unimproved land was unfitted for cultivation, and
belonged to tracts which had to be purchased intact in
order to secure an acreage suitable for bananas or other
purposes. All save a small portion of the lands then owned
by the United Fruit Company had been acquired by purchase
from the Boston Fruit Company and from the interests
headed by Minor C. Keith.

The company had 38,463 acres planted to bananas, as is
shown in the following table which is of interest as showing
the agricultural resources of the enterprise in its initial year
of operation:

STATEMENT SHOWING THE LOCATION AND THE ACREAGE

OF THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY'S FRUIT, SUGAR

CANE, AND MISCELLANEOUS CULTIVATIONS,

AUGUST 31, 1900

location-

AND ACREAGE

Description

Costa
Rica

Cuba

Hon-
duras

Jamaica

San-
Domingo

Colom-
bia

Total

Fruit:
Bananas
Oranges
Pineapples

Sugar Cane

Miscellaneous:
Cocoa nuts
Coffee
Cocoa
Rubber
Para Grass

10,626

■■46

2380
3,417
3,276

5,841
7,803

3,539

400

5,749

315
17

3,300

12,547

38,463

3IS

7,803

1,842
58

255

307

2,458

3,417
12

1,830

ID
115

2
140
163

Guinea
Grass

Vegetables

Other lands

100

4,151

200

11,347

Total Acreage

19,810

17,183 ' 500

12,266

3,500

13,035

66,294

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

On these plantations were 13,932 head of live stock, Ap-
portioned to the various countries as follows: ,, '

STATEMENT OF LIVE STOCK OWNED BY THE UNITED
FRUIT COMPANY ON AUGUST 31, 1900

LOCATION

Description

Cattle:
Cows
Bulls
Oxen
Steers
Calves
Heifers

Total

Costa
Rica

2,907

3,416

1,357

7,769

Cuba

783

801

Hon-
duras

24
6

Jamaica

611

1,290

482

281

442

3,132

San

Colom-

Domingo

bia

132

[98

Total

3,662
77
2,156
3,946
1,662
442

,945

Horses and
Mules :
Stallions
Mares
Geldings
Colts
Mules
Asses

Total

166

....

120

109

271

104

774
19

36
4

674

158

939

108

238

262

157

:,282
23

1,977

The cattle were used for three purposes: Stock cattle
were raised in Costa Rica and Cuba, and were killed for
consumption on the plantations or for shipment to the mar-
kets of these and other countries. Dairy cattle furnished
the milk, cream, butter and cheese supplied to the employ-
ees from the commissary stores which the company main-
tained and conducted at prices strictly regulated to meet the
mere cost of maintenance. The oxen, steers, horses, and
mules were employed mainly in the transportation of the
fruit and other products from the fields to the railroads or to
the wharves.

The newly formed company came into possession of

several small railways which served as the foundation for the

comprehensive systems now in operation in all of the coun-

' tries of its activities. Speedy and adequate railway trans-

GROWTH OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE 93

Washday in Costa Rica

portation of bananas from the great plantations to the docks,
and rapid steamship transportation from the tropics to the
markets of the United States and Europe is the expensive but
imperative prerequisite of a modern banana enterprise. The
banana is the most perishable of all tropical products, and
one of the vital problems is to provide sure and swift trans-
portation from all parts of the plantations to the awaiting
ships. How scantily equipped was the United Fruit Com-
pany at the end of its first corporate year may be judged
by a glance at the following table :

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

RAILROADS OWNED BY THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY
ON AUGUST 31, 1900

Location

Miles of
Road

Equipment

Number of
locomotives

Number of
freight cars

Costa Rica
Cuba
Jamaica
Colombia
San Domingo

33-18

28.50

8.12

37-73
4.50

3
4
2
6

49
104

^6
28

Total

1 1 2 . 03

289

The utter inadequacy of these diminutive railroad lines
to penetrate the tropical jungles and convert them into pro-
ductive banana plantations is apparent when it is stated that
the United Fruit Company now owns and operates more
than 1,000 miles of well-constructed and finely equipped rail-
roads and tramways, and that banana transportation from
the fields to the wharves requires the service of more than
100 locomotives and 2,500 freight cars!

This is a giant step forward from the year of 1900 when
112 miles of poorly laid track and less than a score of light
locomotives were forced to serve as best they could. At
that time the patient ox and the impatient mule did much
of the work now done by steam and electricity.

But the tropical assets of the United Fruit Company in
1900, crude and small as they were compared with those of
the present day, were much superior to those of any other
fruit company in the American tropics or in the world.
The greatest single asset of the company was its plan of self-
insurance against the effects of the devastation of a planta-
tion or all of the plantations of a district.

During all of the years of the corporate existence of the
Boston Fruit Company no destructive hurricane had swept
Jamaica, its chief source of banana supply. More than
average good luck had attended its operations in San Dom-
ingo and Cuba, but Mr. Preston was alive to the fact that

GROWTH OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE 95

climatic disasters would break sooner or later. It is rather
a remarkable coincidence that all of the districts of banana,'
production of the old Boston Fruit Company were smitten!
in the very year following its purchase by the United Fruit
Company. The season opened with the first hurricane inj
twelve years in Jamaica, the blasts of which levelled a large
percentage of the growing banana plants on that island and'

Stateroom of modern fruit boat

seriously crippled its supply. A few months later San \
Domingo was swept by a hurricane which did great damage
to the plantations formerly owned by the Boston Fruit
Company. To make the coincidence complete, a deadly and
very unusual drought simultaneously afflicted Cuba.

Not a district formerly depended on by the Boston Fruit
Company was exempt from these afflictions. It is pos-

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

sible that the company would have survived these blows of
misfortune, but its losses in money, trade, and prestige would
have been enormous. Banana importers from Central and
South America would have invaded its field and derived
large temporary profits by taking advantage of the plight
of consumers.

But how fared it with the newly organized United Fruit
Company and the public it served.'' The company lost the

A nook on the United Fruit Company's SS. Calamares

I bananas destroyed by the hurricanes and the drought and
I was compelled to meet the expense of bringing new planta-
I tions into bearing, but the bananas raised by the company in
\ Colombia and Central America were still at its command and
there was no delay in shipping them to Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other ports formerly depen-
dent almost entirely on the islands of the West Indies.
Prices to the jobbers or retailers continued low and reason-

GROWTH OF A GREAT ENTERPRISE 97

able, and the public was not called on to pay an excessive
price for bananas on account of these climatic disasters.

It will hardly be denied that this was a desirable outcome
for the public. There was a time when each section of the
United States was compelled to depend on the wheat and
corn raised within easy reach of the individual consumer.
It naturally followed that a disaster to local crops meant
famine or abnormally high prices. The development of
transportation and methods of storing grain products in-
sured consumers against the worst of the effects of local crop
disasters. This progress put an end to the activities of those
who are eager to derive unfair profits from calamities.

The sensible and logical plan initiated by the United Fruit
Company performed for the banana exactly the same ser-
vice that improved methods of transportation and handling
wrought for wheat, corn, and other grain products. It re-
moved the banana from the list of speculative products and
elevated it to the grade of a fruit and food staple.

CHAPTER VII
Twelve Years of Creative Work

|ET us review briefly the manner
in which the United Fruit Com-
pany attempted the industrial
conquest of the tropics.

Reference to its first annual
report shows that in 1900 it
had tropical investments con-
servatively estimated at a value
of ^16,949,753. Nearly ten mil-
lions of this amount had been
expended in the purchase of
plantations, their cultivation,
and the erection of suitable
buildings. Approximately
^400,000 was represented by
^ live stock, $1,253,428 by rail-

ways, $74,000 by telephones, $95,673 by towboats, launches,
and lighters, $233,560 by wharves, and $365,000 had
already been expended in the construction of a sugar mill in
Cuba. The United Fruit Company owned $1,244,096 in
the stock of other companies, ^his included all of the stock
of the Belize Royal Mail and Central American Steamship
Company, which owned and operated ten ships of tonnage
from 1,000 to 1,600. It also included all of the stock of the
Fruit Dispatch Company, which has always been maintained
and operated as a distinct corporation.

In addition to the ten ships owned by the company it was
necessary to charter or lease many others. This number
ranged from thirty to fifty steamships, and varied according
to the season and to the productivity of the plantations.
The fruit boats of 1900 were a sorry lot compared with the
large, speedy, and luxurious ships which now compose the
famous Great White Fleet, and which are fitted with every

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK 99

venience and safety which modern inventive genius can
suggest and money provide.

The company had determined to make a comprehensive
experiment in sugar cultivation, and the location selected
was the beautiful Nipe Bay district of eastern Cuba. A
sugar mill was under construction, and 7,800 acres had been
planted to cane. In this same district the company owned
5,841 acres of banana plantations, and planned greatly to
increase its banana acreage. It was later to learn that ba-
nana cultivation in Cuba was impracticable.

The officials of the company were fully alive to the fac
that the duty was imposed on them of making sanitary al
of the tropical ports from which their ships took freight
This duty, by custom and by right, devolves on the govern-A
ments in which such ports are located, but, with the except
tion of Jamaica, none of the governments of Central ana
South America and of Cuba and San Domingo were capablr
of initiating the complicated and expensive work of scientific
sanitation. I shall consider in detail in a later chapter the
efi"ective work which was planned and executed along health
lines by the United Fruit Company, and will also give an
account of other public duties which it has performed.

Those who risk their lives and their fortunes in tropical
investments have a right to expect that success will yield
handsome returns. There is always the chance that weather
disasters or political revolutions will blot the ordinary tropi-
cal enterprise out of existence. This fact is recognized and/
acted on by bankers and private money lenders. The banka
of Cuba, Mexico, and of Central and South America deJ
mand from 10 to 20 per cent interest on high class tropical
loans. The sugar planter, tobacco grower, small banana
raiser, or other participant in tropical agriculture is satis-
fied to pay 12 per cent for money borrowed to conduct his
operations. He has an expectation of making from 20 to
as high as 100 per cent under favorable conditions, and
money is not forthcoming when an enterprise cannot prove
that it has a reasonable chance of realizing from 20 to 30
per cent net profit.

The student of tropical industry should understand and

Street scene in Guatemala

YEARS OF CREATIYR WqRi5i;;i\i;^^^^

keep in mind this basic fact. It is sometimes alleged thai/
the profits of the United Fruit Company are excessive!
The contrary is true. The risks assumed justify prices
which would yield annual profits of 25 per cent, and even
that figure might not tempt the conservative capital of New
York, London, Paris, or Berlin to enter the field against the
successful operators.

On this basis and with an actual investment of about
$17,000,000, the United Fruit Company could not have
been criticised had it realized net profits of $4,250,000 in its
initial year of operation. It was compelled, however, to be
content with $1,831,815, which justified a dividend pay-
ment of 10 per cent, and the application of an appropriate
amount for improvements and betterments.

In 1901 the capital stock was increased from $11,230,000 to
$12,369,500, and the money derived from stock sales was
applied to new plantations and other productive assets. De-
spite this fact the net earnings showed a decided decrease,
dropping to $1,098,557, and aggregate dividends of 9 per
cent were paid.

The policy of the company toward the public and with its
stockholders is well illustrated by the opening paragraph in
President Preston's second annual report, in which he said:

"In presenting herewith the second -annual report of your
company the management has endeavored to inform you
even more fully than previously as to the character, location,
extent, and value of the company's several properties, as
well as to show in detail receipts, expenditures, and other
financial and business matters. The management desires to
give all such statements, figures, and general information
respecting your company's property and business to the
stockholders as will enable them to. share the confidence of
the management in the stability and success of the com-
pany's business, a confidence which has been inspired by
many years' experience in the businesses which your company
has acquired, and which has been greatly increased by the
success with which the risks and disadvantages under which
such businesses were formerly carried on have been obvi-

10?; |/;; iCOJjI^UJ^ST/ OF THE TROPICS ■

ated by the formation and operations of your company.
With this object in view the statements and figures given in
our previous report have been subdivided and amplified."

It is doubtful if any great corporation has been equally
frank in annually presenting to its stockholders, and through
them to the public, all of the important details concerning
its operations.

The ' destroyed banana plantations of Jamaica, San Do-
mingo, and Cuba greatly curtailed the productivity of these
sections in 1901, but despite this fact the company dis-
tributed in the United States and Canada approximately
14,000,000 bunches of bananas, nearly all of which were con-
sumed in the United States. This was an increase of nearly
three million over the first year. The sixty steamships
owned or chartered by the company also brought up from
the tropics 13,500,000 cocoanuts and 200,000 boxes of
oranges.

The sugar mill at Banes, Cuba, was put into operation
and yielded a profit of about $110,000 for the year. The
price of bananas dropped in the United States to a point so
low that fair business profits on them were impossible.

In 1901 the company increased its improved land holdings
from 66,294 to 75,055 acres, and its total holdings, owned
and leased, from 236,201 to 262,425 acres. The bulk of this
increase was in Central and South America. Experience
was proving that banana production was safer and more
profitable in Central America and Colombia, but it was
deemed best to give Cuba and San Domingo a further chance.
During this year 3,500 acres in Costa Rica were set out to
new banana cultivation, and 3,000 acres in Colombia made
ready for such planting. The sum of $460,000 was expended
on the Banes sugar mill.' ■ ■ U :>.*:::> ;!•. '

The cUmatic disasters which h^d a^fflict^d the company
and diminished its profits did not swerve the management
from its belief that it would be possible to rear a great busi-
ness structure in the tropics, but the world of finance and
investment looked with increased doubt on this venture,
and there was limited public demand for its securities. If it

C
33

104; ;:r'e'6NQT^.St OF THE TROPICS

had been apparent to investors that there was a Hkelihood
that the United Fruit Company would rear a monopoly in
the banana industry there would have been a rush to acquire
an interest in this investment, but well-informed capital
knew then, and knows now, that the control of the banana
industry by a single corporation is beyond possibility.

The company made a much better showing in 1902. Its
plantations had recovered from the effects of hurricanes,
droughts, and floods, and there was a better market and

. higher prices for bananas in the United States and Canada.

\ No effort had yet been made to ship bananas to Great
Britain and the Continent, and the consuming public
abroad had yet to learn that it was possible to offer that
tropical luxury at prices which would compete with their
own native fruits.

The importations of bananas for that year reached about
16,000,000 bunches, most of which were consumed in the
United States. The new sugar mill in Banes produced
more than 40,000,000 pounds of sugar, but the market prices
were so low that it was operated at a loss approximating
$100,000.

The attempt to arouse the public against the alleged
aggressions of a combination among the growers of sugar
cane has always amused me, and it will interest and
amuse any one who has personal knowledge of the facts. In
the first place, sugar is the cheapest of all food products,
with the sole exception of bananas, and it happens that
a very large portion of the revenue of the United Fruit
Company is derived from the production and sale of these
two remarkably inexpensive food staples. It goes with-
out saying that the United Fruit Company would not will-
ingly produce and export sugar and bananas for any length
of time at a loss, yet this is exactly what it has been com-
pelled to do in many protracted periods during its corporate
existence.

If the American sugar growers of Cuba had the power to
fix prices you may rest assured that there would be no year
which failed to show a reasonable profit. If the American
banana cultivators in the tropics had the power to fix prices

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK

105

^u may rest assured that not a bunch of this fruit would
ever be sold at a loss. Yet we see this capably handled cor-
poration losing $100,000 in a year when its cane fields were
wonderfully prolific. In the winter season of 1911-12 the

Old method of loading bananas

United Fruit Company lost more than $800,000 on its ba-
nana shipments, and in the two weeks ending February 26,
1913, the losses incurred in its banana business exceeded
$290,000!

Monopolies or near-monopolies are not compelled to sub-

106 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

iriit, and do not submit, to such losses. The plain truth of the
matter is that the market prices of sugar and of bananas are
fixed by vast competitive factors absolutely beyond the con-
trol of any corporation or possible combination of corpora-
tions or individuals. Those who assert to the contrary
insult the intelligence of a people who long have enjoyed
the boon of cheap sugar and cheap bananas, and who know
instinctively that such prices are not the logical outcome of
monopoly.

The wisdom of the United Fruit Company in diversifying
its tropical products was strikingly shown in this year of
1902. Competition frowned on sugar, but smiled on bana-
nas and cocoanuts, which were in demand because of a
scarcity of apples and other fruits and foods raised on home
soil. After devoting ^453,356 to betterments and allow-
ing for depreciation and all other charges, there remained a
net income of ^2,185,000 available for dividend purposes,
and the stockholders were paid total dividends of 8f per
cent for the year.

Several large new ships were added to the fleet, and the
cost of transporting bananas from the tropical ports to the
distributing domestic ports was reduced 3 per cent over the
preceding year. The Fruit Dispatch Company greatly
extended its operations and was busy with its function of
placing tropical fruits at the command of new markets in
j the United States and Canada.

I In the latter part of the fiscal year of 1903 the United
iFruit Company made an important step. It began the
Exportation of bananas from the American tropics to Great
Britain. A shipping arrangement was entered into with the
English steamship line of Elders & Fyffes, which became an
associate or subsidiary of the United Fruit Company.

Jit thus came about that, through the energy and foresight
f an American corporation, the banana was introduced for
ijie first time to lower the cost and raise the standard of
living in the populous centres of the United Kingdom. This
venture was a success from the start, and the banana
was speedily introduced by the United Fruit Company and
Jts American competitors into the markets of France, Ger-

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK 107

any, and other Continental nations to which it had been a I
comparative stranger. It is the strict truth to state, however, (
that the sole credit for this really important commercial step
belongs to the United Fruit Company, and the reading public
of the United States dimly realizes the extent of the bene-
fits which have flowed to the consumers of average means
from the introduction abroad of this cheap and wholesome
fruit and food product.

It was another year of vast production but actual sugar
losses for the company in Cuba. The fine new mill ground
out 44,000,000 pounds of sugar, but the production of for-
eign beet sugar was so great that the market prices com-
pelled the United Fruit Company to stand a loss of $70,800.
Another hurricane swept and desolated Jamaica, and the
losses from this disaster mounted to $168,000.

This year of 1903 was marked by extensive land pur-
chases and improvements, entailing an expenditure of ap-
proximately $1,350,000. It was now a demonstrated fact
that the bananas of Central America and Colombia were,
superior in quality and also in the quantity raised per acr
of cultivation over those of Cuba and other parts of th
West Indies. The wonderful Changuinola District of Pan
ama was acquired by the company, the purchase includin
a canal twelve miles long and plantations already par
tially developed. Work was vigorously started on the rail-
roads and equipment required to place all parts of this new
district in quick communication with the port of Bocas del
Toro. These and other land purchases increased the im-
proved land holdings of the company to 97,609 acres, and its
total possessions, owned and leased, to 288,177 acres.

The net income of the year available for dividends was
$1,848,153, and the stockholders received 7 per cent on
their money invested. They had a substantial equity,
however, in the large sums which had been invested in new
lands and improvements.

The year 1904 was marked by a decided increase in the
fleet owned or controlled by the United Fruit Company.
The Tropical Fruit Steamship Company, Ltd., was or-
ganized for the purpose of providing better freight and pas-

108

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

senger facilities, more especially between the United States
and the American tropics. This company made a modest
start with three banana steamers, the San Jose, Limon, and
Esparta. This was the modest beginning of the Great
White Fleet, which has done so much for the commerce and
prestige of the United States in the American tropics, and it
is a matter deeply to be regretted that unwise laws operate

to keep our flag from float-
ing at their mastheads.

Despite continued low
prices for sugar the Cuban
mill owned by the company
showed, for a change, a fair
profit for theyear, and added
^345,000 to the net income,
which totalled ^1,940,000
for 1904 from which divided
payments aggregating 7 per
cent weremade. Thetotalof
bananasimportedamounted
to about 1 5,cx)0,ooobunches,
a decrease of 2,500,000 over
the preceding year. This
was occasioned by a decrease
of 6,000,000 bunches from
Jamaica, owing to the hurri-
cane of August, 1903. This
calamity would have crip-
pled if not destroyed the
former Boston Fruit Com-
pany, but the new planta-
tions in Central and South America made up a large share
of the deficit, and the consumers of bananas suffered nothing.
The company expended more than a million of dollars in new
plantations, new railroads, and new equipment in Central
America during this year, a part of which sum was raised
by the issuance and sale of new stock, the total capital stock
of the company now standing at ^15,782,000, which was far
less than its assets.

One of the luxuries of the Great
White Fleet

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK 109

I he ensuing year, 1905, was one of low prices for bananas
comparatively high prices for sugar. As a result of this
condition the profits from sugar were more than half of those
derived from bananas and other tropical fruits, the figures
being respectively, $1,044,703 for the latter, and $573,017
for sugar. This made it possible to declare dividends of

per cent.

The vicissitudes and uncertainties of the banana business
are clearly shown by a comparison of certain items found in
the annual reports of 1904 and 1905. In 1904 the company
imported approximately 15,000,000 bunches of bananas,
and realized on them a net profit of approximately $1,245,006.
This was at the rate of 8.3 cents a bunch, or a profit of one
cent on each eighteen bananas; surely not an extravagant
return for a corporation with $20,000,000 invested in that
enterprise.

In 1905 the importations made a startling increase from
15,000,000 to nearly 20,000,000 bunches, but the net profits
tumbled from $1,245,000 to about $680,000. The latter
figure shows that the United Fruit Company realized a net
profit that year of only 3.4 cents a bunchTor a profit of one
cent on each forty-two bananas sold!

Such facts' are well known to the fruit trade, but now and
then some sensationalist rushes into print with a fairy tale
about the stupendous profits made by banana growers and
importers. I have before me a page article from a Denver
newspaper which would be humorous if intended as fiction,
but it purports to state facts, and one of these alleged facts
is that the United Fruit Company "pays 7 cents a bunch for
bananas that sell in the United States for $1.50 to $2.50."
This would lead the average reader to assume that the prof-
its accruing to the company would range from $1.43 to
$2.43 on each bunch of bananas brought to the United
States. This particular falsehood multiples the truth by
from 30 to 50, a freak of mendacity which ignores the fact
that it costs about 95 cents to raise and transport a bunch of
bananas from the tropics to the ports of the United States,
and that $1.00 would be an acceptable selling price by the
average importing company.

110

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

It may be taken for granted that the United Fruit Com-
pany did not willingly import bananas for a profit of les$
than 3 J cents a bunch. Sensible people who are compelled
to pay extortionate prices for most that they eat, wear and
use, would not indulge in riots even if it were proved to them
that banana importers absorbed a profit of lo cents for a

Building abridge for a banana railroad

bunch of from lOO to 150 luscious bananas. Nothing in the
world is imported at any minimum profit rate approaching
this, but the United Fruit Company seems to deem itself
fortunate if it can derive a slight net profit on each bunch
of bananas, and there are times when it brings in many ship-
loads at an actual loss.

It was in 1905 that the United Fruit Company decided

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK 111

to abandon the cultivation of bananas in Cuba. Experience
had demonstrated that the rainfall and general climatic/
conditions did not favor bananas as compared with avail-
able tracts in Central and South America. A fortune had*
been expended on these Cuban banana plantations, but
it was finally decided to plant these tracts to sugar cane
and this was done. It was a radical step, but it proved
to be a wise one.

The year of J906 was an important and successful one for I
the company. It marked the adding of Guatemala as a )
feource of banana supply. This was not done until investi-
gation had indicated that bananas could be raised profitably
in a section with Barrios as its port.

The net earnings of the year, after deducting $638,867 for
betterments, were $3,647,985 for bananas and other trop-
ical fruits, and $72,416 for sugar, including deductions of
$78,000 for betterments. This permitted dividend pay-
ments of 7 per cent, and left a handsome surplus in the
treasury.

It was a year of extensive investments for the United
Fruit Company. Approximately $1,100,000 was devoted to
increasing the capacity of the sugar plant in Cuba, in order
to attain a capacity of grinding 3,500 tons of cane per day.
Eight thousand acres of new cane were planted, miles of new
railroad constructed to bring the cane from the fields to the
fhill, and other construction work accomplished.

Panama had proved itself as a banana country, and
$400,000 was expended in this year on new banana planting,
farm buildings, hospitals, railways and trams. Costa Rica
absorbed $565,000 of new capital, more than half of it being
for railways, tramways and rolling stock. Guatemala made
a modest start with $51,000 expended for banana planting
and buildings. The total of capital expenditure and better-
ments in this progressive year reached the impressive figure
of $2,386,690, which was far in excess of any year since the
foundation of the company.

The demand for bananas was increasing enormously not
only in the United States and Canada, but in Great Britain
and the Continent. Other importers were competing for

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

this trade, but the United Fruit Company was the only con-
cern which had faith that this demand would continue to in-

: crease by leaps and bounds. Its

earnings were ample to warrant
the payment of dividends in ex-
I cess of the 7 per cent distributed
/among the stockholders, but the
/ officers of the company did not
/ deviate from the original plan
I initiated by President Preston
in the years of the Boston Fruit
\ Company. This policy consisted
of reinvesting a large part of the
earnings in new plantations and
new equipment, thus enabling
'the company to meet the de-
mands of new consumers at
prices which would make the
banana a staple and a necessity,
and not a luxury fluctuating
widely in price and at the whim
of climatic conditions.

To help meet the demand for
large expenditures it was the
policy of the company to issue
and sell new stock in such am-
ounts as would be readily pur-
chased by stockholders or by the
general investing public. The
consistent aim of the manage-
ment was to keep pace with
increasing consumption, and the
present high standing of the
company is due to the faith and
courage of those who believed
that the public would respond
to prices established by adequate banana production.

We now come to a banner year in the history of the United
Fruit Company, 1907, a year fraught with panic and finan-

In Jamaica

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK 113

cial depression in the United States, but one in which this
tropical enterprise proved its stability and rewarded those
who backed its prospects.

Almost every factor and condition favored the company
in 1907. No disasters of consequence befel its plantations.
Importations exceeding 22,000,000 bunches were sold in the
United States and Canada at the highest prices in years.
These slightly advanced prices were doubtless due largely
to the fact that there was a greatly increased demand for
bananas owing to the hard times which forced the average
consumer to spend his money to the best advantage, and
it was only natural that the low prices and high nutritive
value of the banana should appeal to all who felt the pinch
of hard times. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people
discovered that the banana had the double merit of being
cheap and wholesome.

The panic of 1907 had a remarkable effect so far as the
United Fruit Company was concerned. It demonstrated
that an investment in its stock, instead of being precarious,
as had been regarded by some, was an effective insurance
against the effects of general business depression. Not only
did the company's earnings increase in this year of panic and
depression, but its stock became the steadiest on the Boston
Stock Exchange, investors quickly realizing that the panic
had the remarkable effect of increasing the demand for
bananas, especially among the working classes.

The United Fruit Company does not sell to the consumer,
its entire product going to the dealer. The latter tempo-
rarily paid a few extra cents a bunch for bananas, but this
meant much to the importing companies. The enhanced
wholesale rates for bananas probably meant an extra profit of
$2,000,000 to the United Fruit Company in this exceptional
year. Its net earnings available for dividend purposes were
$6,189,927, of which $5,441,319 were from bananas and
other tropical fruits, and $620,590 from sugar, and dividends
amounting to 7^ per cent for the year were paid.

In this banner year the company expended $3,525,000 for
improvements and betterments, of which $2,841,000 was
derived from the sale of new stock and $683,000 charged to

114

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

operation. This increased the company's tropical invest-
ments to $20,628,000, and its assets had mounted to exceed-
ing $32,000,000. This latter figure was more than 50 per
cent in excess of its capital stock, and there has never been
a time when this condition was not approximated. Unlike
many great corporations, there has never been a trace of
water in the securities of the United Fruit Company.

Cuba called for $535,000 of new capital in 1907. The

The United Fruit Company's SS. Pastures in her New York dock

Bocas del Toro district of Panama expended $547,000 in new
banana planting, railways, wharves, and other facilities for
the cheaper production and handling of fruits. The de-i^
velopment expense in Costa Rica reached the impressive
figure of $1,788,000, a large part of which was used in the
purchase of banana lands. Guatemala called for $186,000,
and her new plantations produced their first marketable
fruit.

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK 115

The company made a large investment in the stock of the
Nipe Bay Company, whose sugar properties are near those
owned outright by the company at Banes. New steamships
were purchased or contracted for by the Tropical Fruit
Steamship Company and Elders & Fyffes, Ltd.

There was a decided falling off in net profits in 1908, the;
total available for dividend purposes being under four million
dollars. Less bananas were shipped to the United States
and lower prices prevailed. The general prosperity of the
enterprise was such, however, that in addition to the
regular dividends, amounting to 8 per cent, it was deemed
conservative to distribute an extra dividend of 10 per cent,
which was paid on August ist of that year, and which
amounted to between ^13 and $14 per share, to the stock-
holders. On account of the market value of the stock the
company gave them the right to purchase at par with their
dividends, and for the first time in the history of this corpora-
tion or its predecessors there was paid to stockholders a per-
centage of annual profit proportionate to the risks of a
tropical investment. >. i

This bonus meant far more than a mere money return^
It meant the realization of years of hard work, relentless
energy, courage, and fortitude. It meant that the banana
industry had "arrived," to quote a descriptive word. It was
a token and a reward of the faith which had supported those
who had struggled against the hardships and dangers of the
tropics. It proved to the world that the industrial and com-
nriercial conquest of the American tropics was possible, and
it should have proved to the United States that it was the
bounden duty of its people, its press, and its government to
encourage and foster the speedy development of the tropics.
Not for the mere purpose of obtaining money rewards, but
for the larger, broader, and statesmanlike object of obtaining
from the tropics such of its other products as would add to
the happiness and raise the standard of living of the people
of the United States.

The sum of nearly $2,400,000 was expended in betterments
in 1908. These resulted in 8,000 acres of new banana plant-
ings, which meant a future production almost equal to all

116 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

of the plantations owned or leased by the old Boston Fruit
Company. In addition to this there were added i,8oo acres
of sugar cane, 3,500 acres of pasture, and about 2,000 acres
of newly cleared land to be planted in bananas and cane.
There was also constructed 43 miles of new railway and 61
miles of farm tramways, and the railway equipment was
increased with 12 locomotives and 400 freight cars. In the
live stock department there was noted an increase of 1,500
head in the number of horses and cattle.

This is what I call "creative work." I am reciting these
rather dull facts in order that those who care to learn the
truth can obtain a perspective of just how this corporation
went about building up a business which is colossal in its
extent and international in its scope. The preceding para-
graph is eloquent in its suggestion of how the company won
its present standing. It created it, fairly and honorably
and splendidly.

The year of 1909 was one of greatly diminished banana
earnings. Prices were low both in the United States and
abroad. The Central American districts were swept by
floods which entailed great losses both to growing crops and
to railroad and other property. The net receipts from
bananas and other tropical fruits dropped to $2,702,000,
a sorry contrast to the $5,441,000 obtained in 1907 from
a much less acreage and less efficient equipment. The sugar
plantations made a better relative showing, and again
vindicated the wisdom of diversified investments by return-
ing a net income of $1,168,000. Regular dividends aggre-
gating 8 per cent were disbursed to the shareholders,
followed on November 15, 1909, by a second extra dividend
of 10 per cent, approximating $18 in value, in considera-
tion of the rights to subscribe to new stock issued at par
as compared to its value in the open market.

The company sold all of its properties in Santo Domingo
and invested the proceeds in sugar development in Cuba.
The expenditures for new properties and improvements
during the year aggregated $1 ,934,000. The railway mileage
was increased 67, and 37 miles of new tramways were con-
structed. Three new and fine steamships were added to the

118 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

fleet of the Tropical Fruit Steamship Company, and four
more were contracted for. The foreign business of the com-
pany showed a steady increase, and new centres of population
were offered a fruit until then unknown to them.

Then arrived the prosperous year of 1910. Once again
market conditions permitted the banana importers to re-
alize slightly higher prices for bananas, with the result that
the profits of the company for bananas and other tropical
fruits mounted from ^2,702,000 to the more cheerful figure
of ^3,943,000. On top of this came favorable prices for
sugar, due to a shortage in the foreign beet sugar crop, with
the result that the company's sugar mill in Cuba set a record
which still stands — net profits of ^1,968,491 — and this did
not include the sugar profits from the Nipe Bay Company.
This permitted the payment of the regular dividends of
8 per cent. On November 4, 1910, a third extra dividend of
10 per cent was paid to stockholders, which they were given
the right to apply to the payment of new shares at par,
which,, with subscription rights netted the stockholders a
return of 18 per cent from the extra dividend.

The capital stock stood at ^23,474,000, with assets con-
servatively estimated at exceeding $45,000,000. The author-
ized capital was increased to $35,000,000 in order to make
possible stock sales to meet required large investments.
Four new ships were added to the fleet and three more
ordered. In this year the company acquired all of the
remaining stock in Elders & Fyffes, Ltd., thus giving it full
ownership of that British steamship line with its large and
well equipped fleet of fruit boats. 7 he fleet of the Tropical
Fruit Steamship Company, Ltd., now numbered seventeen
ships, and the public had learned to know that they were the
finest craft which connected the ports of the United States
with the tropics.

The cultivated acreage was increased by about 6,000 in
1910. Guatemala had justified the hopes reposed in her
soil and climate, and her banana plantations were supplying
crops which compared favorably in quality and in quantity
raised per acre to the older plantations in Costa Rica and
Panama. The profits of this year were materially lessened

(

120 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

by the heavy cost of the practical reconstruction of an entire
section of the railway line in Costa Rica, due to the almost
unprecedented floods of the preceding year.

The year of 191 1 was a fairly prosperous one for bananas,
the net profits reaching ^3,733,204, but there was a decided
reduction in sugar profits, due to a severe drought in Cuba
which was responsible for a greatly diminished output. As
a result of this condition the sugar profits of the company
dropped from ^1,968,491 in 1910, to $544,418 in 191 1, an-
other striking illustration of the variations of tropical in-
vestments in agricultural products.

Extensive development work was carried on this year in
Guatemala, Panama, and Colombia, the total expenditures
for new plantations and improved equipment in these coun-
tries exceeding $1,483,000. There were thus added more
than 7,000 acres of banana plantations in sections which
had proved their excellence for that purpose. Three new
ships were added to the Great White fleet, and three others
of increased tonnage and splendid accommodations for pas-
sengers were ordered from the builders.

Regular dividends aggregating 8 per cent were paid in
the fiscal year of 191 1, and again the company disbursed on
December 19, 191 1, an extra dividend of 10 per cent, giving
its shareholders the right to apply their dividends to the
purchase of stock at par. The stock was then selling at
about 180, which made the extra dividend return 18 per
cent to the stockholders.

In the following year, 191 2, the earnings from bananas
and other tropical fruits were $2,565,428, and those from the
sugar business $1,930,186. The miscellaneous income of the
company brought its net earnings to $5,332,112. In addi-
tion to the four regular quarterly dividends of 2 per cent
each, stockholders were given the privilege of subscribing to
shares of the company's stock at $150 per share to the
amount of 20 per cent of their holdings, which gave share-
holders rights having a market value of from $6 to $7 each.

In his annual report for this year President Andrew W.
Preston makes this interesting comment:

"The growth of the demand for the company's bananas

YEARS OF CREATIVE WORK

121

necessitates continued extensive development work, and large
purchases of banana properties and lands available for ba-
nana planting have been made in the Republic of Colom-
bia, Republic of Panama, Costa Rica, and other parts of

Pholo by A . Duperly cr* Son, Kingston, Jamaica

Rolling River Falls, Jamaica

Central America. A large program of development work is
being carried on in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama,
the company's policy being to grow a large proportion of
its fruit in order to insure an adequate supply and maintain a
standard quality."

122 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

As a result of this policy the company increased its acreage
of banana cultivation by more than thirty thousand acres,
the figure rising from 84,549 acres of bananas in 191 1 to
115,460 in 1912. Eliminating the discarded banana plan-
tations of Cuba and San Domingo, this increase of 30,911
acres of growing bananas exceeded by nearly 2,000 the total
acreage owned by the United Fruit Company in its initial
year of operation. Yet such is the growing banana hunger
of the world that this company and its competitors have
found a ready market for their vast and rapidly mounting
output.

Another important sugar investment was made in this year,
through which the company acquired a 75 per cent interest
in the Saetia Sugar Company, which owns 35,566 acres of
land adjoining the property of the Nipe Bay Company in
Cuba. Of this, some 6,350 acres were planted in cane and
558 acres to citrus and other fruits. The cane is ground in
the great mill at Preston, the property of the Nipe Bay
Company.

The fleet which delivers bananas abroad was increased by
several new ships, and three splendid new boats were added
to the Great White Fleet. These ships were christened
the Pastores, Tenadores, and the Calamares, and are the last
word in tropical freight and passenger service. They are
8,000-ton ships, each provided with accommodations for 135
first-class passengers.

Such is an epitome of the first twelve years of the creative
work of the United Fruit Company. In those twelve years
tens of millions of dollars were courageously but intelli-
gently expended in a stubborn struggle with the known and
unknown dangers of the tropics. An empire of agriculture
was carved from the jealous and resentful jungles. Hun-
dreds of miles of railroads were constructed into wildernesses
where even the natives had not penetrated. From out the
waters of the Caribbean steamed scores of ships to the marts
of the Old and the New World bearing the commerce which
Yankee enterprise had created in a crusade to attain the
peaceful Conquest of the Tropics.

CHAPTER VIII
In the Wake of Columbus

|UPPOSE we plan a trip through
the tropical sections in which
grow the 50,000,000 bunches of
bananas which are consumed
in the temperate zones of North
America and Europe. The
ships of the United Fruit Com-
pany sail from many ports, but
in this imaginative tour we will
leave from New York and make
our first stop in Jamaica.

The time was when the
** fruiter" was only what its
name implies — a steamship
designed to carry bananas,
and with limited and indiffer-
ent accommodations for those
who were compelled to journey to the tropics. In the books
of travel written twelve or more years ago the reader is
entertained with the adventures and hardships of authors
who reluctantly used the ships which went south with empty
holds and returned with loads of bananas. These writers
complain of lack of good food, of bad service, of poor ven-
tilation, and of ships which pitched and rolled in ordinary
weather and which were positively wicked when gales swept
the Caribbean or howled about Cape Hatteras.

The passenger who has derived his impressions of the
"fruiter" from a perusal of these probably truthful descrip-
tions of the banana boats of former years has a delightful
surprise in store when he steps on board one of the modern
"fruiters" forming a part of the Great White Fleet of the
United Fruit Company. It is the simple truth to state that
these steamships are not excelled in comfort, luxury, and

123

124 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

safety. My profession as a writer has compelled me to
cruise in all of the Seven Seas, and it has been my fortune to
enjoy the best and to submit to the worst of the ships which
churn the waters on both sides of the equator.

It is a strange thing that, until recently, shipbuilders have
ignored the fact that vessels designed to serve the tropics
should conform to the conditions of the tropics. It is a sad
fact that most of the ships which cater to tropical passenger
trade are better fitted for arctic and antarctic explorations.
It is not that the American tropics are cursed by hot weather
— the thermometer seldom approaches 88 — but for the
enjoyment of the delights of the Caribbean one must have
broad and unobstructed deck spaces, commodious and well
ventilated staterooms, spacious dining rooms, lounging and
smoking saloons — in a word, the passenger ship in southern
seas should offer the least possible obstruction to the free
ingress of light and air. One aims to live out-of-doors in the
tropics, in apartments so constructed that the air constantly
circulates through screens which prevent flies, mosquitoes and
other dreaded insects from entering living or sleeping quar-
ters.

The ship which sails tropical seas should meet these speci-
fications, and I believe that the ones comprising the Great
White Fleet come nearer to the required ideal than any which
have yet been constructed. The broad and spotlessly clean
decks are a delight. There are no such decks on the Maure-
tania, the Olympic and other famous ships which are pre-
sumed to be all that luxury can demand or money can supply.
The ordinary first-class staterooms on the best trans-Atlantic
steamships do not begin to compare with those of the
Ahangarez, Sixaola, and a score of ships of their type,
to say nothing of the peerless new additions to the Great
White Fleet, the Pastores, Tenadores and Calamares.

All of the compartments on these modern fruit boats are
fitted with every electrical equipment and accessory for the
comfort of the passenger. In the deep hold of such a ship
is the refrigerating apparatus, which reduces the temperature
to the 53 degrees required to preserve the bananas on their
trip from the tropics to the northern ports. Ducts lead

126 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

from these huge cooling chambers to all of the staterooms.
If the passenger finds it too warm at any hour of the day of
night, he pulls a slide overhead and lets in a sufficient amount
of fresh cool air to lower the temperature to the degree re-
quired. What millionaire in New York, London, or Paris
can boast of this inestimable luxury? What terror is there
to tropical heat or humidity when a touch of the hand can
"turn on the cold" as easily as a child can turn the valve of a
steam radiator? That is what I call a real luxury.

These 8,000-ton ships care nothing for any storm which

sweeps' the Atlantic, the Gulf or the Caribbean. There is

something about the way in which they breast a gale which

eliminates all thought of danger. Human skill and care

cannot entirely remove the risks assumed by those "who go

down to the sea in ships," but the record which has been

6^ established by the United Fruit Company is one possible

y' only to capable organization and foresight.

^f' C These are worthy ships, strong and splendid ships, and

"y ^^ yit is too bad that it is possible neither to build them in the

MJnited States nor fly the American flag at their mastheads.

Most of those who make their initial trip to the American
tropics choose the winter months, knowing that this will give
them a respite from the rigors of blizzards, sleet and arctic
cold. Those who really know the American tropics do not
hesitate to select a summer month when the lure of the palm
calls them. There is no better place to escape the blighting
efl"ects of the summer climate of New York, Boston, and other
scorched centres of population than by fleeing to the tem-
perate tropics. I use the word temperate advisedly. There
is no temperate section In the United States. The school-
boy who was asked to define the temperate zone had it about
right when he replied: "The temperate zone is the place
where it is cold as Iceland in winter and hotter than Hades in
summer."

In the tropics close to us there are no extremes of heat or
cold, and the natives who foolishly venture north in the
summer season are often compelled to return in haste to
avoid serious consequences. When the travelling public
learns the truth, as it soon will, Bocas del Toro, Panama, will

c«

o
IS,

'5.

128

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

become one of the favorite summer resorts, and Port Antonio,
Jamaica, will vie with Newport as the mecca of jaded wealth
and fashion. You cannot determine the climate of a country
by looking at a map.

But on this trip of ours we will sail from New York in
December. Twenty-four hours later we are in the Gulf
Stream, and already there is in the air a breath which whis-
pers of the tropics. Before noon of the second day the heavy
overcoat is discarded. It seems impossible to realize that
yesterday we took a last look of snow-covered New Jersey
headlands, and took that look through windows traced with
frost. It is only a sea step these wondrous days from frost
to balmy breezes. It is only two days from heavy woollens
to white duck and lazy linens.

We glide past the Bahamas, score of islands lifting them-^
selves out of the blue waters of the Atlantic as our ship heads
steadily south. Some are inhabited, others show no signj
of human life, but all of them hold the charm and mysten
of a sea through which many ships pass and few pause, a sei
which the great Columbus sailed and explored in his searcl
for a new route to Asia. Speaking of the immortal Coltim^
bus, why do we call him by that name.^ He never bore whili
living any such name. He was born of the Italian family
of "Colombo." When he entered the Spanish service he
changed his name to "Cristobal Colon." And we insist on
calling him "Columbus."

In Spain, Mexico, Central America, and all Spanish speak-
ing countries the natives never heard of the "United States."
They translate it into "Estados Unidos," and they have as
much right to call it that as we have to call Espana by the
title of "Spain," or Roma by the title of "Rome." I hold
that we should call countries and cities and celebrities by
I their true names, and not stick to the clumsy derivations
i which have lazily been substituted. There is no such city
as "Vienna," unless it happens to be some village in the
United States. The great Austrian capital is named "Wien,"
and only those who speak the English language call it any-
thing else. There is no such city as "Brussels," but the
beautiful capital of Belgium is really named "Bruxelles."

IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS

129

It is time that we called the great discoverer by the name
under which he achieved immortal fame, Cristobal Colon.
We would not like it if the Russians insisted that the Father
of our Country was named "Washeskivich."

Resuming our journey, we swing past the east end of Cuba
within a hundred miles of the great sugar plantations belong-
ing to the United Fruit Company. Some day, when the
company gets time and can spare money from new banana

Hope Gardens, Kingston, Jamaica

developments, it may build a hotel along the shores of beauti-
ful Nipe Bay, and thus permit tropical travellers to visit
one of the most healthful and interesting spots in Cuba. It
may form a link in the chain of attractions served by the
future Great White Fleet, but it is not easily reached by the
pleasure seeker at present. We will find it, however, on our
way back.

We pass Cape Maisi, the extreme east point of Cuba, and
head through the Windward Passage for Jamaica, taking a

130

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

southwesterly course for Port Antonio. We have now en-
tered the enchanted domain of the Caribbean, its surface
and its skies glorious in sunshine and storm, in golden-houred
day and star-studded night.

Hundreds of writers have attempted to describe the beau-
ties of Jamaica, but none of them have succeeded. The only
way to comprehend Jamaica is to see it and spend the rest of
your time in dreaming about it.

Port Antonio is far more beautiful than the better known
Kingston. There are few places in the world which can

•l.PO*TES CO, N.Y.

PORT ANTONIO, JAMAICA

match this harbor and its adjacent coasts and headlands in
their combinations of tropical charms. In the background
rise the cloud-wreathed heights of Blue Mountain Peak,
carpeted to its very top with the innumerable forms of palm,
fern, flowering tree, and entangled plants which constitute
the jungle. Below these dizzy altitudes tumbles a sea of
hills, a tumult of smaller mountains without plan or order,
and twisting about them sprawls a bewildering labyrinth of
valleys lacking seeming end or purpose, but all of this anarchy
of nature is subdued and mellowed by the glittering fronds of
palm and banana.

IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS 131

Through these valleys run 2,000 miles of roads which are
the delight and awe of the automobile driver. Accidents
are few and the enjoyment serene, but the man who drives
an automobile a hundred miles through Jamaica derives a
contempt for what the average car owner imagines to be
curves and grades.

Not many years have passed since Jamaica made its living b
by raising sugar cane and grinding it into sugar. When the
United States intervened and stopped anarchy in Cuba —
against the tearful protest of all of our mollycoddles — that
island leaped to prosperity through a peace which resulted
in a vast development in the sugar industry, thus bringing
wealth to Cuba and cheap sugar to the citizens of the United
States. But this threatened disaster to Jamaica, whose law-
abiding inhabitants had been raising the sugar the warring
factions of Cuba could or would not produce. The recipro-
city terms put Jamaica off the sugar map of the world.

The possibilities of banana cultivation saved the island.
We have seen that the time came when the United FruitI
Company cut down its banana groves in Cuba and planted
the soil to sugar cane. The reverse happened in Jamaica./
Her farmers abandoned .their sugar fields and planted them
to bananas. The United States has gained immeasurably
from both operations. It is a perfect illustration of the
wisdom of permitting natural laws to operate in the develop-
ment of agricultural products. Cuba was naturally fitted
for sugar; Jamaica could best raise bananas. Peace in the
American tropics — enforced by the stern mandate of the
United States or a combination of world powers, if necessary
— will set in motion a stream of agricultural wealth which
will bless the people of the tropics and the world which will
bid for the released products of its waiting soils.

This is an obvious proposition to American citizens who ^^;"-^)
think. The trouble with too many of us is that our mental yjy.
horizon has a radius of about a mile. ^^

The Island of Jamaica is still by far the greatest banana
producing section on the globe. Its annual production at
the present time approximates 17,000,000 bunches of this
fruit, the sale of which brings to its people the larger propor-

Photo by A. Duijcrly cs* Son, Kingston, Jamaica

Cane River Falls, Jamaica

IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS 133

tion of their annual revenue. When our Congress threatened
to impose a duty of approximately five cents a bunch on
bananas, the people of Jamaica were dazed and terrified.
Once again an artificial restraint of trade menaced them
with destruction. A delegation of their leading officials and
citizens went to Washington and joined their protest with
that of the millions of American consumers who were indig-
nant that this attempt should be made to impose a tariff"
duty on the one fruit-food product which had maintained
low prices in an era remarkable for the steady and rapid rise
in the cost of all other food products, sugar being the only
other important exception. The press came nobly to the
defence of the banana, and the foolish tax was finally stricken
from the tariff bill.

Jamaica is and always will be an open market for any in-
dividual or concern that desires to import bananas. There
are fully ii,ooo producers of bananas on that island. The
United Fruit Company and some of its competitors own and
operate banana plantations, but the topography and land
ownership of Jamaica are such that it is impossible to mass a
large acreage into a single plantation and thus put into
operation the economical system of cultivation and trans-
portation employed in Panama, Costa Rica, and other places j
until recently undeveloped and uninhabited. j

The United Fruit Company owns about 8,800 acres of
growing bananas in Jamaica, which is less than 10 per cent of I
the total banana acreage of the island. On these tracts it raises \
about 2,000,000 bunches annually in seasons when the rain-
fall favors and no high winds sweep in from the Caribbean.
This is about 12 per cent of the banana productivity of the
greatest banana producing section in the world.

Banana producers, other than the United Fruit Company,
raise annually in Jamaica about 15,000,000 bunches of this
fruit, and there is no reason why this production should not
be much increased. The United Fruit Company could not
cultivate these thousands of small tracts with profit even if
made a present of them. They will therefore ever remain as
a source of banana supply open to any competitive interest
which cares to bid for them.

134 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

(What happens? The United Fruit Company and its
various competitors bid for this enormous and constantly
ncreasing output from the thousands of banana farms and
plantations of Jamaica. Two methods are followed, viz.:
The importer makes a contract with a banana producer for
his crop for a year or a short term of years. Most of these
contracts are renewed yearly. The grower naturally waits
for the highest bid. He is under no obligations and stands
in no fear of the United Fruit or any other company. Such
contracts are made only with growers who own tracts of
considerable extent, say from fifteen to twenty acres and
upward. The second method is to purchase the product of
the smaller farms in the open market.

Last year the United Fruit Company entered into about
700 contracts with independent growers, and under these
contracts approximately 4,000,000 bunches of bananas were
delivered and paid for. The price paid to growers varies,
but its approximate range is from 35 to 45 cents a bunch.
This yields the grower a revenue of from ^40 to ^75 an
acre, which is double what our farmers can hope to realize on
corn, wheat, or 6ther staple products. ^^

What does the importer make on* the Jamaican bananas

he buys by contract or in the open market? He will deem

i himself fortunate to realize profits ranging from 3 to 5

icents a buiich, and there will be times when he will lose

"heavily.

I The point which I wish to impress is this: The banana
consumption of the United States is approximately 42,000,000
bunches, of which the United Fruit Company supplies about
24,000,000. The Island of Jamaica alone offers to competi-
tion 15,000,000 bunches, to say nothing of the product of the
thousands of other independent growers scattered over all
of the islands and mainlands washed by the Caribbean.
When it comes to buying these bananas the United Fruit
Company has, of course, no advantage over any competitor.
The production of bananas in Jamaica in the fiscal year
1911-12 was 14,770,000 bunches. Of this amount the
United Fruit Company raised 1,502,000 on its own planta-
tions, and obtained by contracts with the native growers and

136 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

in the open market 5,986,665 bunches, making its total of
importations 7,488,665 bunches of bananas.

Competitors of the United Fruit Company imported
7,281,345 bunches. These official figures are more eloquent
than any argument in disproof of the existence of a banana
monopoly. So long as Jamaica remains above the Carib-
bean her fertile valleys and the thousands of tillers of her soil
will insure the permanence of competitive conditions in the
banana industry.

From the summits of tw 'sting mountains which undulate
from the main range one looks down on a rolling sea of
bananas dotted with cocoanut palms. Some of the inter-
lacing valleys are narrow, with precipitous slopes, but you
will find bananas flourishing in places which would dis-
hearten an ambitious goat. If you search you will find a
bamboo hut somewhere in the valley, possibly a cluster of
them, and here live the negroes who own or lease the semi-
precipices on which grow the bananas.

Other valleys are wider, with brooks or small rivers run-
ning through them, and here we find plantations of more
pretentious acreage. Sir John Pringle, who sells his banana
to a competitor of the United Fruit Company, has more
than 3,000 acres under cultivation. There are about
400 plantations in Jamaica which have 100 or more acres of
bananas, and there are more than 10,000 growers who grade
from this acreage down to the holdings of the lazy negro
who is content and happy with a dozen plants scattered
about his squalid hut.

As a rule the bananas are transported from the farms to
the railroads by mules. On the uplands this is expensive
work. The mule frequently is compelled to follow miles
of winding roads and trails to cover what would be a very
short distance in a straight line. There are many compara-
tively large tracts in the uplands which have been practically
h inaccessible for this reason.

I The United Fruit Company has put into operation a sys-

\ tem which solves this problem and which promises greatly

to increase the banana productivity of Jamaica. In the

1 place of mules or carts there is installed an "aerial banana

IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS

137

conveyer," a strong cable properly supported and leading
from the uplands in a fairly straight line to the valley below.
This cable is an endless one revolving over drums, and is
operated by gravity, the descending bananas bringing back
to the top the devices which hold and carry them.

The average cost, at present, of carrying a bunch of
bananas from plantations to railroads is estimated at about
8 cents a stem, and in many instances it greatly exceeds
this. Experiments indicate that the "aerial banana con-

EAST PART OF JAMAICA

veyor" will reduce this cost by from 5 to 6, and even more,
cents a bunch. Even more important is the certainty that
this system will greatly increase the banana acreage of
Jamaica. The company is also using auto trucks to good
advantage in conveying bananas from plantations to the
railroads.

The Jamaican banana is superior to the Cuban product,
but much inferior in size to the magnificent fruit now being
produced in the reclaimed swamps of Panama and Costa

138 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Rica. A bunch of bananas consists of a stem, hands, and
fingers. Each hand has from ten to fifteen fingers. A bunch
of bananas is thus known to the trade as "a five-hand stem,"
"a six-hand stem," and from that up to the nine or ten-hand
stems, which are the average commercial Hmit, though Costa
Rica has produced stems containing as high as twenty-two
hands - — a veritable giant of tropical fecundity!

In Jamaica the bananas range from five to nine hands to
the bunch, with an occasional one exceeding this grading,
but the individual fingers are smaller than those which grow
in the humid lowlands of the Central American coast. But
they are good bananas, wholesome and marketable. The
Jamaican negro is the workman who has made possible the
wonders which the United Fruit Company has achieved in
Central America, and Jamaica can lay just claim as the birth-
place of the banana industry.

Bananas are shipped from Kingston and Port Antonio,
but the great bulk of the fruit is loaded on ships which leave
the latter harbor. Fully six hundred shiploads of bananas
leave Jamaica annually to help satisfy the fruit hunger of
the world, and most of these bananas come to the United
States.

Port Antonio contains the best hotel in the American
tropics, and, in my deliberate opinion, one of the best hotels
in the world. Nothing can exceed the scenic possibilities
of a headland jutting into a tropical sea with tropical moun-
tains climbing ridge upon ridge until their heights are lost
in the indescribable tropical clouds. Buttress this undulat-
ing coast with towering cliffs; spread at their bases jagged
reefs over which the surge from the ocean beats forever in
unappeased rage; fringe these cliffs with palms, drape their
sides with ferns and clinging flowers; create as a foreground
an island such as you pictured when you read of the criminal
but glorious deeds of the buccaneers who sailed and plun-
dered the Spanish Main; and amid such surroundings rear
a beautiful hotel and conduct it as a hotel should be con-
ducted — such is a faint ijnpression of the Hotel Titchfield
and its environment.

There are persons who go to Central Park to eat peanuts.

140 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

There are others who go to the tropics for the pleasures of
shopping. Such will find the streets of Kingston more to
their liking than the scenic marvels which are in and about
Port Antonio, but I would rather spend one hour on the
verandas of the Hotel Titchfield than to enjoy all of the
pleasures Kingston has in store.

The United Fruit Company owns the Hotel Titchfield and
should be proud of it. Its management is all that could be
desired by the most exacting traveller. The pleasure-seeking
public is discovering that the country in and about Port
Antonio is the choicest bit of tropical paradise within easy
reach of the coasts of the United States. Country clubs
with golT links, tennis courts, and other out-of-door sports
will logically follow, and the marvelous reaches of beach both
sides of Port Antonio will be dotted with inns and palm-
shaded hotels, and this part of Jamaica will outrival Florida
"•as a winter resort.

The United Fruit Company owns an interest in the famous
Myrtle Bank Hotel, of Kingston, the only one of consequence
in the leading city and capital of the island. The service at
the Myrtle Bank is excellent, and the hotel is an admirable
base from which to explore the tropical beauties to be found
in the uplands away from the dusty plain along this coast.
Spanish Town, the peerless Bog Walk, Castleton Gardens,
Hope Gardens, and other tropical attractions are within
easy reach of Kingston, but none of these, in my opinion,
can touch the natural charms of the district which lies on the
other side of Blue Mountain, and of which Port Antonio is
the centre.

CHAPTER IX
Where the Banana Is King

^ROM Kingston we steam in a
southwesterly course for Colon.
Ones cherished geographical im-
pressions are rudely shattered
^L^=^^^^^ by travel. It was a shock to me
■k^ KSSVI^^H ^^ discover that the Panama

^iHkll^dirlvy^^^l Canal is almost due south of
^^^^^Hl ^^fl^^H New York City, being about

only 200 miles west of a north
and south line. My mental
map had located the Canal fully
I ,cxx) miles to the west of New
York, or about on the longitude
of New Orleans and Chicago,
instead of which it is due south
of Buffalo, and far to the east of
Havana. Most of us picture Havana as nearly south of New
York, when in fact it is about south of Detroit. A study of
a map of the New World discloses the disconcerting fact that
all of the west coast of South America is east of Detroit, and
that most of it is hundreds of miles east of New York City.
The truth of the matter is that we should call that continent
" Southeast America."

I also made the astounding discovery that a considerable
portion of South America lies north of the southerly sec-
tions of North America. When we set sail from Colon for
Santa Marta, Colombia, we do not head south or southeast,
we point our prow northeast. This is almost as puzzling as
the other fact to the effect that Colon, the Caribbean port
(the supposed east port), is twenty odd miles west of Panama
City, which is on the Pacific and presumably west end of the
Canal. It is positively uncanny to look out of a window of
the Tivoli Hotel in Panama City and watch the sun rise

141

142

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

squarely out of the Pacific Ocean! Of course, an accurate
map justifies the sun in selecting the Pacific for rising rather
than setting purposes, but it never seemed right or proper
to me. Oceans should stay where they belong, and the
Pacific has no business to twist itself to the east of Panama.
We sail out of Kingston harbor and past what remains
of Port Royal, and over the submerged ruins of the city
which sunk into the sea in the great earthquake of 1692.
This was then the Mecca of the pirates, adventurers and
bad men of the world, and Port Royal made good its boast

KINGSTON, JAMAICA

that it was "the wickedest spot in the world." History
and romance invest the squalid segment which remains with
a strange charm, but it looks best from the deck of a ship,
and I would rather read about it than investigate it too
closely.

It is claimed that when the water is calm one can make
out the forms of the ruined buildings which slid into the sea
that awful day when nature blotted from earth this nest of
picturesque vice and storied crime. ■ The fisher folk tell of
nights when the ghosts of the buccaneers who perished three
centuries ago hold high revel below and above the water, but

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING

143

I have my doubts. I am inclined to the belief that their
spirits are in a location far more tropical than Kingston
harbor.

Two days of a cruise over the heart of the Caribbean
brings us to Colon. In the winter months these are days of
glorious sunshine, of wondrous skies, of sparkling waters,
and of an air which one quaifs with delight as it comes on the
perfumed breath of the trade winds. There is only one
fault with this trip from Jamaica to Colon — it is too short.

^■^ now HI

i 1

^^^^HB^^

5 — :~u..£-J^Ki^Hlk

Dining room of the SS. Meiapan

The voyager treasures every minute of it, and rebels at the
speed which limits this journey to a fleeting period of forty-
eight hours.

It is not the province of this book to describe the wonders
of the Panama Canal. The traveller will find at his com-
mand a wealth of books on this great project, some of which
he can read with profit on the trip from Kingston to Colon.

Colon is the leading port of entry in the tropics for the
United Fruit Company. From two to half a dozen and
sometimes more of its ships can be found at the docks of

144 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Colon. The company has under construction a system of
extensive and modern docks and buildings in Cristobal, a
contiguous part of Colon, but in the territory of the admin-
istration of the Canal Zone. The cities of Colon and
Panama proper are under the jurisdiction of the Republic of
Panama, with certain restrictions mutually agreed on and
observed.

There is much which is attractive in Colon and Panama
City and along the Canal Zone, and the visitor can spend
many days with profit along the Isthmus now spanned by
the great Canal. The city of Panama is distinct in type
from any town in Central America or along the north coast
of South America. Panama City is an architectural expres-
sion of the Spaniard in South America. The Republic of
Panama is now a part of Central America, but it must be
kept in mind that Colon and Panama City were founded and
reared by men whose traditions and arts were those of South
America. Spanish blood and Spanish temperament dom-
inated in the construction of these cities, and Panama City
in particular stands as an interesting and pleasing type of
urban construction for which the architecture of Castile is
responsible, and which is blended only faintly with the con-
ceptions of the native Indian races. The Indian dominates
in all other parts of Central America and Mexico, and in
many sections of South America, but Panama City typifies
the pleasing attempt of Spanish art to master the archi-
tectural requirements of the tropics.

The scenery along the Canal Zone will prove disappoint-
ing to those who have approached it either from Jamaica
or from the ports of Central America. High mountains are
almost indispensable in a proper arrangement of scenic
charms, and the absence of high mountains was the consid-
eration which led to the selection of this spot as the best
place to bisect two continents. But that is not the only-
scenic handicap of the Canal Zone. Its soil is poor and
its rainfall uneven and seasonal. As a result of these and
other conditions there is a lack of that riotous luxuriance
of tropical foliage which one demands of the jungle. It would
be beautiful, perhaps, if one had not been educated to expect

A SUPERB ROW OF ROYAL PALMS

A view taken on one of the plantations of the United Fruit

Company in Costa Rica

146 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

much from revelling in the tropical glories of more favored
sections.

About ICG miles to the west of Colon, and along the Car-
ibbean coast of the Republic of Panama, we arrive at one
of the great productive centres of the United Fruit Company,
the country contiguous to the port and city of Bocas del
Toro, which translates as "The Mouths of the Bull," the
bay or lagoon having some fancied resemblance to a bull,
but with an extra mouth or two.

Let me confess in advance that I am violently prejudiced
in favor of this Bocas del Toro country. It does not yet
provide adequate hotel accommodations for the tourist, but
these will come in time, and Bocas del Toro will become the
Thousand Islands of the Tropics, with beauties and attrac-
tions far exceeding the wonder spot of the St. Lawrence.

I presume that the average person who never has visited
the tropics goes there with a mental picture based on what
he has read. This picture is a composite of impressions
derived from a reading of "Robinson Crusoe," "Treasure
Island," "The Swiss Family Robinson," and other classics
of the tropical seas, but in all of these fond imageries there is
a sheltered lagoon opening from an ocean which tosses its
spume high up from jagged rocks and cruel coral reefs on
which lie the bones of the ship from which the hero and
heroine have been miraculously saved.
-^ II Prior to my first visit to the tropics I had the audacity
to write a tropical novel, being encouraged by the fact that,
Robert Louis Stevenson created his best sea tale before he
took his first long sea voyage. In this novel of mine, "The
Kidnapped Millionaires," I created an ideal lagoon opening
in from a tropical sea, and I embellished the shores of this
sequestered spot with all the glories of plant and sea life
for which the encyclopaedias gave authority, and added a
few of my own. It was a tropical paradise, this lagoon of
mine to which the "kidnapped millionaires" were lured, and
I doubt if nature will ever be able to create anything equal
to it, but nature has its limitations and an author has none.

Bocas del Toro is in the western part of the Republic of
Panama, this country running east and west, not north and

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING 147

south as many suppose. The banana plantations of the
United Fruit Company cross the border line between
Panama and Costa Rica. This boundary line is in dispute,
and for years has been the subject of arbitration. Both
Costa Rica and Panama impose an export duty of about one
cent a bunch on bananas, and it thus happens that the
United Fruit Company has been paying an export duty to

ALMIRANTE BAY AND CHIRIQUI LAGOON, PANAMA

both countries for all bananas raised in the sections over
which both nations claim sovereignty.

Indented from the Caribbean is a huge lagoon about fifty
miles long and from twelve to twenty miles wide. A cluster
of islands protects this lagoon from the Caribbean, and an-
other row of islands divides it into two parts. The town of
Bocas del Toro is situated on an island which helps enclose

148

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

what is known as Almirante Bay, and the Chiriqui Lagoon
connects it to the south and west. The Chiriqui Lagoon is a
mass of islands. The exact number is unknown, but there are
several thousands of them — a perfect labyrinth of tropical
islands in a setting which mocks description.

Some of these islands rise in cliffs hundreds of feet sheer
above the crystal waters which lave their bases. The crests
of these heights are fringed with palms and with other trop-
ical trees laden with huge flowers of flaunting colors. Ferns
and clinging vines soften the lines of the cliflFs. In places
the passage between these precipitous islands is so narrow
that there is barely room to float a canoe. Only the Indian

Early morning on Almirante Bay

guides can safely find a way in and out of this tropical
wonderland.

In the air are myriads of the feathered denizens of these
interlocking islands. Monkeys and jabbering baboons
swing from branches and jeer at those who dare penetrate
their haunts. In the depths of the clear waters are swarms
of fish of all colors and sizes. They dart amongst a wealth
of sea plants, and in and out of tunnels formed by the rocks
which have tumbled from the beetling cliffs. The thought
comes that you are an atom floating in a vast aquarium.
You call aloud, the rocks send the echoes flying; the parrots
and monkeys return a chorus of insolent protest. If lucky,

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING 149

you may venture on a pair of Central American tigers, an
animal larger and more dangerous that our mountain lion,
one with the general appearance of a small specimen of the
African tiger. Alligators and crocodiles lurk about the
mouths of the rivers which enter into Almirante Bay and
Chiriqui Lagoon, but the tourist need have no fear of them.

Hundreds of miles of these passages between the islands
can be explored in a motor boat. Here is a practically
unknown paradise for the hunter, fisherman, and the devotee
of the beautiful.

The traveller who lacks the time to explore the wonders
of Chiriqui Lagoon can obtain an impression of them by
visiting the present site of the hospitals of the United Fruit
Company on Nances Cay — ■ a large island about two miles
to the southwest of Bocas del Toro.

In some respects the view from the verandas of these
buildings is the finest I have ever seen in the tropics. Imag-
ine yourself on the corner of a cliff forty feet or more above
rocks through which the surf breaks lazily after having been
checked by reefs which for ages have withstood its unceasing
attack. Two miles to the north is the deep blue of the Car-
ibbean seen through a fairway opening into the protected
harbor of Almirante Bay. To the right is Flat Rock Point,
a frowning promontory against which the sea beats and sends
its storm spray a hundred feet in air. To the left is Colum-
bus Island, comparatively low, with its crescent beach lined
with palms and bamboo. No houses or native huts intrude
on either side of this picturesque inlet through which the
ships pass. It was on the dazzling white sands of such a
beach that Robinson Crusoe saw the footprints of savages,
and it was amid such surroundings that he and his man
Friday lived their entrancing life.

On the inner edge of Bocas Island is the town of Bocas
del Toro, its white buildings showing vivid against the foli-
age of its streets and parks. To the left are the smooth
waters of Almirante Bay, shimmering twenty miles or more
until the surface blends into the haze of an illusive shore
line. Towering into the sky beyond the waters of the bay
are terraced ranges of mountains which constitute the back-

150

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

bone of the continent, weakened at the Isthmus and now^
broken by the cutting of the Panama Canal 150 miles to th<
east. Within our range of vision are the Chiriqui, Pic(
Blanca, Talamanca and other lofty ranges, some of them ii
Panama and others in Costa Rica. Extinct volcanos
which may become active at any time — lift their conical
crests into the Italian blue of cloud-flecked skies, greal
dreamy masses of uplifted verdure punctured with crags
and capped with fleecy clouds.

COLUMBUS ISLAND

AL M I R A N T E

BOCAS DEL TORO

And all about us is a veritable exposition of tropical veg-
etation. Surrounding the hospital buildings are scores of
forms of palms, some of them dwarfed and squat, others
towering to the blue before the fronds burst into the gorge-
ous plume of the royal palm. High up in cieba and ebo'^
trees cling festoons of orchids, absorbing from the air the •
beauties of its stars and the tints of its rainbows. But -
what's the use! When no man can paint, much less de-
scribe a single lily, what chance is there to compose in words

'-1-'

g ^^

i-i J-i

c« O

o;^

152 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

a single strain in the divine scenic harmony of this gem of
the tropics ?

It is only 150 miles from here to the Panama Canal Zone,
but we are in another world so far as climate is concerned.
The Bocas country is one of the rare districts in the tropics
which is not handicapped with distinct dry and wet seasons.
These seasons are the "intemperate" feature of the tropics.
When it rains it rains too much, and when it quits it stops too
long. The Panama Canal Zone and many other sections are
afflicted with this sort of climate. In the winter months
hardly a drop of rain falls, but in the spring and summer the
flood-gates of the heavens are opened. On the Pacific side
of the Canal Zone a rainfall of nearly five inches in three min-
utes has been recorded! A veritable deluge which tore the
very earth in its violence!

It rains every month in Bocas del Toro. At times the
rains are excessive and do great damage. Bananas grow
best where nature has violent moods, and only those who are
able financially to recover from the effects of these moods are
justified in undertaking this enterprise. Bananas require
an enormous amount of water, and Bocas del Toro is ideal
in this respect.

Rarely does it happen that a week passes in the Bocas
del Toro section without a shower. As a consequence, the
tropical foliage is always vivid and glorious. There is none
of the monotony of weeks and months of cloudless skies,
with their inevitable concomitant of parched and dusty
verdure. Sunshine is a splendid thing, but it never is appre-
ciated so fully as when it breaks through clouds and turns into
diamonds the billions of raindrops clinging to vine and leaf.

Those who are of the opinion that the Central American
tropics are afflicted with abnormally, high temperature will
find the official statistics interesting in refutation of that
impression. It is extremely rare that the mercury mounts
to 90 in the shade, a temperature which is exceeded annually
by from five to ten degrees by most of the cities of the
United States. Here is the official record of the temper-
ature and rainfall in Bocas del Toro for the fiscal year
1911-1912:

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING

153

TABLE SHOWING OFFICIAL RECORD OF TEMPERATURE
AND RAINFALL IN BOCAS DEL TORO FOR FISCAL YEAR

OF 1911-12

Temperature (Fahrenheit)

Yeai

IQII

I9I2

Month

Maximum

Minimum

Mean

Rainfall Inches

October

72.64

79 32

10.44

November

8595

79- 15

7.99

December

84.43

77.76

8.26

January

83.90

77.30

.93

February

83.00

76.72

5.55

March

84.23

78.11

4.68

April

84.70

78.14

7.61

May

87.71

80.33

17.41

June

85.17

79.27

8.49

July

82.23

77-97

11-45

August

83.28

78.45

7-85

September

8513

73 40

79.26

8.19

Averages 84 . 64

72.32

78.48 Total 98.84

That is what I call a "temperate climate.".'-! lived for
many years in an Illinois town where the range was from
40 below zero in the winter to 103 degrees in the shade in the
summer, and my school books assured me that I was an
inhabitant of the "temperate zone," which, in our locality,
had a fluctuation of about 143 degrees. Down in the "tor-
rid tropics" in the Bocas del Toro section the records indi-
cate a range of from 70.45 in February to 87.71 in May, a
fluctuation of a matter of 17 degrees in the year shown, and
which never much exceeds 20 degrees, or less than one-
seventh that of my former location in the Illinois section of
our alleged temperate zone. We learn many things in
geography which are not so.

The rainfall indicated in the above table is below the
normal, which runs from 100 to 130 inches, or from three to
four times that of the average community in the United
States. These tropical rains are beautiful to watch if you
are safely under cover on high ground. They are not pro-
tracted rains with intervals of mist and drizzle, such as we
have to endure in the United States. The tropical rains
usually come as showers of marked intensity. When it

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING 155

rains it makes a business of it, and when it quits the sun
flashes out with a glorious rainbow spanning the opposite
horizon. Two hours' of storm in Central America will
result in more precipitation than a week of dismal weather
in New York or Chicago.

The early history of the town of Bocas del Toro is shrouded
in mystery. It is the only populated centre of banana cul-
tivation which was on the map of Central America when the
founders of the United Fruit Company set about the culti-
vation and exportation of this fruit. The population of
Bocas del Toro when Mr. Keith discovered its banana pos-
sibilities was almost exclusively negro, and they spoke Eng-
lish with a smattering of Spanish and local Carib. There
are records which indicate that the ancestors of these negroes
settled on this low and sandy spit of island fully 250 years ago.

There is every probability that these negroes came to
Bocas del Toro from Jamaica. The present negro inhab-
itants have all of the characteristics of their Jamaican
brethren. The original migration must have taken place
when the negroes were enslaved in Jamaica, or in some other
British possession. Who was the black Moses who escaped
and found this asylum? Who was the slave who conceived
and executed the crusade which brought these African pio-
neers to this refuge of freedom? Did these negro Pilgrims
make peace or war with the wild Caribs who frequented
these coasts? Not even tradition has an answer to these
questions.

It was a miserable village before the banana industry
developed and brought prosperity to Bocas and other sec-
tions along the Caribbean coasts of Central America.
There was plenty of high ground on the island, but the
negroes built their huts on stilts along the edge of Almirante
Bay, following, perhaps, the example of their African pro-
genitors. The sanitary conditions were awful. In the
early years of the United Fruit Company not less than 80
per cent of its employees in Bocas del Toro were on the an-
nual sick roll. The percentage is now the normal one of a
healthy community. I shall treat of this phase of the com-
pany's work in a later chapter.

156 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

The original banana plantings were near Bocas del Toro,
some of them on the island itself, with other plantations
along the shores of Chiriqui Lagoon. The dreaded banana
disease invaded these plantations and eventually destroyed
them. This disease is known to come from a soil parasite,
and no means for its eradication have yet been discovered.
The only remedy was to abandon this naturally fertile
district and set new plants elsewhere. Fresh cultivations
were initiated farther west on Almirante Bay, and the new
town of Almirante established.

Almirante is the base of one of the most interesting and
successful of the great creative enterprises of the United
Fruit Company. Leading from it are nearly 250 miles
of well constructed railway which link areas belong-
ing to the company of 109,000 acres, with cultivated
tracts with a total acreage approximating 40,000. About
35,000 acres of this are devoted to bananas, and here
are raised the largest and choicest bananas in all of the world.
The famous "Changuinola" banana is the highest priced
fruit on the market, and it comes from a district which was
an untouched wilderness only a few short years ago. It
derives its name from the Changuinola River, which flows
for more than sixty miles with the banana plantations of the
United Fruit Company on both sides of its banks.

I rode one February afternoon nearly 100 miles through
the banana plantations of the Changuinola and Sixaola ;
districts. In my study of the enterprises conducted by the
United Fruit Company I have travelled by rail a distance
certainly exceeding 400 miles with banana plants on both
sides of the tracks, their fronds often forming a semi-tunnel
through which we swiftly passed. This trackage is far less
than half of that employed by the company in transporting
its fruit from the fields to the wharves.

If the reader possessed an imagination capable of compre-
hending a banana plantation one-third of a mile wide and
extending from New York City to Chicago, with this wilder-
ness of bananas bisected by a well constructed and equipped
railroad, he will begin to obtain a conception of what has
been created from a virgin tropical wilderness.

Residence of a banana plantation official

158 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

We crossed and recrossed the Changuinola and Sixaola

rivers and their numerous branches. The rivers looked low

and peaceful on this occasion, but there were pointed out

fhigh-water marks of floods which have swept away expensive

/bridges and ballasted tracks. But these floods are not with-

/out their compensations. They bring down from the upper

/ valleys their loads of fertile silt and deposit it around the

I bases of the banana plants.

The bananas which grow in this favored district average
64 pounds in weight per bunch, and the local officials of the
United Fruit Company proudly assert that this is fully ten
pounds more than can justly be claimed for any other divi-
sion in which the company or its competitors operate.

There are many independent banana growers in Panama
and in all of the countries in which the company has inter-
ests. There is keen competition to secure contracts with
these growers. In every instance the importing concern
obligates itself to accept all the bananas which pass a fair
inspection. It frequently happens that this arrangement
works to the decided loss of the importing concern. Large
quantities of fruit are oflFered for which there is no profitable
market in the United States or abroad, but it must be acr
cepted and paid for at the contract price.

Newspaper stories have been printed to the effect that the
importing companies hold the independents at their mercy
by declining at times to accept banana offerings except at
ruinously low prices, the unfortunate growers being forced
to accept the price tendered or see their bananas rot on the
wharves. There is not a word of truth in such tales. The
competing importers are alert to secure and retain contracts
with the independents, and good business policy, to say
nothing of business fairness, insures to the grower a rigid
compliance with the terms of all contracts

From conversations with independent growers in various
parts of Central America, I am of the opinion that capably
conducted banana farms of small size yield the independent
growers from forty to sixty dollars an acre under fairly
favorable conditions, this assuming that the owner performs
most of the manual labor. This is in excess of the profits_

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING 159

per acre on staple products in the United States, but the
risks and the hardships are greater.

Like most tropical enterprises, that of banana cultivation
is subject to grotesque exaggerations and misrepresenta-
tions. The promoters of banana companies are responsible
for some of these false statements, and writers who draw on
their imaginations are equally guilty. I ran across a clip-
ping recently from a newspaper of excellent standing and
usual reliability. The article purported to give a summary
of the growth and importance of the banana industry, and
it would be difficult to mass in a newspaper column a more
fantastic array of "facts which were not so." The article
was widely circulated in the western farming sections, and
the following extract was copied in scores of newspapers:

"The profits from a banana plantation per acre are esti-
m'ated at as high as ^i,ooo a year net."

It is very likely that this and similar statements have
induced many of our farmers to sell their holdings and risk
their savings in an attempt to take advantage of this alleged
opportunity. For the benefit of those who may be deluded
by similar statements I will explain that an acre of developed
banana plants will yield annually from 150 to 300 bunches of
bananas, with 200 bunches as a high average. After these
bananas have been transported from the tropics to New
York or Chicago they do not command much more than
$1 a bunch, which includes freight charges, insurance,
jobber's profits and other fixed charges.

The independent grower of these 200 bunches of bananas
on his acre of land is fairly treated by the importing buyer
when he receives from 30 to 35 cents a bunch for his fruit,
which yields him from $60 to $70 gross an acre, and,
of course, a smaller net profit, most of which would stand as
his own wages. This is far removed from the $1,000 an acre
blithely assured by the author of the article mentioned. If
writers realized that such false statements inevitably mis-
lead and wreck many lives they would be less careless in
giving them the authority of the printed word.
- In a carefully prepared article dealing with the question of
■banana profits recently published in Tropical America a

WHERE THE BANANA IS KING 161

yield of 290 bunches per acre may be expected to return a
net profit of ^68.75 in Mexico, ^66.84 in Honduras, and
$58.97 in Jamaica. This, of course, assumes that no damage
occurs to the growing crops. It certainly would be conser-
vative to reduce these figures by not less than 25 per cent
to cover losses which naturally may be expected from winds,
floods, and other climatic disasters. /^

Modern banana production, as I have already explained/
must be conducted on a very large scale, which means the
employment of vast capital and a complicated and expensive
equipment. In its Panama Division alone the Unitec
Fruit Company employs between 6,000 and 7,000 men scat-
tered over plantations which cover more than 170 square
miles of land.

Most of these men are negroes from Jamaica or othe
islands of the West Indies. The labor question is a vita
one in the American tropics. It is almost impossible t
tempt the average native of Central America to work, and
many of them are physically incapable of sustained manual
labor. The wages paid by the United Fruit Company and by
other concerns engaged in productive enterprises in the trop-
Ucs are practically as high as those commanded in the United
States, which means that they are many times the rate ever
before offered to labor in Central America.

When an individual or a corporation decides to undertake
development work in most parts of the American tropics
the fact must be kept in mind that outside capital and out-
side labor must be provided. ' There is an educated, land-
holding and official class in all of the Central American
countries which constitutes its aristocracy, but most of
them decline to interest themselves in business or in modern
methods of agriculture. There is a small middle class
containing men of various salaried occupations and profes-
sions. Between this middle class and the one below it there 1
is a vast social and economic gulf. The lower classes are
Indians of innumerable tribes and varying customs, but a
considerable portion of them obey the latent instinct of
hatred for physical labor. In this particular they differ in
no essential respect from the Indians with whom we are

162 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

familiar save that the Central American Indian lives in a
land whose soil and climate removes much of the incentive
to work.

When the French began work on the Panama Canal they
met their first rebuff when they learned that there was
practically no native labor which could be lured to work for
wages. They loved what money would bring, but physical
exertion was too high a price to pay for the comforts of the
white races. It was because of the refusal of the Indian
natives to work at any price that the Jamaican and other
West Indian negroes were called on, and they have responded
by the tens of thousands to the high wages offered by the
Americans, British, Germans, and others who have under-
taken the huge task of developing the neglected wilds of
Central and South America.

CHAPTER X

In Beautiful Costa Rica

OSTA RICA is an oasis of prog-
ress in that long reach of
country which extends from the
Rio Grande to the equator. It
is the one Central American na-
tion which has hfted itself fully
out of the anarchy of merce-
nary revolutions and of semi-
savage internal warfare and
intrigue. Costa Rica is the ex-
isting proof that there is noth-
ing climatic or elemental in
Central America which pre-
cludes its people from sharing

in the benefits of advancement and governmental stability.
Years ago the French writer Laferriere, in his picturesque

description of the Central American republics, had this to say

of Costa Rica:

"The Costa Ricans dislike wasting their resources in wars
or war materials, preferring the arts of peace and to welcome
those bringing wealth from other countries."

In other words, these strange Costa Ricans deliberately 1
invited the investors of the United States and of the world to
"exploit" them. They opened their national doors to the
foreign builders of railroads, to the delvers of mines, to the
developers of agricultural wealth, and to all others who had
the money and the energy to undertake creative enterprises.
And when this invitation had been accepted, the roads con-
structed, the wastes cleared and cultivated, the strange people
of Costa Rica did not deem it necessary to indulge in revolu-
tions which would determine what faction of politicians

163

164

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

would enjoy the multiplied official perquisites which accrued
from an enhanced national revenue. They have voted their
officials into and out of office, and their small regular army
has been their tool and not their master — all of which seems
so strange that it demands an explanation.

This explanation is a simple one. Costa Rica is a white

man's republic. Fully 80 per cent of the population of the

/highlands is pure Caucasian, mainly of Spanish descent, with

i an admixture of French, German, British, and other white

A church in San Jose

races. There is a real middle class in Costa Rica. There is
a real farmer class in that happy republic, but best of all
there is real love of country and a patriotism which defends
it against the plots and wiles of military adventurers and
mercenary ''generals."

The native Indian tribes have absorbed some of the attri-
butes of Caucasian civilization — which is the only way
an Indian can acquire the first veneer of civilization. Each
(Succeeding generation of Costa Rican Indians has sloughed

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 165

off some hereditary tribal trait and substituted for it an
energetic habit of the dominant white man. Thousands of
them have acquired the working and saving habit, and the
stern enforcement of peace has dulled and almost subdued the
instinct to take the warpath at the instigation of the first
ambitious revolutionist who provides guns, ammunition, and
a promise of loot.

There has been no effective or lasting progress in all of the
vast domain from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn which was
not the result of Caucasian initiative and eventual suprem-
acy, and the hope of the disturbed sections of Central
America lies in an influx of the race which has the intelli-
gence and the courage to fight only for peace.

The part played by the United Fruit Company in promot-
ing the development and insuring the progress of Costa Ricaj
is one which reflects credit both to the government and t<
this American enterprise. In all of the long forty-four years
since Minor C. Keith obtained the permission of the Costal
Rican Government to begin the construction of a railroad
from the Caribbean coast to the city of San Jose, there has
been nothing approaching friction between the enterprises
then founded and the successive oflftcials of this progressive]
republic.

It may not be amiss at this place to call attention to the/
fact that the United Fruit Company and its original constit-)
uent corporations have, for more than a generation, executed^
their vast activities without coming into conflict with any oi
the many nations in which they have operated. There never
has been a time when the interests of these American corporaj- "1
tions have so clashed with those of the various governments
that official protest has been made by any party to thesi ^
relations. Wars have been waged between these nations,
strained relations have existed between some of them and the
United States, revolutions have succeeded revolutions, our
troops have been landed on these soils to protect American
lives and property, but in all these years and amid all these!
happenings the United Fruit Company has continued its!
creative work without voicing complaint or having one made 1
against it.

166 CONQUESTS OF THE TROPICS

This is a record to be proud of when it is taken into con-
sideration that the United Fruit Company and the Keith
interests have expended in these years a sum exceeding
$200,000,000 in the American tropics. There are possibili-

Scene in Puerto LImon's beautiful park

ties of a number of wars and scores of official protests in the
expenditure of that sum of money, and with every dollar of
it beyond the immediate jurisdiction of the laws and author-
ity of the United States. If the Nobel Peace Prize could be

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA

167

awarded to a corporation, the United Fruit Company would
have valid claims to recognition. It has done more to pave
the way for peace and prosperity in Central America and in
the Caribbean countries than all of the statesmanship and
oratory which have vainly been directed to the same purpose.
Chester Lloyd Jones, in an article entitled "Bananas and
Diplomacy," appearing in the North American Review of
August, 191 3, makes these pertinent observations:

"If the present banana development continues, it will
raise the Caribbean region from its dependence on foreign

On the way to San Jose, Costa Rica

markets for food to one of the regions from which an im-
portant part of the world's food-supply will be drawn. The
wheat-fields of the Dakotas and Manitoba will meet as one
of their competitors in feeding the world, the banana planta-
tions of the American Mediterranean.

"But the development will have consequences not alone
economic. Plantations represent capital which will demand
protection from disorder. Their introduction will emphasize
for the countries of Central America and northern South
America, the importance of protecting life and property if

168 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

they expect to avoid international complications that may-
threaten their independence. The world is becoming im-
patient of the nations which insist on the divine right to mis-
rule themselves. The introduction of capital, however,
besides increasing their duties in the keeping of order, con-
tributes to the solution of that problem. It increases the
national wealth, furnishing a larger basis for the creation of
national income by which orderly progress can be assured.
Further, with steady work and larger, stabler income, the
wants of the people will expand, giving them greater interest
in the maintenance of the order which makes the satisfaction
of those wants possible. . . .

"Great as the blessings of the Panama Canal will be to
the trade of the world and to that of the United States in
particular, we must not let the new markets which will
develop beyond the Isthmus make us forget that region so
rich in possibilities which lies this side of the continental
divide and so much nearer our own markets. Friendship
with our near neighbors is no less important than the good
will of people over wide seas. One of the most important,
and from our past experience let us remember, one of the
most delicate problems with which our men of state have to
deal, is the diplomacy of the Caribbean."

Let us resume our imaginative trip and visit Costa Rica.
It is only a few hours' sail from Bocas del Toro to Puerto
Limon, and in a direction almost due northwest. The
entrance to Limon is picturesque and romantic. To the west
rise the Cordilleras of Costa Rica towering ridges of pur-
ple blending to tender shades of green in the foreground.
Through a glass we make out the white houses of Puerto
Limon, and see the gleaming line of the surf as it beats
against the sea wall which protects the park and the hospital
buildings belonging to the United Fruit Company.

The twin towers of the wireless station owned and oper-
ated by the company trace their steel lacework hundreds of
feet against a sky of wonderful blue. To the left is a crescent
sweep of beach whose white sands are framed in nodding
cocoanut palms. And then we land at one of the company's
docks in Puerto Limon and go ashore.

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 169

You will, of course, make the trip by rail to San Jose and
possibly to Puntarenas on the Pacific Ocean. This railroad
from Limon to San Jose is the one which Mr. Keith began to
construct when he was a boy, the road for which 4,000 men
laid down their lives in the struggle to penetrate the first
twenty-five miles of the jungle.

The ride from Puerto Limon to San Jose is one of the most
beautiful in the world, and there is no city in North America
which can vie with San Jose in certain of its charms. Its

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climate is perfect, its streets clean and well kept, its shops
attractive and filled with luxuries from all the world, and its
opera house so far surpasses anything in the United States
that comparisons are odious. And its women — artists and
poets and others who can lay no claim to authority rave
over them.

But it would take a book to begin to describe the beauties
and attractions of this gem of tropical cities, to say nothing
of the country and towns of which it is the capital. Let us

170

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

return to Puerto Limon and see what has been accomplished
since Mr. Keith selected it as the base of a railroad which
would penetrate the jungle and give access to the populated
highlands surrounding San Jose.

To the west, north, and south of Puerto Limon are tracts
of land covering 249,779 acres, or almost exactly 380 square
miles, which the United Fruit Company has acquired by
purchase, and it holds an additional 5,338 acres under leases.

On the Reventazon River, Costa Rica

It thus Operates a tract of land exceeding 390 square miles
in Costa Rica, or the acreage of 1,560 farms of a quarter sec-
tion each, which is the acreage of the average Western farm
in the United States.

Not all of this huge tract is under cultivation, and some
of it is unfitted for such purposes, but the most of it will some
day be utilized for new tropical products which are bidding
for Northern favor.

This is by far the largest of the banana developments con-

[

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 171

ducted by the United Fruit Company, and, independent ofj
all of the other properties owned by that company, consti-(
tutes one of the great agricultural enterprises of the world. L-

Within this district are 47,723 acres of growing and bearing
banana plants. There is an average of 400 banana plants O]
trees to the acre, which means that the Costa Rica Divisior
of the United Fruit Company contains about i9,o89,2CX
bearing banana plants! Of course no one, not even the mer
who supervised the work of their planting, has any compre-
hensive grasp of what such figures mean. You may ride
hundreds of miles through these parallel rows of trees, but
instead of obtaining an idea of the magnitude of such an
undertaking you glean only that there are human achieve-
ments beyond the grasp of the human imagination.

An apple orchard with 100 trees is far larger than the
average, but the Costa Rican banana orchard multiplies this
unit by 190,000. There are hundreds of negroes in Jamaica
who derive most of their annual money income from an acre
of bananas, and an army of more than 47,000 of them could
eke out an existence if they could divide this Costa Rica
plantation and sell its product.

It is because of such plantations and of the transportation
equipment for handling their products that bananas sell for
retail in the United States at all seasons of the year at from
10 to 25 cents a dozen. If human stupids who imagine that
an enterprise is wrong because of its size had their way they
might compel the United Fruit Company and its competitors
to abandon these modern plantations to the ownership and
care of lazy Indians, and these stupids would later be re-
warded by being compelled to pay 5 cents for a single banana
or go without.

Where these plantations now stand, and where the beauti-
ful city of Puerto Limon now thrives there was not a sign of
a human habitation forty-three years ago. There were only
the swamps and the jungles reaching back to the mountains
which hold on their shoulders the plateau dotted with San
Jose, Cartago, and other historic towns. The numerous
rivers which had their rise on the eastern slopes of these
mountains had for the natives unknown outlets. They were

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 173

aware that there was a sea far beyond the jungle, and those
who climbed the mountains could see its silver line on a clear
day, but nothing would tempt them below the 1,000-foot
altitude where coffee cultivation ceases.

To-day Puerto Limon and the former jungles surrounding
it contain a population of fully 35,000 people, nearly all of
whom are engaged directly or indirectly in the banana trade.
The once unknown Puerto Limon is now one of the leading
ports between Vera Cruz and Colon, and it is the leading
place of banana export intheworld. The United Fruit
Coii\p<lIlj^-atone sends from Limon more than 400__shi£loads
of bananas a year, or fully 10,000^000 Hnnrhps of jjhng jrnit
This great industry demands in this district the services of
an army of 7,000 men, who, with their families make up the
bulk of the population of the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

Most of the workers on these plantations are Jamaican
negroes who are directed by white superintendents, mainly
American. The tradition that it is impossible to live in the
lowlands still prevails among the working classes of Costa
Rica, but this will be overcome in time. The wages paid by
the company average more than double that paid by the
coffee planters of the highlands, and the drainage of the
swamps and the rigid enforcement of scientific sanitary
measures has rendered this section as safe and healthful as v
any part of the republic. '

Most of the manual labor on a banana plantation is what
may be termed "piece work," the laborer contracting to
perform certain duties on a certain tract of land. He may,
for instance, contract to keep clear of weeds and dead fronds
or leaves five or ten acres of bananas, or he may contract to
cut and deliver to the railroad platforms the bananas grown 1
in a similar tract. |

As a rule the workman on a banana plantation selects his
own time for the performance of the duties he assumes. 1
Little or no work is done in the heat of the day. Much of it I
is done in the early morning hours, the men setting out from
their cabins at daybreak and working until nine or ten
o'clock. Others prefer to do their stint at night, especially
when the splendid tropical moon gleams through the rustling

174 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

banana leaves. Under this system a worker can set his own
pace and earn as much as he cares to attempt, butjian^is

assi^npH to worl: who rannnt pprfnrm a r^a^rm^V>]p minimum,

the^pay for which exgei^-d^-^dnllar a xjay. There are skilled
and sturdy negroes who have no difficulty in making two and
three times this amount, and the task is far less arduous than
that done by the average white laborer in the United States.

Their rent is nominal, and every occupant of a house or
cabin has, rent-free, a garden patch on which he can raise at
.all times of the year the vegetables which respond to almost
no attention. You may search the world over and not find
a more happy and contented class than those who work in
the banana plantations. The lot of the average American
negro is pitiful compared with that of those who still regard
Jamaica as their home, but who can win more money and
greater comfort along the coast lands of Central America.

The banana plantations of the United Fruit Company in
Costa Rica follow the valleys of three rivers which take their
source in the mountains to the west and south. These rivers
are named the Estrella, Banana, and Reventazon, the last
emptying into the Caribbean a few miles north of Puerto
Limon. More than 400 miles of railroad and tramways
traverse these plantations and link them with the wharves at
Puerto Limon. This railroad system also serves many
independent growers of bananas who have contracts with the
United Fruit Company. These independent growers are
entitled to have their fruit collected and accepted twice a
week, and in the "heavy" or rainy seasons they are entitled
to four weekly cuttings and collections of their bananas.
There are times, as I have explained, when this arrangement
occasions heavy losses to the importer, who is compelled
to accept large consignments for which there is no profitable
market.

Scattered through this banana empire are a number of
picturesque settlements, some of which have arrived at the
dignity of towns, with churches, places of amusements, well-
kept streets, electric lights and most of the accessories of
advanced civilization. It seemes strange to reflect that all
of these towns, railroads, bridges, docks, steamships, and the

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176 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

bustling city of Puerto Limon itself are merely parts of a
giant banana farm, and that this is only one of the farms in a
series which dot the Caribbean coast from Guatemala to
Santa Marta, Colombia.

Everywhere the observer sees the manifestations of a

carefully designed machine calculated to yield the greatest

possible result from a given application of endeavor. Here

is an industrial army engaged in a constant battle with the

forces of tropical nature. There is no telling when nature

may strike an unexpected and dangerous blow. I crossed

one railroad bridge whose predecessors had been swept away

in floods thirty-one times, but it will take a record-breaking

deluge to topple the huge steel structure which now spans

/ this part of the Rio Reventazon. Corps of skilled engineers

1 are constantly at work repairing defects and meeting new

\ problems. Trained physicians keep watch and guard over

\the health of this army and hold in check any threatened

/invasion of contagious disease. The wireless telegraph

flashes its instructions or warnings out into all parts of the

Caribbean, and keeps in close and constant communication

with the Great White Fleet which bears to the north the

fruits raised by the various divisions in this industrial army.

Sixty thousand trained men are working in the American

tropics under the command of skilled generals of the United

iFruit Company, and to what end.'^ To the end that the

most perishable of tropical luxuries shall be produced so

economically and handled so carefully and swiftly that it

reaches the consumers of another clime in perfect condition

and is offered for sale at prices lower than those charged for

home-grown fruits! There is a task which would have

daunted Hercules, but it is one within the easy power of the

modern industrial miracle worker. Yet to me this mastery

of time and space and flood and sea has all the spell of the

romantic, and the subject should command the genius and

melody of a poet rather than the halting comments of a

worker in prose.

I shall never forget the first night I spent in Puerto Limon.
I was on board the SS. Sixaola, one of the ships of the Great
White Fleet, and she lay at her dock ready to take on a load

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 177

)f bananas. Four other great ships were docked at this
vater front, two of them crowded with passengers, most of
vhom were taking their first view of the American tropics.
3ands played in the cool of the afternoon. Out in the bay-
he surf lazily caressed the shores of an island where once
he pirate Morgan beached his ships and planned for new
^lunderings of defenseless coast towns. Kipling's lines to
:he " South Wind," in his poem to the English flag, suggested
hemselves: ^

'Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main,
Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers

croon
Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon."

Less than half a century ago this was a lazy, island-locked
agoon, but the inspiration of American enterprise woke it
:o life.

Word had been telegraphed and telephoned hours before
)ut to various districts of the great plantation that the
Sixaola at seven o'clock that evening would take on board
0,000 bunches of bananas. Instantly the complicated
nachinery of the plantation was set in motion. Over miles
:>i territory the cutters were instructed to deliver a certain
i^uota of bananas to the railroad loading platforms. The
Sixaola was to sail for New York. It was essential that the
:utters should know this fact and keep it rigidly in mind.
It meant that they should take from the trees only such fruit
IS would be in proper condition for the New York market at
the end of the seven or eight days' run from Puerto Limon.

It would have been entirely another matter if this fruit
lad been destined for New Orleans. The field superinten-
dents would then have to know if this particular banana
:argo was for consumption in and near New Orleans, or if it
ivas for shipment by rail to Chicago, St. Paul, Omaha, Kan-
sas City, or other centres of banana distribution. The
Danana must be cut from its parent stock at such a stage of
development that it will arrive at the place of its consump-
ion in a condition fully to ripen within forty-eight hours of
the time of its delivery.

178

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

There must be no mistakes, no delays, no accidents. A
fog in the Gulf of Mexico, a strike of handlers on the docks of
New Orleans, a freight wreck south of Cairo, a snow blockade
in Illinois — all of these possible happenings and many others
mean that a part or all of the 50,000 bunches of bananas

Vargas Park, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

placed on board the Sixaola will ripen before their time and
become a total loss.

The problem is much the same as if Havana, Mexico City,
Guatemala City, San Jose, Colon, Panama City, Buenos
Aires, and Rio de Janeiro were dependent for their ice cream
on a product manufactured and packed in Chicago, the

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 179

dbnditlon being that no ice or other cooling substitute could
be obtained after the shipments left Chicago. Each recep-
tacle would, therefore, be packed with a sufficient amount
of ice to insure its delivery in proper condition at the various
cities named, and any considerable delay would mean that
instead of receiving ice cream the consignee would reject a
substance which had been melted to flavored sweetened
cream and sugar.

Even this comparison does not indicate the difficulties
which beset the banana importer. He faces risks from both
heat and cold, and time itself means deterioration of the
highly perishable banana. The ice cream which melts
because of insufficient ice does not menace that which
is properly packed, but the bunch of bananas which ripens
prematurely in the hold of a ship or in a banana car spreads
the contagion of its condition to hundreds of stems about it.
This is a strange freak of nature, but it is so. All of us who
were brought up on farms know that one rotting apple or
potato in a barrel will communicate this infection to most of
its companions, and when one bunch of bananas changes
from green to yellow all of the bunches in the neighborhood
seem frantic to adopt the new color fashion. I suspect thati
bananas are feminine. '

Thus it is that the men who direct the cutting of bananas
for the Sixaola or any other ship must know just what com-
munity is to eat them. If they are for London or any other
trans-Atlantic port they must be cut to conform to the speed
of the ship which carries them, and must, of course, be taken
from the trees at a stage of development much earlier than
those shipped to our ports. ^ : *^v<' - ;

So much for the field operators. The railroad superinten-
dent must also be on the alert. The bananas for the Sixaola
may come from tracts ten miles away, or they may be cut
in places fifty or sixty miles away. Independent growers
scattered over a wide territory may have bananas due for
acceptance by the United Fruit Company under the terms
of their contracts. There must be no delay in the steady
arrival of this cargo at the docks. From out a spreading
radius train after train must converge to the dock where lies

180

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

the Sixaola, and feed an unceasing stream of bananas to the
men who place them in the cool recesses of her hold.

Let us go out into the plantation and watch the work at
one of the platforms. The railroad lines traverse the planta-
tion through its main centres of production. Connecting
these railroads are hundreds of miles of tramways on which
run flatcars of various types. Some of the independent
growers are provided with such tramways, and they propel
the cars by hand or with mules or oxen, according to the
nature of the tract in which they operate. Other small
growers bring their bananas in by mule-back or by wagon.
The United Fruit Company depends almost entirely on
tramways, many of which use steam traction.

The platform is in charge of an employee officially known
as a "receiver," but his duties are also those of an inspector.
Along one of the tramways comes a small train of loaded
banana cars hauled by a team of mules, the entire equipment
in charge of a grinning Jamaican negro. He is an employee
of the company and he gets paid so much for each bunch of
bananas he cuts on the particular tract placed in his care.
He is a qualified expert and is presumed to know just when
to cut bananas. If he cuts one out of its proper time he not
only destroys a bit of property belonging to the company but
he also does work for which he receives no pay. The latter
is the only way in which he is penalized, the company stand-
ing the loss for the underdeveloped or overripe bunch.

Laborers unload the bananas and pile them carefully on
the long wooden platform. The "receiver" keeps careful
watch and count. Suddenly he darts toward a negro carry-
ing a bunch of bananas and waves his hand. The negro
knows what this means. The bunch which he was about
to deposit on the platform has been rejected. It is tossed
to the ground beyond the platform and becomes the nucleus
of a pile which will grow steadily as the hours pass.

We examine this "reject," which is doomed to rot or to be
fed to the cattle on distant pastures. There may be very
little to distinguish it from its fellows who have passed the
first stage of an examination which may insure them a trip
to New York. But the keen eye of the receiver-inspector i

182 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

discovered some fault of age or some blemish not discernible
to our untrained eyes. He knows, or has a very accurate
idea, just when this bunch of bananas will ripen, and its
period of development must not be too great or too little.

The darky who delivers this instalment of bananas re-
ceives from the receiver-inspector a slip of paper which
serves as a receipt, and on this printed slip is a record of the
number of bunches of bananas delivered, classified according
to the number of "hands." This slip enumerates the num-
ber of bunches which contain seven hands, eight hands, and
all containing nine hands or above that number, these being
the three trade grades.

The standard market bunch of bananas is one with nine
hands, and one with this number or more is known to the
trade as a "count," and a bunch of this description consti-
tutes the basis on which bananas are purchased. Bunches
of less than nine hands class as "seconds," and command
less prices. The United Fruit Company does not export
bananas containing less than seven perfect hands, the small-
est to have at least ten fingers. It has been learned from
years of experience that bananas of less size are also deficient
in quality, and it is the policy of the United Fruit Company
to spare no effort and expense to maintain the highest possi-
ble standard of excellence.

Other instalments of bananas come rolling to the plat-
form, and among them some which have been cut by the
independent growers who have contracts with the company.
Exactly the same treatment is accorded these bananas.
There is seldom any protest against the rejections, the grow-
ers knowing from experience that every exportable banana
will be promptly accepted and paid for. The representative
of the grower is given a receipt which serves later as a check
which may be cashed at the designated headquarters.

Later the trains will rumble along and pick up the huge
pile of bananas which have been covered with leaves to
protect them from the rays of the afternoon sun. Let us
return to the dock and see them go on board.

Gangs of men are already at work placing the huge loading
machines into position. There are various types of these

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 183

machines, but all of them are constructed on the principle of
the endless-chain conveyor, with corrugated surfaces on
which the bunches are placed, or pockets into which they j'
drop and are thus carried to the main deck of the ship. The J
height of this deck depends on the size of the ship and the/
stage of the tide, and the construction of these devices meets\
these conditions. They are run by steam or electricity, and'
four of them are used to load ships of the Sixaola class.

As early as six o'clock in the evening the small army of
men who are to do the loading begin to arrive. They know
that there is nothing for them to do until seven, but they
come early because they love the fun and excitement. Most
of them are Jamaican negroes, black as the ace of spades and
care-free as the birds who sing in the adjacent park. Fat
negro "mammies" trudge in with handcarts loaded with
food and sweetmeat delicacies dear to the negro taste, and
the passengers who later timidly sample their wares find
most of them appetizing or toothsome. When the dusk falls
these Amazonian purveyors light torches and Chinese lan-
terns. Powerful clusters of electric lights flash out in the
vast covered shed which protects the docks, and the myriad
lights of the ship add their glow to the general eff"ect.

The docks now swarm with life. It is a riot of color and
of movement. Nearly every tropical race and nation has its
representatives in this mingling of humanity. Among the /
laborers or loiterers are Mexicans of various types, Aztec in [
features and swarthy in hue; exiled revolutionists from 1
Honduras and Nicaragua, looking with suspicion on all who \
regard them closely; Indian laborers from Guatemala who \
have wandered thus far from their own country; turbaned ]
Hindoos who are coming into Central America to take the /
places of the natives who fear the lowlands; German mer^M
chants and planters who have made Costa Rica their home \
and are prospering; tourists from New York, London, Paris,
and all the world, cool in white flannels — all mingled and
touching elbows with an insouciance which goes far to prove
the inborn democracy of mankind.

It is a few minutes to seven o'clock when the first banana
train backs into the loading shed on one of the tracks which

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IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 185

run parallel to the length of the Sixaola. A whistle blows
and the various gangs scramble to take places at their sta-
tions. The engines which work the conveyors are set in
motion. The doors of the freight cars are thrown back re-
vealing the deep green of serried rows of bananas — bana-
nas which only a few hours ago gleamed in the sun below the
nodding plumes of fronds. Again a whistle blows. It is
seven o'clock and the long night's work has begun.

There are eight cars ready to be unloaded, two cars for
each of the four machines. Two of these machines feed into
the ship forward of the cabins, and two of them feed aft.
In each of the cars are six workers called "car-men," whose
duty it is to lift the bananas carefully and place them on the
shoulders of the "carriers," the laborers who cover the 40
or 50 feet from the cars to the conveyors. There are from
twenty to twenty-six men in each of the four gangs which
thus serve the swift travelling conveyors. A negro foreman
is in charge of each of these gangs.

Two men stand at the receiving end of the conveyor and
take the bananas from the carriers, who press forward in an
unbroken line. The work of these two men is the most
arduous of all in the loading of a ship, and they are frequently
relieved. It is not a difficult feat to lower one end of a bunch
of bananas weighing from 50 to 80 pounds, but when you
have done this thirty or more times a minute and have kept
it up two or three hours it ceases to be an attractive form of
exercise.

Standing near the conveyor is a negro with a pencil and
pad of paper, a "checker" who keeps count of the bunches as
they climb up the sides of the ship. Opposite him is another
checker operating a machine. If I could receive sufficient
compensation, this is the sort of a job I should seek. This
counting machine has a single key and the operator presses
it every time a bunch of bananas leaves the shoulders of the
negro carrier. The pressing of this key not only automati-
cally does the counting, but it also jingles the most musical
sort of a bell — the kind of a bell that Dickens would have
loved to describe.

And on the deck above is another man with the same sort

186

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

of a counting machine, save that it has a bell in a different
key, half an octave higher, but just as musical and in perfect
harmony with the one below. The rhythmic hum of the
conveyor provides the bass, and all about is a laughing,

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The beach north of Puerto Limon

shouting, singing, and chattering chorus, garbed in a hundred
shades of the colors of the rainbow. The roar of the surf
as it strikes the sea wall; the silver path of a full moon on
waters seen through cocoanut palms; the strains of a military
band in the near-by park rendering "La Paloma"; the

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA 187

crackling of the wireless from the Sixaola as some message
spreads in an instant over every foot of the tumbling waters
of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico — such is a dim
word picture of some of my impressions when I saw 50,000
bunches of bananas off on their first and last trip to New York.

Inspectors scurry along the lines of the carriers to make
sure that no bunch of bananas gets on board under false k
pretences. Two experts have already passed on them be- \
fore they reached the docks, but every precaution must be
taken to see that a bunch does not ripen before it reaches
its journey's end. Squeeze a green banana which normally
would ripen in two weeks, and it will turn yellow in three days
and induce a thousand others to do the same thing. A
slightly crippled "hand," a dent visible only to an eye un-
cannily keen, and a score of other minute defects will cause
an inspector to dart at a carrier and grab the offending bunch
from his shoulder.

In a few hours the docks are piled high with these rejected
bananas. A New York or Chicago push-cart man would
weep bitter, scalding tears at the sight of this seeming wan-
ton destruction of perfect fruit. In the single shipping point
of Puerto Limon the United Fruit Company rejects annually
an amount of bananas which must cost it to raise or pur-
chase not less than $75,000, but the officials insist that it is
worth more than this to keep their product to a rigidly high
standard.

The indications are that the day is at hand when valuable
commercial use will be made of this enormous quantity of
rejected bananas. Science has perfected the art of making
banana flour, and there are other products already on the
market, such as "Banan-Nutro," a substitute for coffee,
prepared by the Panama Banana Food Company of New
York, which also sells banana flour. There are still other
products on which chemists in the employ of the company
are experimenting with confidence.

On the deck and in the hold are other gangs of men who
take the bunches from the conveyor and pass them down
from hand to hand to the successive decks in the bowels of
the ship. Devices are being perfected which will carry the

188 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

bananas all the way from the docks to any part of the
hold.

Each machine requires the services of from eight to four-
teen "stowers," who are charged with the skilled task of so
standing the bananas on end in the refrigerator apartments
that they will make the long sea voyage without suffering
bruising or abrasion even in the most violent storms. They
are placed erect in two layers, and it is quite a trick to deposit
the top layer so that it will rest firmly on the smooth and
rounded surfaces below it.

William Fawcett, author of "The Banana, Its Cultiva-
tion, Distribution and Commercial Uses," gives this descrip-
tion of the general arrangement of the SS. Barranca, one
of the ships which carry United Fruit Company's bananas
to Europe: »

"The refrigerating machinery and cooling appliances are
in deck-houses on the upper deck, thus leaving the spaces
below as clear as possible for the cargo. There are three
decks for fruit forward and aft respectively, and each deck
has a run of about 130 feet between bulkheads, making six
fine chambers, each taking about 10,000 large bunches, the
total of 60,000 being about three times the number carried
by the Port Morant, which initiated the service in 1901.
^."The fruit comes on board within a few hours of cutting,
/and is stored without covering of any kind, the lowest bunches
(being arranged with the stems vertical, with a final layer
j placed horizontally, this giving the best results both in util-
izing space and freedom from damage. Every cargo space
is divided into bins by portable horizontal sparring fitted
into vertical posts, thus checking the movement of the fruit
in rough Weather. Sparred gratings are laid on the
steel decks to carry the fruit clear of the plating, and to allow
the air to circulate below and up through the fruit. The
ship's sides and bulkheads and the highest and lowest decks
are insulated with granulated cork and wood boardings, form-
ing a complete envelope about seven inches thick. Along
, each side trunks conveying the cool air are formed by board-
^ ing, in which are a number of openings fitted with adjustable
slides, and spaced at suitable intervals and levels.

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA RICA

189

"Powerful fans of the centrifugal type, arranged in pairs
and coupled with electric motors, draw the air from the fruit
chambers through the suction chambers on one side, pass it
over closely nested brine piping, thereby cooling and drying
it, and returning it through the delivery trunks on the op-
posite side. The cooler pipes are electrically welded into
grid form, there being no screwed joints except those on the
headers, the brine flow being regulated by valves controlling a
number of separate groups of grids. The cooling surface is

Mysore cattle in Costa Rica

properly proportioned to the work to be done, and the cooler
with its fans is completely insulated. Ventilators are pro-
vided, enabling the air in the fruit spaces to be changed in as
few minutes as may be found desirable from time to time,
the fresh air passing through the cooler before reaching the
fruit, and the vitiated air being discharged to the atmos-
phere. The brine pumps are of the vertical duplex type,
two in number, either one capable of performing the full
duty in emergency.

"The machines and fans are run during the last day or so

190 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

of the outward voyage to cool down the spaces in readiness to
receive the fruit. Stowage is rapid, owing to the use of
power-driven conveyors, and discharges even more rapid,
some of the fruit in the square of the hatches being stowed in
special cribs, which are lifted out by the ship's derricks im-
mediately the hatches are off, leaving space for the discharg-
ing elevators, which are promptly lowered into position.
During the first two days of the homeward voyage the plant
is run continuously to extract the sun heat from the fruit
and to retard ripening. The condition of the fruit is kept
under close observation, temperatures being taken at regular
intervals day and night, the captain, assisted by the ship's
officers — all carefully trained men — personally attending
to these duties. After a few days at sea the temperatures are
generally well in hand, and care then has to be taken to
avoid the risk of chilling, the machine being slowed down,
and probably one of the compressors disconnected, just sufr
ficient power being developed to maintain the temperature
at about 55° F."

Thus we see that it is far from a simple task to bring a
banana from the tropics to its temperate market. Scores
of details require constant care and unceasing vigilance,
and a single mistake in the adjustment of temperatures
may work great damage to a cargo of from 40,000 to
65,000 bananas. The system which has been perfected by
the United Fruit Company has demanded a tremendous
amount of study, care, and money, with the result that the
public is benefited by a fruit luxury at astonishingly low
prices.

It is a fascinating sight to stand on the decks of a ship and
watch the loading of a cargo of bananas. This is seen at its
best in Puerto Limon, where the setting and the environment
give the scene all of the illusion of a magnificent stage pic-
ture. Train after train pulls in, and its cars are quickly
emptied. It took forty trainloads of eight cars each, or the
contents of 320 freight cars, to fill the yawning capacity of the
hold of the Sixaola! .

The four machines elevated these bunches of bananas to
the deck of the ship, and the men stored them away in the

192

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

hold at the rate of eighty-three a minute, or about 5,000 an i
hour. There are slight delays from various causes, but the 1
system in use in Puerto Limon insures that a full cargo of I
52,000 bunches for the 5,000-ton Sixaola can be placed in her
hold in twelve hours or less.

Almost from the start the Jamaican negroes began to sing
at their work. All of them are religious, and most of them
sincerely so. The United Fruit Company has erected
churches for them in various parts of Central and South
America, and has aided the more permanent classes to ac-
quire actual ownership of such edifices. I should judge from
their songs that the majority of them cling to the Methodist
denomination. Most of their voices are good, and some of
them excellent. The young negro who led the singing of one
of the deck gangs had a rarely sympathetic tenor voice, and
scores of passengers crowded about the rail and applauded
the rendition of " Blest Be the Tie That Binds," " Sweet Hour
of Prayer," '* Nearer, My God, to Thee," " Rock of Ages," and
other songs familiar and loved by all, irrespective of religious
inclinations, but most often sung by the Methodists.

On the opposite end of the ship was a rival concert, but
at times some singer with a powerful voice would sound a
strain which would ring clear above the hum and racket of
the conveyor machinery and the shunting of trains, and the
workers from end to end of ship and dock would join in. On
the night which I am attempting to describe, a huge Jamaican
negro took artistic advantage of a slight lull in the noise.
He was black as night, with huge shoulders and massive torso.
For hours he had been handling seventy-pound bunches of
bananas as if they were bouquets. In a splendidly modulated
baritone voice he suddenly began the second verse of
"Nearer, My God, to Thee":

"Though like a wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Still in my dreams I'll be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee —
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee."

There were few passengers who did not join in the mel-

IN BEAUTIFUL COSTA lliCA 193

ody. I wonder what Morgan, the buccaneer, later Sir Henry-
Morgan, would have thought had he stumbled on such a
scene in the days before he purchased respectability with his
plunderings ?

It is true that these negroes are "wanderers" from their
beautiful native island of Jamaica, but they are free and able
to come and go, and thousands of them make the trip back
to their island home annually. It is to be doubted if any
body of colored men anywhere in the world receive as high
pay, enjoy as much comfort, freedom, and happiness as the
60,000 or more Jamaican negroes who make possible the giant
activities of the United Fruit Company and competitors.

CHAPTER XI
The Awakening of Guatemala

RUISING up the shores of Cen
tral America we will make no
stop until we reach Puerto Bar-
rios, Guatemala. About ten
years ago Minor C. Keith began
operations to provide Guatemala
and Salvador with railroad com-
munication to the Atlantic coast.
This was in furtherance of his
plan to connect theUnited States
by rail with the Panama Canal
Zone. He had completed the
main lines of the railroad system
in Costa Rica, and now assumed,
with his accustomed energy, the
task of opening two more nations
to the commerce of the world.
Guatemala and Salvador are the two most populous na-
tions in Central America. The total population of Pan-
ama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, British Honduras,
Salvador, and Guatemala is roughly 4,600,000, of which Sal-
vador contains about 1,040,000, and Guatemala 1,900,000 —
all of Central America containing much less than the popula-
tion of New York City, but vastly more potential wealth.
Little Salvador, with its area of 7,225 square miles, has a
density of population not touched by any nation In the New
World. Its showing of"i44 Inhabitants to the square mile
is fully five times that of the United States and surpasses
that of well-settled Pennsylvania. Salvador has no coast
on the Atlantic side and is therefore cut off entirely with
direct communication with the great outside markets for
its agricultural products.

Only 5 per cent of the population of Salvador are Cau-

194

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA

195

casian, and nearly all citizens of this small fraction are of
Spanish descent. Fully 55 per cent of the population are
pure-blooded Indians, members of several tribes, most of
which have displayed progress compared with the average
native Indian population of Central America. Comparative
immunity in recent years from revolution and internal strife
is largely responsible for this outcome. Nearly all of the soil

PUERTO BARRIOS, GUATEMALA, AND VICINITY

of Salvador is under cultivation. The Pacific slopes of
Salvador and Guatemala are ideal for the cultivation of a
score of tropical products, among which are coffee, indigo,
sugar, tobacco, rice, cotton, cacao, pineapples, and all kinds
of tropical fruits.

On the great plateau of Guatemala are scores of towns and
cities, including Guatemala City with a population of 100,000
or more, the largest city in Central America. It was for the

196 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS l

purpose of giving these populous and productive districts an'
outlet to the Atlantic and communication with the trade of
the world that Mr. Keith planned a railroad which would
connect Puerto Barrios with Guatemala City, capital of the
Republic of Guatemala, and San Salvador, capital of the
Republic of Salvador, with branches touching various ports
on the Pacific, also eventual contact with Mexico and South
America.

Like all other Central American countries, with the possi-
ble exception of the colony of British Honduras, Guatemala
had neglected and ignored its Caribbean lowlands. To the
mass of the people of Guatemala, who lived in the highlands,
the coasts were dreaded. They were the feared sections of
the tierras calientes, the fever-stricken hot lands. When the
wealthy citizen of Guatemala went to Lisbon or Paris he es-
caped by way of the Pacific coast, and thence to Panama or
San Francisco, and from there to New York. It is only six
years ago that he had the choice of any other route, and the
American who had business in Guatemala City of San Sal-
vador first bought a ticket for San Francisco or Panama City,
then took a long and weary voyage along the Pacific coast,
and finally was dropped from a sling to a lighter which rolled
perilously in the swell which surges into the open roadsteads
that take the place of harbors on most of the west shores of
Central America.

It seems strange, does it not, that the Guatemalan railroad
was not constructed years and years ago? It seems such an
obvious thing to do, yet our American tropics are filled with
obvious opportunities and with political problems for which
there are obvious remedies.- We of the United States spend
tens of millions of dollars on huge engineering plants in-
tended to bring our deserts to cultivation, but our statesman-
ship declines to glance south of the Rio Grande and of Te-
huantepec, where uninhabited empires of rich soil are already
provided with water and with the climate which must have
existed in theiGarden of Eden.

When Mr. Keith and his associates decided to build a
railroad from the Caribbean through these neglected coun-
tries the United Fruit Company agreed to undertake the

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA

197

nana development of sections of the uninhabited eastern
lowlands. The Motagua River empties into the sea on the
border line between Guatemala and Honduras, and is the
longest and most important river in Central America. It
has a broad and very fertile valley reaching more than two
hundred miles toward the Pacific, and scores of branches are
also natural centres of cultivation.

For seventy miles or more back of its mouth the Motagua
flows between lands well suited to banana cultivation, and
in 1906 the United Fruit Company acquired by purchase

Typical scene at Guatemala railway station

tracts with a total acreage of 50,000. There was at once
developed an experimental plantation of 1,250 acres. The
test was successful, and an additional 747 acres were planted
in 1907. In the following year the banana plantings were
increased to 5,080 acres, but the company had not acquired
any additional tracts of land. It had demonstrated that
banana cultivation in the Motagua Valley was practical and
profitable, but it did not attempt to take advantage of this
knowledge and of its position to monopolize all or any con-
siderable part of the natural banana lands.

It was not until 1910, five years after the original pur-

198 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS |

chase of 50,000 acres, that the United Fruit Company
increased its holdings by the purchase of an additional
30,549 acres, and since that year it has gradually acquired
other tracts which gave it in 191 3 a total of 126,189
acres, of which 27,122 were devoted to banana cultivation.
The annual report of President Preston for 191 3 places the
cost of the Guatemalan development at $3,884,807.27, thus
placing it fourth (in money invested) in the list of tropical
divisions of the company, Costa Rica, Panama, and Co-
lombia leading in the order named, with Jamaica in fifth
place. Guatemala, however, stands third in the production
of bananas.

Puerto Barrios has deep water and an excellent natural
harbor, lying well within the shelter of an island which forms
the Gulf of Amatique, but at the present time Puerto Bar-
rids is the least attractive and sanitary of all of the ports
largely used by the United Fruit Company. Work is now
in rapid progress which will change all this. The low. site
of the native town of Barrios will be raised and protected
with a sea wall. The squalid huts which line the beach will
disappear, and in their place will rise a fine hotel and office
structures for the company. All of the adjacent swamps
and lowlands have been reclaimed and made sanitary, and
the reconstruction of the small native town will solve the
only remaining sanitarv problem which has harassed the
company.

A few miles across the gulf is the attractive town of Living-
ston, situated at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, which connects
Lake Izabal with the Caribbean. Lake Izabal is, next to
Lake Nicaragua, the largest body of fresh water in Central
America, and is navigable for small steamships nearly fifty
miles inland. The Rio Dulce is a winding, narrow canyon
of great height and surpassing tropical beauty. There is
nothing else of this nature in the American tropics, and those
who can spare the time will not regret a trip through the
wonders of these overhanging cliff's crowned with palms and
graced with clinging vines, the voyager finally emerging
to the placid surface of Lake Izabal, its far shores fading
into the deeper blue of distant mountains.

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA

199

Leaving Barrios by train, we plunge almost immediately
into the most perfect jungle I have ever seen in the tropics.
On both sides of the track for miles is a tropical display of
trees, plants, flowers, ferns, vines, and shrubs, all woven into
an impenetrable network of a thousand hues so delicately
blended that it would seem that some horticultural genius
had spent a lifetime in arriving at this perfection. A New-
port millionaire would give a fortune for an acre of this splen-
did but worse than useless jungle. For miles it crashes its

ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA
With the famous volcanoes Agua (water) and Fuego (fire) in the distance

pulsating beauty in the face of the beholder. Orchids which
would drive a connoisseur to frenzy flame their delicate
colors from thousands on thousands of trees. Other tower-
ing trees are veritable masses of huge flowers, some of them
purple, others tantalizing shades of red, blue, orange, and
violet. Why has no artist ever painted such a jungle.^ He
could not do it justice, but he might try. I have never seen on
canvas any creation which even pretended to depict in form
and color the representation of this native tropical jungle.

200 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

We leave the jungle and strike the Motagua River and the
banana country. For fifty miles or more we run west and
fairly parallel with the Motagua, with bananas on both
sides of us most of the time. Some of these belong to tha.
United Fruit Company and others are the property of inde-
pendent growers. Many natives of Guatemala are owners
of such plantations. The people of this republic stand in less
fear of the coast lowlands than do the natives of the rest of
Central America, but the trustworthy Jamaican negro does
the most of the physical labor.

For fifty miles we stop at town after town which had no
existence prior to the advent of the banana industry. Some
of them betray their newness and their American origin by
their names, for instance the town of Dartmouth and the
thriving town of Virginia. The latter is in the heart of the
banana district, and is modern in every respect. It is a rail-
road division point. Here are well-equipped railroad shops,
an electric lighting and power plant, an ice plant, steam
laundry, and up-to-date stores with supplies fresh from the
United States and abroad. The residential district contains
streets and dwellings which woula be a credit to any com-
munity, yet all this was a wilderness only a few short years
ago. The same is true of Dartmouth and of Quirigua. In
the latter is located the wonderful new hospital erected by
the United Fruit Company, which will be described else-
he re.

The Guatemala Division of the United Fruit Company is
in charge of a manager who maintains headquarters in
I Puerto Barrios and branch offices in Virginia and Guatemala
^jCity. The Guatemala Division is divided into three dis-
itricts. El Pilar, Quirigua and Los Andes, each under a super-
intendent, and each district divided into plantations of
•about i,ooo acres each. These plantations are conducted by
*'mandadors," or foremen, who are assisted by two time-
keepers. All of these officials are white, and most of them
are Americans. It is the duty of the mandador to give out
and supervise the execution of the contracts with the work-
men.

In this district, as in all others conducted by tl\e United

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA

201

Fruit Company, the labor of clearing new lands, keeping
plantations in order, cutting bananas, etc., is done by con-
tract, as I briefly explained in the chapter on Costa Rica.
Only a theorist would dream of employing Jamaican negroes
and Central American Indians to work on banana or other
plantations by day wages. To quote a current phrase:
"It can't be done." These toilers lack that altruism which
impels some men to work when they are not watched, and
you cannot watch negroes and Indians scattered in a wilder-
ness of banana plants which ex-
tends for miles in all directions.
Hence a contract system which
is absolutely fair to all concerned,
and which operates to the com-
plete satisfaction of themen^who
make a good living from it.

William Joseph Showalter, in
the National Geographic Mag-
azine of February, 191 3, writes
entertainingly of "The Countries
of the Caribbean," and has this
to say concerning the United
Fruit Company:

"It is in Guatemala that one
begins properly to appreciate the
great civilizing influence of the
United Fruit Company. That
corporation has many thousands
of acres of banana plantations
along the lowlands of the Mota-
gua River and extending to the Caribbean Sea. It pays its
laborers a dollar a day, eleven times as much as the laws
of Guatemala say shall constitute a day's wage. One can
readily imagine what a boon this is to poor Indians who have
formerly been paid only nine cents. Yet the United Fruit
Company voluntarily pays this wage, and is able X.9 give
work to every Guatemalan Indian who applies for a job.

"It is the advent of such organizations as these — power-
ful enough to protect their own interests when disputes

Guatemalan Indian musicians

202

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

^Vm'-

arise with the local governments — that spells the economic
salvation of these countries and promises an honest wage 'to
the laboring classes. I hold no brief for the United Fruit
Company, but it must be said that that great corporation
has done more for Central America than all other agencies
combined."

There are tasks in the Guatemalan banana industry in
which the wage system prevails and
in which, as Mr. Showalter states,
the natives receive pay many times
that dreamed of before the United
Fruit Company undertook the de-
velopment of these neglected tracts
of land, but the contract laborer
who has a fair degree of intelligence
and is willing to work from six to ten
hours a day is in receipt of an income
which ranges from $1.25 to ^2.50 a
day — the latter figure representing
whattheaverageGuatemalan Indian
formerly received for a month's hard
work.

There is every likelihood that the
payment of good wages, coupled with
sanitary surroundings and civilizing
influences, will breed in Guatemala
and in all of Central America strong,
self-reliant, and progressive races of
people, and with these traits will
come that sense of responsibility and
real patriotism which ever serves as
the foundation for orderly govern-
ment and national advancement. Men who are forced to
work for nine cents a day or any small multiple of that
wage have no interest in government and nothing to arouse
a sentiment of national patriotism. Having nothing to lose
and all to gain — they naturally turn to revolutions and
anarchy. This is the secret of the sad conditions which
inevitably lead to political lawlessness in many sections

Guatemalan Indian dandv

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 203

south of the Rio Grande. Central America needs an influx
of more corporations that are able and willing to "exploit"
her natives by paying them eleven or more times the pre-
vailing legal rates of wages, and whose productive operations
will pour a flood of revenue into impoverished national
treasuries. There is no other peaceful solution of this
problem, and most unbiased critics agree with Mr. Show-
alter that the United Fruit Company "has done more for
Central America than all other agencies combined."

The view from the roof of the hospital in Quirigua is tfife
most impressive in Central America from a banana stand-
point. The hospital is on a hill, with the railroad at its
base. Beyond the tracks is the front rank of a row of ba-
nanas which extends as far as the eye can reach to the east
and west. Miles away to the south is the Motagua River,
swinging in a curve almost to the Honduras line, but it is
buried in a forest of bananas which extends to our south in an
unbroken mass a distance of ten miles or more. Beneath the
rays of a tropical sun this vast reach of vivid green banana
fronds is an impressive sight. Here and there a spiral of
steam or smoke indicates the location of a railway train on
tracks which place all parts of this plantation within easy
access of the workers.

To the south frowns the jagged skyline of a Honduranean
range of mountains, with extinct volcanoes rearing ugly cones
into a clear sky. Their fertile lower slopes would grow the
tropical output for a million of the consumers of the United
States, but they are practically uninhabited, unexplored,
without any authorized name, and known only to the few
Indians who roam about them. They are a part of the
unused and neglected assets of a world which complains of
the increasing cost of food products, and which does not
know enough to utilize the lands which a generous nature
has provided.

Centuries ago a mighty race of people lived in the valleys
of the Motagua and for hundreds of miles along the now
deserted coast lands of Guatemala and Honduras which the
United Fruit Company is quickening to step with the new
civilization. There are no legends, no traditions, and no

204

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

understandable records of this people, but within the tangle
of the jungle and partly buried beneath its dead fecundity
are the ruins of cities, temples, and monuments which declare
more vividly than printed words the tale of their progress
and achievements.

The lowlands, which now hold such terrors for the ignorant
and physically deficient Indian tribes of Guatemala, did not
deter their worthy predecessors of centuries ago from master-

Indian marimba, drum, and flute (Guatemala;

ing the sanitary problems of these valleys. They knew that
these fertile lands were perfectly fitted to support in comfort
and luxury large masses of people, and it was here that they
lived and wrought, and finally faded from memory and his-
tory, without leaving behind any translated sign of what
caused their disappearance.

In a jungle belonging to the United Fruit Company are
the famous ruins of Quirigua, only a few miles from the town

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 205

df that name. In the extension of its banana development
the United Fruit Company acquired the tract on which the
centre of the ancient metropolis was located, and the com-
pany has extended substantial financial aid to archaeologists
who have performed the work of exploration and excavation
under the direction of the School of American Archaeology.

It is the aim of the United Fruit Company to clear all of
the seventy-five acres which contain the wonderful ruins of
temples and the scores of huge and superbly carved mono-
liths which rise out of the encroaching jungle. This will
result in the creation of a tropical park distinct in its attrac-
tions from any in the world.

The March issue of the National Geographic Magazine of
191 3 contained well illustrated articles on the ruins of Qui-
rigua by W. F. Sands, formerly United States Minister to
Guatemala, and also one by Sylvanus Griswold Alorley,
Assistant Director of the Quirigua Expedition of 191 2, which
executed most of the work of bringing the buried temples to
light. I quote passages of their interesting observations
and deductions. Mr. Sands expresses this theory:

"With the opening of the Quirigua ruins in Guatemala a
most important addition is being made to the material now
available for study of the races which once occupied the low,
hot, coast land between Copan, in Honduras, through the
Guatemala littoral, Peten, and Quirigua Roo to Yucatan.

"Master races they were, as were once the Brahmans of
Indo-China. They conquered in easy battle the fever-rid-
den natives and lived thenceforth upon the country and its
population.

"They taught them nothing of their higher civilization,
but ground them back to the earth, until inbreeding, idle-
ness, and fever took their toll, and in their turn they were
overthrown and perished, leaving nothing but the elaborate
monuments and massive buildings which, covered with the
mould of centuries of quick-springing and quick-decaying
tropical forest, form the * Indian mounds' so plentiful in
this region.

"The theory of an alien sacerdotal aristocracy, claiming

Glimpse of the ruins of Quirigua

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 207

diVirle* descent because of superior development,^and ruling
an untutored, conquered race, while it offers no suggestion as
to origin, may at least explain why no memory of their rule
remains among the inhabitants of these regions to-day.
Knowledge of every kind was kept from the subject races,
and with the downfall the slave fled from the ancient holy
places, and the symbols of arrogance, cruelty, and power
were shunned for centuries as an abomination.

"It is not necessary to hold with Brasseur de Bourbourg
that all these countries (the 'Hinterland' of Atlantis) were
submerged when the island-continent was destroyed — - al-
though his theory is immensely attractive — and that after
remaining under the sea for an unknown period they rose
once more and were peopled from the highlands.

**It is simpler to imagine, so long as we have nothing defi-
nite to go on, and one man's tale is as good as another's,
that some such catastrophe took place as is so charmingly
told in Sir Hugh Clifford's 'Tragedy of Angkor,' and that the
degenerate rulers of the coast were suddenly shown to their
subjects by some attack of the hardier mountain tribes no
longer to be irresistible, no longer divine, but only very feeble
men, and so were wiped out utterly and effectually, as would
have been the first weak settlement on our own shores with-
out succor from the mother country. ...

"In the spring of 1910 the tract of land surrounding the
monuments, on the left bank of the Motagua River, was
opened for planting by the United Fruit Company, and a
park left about the principal ruins. The company gener-
ously supplied labor and many other facilities for clearing
this park of underbrush and cleaning the stones, so that at
last an organized study was made possible under the guid-
ance of Prof. Edgar L. Hewett, Director of the Schoor of
American Archaeology, and of Mr. Sylvanus Griswold Mor-
ley. Both of these gentlemen have spent many months in
exploration and detailed examination, and under Mr. Hew-
ett's direction the institute has an opportunity for study
hardly paralleled in the history of American archaeological
research. . . .

"The ruins lie on low, flat land, flooded and renewed each

■M
CMO

>
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u

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 209

rainy season by the Motagua's overflow — rich, Jnexhaust-
ible alluvial soil and ideal for banana planting. A more
inspiring spot can hardly be imagined. Under the immense
ceiba and other coast trees (70 and 80 feet to the lowest
branches, each branch as big as a thirty-year-old maple and
hung with orchids and Spanish moss) has grown up a thicket
of palms and fern trees, forming, when the underbrush is
cleared, arched forest galleries impossible to describe.

"From the ceiba and mahogany trees drop long, leafless,
snake-like black vine stems — one, the 'water-vine,' con-
taining a quart of clear, pure water to every foot, which spurts
forth in a refreshing stream when cut. It is a real, thirst-
quenching water, drawn up from the soil and filtered through
the pores of the plant; not a sap, as one might suppose.

"Through the arches of the palms suddenly appears a
group of mounds, still overgrown with masses of foliage, and
beyond these an avenue of great stones, carved monoliths
leading to some — as yet — invisible altar or temple. From
each pillar stares — impassive, gloomy, or sullen — a gigan-
tic face. Each figure is crowned with a tall feather head-
dress; is belted with a short, embroidered skirt like the
sacrificial apron worn by Korean eunuchs in the Heaven
sacrifice — naked, with heavy ornaments at wrist and ankle.

"On the sides of the stones are columns of glyphs, until
now undecipherable, but nearly all plain and well preserved,
and, when the cue shall have been found, easily legible. The
faces are well carved, of a heavy, full type, with thick lips,
narrow eyes, and thin, carefully pointed Egyptian beards,
like the Sargent Pharaoh in the Boston Library. Several
show a remarkably cruel strength, which lessens with each
set of pillars to a weak, purposeless, degenerate type —
loose-lipped, chinless, and imbecile. Among them are to be
found the most perfect pieces of carving I have yet seen
among American antiquities.

"It is not to be supposed that either this place or Copan
was an isolated group of temples. It is more likely that
they were centres, and that similar remains will be uncovered
in the near future in the course of deforestation preliminary
to banana planting."

One of the superb monoliths of Quirigua

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 211

It is thus known that the banana plantations surrounding
the park were once the site of a great and populous city, of
which these ruined temples and towering monuments were
the centre. Beneath the rustling fronds of this wilderness of
bananas lie the ashes of a race whose rise and fall are lost to
history, and the people of our day gaze with lack of compre-
hension on the mighty works of men who had risen to a high
civilization in an age when our Saxon ancestors were still
members of savage tribes — tribes which did not come in
contact with civilization until it was beaten into them by the
all-conquering Roman Empire.

And we, in our pride and folly, vainly imagine that our
works and our boasted progress may not some day be obliter-
ated by flaccid, pampered idleness and degeneracy, and we
decline to entertain the thought that some future race will
uncover the ruins of the Woolworth Building and speculate
on what occasioned the depressions caused by the caving in
of what now are New York's subways.

Protest it as we may, we have no assurance that it is within
our power to rear or create anything which will convey to
the people of the coming ages the story of our petty achieve-
ments and of our boasted triumphs. Destruction may come
from within or from without, from this earth of ours or from
the unknowable forces of the nether universe, but the ruins
of great cities which antedated buried Babylon and Nin-
eveh, the crumbling debris of mighty cities which crowned
the plateaus of Peru, the pyramids of Mexico, which were old
before those of Egypt were begun, the magnificent wreckage
of palaces where once lorded the rulers of Yucatan, and the
orchid-festooned temples of Quirigua all warn us that "we
too shall pass away," and that we shall leave behind no
understandable sign of why we encumbered the earth.

Mr. Morley has another theory to account for the ruins
of Quirigua, and he thus expresses it in his article in the
National Geographic Magazine of March, 191 3:

"Quirigua was one of the older centres of the great Maya
civilization, which flourished in southern Mexico, Guate-
mala, and Honduras during the first fifteen centuries of the

212

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Christian Era. Judging from the dated monuments which
are erected in its several courts and plazas, this ancient
American metropolis was abandoned during the first half of
the sixth century A. D.

"Toward the close of the sixth century the Mayas moved
out from the older centres of their civilization in the south

An ornate carving in Quirigua

and migrated northward into Yucatan. Here in the stress
of colonizing a new and unfamiliar land, the remembrance of
their former homes gradually faded, until Quirigua, along
with many another southern city, became only a memory,
a tradition. Finally, long before the discovery of America,
even the tradition of its former existence had passed from
the minds of men."

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 213

I cannot readily subscribe to this theory. Races do not
abandon a metropolis because of the founding of relatively
adjacent colonies, and the ruins of Yucatan are only a few
hundred miles from the remains of the presumably deserted
Quirigua. Taking courage from Mr. Sands' frank confes-
sion that "we have nothing to go on, and one man's tale is
as good as another's," I take this opportunity to exploit a
theory of my own.

Scattered all through Guatemala and Mexico are tribes
of so-called Indians who speak dialects which contain many
words of Japanese origin. There are tribes in Mexico with
languages in which more than half of their vocabulary is
Japanese. It is a fact that a native of Japan can enter vil-
lages of such tribes and converse readily with their inhabi-
tants in their own tongue. Even more significant is the
fact that there is a marked physical resemblance between
them and the modern Japanese.

What is the logical deduction from this unquestioned fact?
It is that parts or all of Mexico and Central America were
once settled from Japan, or — which is equally possible —
Japan was originally settled by some great migration or con-
quest originating from Central America.

Mr. Sands speaks of the Egyptian characteristics of the
faces and the figures carved on these monoliths, but he and
other students will be compelled to admit that all of these
carvings depart from a conventional rule seldom violated by
Egyptian artists or sculptors. On this point I quote the
New International Encyclopaedia as follows:

"The main attempt (of Egyptian artists) was to show as
much as possible to the beholder. Therefore, in relief, figures
were spread out as on a map: the head in profile (but the eye
in front view), the shoulders full front, the arms and hands in
profile, the trunk three-quarters, the legs and feet in profile."

Now the carvings of human faces and figures as displayed
by the monoliths and temple decorations of Quirigua do not
conform to a single one of these specifications of Egyptian art.
That art knew nothing of perspective and little of proportion.

214

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

It was confined almost entirely to distorted profiles. In all of
the carvings recovered from Quirigua there is not a one which is
executed in profile ^ all of them being in full or three-quarter face.
More than that, the faces are far more Japanese than Egyptian

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i^-M^tik

H^|*:u^^

B™'^*^'*^. .•■ a.;. ^JWB

/\ffl||P^P

% ■- ^^ .^^^PHBB

'•^

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.. - ■• -■ '4

iflB&^r'

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One of the mysteries of Quirigua's ruins

in expression, and several of them have the inwardly tilted
eyebrows peculiar to the Japanese and Chinese races.

Having proved this much, I might as well explain the mys-
tery of the abandonment of the capital of Quirigua and of its
surrounding empire. Some Napoleon of this tropical em-

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA

215

pire learned of the existence of the island of Japan^ and went
forth with a vast army to conquer it. Whether he went by
land up the warm coasts of the present United States and
Canada into Alaska and thence by ships to the Asiatic main-
land, or if he went by ships or steamers from some lower
Pacific port, or if he went by flying machines is a matter of
slight consequence in the determination of the truth of my

Getting ready for a fiesta

theory. The main point is that these people were kin to the
Japanese, and they went there either to fight or because they
were dissatisfied with their former tropical surroundings.
In any event they left and did not come back, and that is the
reason that the United Fruit Company found the ruins of
Quirigua inhabited with baboons, herds of peccary, tapirs,
jaguars, and other denizens of a deserted wilderness.

^:>"

216 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Having settled this momentous question to my own satis-
faction, if not to that of those who hold other theories, we will
leave the ruins of Quirigua to the ghosts of an unknown race,
and step out into the light of an age which is so busy trying to
make a living that it has little time to solve the mysteries of
vanished ages.

There is every reason to believe that the enterprises set on
foot by Minor C. Keith and his associates in cooperation
with the United Fruit Company will pave the way for the
lifting of Guatemala and Salvador to the plane made possible
by their varied natural resources. It is the settled policy of
the heads of these enterprises to lend every reasonable aid
and encouragement to Americans who are attracted to these
countries, but it is only fair to warn the intended agriculturist
that an undertaking in any part of Central America requires
much more capital than does farming in the United States.

Let us glance briefly at the countries in which the opera-
tions of the United Fruit Company are of lesser importance
at the present time.

The traveller from New Orleans who takes the boats of
the United Fruit Company makes his first stop at Belize,
the capital and only town of consequence in British Hon-
duras. This little British possession is an oasis of peace in a
desert which for centuries has been swept by storms of~revolu-
tion and lawlessness. The happy and prosperous inhabitants
of British Honduras do not have to worry over the problem
of "working out their own destiny," this detail devolving
on the officials of the political party which happens to be in
power in London.

Most of the inhabitants of Belize and a majority of those
of British Honduras are negroes, whose ancestors migrated
there from Jamaica and other islands of the West Indies.
If they are denied any of the rights of freedom, political
and otherwise, they are utterly unconscious of it, and there
is no more likelihood of a "revolution" in their country than
there is in Massachusetts. When the student contrasts the
conditions which exist in Spanish Honduras with those
which prevail in British Honduras he is likely to regret that
England did not grab most of Central America a century

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA

217

and a half ago and bequeath to it the ord^r and prosperity
for which our British brothers are so willing to fight.

There seem to be no opportunities for banana development
on a large scale in British Honduras. The United Fruit
Company has about 1,500 acres of banana cultivations in the
southern part of the country, the product being exported
from Puerto Barrios. British Honduras is fitted for many
other profitable kinds of agriculture, but its development has

Street scene in Guatemala City

been retarded by the bad reputation which has been given to
all of the vast section south of the Rio Grande through the suc-
cessive outbreaks which have harassed Mexico and the revolu-
tion centres of Central America. When peace is enforced on
her neighbors, little British Honduras will come to her own.

Nicaragua produces about 2,500,000 bunches of bananas \
annually, but these are all imported and handled by competi-
tors of the United Fruit Company. The latter owns a

218 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

tract of 193,000 acres of land in Nicaragua, but has not as
yet extended its plantation development to this rather ebul-
lient republic. Nations with natural resources prosper about
in proportion as they maintain stable conditions of gov-
ernment, and the sole reason why Costa Rica is more pros-
perous than Nicaragua is that she deserves to be so.

The United Fruit Company has about 49,000 acres of l^nd
in Honduras, and holds 17,000 acres under lease, 9,000 of
which consist of banana plantations. These plantations.
are near Puerto Cortez, which has one of the finest harbors
along the coasts of Central America. Puerto Cortez is in
the extreme west of Honduras, not more than forty-five miles
irom Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The Caribbean coast
line of Honduras extends east and west, and this republic is
almost shut off from the Pacific shores, having only a few
miles of frontage on Fonseca Bay.

Honduras is the least developed of all of the Central
American countries, and this is true despite the fact that it
has wonderful natural resources and possibilities. It h^s
had six so-called revolutions in the last fifteen years. Th^t
is the principal reason why its population is less now than it
was fifty years ago. No railroads connect her interior cities
with her coasts, and her capital, Tegucigalpa, less than 250
miles from Puerto Cortez, is one of the least known, most
isolated and inaccessible places of political importance on the
face of the globe. It requires three weeks for mule trains
to cross from the Caribbean to the Pacific, over trails and
comparatively low mountain passes which a railroad train
would negotiate in twelve hours or less.

But the United Fruit Company is displaying practical
confidence in the future of Honduras. It has faith that the
completion of the Panama Canal will prove the means of
calling the attention of the world to the possibilities which
long have lain dormant in such nations as Honduras. It is
inevitable that the pressure of population and of capital
seeking investment will not halt at the handicaps which have
been reared by weak and inefficient governments. There is
no room for hermit kingdoms or military despotisms north
of the Panama Canal Zone.

AWAKENING OF GUATEMALA 219

' Honduras has had no chance to show what she can do.
Without railroads penetrating her fertile interior plateaus
there is no incentive to raise crops which cannot reach the
seacoast. Years ago Honduras authorized a huge bond issue
for the purpose -of constructing such a railroad from Puerto
Cortez. The bonds were sold. Fifty-seven miles of narrow-
gauge road was constructed over fairly level land south from
Puerto Cortez. The actual cost should not have exceeded
$30,000 a mile, but corrupt public officials in conspiracy with
equally corrupt English contractors pocketed nearly $1,000,-
000 a mile for this wretched bit of railroad construction — one
of the most audacious, stupendous, and criminal specimens
of public robbery in all of the history of plunder.

A later chapter on the sanitary work conducted by the
United Fruit Company includes a description of the work
now in progress in Spanish Honduras.

CHAPTER XII

Along the Coast of South America

|HE northern coast of South Amer-
ica was practically unknown to
modern travel and commerce
until the productive activities
of the founders of the United
Fruit Company awakened its
picturesque cities to life and am-
bition. There is no section
along the American Mediterra-
nean richer in historic associa-
tions. These waters floated the
fighting ships of British sailors,
adventurers, and buccaneers
whose prowess and crimes es-
tablished the prestige which deposed Spain and made Great
Britain the acknowledged mistress of the seas. Morgan,
Drake, Vernon, Captain Kidd and a score of other hardy and
reckless commanders of equally desperate men raped the coast
towns of northern South America of their richest treasures,
and some of them were knighted for acts which now would
send them to the gallows. These glistening waters, ancient
cities, and mountain-buttressed shores still hold the glamour
and the spell of the romance which ever will invest the
Spanish Main.

In our imaginative trip we will now retrace our water
paths and return to Colon, sailing from there to Cartagena
and Santa Marta. The traveller must be warned to give
Cartagena its proper Spanish pronunciation, in which the
syllable "ge" has the English sound of "ha"; the letter "a"
in all Spanish words taking the sound it has with us in the
word "father." Cartagena is too famous and alluring to be
mispronounced, and the Spanish way is musical and prefer-
able:

220

ALONG THE COAST

221

Cah-tah-hay'-na." Try it.
It is less than a day's sail on one of the fast steamers of
the United Fruit Company from Colon to Cartagena, and
the voyager must not miss a minute from the decks after
the mouth of the outer harbor is sighted. Here is where you
realize that the makers of the wood engravings of tropical
ports, which appeared in the ancient school geographies,
were not such bad artists after all. There is a sea tang about
the old-fashioned engravings which escapes the camera and

Street scene in historic Cartagena

defies the painter in oils. The best picture of Cartagena
I have ever seen is contained in an encyclopaedia which was
published nearly half a century ago.

Cartagena is the most fascinating city along the winding
reaches of the Caribbean. Its origin is lost in history, but
there is every indication that it was a centre of Indian popu-
lation long before we have any record of London. The
Spaniards took possession of it in 1533, and fortified it at an
expense of $29,000,000, which meant an expenditure in
labor value ten times that of the present day. The forti-

222 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

fications included a huge wall which entirely surrounded the
city, and this wall was spaced with forts which still stand as
a testimony to the skill of those who supervised their con-
struction.

In 1544 Cartagena, was seized by the French, who won
the temporary fealty of the native population, but it soon
reverted to the Spaniards. In 1585 Sir Francis Drake cap-
tured Cartagena after one of the most reckless exploits in
his romantic career as an aristocratic pirate and adventurer.
In order to understand the audacity of this attack it is
necessary to explain how Cartagena is approached from the
sea.

The famous old city lies squarely abreast to the Carib-
bean, but its waves beat up against rocks and reefs, and no
landing is possible except by small boats at rare intervals.
Ships must approach it by a winding lagoon which opens
in two places from the sea, but only one of these has deep
water. These are called the Boca Grande and the Boca
Chica — the "Big Mouth" and the "Little Mcmth" —
but it is the latter which was used centuries ago and now.

At the entrance of Boca Chica stands a massive and moss-
covered fort of white stone, the Fort of San Fernando.
Opposite San Fernando is the ancient Fort of San Jose,
these two guarding a fairly narrow channel between the
mainland and Tierra Bomba Island, whose intrusion forms
the two mouths which open into the broad but generally
shallow inner and middle harbors. From Boca Chica to
the docks in Cartagena is fully ten miles via the winding
channels which are bounded by saw-toothed coral reefs, and
it was along these channels that Sir Francis Drake sailed
with his gentlemen adventurers, and it is over the same
route that we enter the shelter of the inner harbor.

Near Fort San Jose is a lighthouse — one of the kind you
see in picture books but never expect to see with your eyesj
It clings to slimy rocks, the salt spume of the Caribbear!
lashing its polished stone surfaces, and from base to lantern
dome it fairly oozes the mystery and charm of the sea.
These forts and this lighthouse were not there when Sir
Francis Drake sailed in with virtuous intent to despoil

CARTAGENA AND ITS HARBORS

224

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Cartagena, and their erection and use might have saved
these people much loot and bloodshed.

Cartagena rises out of the sea like some illusive mirage.
It seems to float half in air. Beyond the white of houses
and the green of palms rises La Popa, a once sacred acropolis,
now marked with the crumbling ruins of a convent whose
walls join with precipices, over which tradition relates that
the soldiers of Sir Francis Drake tossed the nuns to show

CEMETERY AND CITY WALL OF CARTAGENA

The convent in the distance is on the summit of La Popa, a most

picturesque landmark

their contempt of the anathemas which had been hurled
against them. I should hate to believe that there is historical
authority for this tradition. Once a year the devout people
of Cartagena make a pilgrimage up the easier slopes of La
Popa, but I much doubt if they pray for the repose of the
soul of Sir Francis Drake and the men who slew and looted
their ancestors.

Inner Harbor is not reached until Middle Harbor has
been passed. The latter is formed by what is known as

ALONG THE COAST 225

rake's Spit and by Manzanilla Point, a projection of an
island which lies close to the mainland. In times of attack
by pirates or other foes the Spaniards would sink ships
across this space, and they did this despite the fact that they
never had heard of Hobson.

More than three centuries ago Sir Francis Drake captured
San Domingo and sacked its towns. Having nothing more
exciting to do he planned to levy tribute on Cartagena.
He entered Boca Chica at four o'clock in the afternoon and
later made a pretence of attacking Fort Pastelillo, which
then stood and still stands at the mouth of Inner Harbor.
This fort was very strong and Drake had no intention of
taking it at that time. His attack was a feint and an
eifective one.

Under cover of darkness Carliel, one of Drake's officers,
led a detachment of buccaneers along the narrow and
uninhabited strip of sand and brush which now is known
as "Drake's Spit." Sir Frederick Treves, in his masterly
book on the West Indies entitled "The Cradle of the
Deep," gives a spirited and historically verified account of
what ensued:

"The last half mile of the spit, where it comes between
the Inner Harbor and the sea, and where the railroad from
the pier now runs in peace, is very narrow. As the English
neared this point they were discovered by some mounted
scouts, who promptly galloped off to alarm the garrison.
Across the narrow path the buccaneers found that a wall had
been built, with a staked ditch in front of it. There was a
gap in the wall to allow the horsemen to pass in, but the
entry was already blocked by gabions in the form of wine
butts filled with earth. Behind the wall were six demi-
culverins and sakers, and a force of men armed with muskets
and pikes. Moreover, two great galleys, drawn up on the
harbor beach, were manned by a company of soldiers who
could command the passage with their firearms. Every
gun was trained on the spit.

"As Carliel advanced, the Spaniards poured a torrent of
shot upon the narrow way. The British kept silent and

The Cathedral of Cartagena

ALONG THE COAST 227

L... .,....,„

be out of range until they were close under the wall. Then,
at a given signal, they made a rush for the gap through a
blizzard of bullets. Down went the wine butts like ninepins.
A volley was fired in the very face of the horrified defenders
of the breach, and with a yell the English fell on them with
pike and cutlass. Carliel with his own hand cut down the
standard-bearer. The Spaniards without more ado turned
heel and fled, helter-skelter, for the city. As Thomas
Gates, who wrote a chronicle of the fight, modestly explains,
*our pikes were longer than theirs.'

*'The British tore after them like a pack of baying wolves.
The flying crowd made an attempt to stand but were swept
down, so that the men with the long pikes had to leap over
their bodies. *We gave them no leisure to breathe,' says
Master Gates with great relish. In a moment the market-
place was gained, but every street leading to it was blocked
with earthworks. Over these mounds went the Spaniards,
and the buccaneers after them, as if it were a hurdle-race.
Behind each barricade Indians were posted with poisoned
arrows, but Drake's men jumped on their backs or their
heads as they crouched, and gave them a taste of the long
pikes if they had the heart to stand. Poisoned stakes had
been driven into the ground *to run into one's feet,' but as
the Spaniards stumbled over them in their terror the pur-
suers had something soft to tread upon.

"Women hurled stones, pots, and jugs out of windows; a
musket would blaze through a loophole in a gate; figures in
night attire crouched in archways or fled in the gloom
shrieking wildly. Every dog in the town was barking as if
possessed, while drums beat without ceasing. Whenever a
stand was made by the garrison the pikes charged, and
the breathless Gartagenians, scattered and bleeding, bolted
down dark alleys or hid under carts. • ; {

*'The town was taken and taken handsomely; the fort
that had defied Frobisher was seized and blown up, and,
after a pleasant stay of six weeks — during which time
Drake entertained the governor and bishop at dinner —
that officer departed with 110,000 ducats in his pocket."

228

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

It was all very wicked and improper, no doubt, but I
would go a long way to see a verified moving picture of the
English buccaneers as they tore through that gate, and I
would listen eagerly to a phonographic record of the conver-
sation when Sir Francis Drake entertained the governor and
the bishop at dinner — at their own expense.

Our historians make little mention of the fact that the
men of the American colonies in 1741 helped make an im-
pressive but disastrous attempt to capture and loot Carta-

In ancient Cartagena 2

gena. It is true that this plan to ravish the Spaniards was
conceived by a British king, who ordered his American sub-
jects to furnish 4,000 foot soldiers and as many sailors as
might be required by the English fleet. Forty-five hundred
soldiers volunteered or were pressed into service by various
methods, and history does not record how many sailors were
"induced to volunteer," but it is known that very few of
them came back. This was one of the things to which our
historians devote scant space.

Virginia and Massachusetts each sent 500 men. The

ALONG THE COAST

^29

(rginians were commanded by Lawrence Washington, a mere
y from Hunting Creek, and the half-brother of George
ashlngton. The naval end of the expedition was in com-
mand of Admiral Vernon of the British navy, and Lawrence
Washington so admired the "Hero of Porto Bello" that he
later gave to his Virginia estates the name of Mount Vernon,
and the immortal George Washington retained this name
when he came into possession of the property on the death of
his half-brother.

Entering the harbor of Santa Marta

The death of Lord Cathcart threw the command of the
land forces to General Wentworth, an English officer, and
from the start there was constant friction between Admiral
Vernon, otherwise known as **01d Grog," and the inefficient
Wentworth. The great fleet sailed with more than 25,000
men on board, of whom probably 7,000 were Americans.
None of these colonists has left behind any written account
of the disasters which befell them. In a most pitiful sense
the colonial dead of Cartagena are the American "Lost
Legion."

230 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

The vast fleet which bore the combined hopes of England
and its American colonists sailed its slow way to the Isthmus
of Panama. Not far from the present site of Colon is the
beautiful Cape of Manzanillo, and within a lagoon is what
remains of the once famous and dreaded Porto Bello. In
those years it was presumed to be heavily fortified and pos-
sessed of much treasure. No place on the Spanish Main
made so strong an appeal to the romantic in man's nature.

Small-pox and yellow fever had swept the Spanish garri-
son and they neither expected nor were prepared for an
attack. Admiral Vernon captured the famous Iron Castle
and Stone Fort with the loss of only four men, and when the
news reached London there was wild rejoicing, and medalsj
-were struck off in honor of "The Hero of Porto Bello.''
This was the first engagement in what is known in EnglisSj
history as the "War of Jenkins' Ear," and it had its pretexj
in, ah allegation made by Robert Jenkins, master of th<
British trading brig Rebecca, that a Spanish pirate had cui
oif his ear, which member Captain Jenkins displayed fof^
years before its picturesque loss was made the excuse for a
war to despoil Spain.

The victorious fleet next sailed for Cartagena, expecting
to duplicate with ease the exploit Drake had executed a
century before with a handful of men. The forts at the
entrance of Boca Chica were dismantled by bombardment
a'nd captured by the land forces with slight loss. When the
news reached England that Fort San Fernando had fallen,
the nation again went wild. Vernon was dubbed "The
Scourge of Spain."

^ The fleet moved up into Middle Harbor. The soldiers
landed, and the. long and disastrous siege of the city began.
Attack after attack was made on the fortifications, but with
slight success. Yellow fever broke out and killed thousands
of men in a few days. Admiral Vernon and General Went-
worth kept up their wrangles, but finally agreed on one
thing, which was that Cartagena could not be taken, and
that a longer stay would result in the death of all by disease.
What was left of the fleet sailed back for America, but of the
25,000 men who left Porto Bello in triumph only 12,000

ALONG THE COAST 231

imbled or were carried aboard the ships. Among the

,000 who perished in this ill-fated attack on Cartagena

fere were not less than 4,000 Americans, and the horror

their experience seems to have struck the survivors dumb.

Lawrence Washington soon died from diseases contracted

before the walls of Cartagena.

The volcanic cliffs of Santa Marta

Bolivar wrested Cartagena from Spain in 181 5, but was
forced to surrender it the same year. It was finally taken
and held by the republicans in 1821, and has since been
tree from foreign domination.

For these and many other reasons Cartagena possesses a
peculiar interest to well-informed American visitors. The

232 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

ships of the United Fruit Company remain at their docks
long enough to permit passengers to spend the time required
for a comprehensive ride through the famous old city and to
view the points of historic interest. As one winds through
the narrow streets, with their doorsteps worn deep by the
bare feet of scores of generations, he can imagine the fright
of those who lived in Cartagena when the savage buccaneers
under command of Drake rushed into the fortified market-
place, knives in their teeth and bloodstained pikes in their
hands.

In the cool of the evening our ship glides from her dock
and heads down Middle Harbor. The rays of the declining
sun seem focused like a searchlight on the white facades of
the dead convent which crowns the heights of La Popa.
To the left are the lower levels of Fort San Lazar, where in a
last desperate attack a thousand unknown American col-
onists perished in a fight for a monarchy with which the next
generation went to war. The black mouths of the cannon
of Fort Pastelillo are on our port quarter, and the sound of
a bugle rings clear and in harmony with the deep-toned bells
in the cathedral within the walled enclosure of Cartagena.
The weeds and stunted jungle must look the same as when
Drake's men crawled through them that eventful night cen-
turies ago.

Out we swing into the broad expanse of Outer Harbor,
picking a cautious way between red-painted buoys. Tierra
Bomba Island is to our right, and in the shelter of one of its
bays stands a leper village, the sad abode of living human
beings who are already dead to hope and ambition. Ahead
of us are Forts San Fernando and San Jose, and as we look
the lighthouse flashes forth its friendly gleam. A boat
rowed by strong Indian oarsmen bobs over the waves, our
pilot climbs down the swaying ladder, tumbles into the
cockleshell, we give him a cheer, and a moment later are
past the forts and into tumbling billows kicked up by the
invigorating trade winds.

We are headed for Santa Marta, and all the next fore-
noon are in sight of the lofty mountains which slope down
almost to the Caribbean along this coast. The entrance to

ALONG THE COAST

233

the protected harbor of Santa Marta is rugged and grandly-
beautiful. Volcanic rocks form a bristling palisade along
the mainland, and towering above them is a range of moun-
tains with their deserted crests mantled in clouds. Still
back of them is an unseen wilderness of still mightier moun-
tains, the snow-clad and mysterious Sierra Nevadas, which
reach out from the Andes in a gigantic spur a thousand

SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA

miles or more across Colombia and Venezuela. One must
climb the lower mountains nearer Santa Marta to obtain a
view of the glistening fields of snow which have ever defied
the rays of the equatorial sun.

It is this stupendous and practically unknown range of
mountains which bequeaths to Santa Marta and its vicinity
their agricultural advantages. There is practically no rain-
fall along these coasts. There' are years in which there is a

234

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

total absence of rain, and there are intervals of heavy predp-
itation, but no one depends on this phenomenon for water.
A hundred miles or more back through the impenetrable
jungle flow streams of clear, cold waters which take their
rise from the melting snows on the flanks of the Sierra

Harbor of Santa' Marta, Colombia

Nevadas. This supply never ceases, but it varies according
to the frequency and intensity of the storms which rage in
mountain fastnesses never seen by the eyes of white men who
have lived to return and tell the tale of the explorations.

None of the natives of Santa Marta and of other coast
towns pretends to know anything of these snow-crested

ALONG THE COAST 235

giants to the south and west. The few explorers who have
ventured into their foothills have failed to discover even
scattered inhabitants, to say nothing of tribes. Here is an
empire which has rebuifed even the most primitive and sav-
age of mankind, and yet we humans prattle of having ex-
tended our dominion over the world and imagine that we
have about exhausted its resources. We know as little
about the heart of South America as we do of the geography
of Mars, and more than half of Mexico is still uncharted
and unexplored. \

The mysterious Sierra Nevadas have given to the banana
industry an added insurance against the depletion of supply
through climatic disasters. The melted snow which flows
down from their summits provides for the irrigation of great
plantations which furnish an excellent quality of bananas.
There is slight chance of destructive winds back from the
coasts, and there is no chance that the dreaded banana
disease incident to cultivation in humid lowlands can ever
afflict these districts. The only handicap is an occasional
failure of the rivers to meet the demands of the plantations,
such failure meaning lessened production.

Santa Marta lies on a low and narrow plain between angry
volcanic hills which would be called mountains in New York
or Pennsylvania. The sea once occupied this space, but
the beaches gradually receded and created this site for a
city fronted with a deep and natural harbor, one of the best
on the Caribbean.

Here is the ideal combination of sea and landscape, with
a broad bay buttressed by abrupt cliffs and peak piled on
peak, shaded and softened by sun-colored clouds. Storm-
beaten islands and headlands guard the harbor approach.
On one of the islands is a deserted fort, its rusted cannon
affording nests for seafowl. With the changing hours this
bay and its mountain frame thrills the lover of nature with
ravishing color harmonies in blue, green, orange, and red.
I saw a sunset that — but it is useless to attempt to describe
that sunset. I should class it as a Wagnerian sunset, and
let it go at that.

The steamer makes a stay of a day or two in Santa Marta,

236 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

and the passengers are afforded a chance to journey by rail-
^.^road back into the tropical beauties of an irrigated country.
By far the larger plantations in the Santa Marta district
are owned by the United Fruit Company, but there are many
independent raisers, most of them native Colombians.
Bananas were cultivated in this section long before Mr.
Keith or the United Fruit Company entered the field, but
this cultivation was conducted on a small scale and for

United Fruit Headquarters at Rio Frio, Colombia

home consumption. These planters used crude methods
of irrigation and knew little of the scientific methods now
in vogue.

. When the United Fruit Company purchased its Colom-
bian property it included 12,547 acres of banana planta-
\;ions, a larger acreage than that of any other country in
^hich it then operated. Since then these plantations have
been increased to 22,790 acres, which places this division
fourth in banana acreage and only slightly behind Guatemala.

ALONG THE COAST 237

As has been stated, the available acreage is limited by the
water supply, and this is about all utilized in the vicinity
of Santa Marta.

Five rivers help to give life to the naturally fertile soil.
The largest of these is the Rio Frio (Cold River), and the
plantations along its banks extend thirty miles back from
Santa Marta. The smaller rivers are the Sevilla, Tucu-
rinca, Aracataca, and the Fundacion, all of which rise in the
Sierra Nevadas from peaks which climb 16,000 and 17,000
feet into the tropical sky.

The gravity system of irrigation is used exclusively, and
water is let in between the banana rows twice a week. This
insures a uniformity of height, quantity, and quality not
possible in places where dependence is placed on rainfalls.
The Santa Marta banana commands a high place in the
banana trade, and it is to be regretted that a larger acreage
cannot be planted.

Here is the one place in the tropics where the Jamaican
negro does not dominate the labor field. Most of the 2,500 '~
workers in the banana fields and along the irrigation ditches
are native Colombians, most of whom have been attracted
here from higher altitudes by a certainty of good wages.
They are an excellent class of workmen, strong and active
and of good habits. Many of them have acquired from their
earnings small tracts of lands of their own. The company
has repeatedly extended money or credit to natives who have
indicated a capacity to develop into independent producers
of bananas. Those who have displayed an aptitude for
banana agriculture have succeeded, and some of them have
become rich from original investments of a few hundred
dollars.

It is not in Colombia alone that the United Fruit Com-
pany has extended financial aid to independent growers of
bananas. Almost from the inception of this enterprise the
policy has been followed of giving substantial encouragement
to those who had acquired lands fitted for the produc-
tion of bananas. It is easy to understand why a corpo-
ration engaged in a competitive industry might deem it
expedient to pursue a policy exactly opposite one which in-

238 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

volves the lending of money to independent producers of its
leading articles of commerce. The United Fruit Company
could not have been justly criticised had it employed every
legal effort to acquire and hold all promising banana lands
near the tropical ports from which it operates, but the facts
show that it did nothing of the kind.

On the contrary, the United Fruit Company has loaned
tens of millions of dollars to those who otherwise would not
have been able to use their lands for banana cultivation.
These loans have ranged from a few hundred dollars to
loans of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such loans
have been made to residents of Guatemala, Costa Rica,
Panama, Colombia, Jamaica, and have also been made
jto citizens of the United States, of Germany, Spain, and
pther countries.

It has been explained that the prevailing rates of interest
in Central America, South America, Cuba, and most of
tropical America range from a minimum of 12 per cent to 20
per cent and even higher. No bank in any of these coun-
tries could be induced to lend money on any terms to' an
individual on the prospect that he might convert a tract of
jungle land into a banana plantation. It costs from ^40
to ^60 to bring such lands to banana bearing. Again, the
owner of the land would be unable to satisfy a bank that he
would have a purchaser for his bananas after they were
ready to cut. He might find the money to bring banana
trees to bearing, but he lacked the money to buy and oper-
ate ships. How has the United Fruit Company treated
these tropical land owners.?

/ It has encouraged American citizens and others to buy
/banana lands adjacent to its own plantations. It has en-
/ couraged native landowners to undertake the cultivation of
/ bananas on as large a scale as their circumstances would
permit. It has offered to lend, and has actually lent, mil-
\ lions of dollars to such native landowners. This money
was not advanced by the United Fruit Company at 12,
20 or 25 per cent interest, which rates are eagerly paid
by borrowers with good security in most parts of these sec-
tions, but at low and reasonable rates of interest.

ALONG THE COAST

239

Here is something worth considering by those who as-
sume that all corporations are swift and eager to take extor-
tionate advantage of opportunities.

Under this broad and liberal plan the United Fruit Com-
pany had deservedly won the loyalty and cooperation of
thousands of planters who have shared in the prosperity
which always accrues when men of energy deal fairly one
with the other. This plan has been in frictionless opera-

Headquarters of United Fruit Company in Santa Marta

tion ior-ye^^rs ; it has enriched men who thus were permitted
to take quick advantage of an opportunity to obtain access
to a fertile soil, and it has also contributed to the success of
the United Fruit Company by creating a corps of indepen-
dents who are trained and skilled in their avocation, and
who give to the banana industry that wider source of supply
which insures added protection against the climatic dis-
asters from which no single plantation has sure immunity.

240 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

More than that, these independent producers constitute a
training school from which graduate the men who are called
on to accept high positions in the broader fields of the ac-
tivity of the great corporation which founded the banana
industry.

On a slight elevation above the plain on which lies the
city of Santa Marta rise the graceful masts of the wireless
station installed and maintained by the United Fruit
Company. These twin masts are 310 feet high, and the
powerful plant with which they are equipped places Santa
Marta in constant communication with New Orleans, all of
Central America, and the wide ranges of the Caribbean and
the Gulf of Mexico. All of the passenger ships of the United
Fruit Company are provided with the most up-to-date
wireless equipment, with the result that the great producing
sections on the land are linked with the ships of the fleet
which convey freight and passengers to and from the tropics.

A novel and very important feature of the wireless system
developed and in operation on the ships of the United Fruit
Company is that of an auxiliary power plant. This consists
of storage batteries of sufficient power to take the place of
the regular generating plant in the event of an accident.
The storage batteries thus held in reserve are of power
adequate not only to operate the transmitting and receiving
wireless instruments, but also to furnish electric lighting for
the ship during a period of from six to eight hours. This
gives ample time to repair any ordinary defect in the system
regularly employed, and gives absolute protection against
a class of accidents likely to put a wireless equipment out of
commission, and affords this protection at a time when the
services of auxiliary power are most needed. The time will
doubtless come when public sentiment or international law
will force the general use of this plan of insurance for wireless
efficiency, an expedient which has been successfully developed
and installed by the United Fruit Company.

No private enterprise in the world has made such an
impressive use of this wonderful invention. It is not gen-
erally known that the United Fruit Company was one of the
pioneers not only in the use but in the development and per-

ALONG THE COAST

241

action of wireless telegraphy. Experts in its employ have
lade valuable contributions to this almost uncanny science.
The public and the world of finance and commerce have
:)rofited immeasurably from the installation of a system of
:ommunication which places most of the American tropics
vithin instant communication. In the furtherance of this
vork the United Fruit Company has expended a very large
imount of money, which has provided an asset of safety
ind progressive efficiency which is certain to yield benefits
lot to be calculated in dollars and cents.

Houses built of fibre of banana plants

Land wireless stations of high eflftciency have been estab-
lished at New Orleans, Cape San Antonio, Cuba; Swan
[sland, off the coast of Honduras; Cape Gracias a Dios,
at the border line of Honduras and Nicaragua; Bluefields,
Nicaragua; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; Bocas del Toro,
Panama; and Santa Marta, Colombia, with others planned
For the near future.

From the powerful Santa Marta station messages have
3een received from along Cape Cod and even as far as the
:oast of Maine, and it is the expectation of the company that
promising improvements will make communication possible

242 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

with London and the Continental centres of banana con-
sumption. Here is a typical illustration of the demands
made by the humble banana on the capital which under-
takes its production and distribution. The investment of
the United Fruit Company in wireless telegraphy alone is
probably more than that incurred by the Boston Fruit
Company in the days when it was providing all .of New Eng-
land with the bulk of its banana supply.

The visit to Santa Marta ends our investigation of the
great chain of banana enterprises conducted by the United
Fruit Company. This chain links Guatemala, Honduras,
Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Jamaica, and speeding
to and from its units are nearly a hundred ships which bear
its products to most parts of North America and Europe.
And over all this vast land domain of plantations rescued
from the tropical wildernesses, and over seas and bays and
harbors dotted with the ships which bear the flag of the
United Fruit Company, dart the invisible currehts which
direct the movements of an industrial army of 60,000 men
who are toiling in a successful attempt to help meet the
fruit and food hunger of a world.

CHAPTER XIII
Exploring the Sugar Bowl of Cuba

NTILLA is a new and growing
Cuban town located at the head
of Nipe Bay, which, fifteen
miles away, opens into the At-
lantic along the upper coast
of the east end of that island.
A spur of land, fairly narrow in
most places, separates Nipe
Bay from the smaller one of
Banes, and back from the
shores of these two protected
bodies of navigable water is
one of the great centres of
sugar production of the world.

In the fourteen years since
its organization the United
Fruit Company has been instru-
mental in converting the once
neglected wildernesses surrounding these bodies of water
into sugar plantations which, in the fiscal year of 191 2-
13, produced 261,326,640 pounds of sugar and 5,600,025
gallons of molasses. This includes the output of the Nipe
Bay Company, listed as one of the investments of the United
Fruit Company. Possibly the average reader might be able
better to comprehend the amount of this sugar production if
expressed as 130,663 tons, and was informed that a ton is a
fair wagonload for a team of horses.

In this, as in all of its undertakings, the company did not
seek to make a success of the sugar business by buying estab-
lished properties and deriving profits by economies and the
skilled use of large capital, but it launched its enterprise in
new fields and engaged in a struggle with the unsolved prob-
lems raised by a section in which sugar cane had never been

243

244 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

planted except on a very small scale. I was fairly familiar
with the sugar industry in Cuba twelve years ago when the
United Fruit Company was constructing its great mill in the
Banes district, and I remember well the comments of the
recognized heads of the leading sugar concerns who laughed
at the attempt to raise sugar cane along the east coasts of
Cuba. According to these prophets, none of the requisites of
soil, rainfall, labor, or any other requirement was at the
command of the inexperienced fruit men who had dared
engage in the sugar industry.

But the prophets were wrong. The region which the ex-
perts ignored and rejected has become one of the world's
important sources of sugar supply, and has been made a
steady and conservative field of revenue to the company
which had the courage to undertake its development.

The Boston Fruit Company was the founder of the present
prosperity of the Nipe and Banes districts. It originally
acquired a section of land near the little Cuban town of Banes
and devoted part of it to banana cultivation. A year or so
prior to its purchase by the United Fruit Company the
Boston Fruit Company decided to engage in sugar cultiva-
tion, experiments having proved that an excellent quality of
cane could be raised in fields adjacent to its banana planta-
tions. It thus came about that in the first year of the life
of the United Fruit Company President Preston was able to
report that the company had 7,803 acres of growing sugar
cane in its Banes plantations and a mill rapidly approaching
completion. This was in 1900.

At about this time the Dumois-Nipe Company was formed
and began extensive operations at Saetia, a favored spot
along the southeast shore of Nipe Bay, and fifteen miles or
so from Banes. This company devoted its activities largely
to fruit, and raised large quantities of bananas, oranges,
grape-fruit, and other tropical products. The United Fruit
Company was the largest purchaser of these fruits, and
continued so until it decided to abandon banana cultivation
and handling in Cuba, which was in 1906. From that year
until 1 91 2 the Dumois-Nipe Company disposed of its fruits
to various concerns, but in that year it was decided that

60
C/3

246

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

sugar could be raised to greater advantage and to more
profit, and the Saetia Sugar Company was formed, the
United Fruit Company furnishing most of the capital and
owning control of the stock.

The success of the United Fruit Company at Banes soon
led to the formation of the Nipe Bay Company, a concern
largely financed by investors who had learned to have faith
in the judgment of the heads of the United Fruit Company,
and this new company purchased a large tract of undeveloped
land along the south coast of Nipe Bay and reaching almost

Loading sugar cane in Cuba

to the town of Antilla. It thus came about that three
American enterprises were located in a sweeping semicircle
about the waters of Nipe Bay and Banes Bay, with modern
sugar mills at Banes and on the property of the Nipe Bay
Company. The latter mill is known as the "Central
Preston," and the pioneer mill near Banes as "Central
Boston." Both of these great mills are fitted with every
device and employ every scientific process necessary for the
speedy and economical extraction of sugar from the raw
cane.

Early in 1907 theUnited Fruit Company purchased a major-

THE SUGAR BOWL OF CUBA

247

ity of the common stock of the NIpe Bay Company, and in
that year the latter harvested and ground its first crop, which
yielded 32,000,000 pounds of sugar and nearly 1,000,000
gallons of molasses. This company still maintains its
corporate entity, but its operations are conducted by the
United Fruit Company in cooperation with the other two
great divisions in this locality. In 191 3 the United Fruit

United Fruit Company park in Banes, Cuba

Company acquired by purchase the remaining outside stock
of the Saetia Sugar Company, with its 35,000 acres of land
near the Nipe Bay Company, more than 6,000 of which are
already planted to cane.

The Banes, Nipe Bay, and Saetia districts contain a total
acreage of 255,000, of which 58,000 acres are now planted to
sugar cane. The Nipe Bay Company has about 25,000

248 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

acres of cane under cultivation, with additional tracts of
82,000 acres, much of which is available for cane. There
are also 12,500 acres devoted to pastures, the feeding places
of the thousands of oxen, mules, and other live stock required
on a modern sugar plantation. The original, or Banes
division, has a total acreage of 92,000, of which 28,000 acres
are planted to cane and 20,000 acres used for pasture.

These three divisions of Banes, Nipe Bay, and Saetia
are not contiguous plantations owned by the two com-
panies which possess and operate the mills. Reaching out
for miles in three directions from the Boston Central are
fields of cane planted years ago by the Boston Fruit Company,
but intersecting and interlacing these fields are others owned
by individual producers, and still other fields which are un-
tilled and are the property of outsiders who decline to sell or
cultivate.

The detailed maps of the Banes and Nipe Bay divisions,
with the various land holdings painted in colors, look like a
puzzle picture. In the subdivision of Cuban lands there is
not that uniformity and rectangular accuracy which distin-
guish our 'real estate holdings, especially in the Middle and
Western States. The Cuban heir to land traces his inheri-
tance by following winding creeks and along lines with start-
ling angles. It thus comes about that there are hundreds
of independent cane growers with their lands completely
surrounded by the more comprehensive development of the
American enterprises.

These independents sell their cane to the mills. This
cane is ground and a careful record made of the amount of
sugar extracted from it. The independent receives in pay
the market value of 5 per cent of the sugar extracted from
his cane. In other words, he becomes the owner of 100
pounds out of every ton of 2,000 pounds extracted, and the
mill takes this 100 ofi^ his hands and pays him the quotation
price of raw sugar on the day of the sale. This is the system
in vogue in all Cuba, and is one which is fair to the indepen-
dent producer and to the owner of the mill.

Under favorable conditions of crop and prices the inde-
pendent will obtain from his cane an amount which will

250 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

yield him a net profit as high as ^loo an acre, and even this
figure has been exceeded. Under the reverse conditions of
poor crops and low prices — the latter due to bumper crops
of beet sugar abroad — the independent sugar grower is
compelled to share with the mill in actual losses for the year;
but under average conditions the small sugar grower is fairly
well assured of returns which will range from ^30 to ^60 an
acre annually, which figure is considerably in excess of that
obtainable from standard crops grown in the United States.
However, the Cuban grower runs more risks, has less comfort,
and not as congenial surroundings as his brother agriculturist
in northern climes.

Leading out from the huge Central Boston — "Central"
being the technical expression of a sugar mill which grinds
the cane raised by all producers within reach of its capacity
— are no miles of railway owned and operated by the
company. Nineteen locomotives and more than 800 freight
cars are employed in bringing the cane from plantations,
some of them thirty miles away from the mill. Bear in mind
that this impressive transportation equipment is used on
the Banes division alone. It has no identity and not even
connection with the railroad systems employed at Nipe
Bay and Saetia. The transportation equipment which
feeds the Central Preston of the Nipe Bay Company has
about 70 miles of track and 387 freight cars. The Saetia
division has a smaller railroad system which transports the
cane from the fields to the docks at Entre Casco, where
it is lifted by steam power to barges which are towed by
tugs to the Central Boston, where it is ground. Three
tugs and a fleet of lighters are employed In this work. The
Saetia cane makes a water trip of about eight miles, but it
is probable that the future development of that district will
warrant the construction of a third mill.

Crossing the railroad lines at frequent and regular inter-
vals are broad roads which serve the double purpose of per-
mitting cane-loaded wagons to arrive at the railroad switches
and also of checking the sweep of flames in the event that
fires start in dry weather. These roads are called "guarda
rayas," which translates as "protective spaces" or "fire

THE SUGAR BOWL OF CUBA 251

Hdls." a considerable percentage of a plantation is occu-
pied by these broad but necessary roads.

Reference to the map on this page will give the reader
a clear idea of the geographical setting of the 255,cxx) acres
included in this wonderful centre of sugar production. Those
who are inclined to ignore or decry the part played by
American capital in the development of adjacent tropical.

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sections are now reminded that within the immediate scope
of the operations of the United Fruit Company in the Nipe
Bay country is a population of fully 25,ocx) people, all of
whom are enjoying a measure of prosperity and a standard
of living much higher than obtains in any manufacturing
community in the United States or any in the world.

It is doubtful if any large body of unskilled labor any-
where on this wide earth of ours receives compensation

252 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

equal to that awarded the men who work in the fields about
these great Cuban sugar mills. When it is taken into con-
sideration that the activities of these men bring from formerly
unused soil a vast product which enters into general con-
sumption in the United States, and cheapens the price of
commodities imperatively required by all classes of our
people, it is obvious that the rearing of this enterprise by the
United Fruit Company means something far more important
than an attempt to derive dividends.

When we have other private corporations, or public cor-
porations, or any sort of a system of production, which will
\ insure that all the food necessities of life compare with sugar
^^ \at 4 to 5 cents a pound, and bananas at from lO to 20 cents
^ a dozen, there will be an end to the complaint of the high
/ post of living.

There is not the slightest chance that this happy condition
of affairs will obtain until all possible food products are
brought from the soil and transported from their sources of
supply and distributed to the consumer under some such
system as has been applied by the United Fruit Company.
The eager.^advocates of Socialism claim that they could do
it if they had a chance. Possibly they could, but the United
Fruit Company has done it and is doing it, and it is a grand
and a worthy thing to do. It is a splendid victory over
Nature, the stern but fair giantess who enforces the decree
that the soil of this earth shall yield its treasures only to
those who battle with her, but who smilingly submits to
the ardent and intelligent trespasser on her domains.

Twelve years ago there were squalid little native settle-
ments at Banes, Antilla, and Saetia. There were a few
cultivators of small cane plantations, and they extracted
enough sugar for their own needs by primitive processes.
You could search the average map of Cuba in vain and not
locate Antilla, Preston, Banes, or Saetia. There were no
docks worthy of the name at which steamships could load,
and the surrounding country produced nothing of conse-
quence to lure a ship into these beautiful waters. For a
hundred years Cuba had been desolated by wars and revolu-
tions, but the strong arm of the United States had reached

THE SUGAR BOWL OF CUBA 253

out and the mandate had been given that anarchy should
end and that industry would be protected. This was an
awful blow to the professional revolutionists, but it meant
prosperity for Cuba and cheaper food products to the
United States.

No railroad then connected the Nipe Bay country with
Havana or Santiago. Then another revolution broke out,

SCENE IN THE "CENTRAL PRESTON"

The powerful appliances by which a carload of sugar is lifted
and conveyed to the crushers

but of a type new and startling to devastated Cuba. It was
an industrial revolution, fomented and headed by American
investors and officered by engineers, mechanics, and men
skilled in agriculture. They cut a wall through the guinea
grass and the jungles of central Cuba and connected the
head of Nipe Bay by railroad with Havana and Santiago.
They dredged a harbor beneath the bluffs of Antilla and pro-
jected docks out into the clear waters of Nipe Bay. They

254 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

offered the ragged veterans of a score of uprisings and revolu-
tions good wages to use the machete as a tool of agriculture
instead of as a weapon of war and loot, and when the word
went out that these crazy Americans were in earnest and
kept their promises the Cuban natives and the negroes re-
sponded. •-^:;; ^^» : ;

Square miles 6f fields, untouched since the island was
heaved out of the sea, were reclaimed from swamps and
jungles. An army of men raised the massive steel spans of
the sugar mill. Ships from all parts of the world ploughed
the waters of Nipe Bay and unloaded the materials necessary
in the prosecution of this giant undertaking. The cleared
fields were planted and bore a bounteous harvest of cane.
The cane was cut and fed into the maws of the tearing and
grinding crushers — fifteen hundred tons of cane a day
yielded up its juice under the impact of this machinery.

The first three years showed a loss of about ^60,000, and
the prophets of disaster took great credit for their forecasts,
but the company did not deviate in the slightest from its
original plan to develop this section to sugar cane. In 1904
the tide turned, the Banes mill turning out a product which
netted a profit of $345,000, and there has been no year since
that time when Cuban sugar has not helped the United Fruit
Company meet its dividend responsibilities.

To-day, all of this district is dotted with towns and villages
which owe their inception and progress to the extension of
the sugar industry. Antilla has a growing population of
4,500, and boasts of the best hotel in the east of Cuba.
Saetia, out near the mouth of Nipe Bay, has a population in
the busy season which mounts to 2,000 or more. Where
a few years ago was nothing but waste land and fever-
breeding jungles there has arisen, as if by magic, a flourish-
ing and attractive little city — Preston — named for the
man who was chiefly responsible for this magic. Preston is
a beautiful town of 5,000 population, with broad streets
lined with palms and flowers, electric lights, churches,
public and private schools, and all of the comforts and luxu-
ries of a town of equal size in the United States.

Macabi is the model little town which has been built up

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^56 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

about the Central Boston. Banes is the metropolis of this
section, and has progressed from a miserable little settlement
to a city with a permanent population exceeding 7,500. I
shall describe these larger centres of population more fully in
the following chapter, which deals with the sanitary work of
the United Fruit Company.

The process of manufacturing sugar and the systems of
conveying the cane from the fields to the mills are so well
known that I shall not enter into a description of them in this
book, which is designed to present facts which are novel to
the average reader. But the United Fruit Company is the
pioneer in a system of sugar extraction and handling which
is entirely new, and the probable success of which will com-
pletely revolutionize the entire industry. I refer to what is
technically known as the *' Simmons Process" of dealing
with sugar after it has been cut and delivered to the "Cen-
tral."

The great expense of manufacturing raw sugar is incurred
by two acts in the present process, viz., the enormous power
required to drive the rollers which crush the cane and extract
the juice by rotative pressure, and, second, the large amount
of fuel required to boil the water from the juice in order to
precipitate sugar by high centrifugal motion.

The most powerful crushers yet devised still leave a con-
siderable percentage of juice, and, consequently, sugar, in
the mutilated fibre, which is called "bagasse."

Now comes a peculiar and interesting consideration. It
has been known for many years that the fibre of sugar cane
possesses the inherent. qualifications for the manufacture of
paper. Fine grades of white paper, some of them exquisite
in texture, have been made from the fibre of sugar cane, but
— and here is a monumental "but."

In the first place, the severe crushing of cane required to
extract a high percentage of its juice destroys some of the
qualities of the fibre which make it valuable in paper manu-
facture. The cells are broken down, and while the resultant
pulp will produce a paper, it is one lacking in the tenacity
and texture of a fibrous compound.

In the second place — and here is a stickler — Cuba is

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258 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

deficient in coal, oil^ wood, or other fuel usually employed in
generating power or heat. The pioneers in the sugar indus-
try discovered that it was possible to feed the bagasse
into the furnaces, and it thus came about that the crushed
body of one stalk of cane furnishes the fuel by which
his brother is crushed and the juice boiled and the sugar
extracted. Hence it makes no difference, under this system,
whether the tissue and cells are destroyed or not. They are
demanded as fuel.

But inventors and scientists have long looked askance
at this process. They have denounced it as wasteful, un-
economical, crude, and improvable. I do not know who was
the first to suggest and experiment on the ** desiccation" and
'*defibrication" of sugar cane, but the first plan to yield
practical results is known as the "Simmons System," and it
has been given a comprehensive test at Preston, Cuba, under
the direction of experts in the employ of the United Fruit
Company. The first mill ever erected for this purpose was
destroyed by fire in the summer of 191 3, but not until it had
demonstrated certain very important matters beyond doubt.
It is obvious that water can be evaporated from such a
substance as cane quicker than it can be removed from the
juice by boiling. A temperature of 212 F. is about the
maximum which can be obtained by boiling. Years ago the
experiments were made of applying heated air at a higher
temperature to shredded cane, but it was learned that tem-
peratures between 200 and 400 destroyed the sugar. It was
deemed folly to experiment with higher temperatures, it
being natural to assume that if 200 or 400 degrees of heat
would burn the sugar crystals a higher temperature would
precipitate that disaster more quickly and surely.

It remained, however, for the experimenters to make the
rather remarkable discovery that the sugar crystals were im-
mune to a sudden plunging into a temperature of from 1,600
to 1,800 degrees of heat. The sugar seemed to like it, but the
water hurriedly quit its company in the form of steam. I don't
know why this is so, but it is a stubborn fact. I have never
been able to explain why fog does not freeze into small and
hollow hailstones when the mercury drops below zero, but it

260

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

floats in air and seemingly is as warm and comfortable as if it
were a balmy summer day. The scientists tell us that this
is because the fog globules are filled with "latent heat," but
when you ask them to explain why the zero temperature
cannot disturb this latent heat they have no reply. And the
sugar crystal that shrivels in a heat of 250 and is cozy and
contented at 1,800 is no more of a mystery than a thousand
other things which we fool mortals pretend to explain, but
don't.

When this was discovered the rest was comparatively easy.

"58

Tennis courts in Banes, Cuba

Instead of crushing the cane it is shredded in this process.
The cane is fed into revolving knives which cut and tear it,
but which do not crush and lacerate the cellular tissue. The
cane and such juice as has escaped are conveyed to a series
of drying chambers. The initial chamber has a temperature
of about 1,800 degrees. In the successive chambers through
which the shredded cane passes the temperature is gradually
reduced to 200, and the plunge into the first chamber renders
the sugar immune to lower ones which otherwise would have
been destructive of its good qualities.

THE SUGAR BOWL OF CUBA 261

All save an insignificant percentage of the water is ex-
hausted in this process, and this important result is attained
with an expenditure of only a fraction of the heat units em-
ployed in the present method of extracting sugar by boiling.

When this combination of shredded fibre and dried sugar
emerges from the last heated chamber it is conducted down a
vertical flume about i8 inches square. At the lower end of
this flume it is subject to pressure and baled in a manner
very similar to that used in compressing hay. A cubic foot
of this baled and desiccated cane weighs about 50 pounds,
making the weight of the bales approximately 150 pounds.

Under the present process a mill which will extract 90 per
cent of the sugar and syrups is deemed a model of efficiency.
By a simple method of treating this desiccated cane it is possi-
ble to extract 92^ per cent of sugar and 6 per cent of syrups,
a total of 98^ per cent extraction, which closely approaches
the sugar producer's dream of perfection.

But this saving in sugar and syrup is not the most impor-
tant factor. In the first place, the plant required for the
desiccation of cane will cost much less than the one now
required to handle a given amount of cane, and the power
required is slight compared with that now necessary to oper-
ate the stupendous machinery of crushing the cane, boiling
the juice, and actuating the centrifugals. In the second
place, there is saved a fibre which can be manufactured into
grades of high-class white paper, and the inventors of this
system confidently claim that the rescued fibre is worth more
than the sugar. They even go so far as to assert that sugar
will become a by-product of sugar cane, and that the latter
will be raised for the principal purpose of supplying the world
with all grades of paper.

This also implies that the rapid depletion of forests for the
manufacture of paper pulp would cease. Here is one of the
problems which has dismayed and appalled the earnest
advocates of forest conservation. If the experiments just
described, and others now being conducted on a large scale
by the United Fruit Company, shall demonstrate that the
cane fibre which now is burned for fuel is capable of meeting
a large portion of the paper demand of the world, the outr

262

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

come will be a blessing not to be measured in the dollars
which may accrue to those who have stood the risks and
costs of this quest.

The view from the deck of a steamship traversing Nipe
Bay is of surpassing interest to one who is familiar with the
history of this beautiful part of Cuba. It was my privilege
to sail these waters nearly twenty years ago. At that time
there was hardly a sign of life or industry along these shores.
Where the modern and progressive town of Preston now
stands our party camped one night not far from where the

Type of residence in Preston, Cuba

huge sugar mill now shakes the very earth with the shock of
its machinery. In every direction were the swamps and
jungles, a seemingly worthless wilderness and one reserved
for all time for those like us who were on an adventurous
hunting and fishing jaunt.

To-day one looks out from the deck of a ship and sees to
the south an unbroken line of deep and velvety green, darker
in spots where the cloud shadows drift from fleecy sky-ships
overhead. This ocean of growing sugar cane extends east
and west as far as the eye can reach. Its vast carpet of
verdure undulates back into the lower foothills of a range of

THE SUGAR BOWL OF CUBA 263

purple mountains — the mountains within whose depths
were discovered the greatest iron ore deposits which ever
rewarded the search of American prospectors, and which
have a verified capacity capable of supplying the world with
iron and steel for one hundred years!

As we sail out past Saetia, with its white houses almost
lapped by the swell which heaves in from the Atlantic, we
take one parting glimpse of Loma Cristal — the mother peak
which overlooks these valleys and Santiago as well — and the
jutting hills gradually draw their curtains of tropical verdure
across the distant carpets of cane; we pass a steamer hurry-
ing in to collect the day's sweet output of Central Preston,
we exchange salutes, our prow rises to meet the thrust of a
roller which has circled a hundred miles through the Bahamas,
and we pass the lighthouse and set a course for climes where
trees are laden with snow and not with orchids flaming
from a lacework of Spanish moss.

CHAPTER XIV
Health Conquest of the Tropics

|HE first record of a great sanitary
triumph which has been handed
down by legend makes the
mighty Hercules the hero. One
of the labors imposed on him
was to clean the stables of
Augeas, King of Elias, which
feat the mythological hero of
the ancient Greeks easily ac-
complished in a day by chang-
ing the course of a river to flow
through the stalls which had
been occupied for years by
3,000 oxen. This was the only
practical and sensible task ever set for this capable giant,
and it has always seemed to me that Hercules should be
made the conventional deity of all who are engaged in mak-
ing this earth clean and sanitary. It is and ever has been
a Herculean task.

It is generally believed and understood that not until the
United States Government assumed full charge and responsi-
bility for the construction of the Panama Canal were the
problems of tropical sanitation attacked and mastered.
Without desiring to detract in any way from the merit
which is due Col. W. C. Gorgas and his staflF and army of
sanitary workers, it must be recognized that the United Fruit
Company and the companies which preceded it in Costa
Rica, Colombia, Cuba, and elsewhere antedated the Panama
Canal Commission in successfully combating tropical dis-'
ease on a large scale.

The mere establishment of the fact that these American
concerns were able to conduct large operations and to find
armies of men ready to continue working on these planta-

264

HEALTH CONQUEST 265

tlons is ample proof of this assertion. If ten men, a hundred
men, or ten thousand men undertake to-day to clear and
cultivate any of the coastal lowlands of Central and tropical
South America, and in doing so use only the precautions
which would be observed in clearing an equal tract in any
part of the United States, most of them will be dead in a
very few years and the others will be incapacitated for
mental or physical work.

The head of the Tulane School of Tropical Medicine of
New Orleans has this to say on the same point:

"The magic touch of tropical sanitation introduced by "7
the United Fruit Company has transformed this deadly ^
climate into a habitable zone. The vast improvements f
there do the genius of American medical men a credit that
only future ages will appreciate. Every one knows what
great sanitary work the American Government has accom-
plished on the Canal Zone, but few realize that a similar
improvement has been worked in the rich fruit centres of
every country to the south of us, and that the United Fruit
Company is entitled to the credit for this great achievement." '

The United States did not take over the Panama Canal
and establish and begin the work of the sanitation of its
Zone until 1903. In 1900, three years prior to this event,
the United Fruit Company had an industrial army of more
than 15,000 men at work on cultivated tracts covering more
than 60,000 acres of normally disease-breeding coastal lands
in Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Jamaica, San Domingo,
and Colombia. Had there been any high degree of mor-
tality in this army of men, there would have gone up a
cry of indignation from all of the civilized world against a
corporation which was willing to sacrifice lives in order to
derive profits from bananas and other tropical fruits. But
no such cry went up, and the plain and sufficient reason was
that the United Fruit Company had already mastered and
applied the basic principles of the system which later made
possible the completion of the Panama Canal without awful
sacrifice of life.

266

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

When Colonel Gorgas began his work of cleaning up the
Canal Zone, in 1904, the United Fruit Company owned or
leased 324,889 acres of tropical lands and had nearly 20,000
men on its pay-rolls. The company thus had a total acreage

Conditions before United Fruit Company began its sanitary-
work in Guatemala

of 500 square miles, over all of which it exercised sanitary
precautions, and this 500 square miles was in excess of the
area included in the Panama Canal Zone,

But Colonel Gorgas and his assistants had to meet a

HEALTH CONQUEST 267

problem not so much in evidence with the United Fruit
Company. Colon and Panama City were old and established
cities with fixed prejudices against the Americano with his
strange nonsense about mosquitoes and open sewage. Their
inhabitants had been bitten so many years by disappointed
stegomyia and anophelince that they were fairly immune
from yellow fever and malaria, and they resented all at-
tempts to eradicate the pests responsible for these and other
diseases. True, the United Fruit Company was handi-
capped by contact with such unsanitary towns as Santa
Marta, Bocas del Toro, Banes, and a few smaller towns, and
it had the more severe handicap that it did not possess the
legal authority vested in the Canal Commission enabling
it to enforce sanitation, but as a rule the towns grew with
the growth of this great private enterprise, and the heads
of the company had the foresight to install and execute
health protective methods.

Deadly as was the Canal Zone when the French conducted
their ill-fated attempt to connect the two oceans, Costa
Rica was worse when Minor C. Keith dared its jungles and
was helpless to prevent the death of 4,000 men in the con-
struction of the first twenty-five miles of his railroad. He
was young then, but the bitter experience which cost the
lives of three of his brothers taught the grim lesson that more
than mere courage and physical stamina were required in
the conquest of the tropics.

The natives of these countries were practically immune
from diseases contracted by and often fatal to outsiders, but
the natives would not work on plantations, and most of them
still have an unconquerable aversion to sustained physical toil.
The reason is not far to seek. The mosquitoes, the hookworm,
and other insects and parasites fond of human flesh have so
inoculated them with their virus that they have neither the
ambition nor the strength to compete with workers not thus
aflBicted. It is entirely possible that a generation of Central
American natives of the laboring class might, if forced or
persuaded to conform to modern sanitary science, surprise
the world by displaying none of the laziness inherent in thosd
who now inhabit mosquito-riddeiTsections.

268 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

But the laziness and physical inability of these natives
compelled Mr. Preston and Mr. Keith and their assistants
to seek for labor in other lands, and the Jamaica negro
responded. He was not immune from Central American
pests or from the miasmal emanations from undrained
swamps and fetid lagoons and jungles. His life had to be
protected and his energy conserved, and the men who em-
ployed these negroes were faced with the responsibility of
doing this.

It was impossible to call on American experts on tropical
sanitation, for the good and more than sufficient reason that
there was none. We knew nothing about the tropics at
our gates, commercially, medically, or otherwise. The cul-
tured people of Central America knew nothing about the
sanitary problems of their lowlands, for the good and ample
reason that they did not deem them a fit place in which to
live, and they kept as far away from them as possible. Mr.
Preston and Mr. Keith had no expert medical knowledge
on the tropics, but both knew that the Asiatic tropics had
the general characteristics of the ignored American tropics.

Scientists and physicians with experience in Java, India,
the tropical sections of Africa, and elsewhere responded to
the call to assist American enterprise in this pioneer indus-
trial invasion of the tropics. It was this paucity of our
knowledge concerning tropical diseases which impelled the
United Fruit Company to suggest and later to give sub-
stantial financial assistance to the founding of a department
in Tulane University for the exclusive study and investiga-
tion of maladies peculiar to the coastal regions of the Carib-
bean, and much of the advancement since accomplished
has been due to the discoveries made and the remedies ap-
plied by those sent out by this university.

Almost from the very beginning the development of these
great fruit plantations was carried forward under health
conditions far superior to those which the Jamaican negroes
had left in their native island. In the selection of sites for
new towns and settlements careful attention was given to
the requirements of drainage. All adjacent swamps were
cleared, and the grass and underbrush kept cut about the

a
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270 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

\houses. The laborers were verbally instructed how to take

precautions against the known dangers of these districts,

knd the medical employees of the company made regular

Inspections of their places of living and enforced strictly

/the basic regulations of sanitation. Hospitals were erected

/and prompt measures taken to isolate any victim of con-

\ tagious disease. Strict quarantine was enforced against

I unsafe foreign ports, the various governments cooperating

with the fruit companies in this important detail.

In the former swamps and jungles of Costa Rica, Mr.
Keith was conducting extensive banana cultivations during
most of the years when the French were attempting to
build the Panama Canal. With an average working force
of 10,200 men the French lost 22,189 i^ ^^^ ^i^^ years
inclusive of 1 881- 1889, with an annual death-rate which,
according to Colonel Gorgas, reached the astounding figure
of 240 a year out of each 1,000, or nearly one death a year
to each four employed in this region of terror.

Nothing of this kind took place in the banana plantations
of Costa Rica. While the health conditions did not begin
to compare with those of to-day, they were fully as good as
those which prevailed in Jamaica and other established
centres of tropical population. There was more or less
malaria, but no epidemics of yellow fever, cholera, small-pox,
and other contagious diseases were permitted to obtain a foot-
hold and decimate the workers on the banana plantations.
Fairly accurate statistics indicate that the death-rate in these
banana communities was less than 50, or about one fifth of
that which cursed and disgraced the Panama Canal region.

As a matter of fact, the death-rate in the banana pro-
ducing sections of Costa Rica, Cuba, San Domingo, and
other districts operated by Mr. Keith and the Boston Fruit
Company was decidedly less than that which existed in
Havana, Santiago, and Vera Cruz, the three larger cities
in the American tropics. And this worthy result was at-
tained prior to the organization of the United Fruit Com-
pany, but the credit belongs to Mr. Preston, Mr. Keith,
and others who laid the broad foundations for the present
corporate leader in the banana industry.

272 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

It was in 1898 that medical science positively established
the fact that yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of the
stegomyia mosquito. It was already a generally accepted
fact that the anophelincE mosquito was the pest responsible
for the spread of malaria, and the medical heads of the
banana companies mentioned were prompt to take syste-
matic advantage of these important discoveries. The effi-
ciency of the use of petroleum as a thin covering of stagnant ,
water was proved at about the same time.

The United Fruit Company was organized in 1899, or
just about the time that experiments and study had solved
the deeper mysteries surrounding the deadly character of
tropical lowlands. This company had a more direct interest
in availing itself of these discoveries than any other private
enterprise. The United States Government was deeply
concerned in the eradication of yellow fever in Havana and
other parts of Cuba, for the reason that New Orleans,
Mobile, and other Gulf ports were menaced by the contagion
which came from commercial contact, but our Government
was not then much interested in the health of the Isthmus
of Panama.

The sanitary work and the experiments conducted by the
pioneer banana companies in Costa Rica and elsewhere in
the years between 1873 and 1899 were invaluable in aiding
those medical scientists who were finally able to announce
to the world that the mysteries of yellow fever and malaria
had been solved.

On the organization of the United Fruit Company prompt
steps were taken to enlarge the scope and efficiency of its
medical department. In every section of its activities
relentless war was declared on the mosquito. The use of
copper wire gauze had already been made, but one of the
first steps was to insure that all houses used by employees
not immune to mosquito bites should be screened, and, in
some cases, double screened. Petroleum was used unspar-
ingly in stagnant pools and slow-running streams. Large
sums were expended in drainage and in all of the proved
expedients for eliminating tropical menaces to health.

It was not until March i, 1904, that Colonel Gorgas was

HEALTH CONQUEST 273

called to the Isthmus, after having completed his wonderful
work of redeeming Havana as a plague spot. The United
Fruit Company had then been applying for fully four years
the sanitary methods developed in Cuba by Colonel Gorgas
and others. But the problems of Havana were far different
from those presented by the jungles of Costa Rica and
Panama, and the records undisputably show that the United
Fruit Company was the first to apply to the Central Ameri-
can coast lands important features of the system later
perfected by Colonel Gorgas along the Canal Zone. Proper
credit has not been awarded to this progressive private
corporation for its pioneer work in tropical sanitation. The
fact that it has not asked for it is no reason why it should
be withheld.

From the time that Colonel Gorgas began his crusade
in Panama there has been hearty cooperation between the
medical staff of the United States Government and that
directed by the United Fruit Company. The members of the
latter have been in a position to take immediate advantage
of all details of proved efficiency in producing the desired
health results.

During all the years of rigid quarantine maintained by
the United States in favor of the Isthmus against tropical
ports, it has rarely happened that such restrictions have
been enforced against the Central American harbors from
which sail the ships of the United Fruit Company.

GUATEMALA

Beginning with Guatemala on the north, I will briefly
sketch the nature and progress of the work conducted by
the medical department of the United Fruit Company.

There are three classes of laborers in the Guatemala
Division: the West Indian negro, the Carib, and the Cen-
tral American natives. The Carib Indians are the best
workers. They are strong and well-nourished men, keep
excellent health, and are cleanly in their habits. These
exceptional Indians rarely appear in hospitals except as the
result of accidents.

The West Indian negroes are mainly from Jamaica, and

274 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

most of them readily conform to sanitary regulations, with
resultant good health. The native laborers are poorly
nourished and have very little disease-resisting power.
They drink large quantities of vile native rum and are
quarrelsome and vicious under its influence. They are
dirty in their habits and fall an easy prey to malaria. Much
progress, however, has been made with this class, and the
cooperation of the Government in suppressing the sale of
alcoholic liquors would be a blessing.

Guatemala is a comparatively new division and has had
the benefit of what has been learned from others. The
camps for laborers, the houses for the white employees and
officials, and all of the structures erected have carefully been
constructed with the safeguarding of health in view. The
miserable native shacks in Puerto Barrios and elsewhere
have been done away with. In their places have been built
neat wooden houses raised from the ground and set on con-
crete pillars to a height of from five to six feet.

All low-lying, pest-breeding places about Puerto Barrios
have been filled in or flushed with salt water, and all danger
spots above high tide have been drained. The camps out

, on the plantations have been located on high ground, and
every effort has been made to insure perfect drainage. All
grass and other vegetation is kept low for 150 yards about
these camps, and no garbage, bottles, tin cans, etc., are per-
mitted about the houses. The water supply throughout the
district is rain water, which flows' from the zmc Toofs of the
houses into tanks which are thoroughly screened and

Mosquito-proof. All surface water is oiled at stated periods.

"^ In order to make Puerto Barrios not only perfectly sani-
tary, but attractive as well, the company has under way
extensive improvements. Puerto Barrios is a native town
of about 3,000 population, and is the only Central American
port in which the company is interested that is not properly
safeguarded. It is proposed to pump sand in from the sea
and raise the level of the town eight or ten feet. A new
hotel and office building will follow, and it is expected that
the Government of Guatemala will cooperate in redeeming
the town.

276 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

The medical headquarters of this district are at Quirigua,
whose picturesque ruins have been described. Here are
administrative offices; railroad yards, machine shops, elec-
tric light and ice plants, all grouped in a busy hive of Ameri-
can efficiency.

On a hill to the north of the railroad stands the recently
completed hospital, a splendid monument to the care and
foresight of those who have accepted the task of stamping
out tropical diseases. This steel and concrete structure has
been erected and equipped at a cost exceeding ^100,000, and
i. th/s finest institution of its kind between New Orleans
and the progressive capitals of South America. As a purely
tropical hospital it is to be doubted if its equal exists in the
.world, and it is interesting to reflect that it was projected
and executed by private capital and is a part of a great
private enterprise.

This structure is 340 feet long and has two connecting
wings. It has standard accommodations for 150 patients,
with reserve for fully 100 more. There is an administrative
building, with quarters on its upper floors for a staff of
doctors. There are public and private wards, laboratories,
convalescent quarters, bathrooms of various kinds, and all of
the conveniences which modern medical science can suggest.
A large single building is devoted entirely to surgery. There
is also a separate service building containing a modern kitchen,
bakery, cold storage plant, laundry, and other accessories.

The whole structure is designed as a unit, and all of its
parts are connected by screened corridors, so that attendants
may pass from one building to another without possibility
of permitting the ingress of mosquitoes and other insects.
Powerful elevators are provided, and the heat, light, and
power all are generated from a central plant.

Here is the capitol of a medical empire which reaches out
more than sixty miles, and has as its subjects 6,000 em-
ployees and an extra population exceeding 10,000 people
dependent on the skill and vigilance of its executives. At
night its electric lights illumine a district which only a few
years ago was deserted and dark save for the glow of fire-
flies and the phosphorescence of fallen and rotting trees.

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278 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Dispensaries and sick-camps are scattered throughout the
district. This field work is an important part of the medical
service in all of the divisions in which the United Fruit Com-
pany operates, and a description of the one in Guatemala
will serve for Costa Rica and all others.

The Guatemala Division is portioned into conveniently-
worked districts, and a dispenser is stationed in each. All
of these dispensers are pharmacists and are well qualified to
treat minor surgical and simple medical cases, and are able
^o determine when a laborer is so ill as to require hospital
attention. Each camp is visited by a dispenser at least
every other day, and at times he makes daily calls and a
house-to-house inspection. All cases of dysentery are
immediately sent to the hospital. The medical superin-
tendent and his assistant make frequent trips to all of the
dispensaries and inspect the camps at short intervals.

This system of camp patrol is effective in insuring that
sick laborers receive prompt treatment, whether they call
for it or not. Before the company assumed responsibility
for their medical care the average native would not go to a
hospital voluntarily until in the last stages of some dangerous
malady.

The efficacy of the medical supervision of the Guatemala
banana districts is eloquently shown by results, which
indicate that out of the 1,634 hospital cases during 1913 only
42 died, a remarkably low rate of 2.57 per cent. The dis-
pensary and sick-camp services treated 14,745 cases.

Not a case of quarantinable disease appeared in Puerto
Barrios or in any port in which the United Fruit Company
operated during 191 3, nor did any case appear on any one
of the ninety or more ships which §ale^ under its flag.

This happy result was attained despite the fact that
plague entered western Cuba, Porto Rico, Venezuela, Ecua-
dor, and even the Canal Zone. There were outbreaks of
yellow fever in the Canal Zone, Venezuela, and Trinidad,
and Mexico was infected with small-pox and other highly
contagious diseases, but the medical department of the
United Fruit Company ended the year with a clean record.
This was not an exceptional feat. It has been duplicated

HEALTH CONQUEST 279

in other years, and here is the absolute proof that it is
thoroughly practical to accomplish the complete eradication
of such diseases on both sides of the Canal Zone.

SPANISH HONDURAS

It was not until 191 3 that the United Fruit Company
began the planting of bananas on a large scale in Honduras.
This country has been a large producer of this fruit for years,
but most of it is grown by the natives, the various importing
companies bidding for this product.

When the United Fruit Company decided to make the
attempt to become a banana producer in Honduras it
acquired a tract of land bounded by the Colorado River to
the east and the Ullola River to the west, and extending
back into the foothills of the Montanas de Poco (the Little
Mountains). This tract lies between Puerto Cortez and
Ceiba, the present shipping points of the 8,000,000 or more
bunches of bananas exported annually. The port of the
new district is Tela (pronounced as if it were "Tailer"), a
town of 2,000 inhabitants. The coast area also includes
Colorado village, a town at the mouth of the river of that
name.

Tela has a fine location both from a commercial and sani-
tary consideration. There is deep water and good harbor
possibilities. The town lies well above the Caribbean, has
natural drainage and an easily available water supply. It
is open to the direct winds which'^ver sweep in from the sea,
and has many other advantages as administrative and
medical headquarters. The Tela River divides the town
into two parts. The Government of Honduras has granted
the company certain exclusive rights on the west side of the
river, and here are its railroad yards, shops, office structures,
hospital, and other buildings.

Here was a chance to illustrate on a large scale what
modern scientific sanitation can accomplish in what is
practically a virgin tropical wilderness. The location of
these plantations is in what even the most hardened natives
have denounced as a pest-hole and an impossible agricultural
proposition. There are prosperous banana holdings to the

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HEALTH CONQUEST 281

east and west of it, but these growers would not accept this
land as a gift. What has happened?

In a period of less than a year the planting of 50,000 acres
of bananas is well under way, the building of 250 miles of
railroad is being rapidly pushed, temporary piers have been
constructed, and the office and other structures completed
— and the health of the thousands of men employed is as
good as that of the average farming community in the United
States. Not only has the health of these employees been
preserved, but that of the surrounding community as well.
How was this miracle accomplished.^

The medical staff were sent out ahead and placed on the
firing line. They pushed into th^ wilderness with forts
of mosquito-proof houses. They tested the soils and the
water, and applied remedies whose worth had been proved
by years of experience. It was not necessary to create a new
corps of medical experts, doctors, dispensers, and nurses.
These were drafted from the older divisions, and there
descended on the swamps and jungles of Spanish Honduras
a battalion of veterans before whom the mosquito and his
breed of diseases had no more chance than had the breath
of the Arctic frozen these coasts.

This is how the tropics are being conquered. This is War,
and it is Magnificent! It has all the dash, the brilliancy,
the courage, the organization, the discipline, the generalship
and the strategy of war, and it has its heroes, dead and
living. And it is a fight to create and not to destroy. Man
will not have accomplished his mission on earth so long as
a pestilential swamp remains -to menace his fellows, and
those who work to transform swamps and jungles into food-
producing gardens have not lived in vain.

COSTA RICA

This is the oldest and largest of all of the great divisions
operated by the company, and sanitary improvement has kept
pace with agricultural and mechanical progress. The Republic
of Costa Rica long since relieved the company of responsibility
for the health of Puerto Limon, but the government does not
extend its work to the outlying plantations.

282 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

It therefore devolves on the United Fruit Company to
give sanitary attention to a population of about 11,500, of
whom 5,2QO are on its pay-rolls. This is the size of a popu-
lous town in the United States, but it must be considered
that these plantation workers are scattered over tracts con-
taining nearly 250,000 acres, or, 390 square miles, and this is
more than the combined municipal areas of Chicago, Phila-
delphia, Boston, and Omaha.

The conipany has constructed and maintains a chain
of hospitals, dispensaries, and sick-camps extending from
Puerto Limon to San Jose, and the work of the medical de-
partment has resulted in health conditions which would be
considered normal in most parts of the United States. The
hospital in Puerto Limon is second only to the newly com-
pleted one in Quirigua, and it has the marked advantage of
a site on the seashore. The records handed down by the
pirate Morgan and his men prove that the place where the
hospital now stands was one of their favorite haunts. The
grounds are guarded from the sea by a massive wall which
swings in a deep crescent from the hospital to the gem of a
park on .the water front of the town. Parallel rows of
graceful and nodding cocoa palms follow for miles the inden-
tations of the coast. In the ocean foreground are islands
which rise sheer out of the water, their precipices meeting
the unceasing brunt of the swell, and their crests bedizened
with tropical foliage. A more ideal and poetic location for
a hospital could not be imagined.

The Puerto Limon hospital has accommodations for 175

patients, and its service and comforts are not excelled by

any in; the tropics. The company generously accepts many

charity patients from Puerto Limon and thus renders

effective cooperation with the local health authorities.

\ There is nothing pretentious about the scores of camps

I where the workers live, but they are clean, neat, and sani-

Itary. All of the houses are raised from the ground and

/rest on concrete pillars. The average Central American

/ native lives in bamboo huts with dirt floors which become

/ areas of mud in the many severe storms. Well-constructed

\ wooden houses have taken the place of these, and each

284 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

family has a garden plot which they are encouraged to
cultivate. A nominal rent is charged for these houses, and
the sole restriction imposed on these thousands of tenants
is that they are compelled to obey the orders of the medical
inspectors who make regular and frequent visits. /

In what sort of camps do our home American workmen
live.^ Did the reader ever make a visit to a railroad construc-
tion camp and investigate its " sanitary " provisions ? Despite
the fact that all of the natural conditions usually are favor-
able to health, it is the rule that such camps are constructed
and maintained as pest-holes, and that naturally strong men
sicken and die because the contractors have not the decency
or intelligence to safeguard the health and strength of the
men on their pay-rolls. And the local or state health
authorities usually do nothing to compel obedience to the
laws of health or of humanity.

The laboring camps in our lumbering districts have been
a menace and a disgrace for years, and this scandal has
grown to such proportions that congressional action is de-
manded. Here are thousands of men working in the cold,
bracing, and healthful air of pine forests, yet the disregard
of the simple precautions against disease is so flagrant that
hundreds die annually without forcing their employers to
take steps to obliterate the criminal conditions responsible
for this loss of life.

Contrast this sad condition of affairs in the United States
and under its laws with what has been accomplished by an
American corporation voluntarily in the tropics. The
United Fruit Company has proved its solicitude for the
lives and the health of the negroes and Indians who work
for them in lands far removed from the jurisdiction of the
laws of the United States. There are too many individuals
and corporations in the United States that seem to care
little whether their American workmen live amid sanitary
conditions or not. The negro worker on a Costa Rican
banana plantation would be appalled if forced to endure
the squalor of a railroad or lumber camp of the average
type in these United States.

Dr. G. C. Chandler, a well-known health authority of

HEALTH CONQUEST 285

Louisiana, made this public statement after a recent visit
to the tropics:

"The United Fruit Company realizes that its employees
are producers of wealth, and that good health is necessary
to enable them to work to the best advantage. Acting on this
broad view, the company spends hundreds of thousands of
dollars annually to preserve the health of its employees.
Everything is done in a business way. A record is kept of
every square yard of weeds cut, of ponds filled or oiled, /
garbage removed, and cases of illness, as well a record of
deaths and their causes.

"In the Bocas del Toro division there are 300 whites and
5,700 negroes employed, and the death-rate is 7.5 per cent
per thousand. A novel and effective method for the ad-
vancement of sanitation used by the United Fruit Company
is to build churches and furnish preachers for the negro
laborers, with the understanding that they are to preach
health and sanitation as well as salvation. /

"The marvels accomplished in this tropical section in
the way of good health make it a crime for a city or com-
munity not to be sanitary, and the cost for sanitary con-
veniences is so small that no excuse should be accepted.
It should be the first detail looked after, for it means so
much to every man, woman, and child."

The illustration which appears on the following page, and
others contained in these chapters, give a hint of the beauty
and tropical comfort of the residences owned or leased by
the field officials and other white employees of the company.
But no photograph can give an impress of the charm of color
and of light and shadow which delights the visitor to these
parks cut out from a forest of banana trees. The winding
walks lead between masses of flowers and brilliantly colored
foliage plants which would make the fortune of a New York
florist. Royal palms send their smooth trunks up to the
bronze-green stem from which bursts a glorious spray of
drooping fronds. I have never quite forgiven Mark Twain
for his humorous description of a palm when he wrote that

HEALTH CONQUEST 287

it was "Nature's imitation of an umbrella that has been out
to see what a cyclone is like, and is trying not to look dis-
appointed.'^ This may be a just description of a dusty and
bedraggled India palm, but it is a gross libel on the magnifi-
cent trees of which one never tires in our American tropics.

The houses in these parks could well be copied by those
who believe that one should live as much as possible in the
open air. Some of them are completely surrounded by /
broad porches carefully screened in copper wire gauze.
Connecting with these screened porches are wide halls which
meet in the centre, thus cutting the floor space into four
parts and insuring a constant flow of pure air to the four
sides of all of these sections. These halls form the reception-
and living-rooms, and meals are served at the juncture of
the broad and intersecting halls, the guests looking out
in all directions on vistas of tropical perfection. Sleeping
apartments are provided with other screens, thus affording
protection against the insect which may have come in
through an opened door. This system of double screening
has fully proved its health efficiency.

Residences built on this and other attractive models are
to be found by the hundreds in all of the countries in which
the United Fruit Company operates. They are a pleasing
combination of tropical architecture and sanitary perfec-
tion, and would serve as well for summer use in the United
States as they do all of the year in Costa Rica and other
southern latitudes.

REPUBLIC OF PANAMA

The banana-growing districts adjacent to Bocas del Toro
and Almirante, in the Republic of Panama, offered to the
United Fruit Company the most difficult and stubborn of
its sanitary problems, but it has won a triumph which is
the more satisfactory because of the seemingly insurmount-
able handicaps interposed.

It was not until 1903 that the company began the active
work of clearing a large tract of land for banana cultivation.
Prior to this various planters had developed banana prop-
erties along the shores of the Chlriqui Lagoon and else-

-o
6

.S
*5

o
>-•

290 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

where. These planters knew little and seemed to care
little about sanitary precautions, and the result was a
death-rate which must have mounted to lo per cent or
more annually, or lOO out of i,ooo, instead of the fraction
of this which is now obtained.

The United Fruit Company did not then possess a large
and fully trained and equipped medical corps, and it could
not apply the precautionary measures on the start, as has
recently been done in the case of opening Spanish Honduras
up to banana cultivation on a large scale. The vital impor-
tance of sanitation as a preliminary to attacking a tropical
,Wlderness was not then fully realized, and the field men
and their workers plunged in first, and the medical depart-
ment followed the best it could. As a result, the deadly
swamps and jungles demanded and obtained their toll, and
in the grim list of those who fell were many young Americans
who were careless in the face of unseen but relentless foes.
(K'Th^n all the energy and strategy of medical science were
waged against these menaces to health and life. Screened
houses took the place of tents and huts. Rigid sanitary
iiiles were established and pternly enforced. Hospitals
and dispensaries were erected and manned with capable
physicians. A systematic campaign was conducted against
the mosquito, and the result of this and other steps was a
rapid drop im the sick and death-rate to one approximately
normal.

In this initial and disastrous attack against the Panama
wilderness the invaders were smitten with yellow fever,
acute forms of malaria, and all the deadly tropical dis-
eases. There has not been a case of yellow fever in this
district for six years. When the work of sanitation was
begun not less than 80 per cent of the men were on the sick
roll some time during the year. This has now fallen to
normal.

The native town of Bocas del Toro required drastic
treatment. It lay on low and frequently flooded land, with
many of the huts on rotting posts, and the sanitary con-
ditions wretched beyond description. It was decided to
raise the level of the town several feet, and this was accom-

HEALTH CONQUEST

291

i I

plished by pumping sand in from the bay, the same method/
which was employed in Galveston after a hurricane had/
driven the sea over the low beaches. From an ugly pest-l
hole, Bocas del Toro was transformed to one of the most\
healthful and attractive of tropical cities.
The present centre of activity is Almirante, a town and

HOW BOCAS DEL TORO WAS RECLAIMED

Sand was pumped in by the same process used in Galveston

after its hurricane

harbor at the head of the bay of that name. This also is on
low land, and the company at great expense has constructed
a sea wall and raised the land level by the sand-pumping
process. A fine new hospital will be erected here to take
the place of the beautifully situated but inadequate one on
Nances Cay Island, which was described in a preceding

292 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

chapter. The Republic of Panama supervises the sanita-
tion of Bocas del Toro and Almirante, but most of the
expense is assumed by the company. About 6,500 em-
ployees receive medical attention and are conforming to the
rules of sanitation in force here and in all other divisions,
and the total population dependent on the company for
medical service is about 11,500, or nearly that of Costa Rica.
It has been possible to educate the laborer to know that
his condition is vastly improved by obeying the rules in-
tended to protect his health. He now fully recognizes that
the bite of the mosquito is a serious matter and he needs
little urging to assist in wiping out this pest. The company
has provided churches and schools, and this has helped to
secure a better class of labor. With a steady and well-
paid job, a house and a garden, chickens and other fowls,
the Jamaican negro is as happy and contented and much
better off than on his native island.

COLOMBIA

The health conditions on the great irrigated plantation
back of Santa Marta are as good as those of the other dis-
tricts, but the old cities of Santa Marta and La Cienega
offer a serious health problem, and one which cannot be
completely solved without the cooperation of the Colombian
Government. Santa Marta has a population of 8,000 and
La Cienega about 15,000. While the sanitary conditions
are better than in many South American ports, they leave
much to be desired, but work is in progress which will bring
them up to the high standard of the other cities visited by J
the ships of the United Fruit Company. ^

A large hospital, which Is practically a duplication of the
splendid one erected in Quirigua, Guatemala, is now under
construction in Santa Marta, and with this as headquarters
the medical department will supervise its line of smaller
hospitals, sick-camps and dispensaries which cover the en-
tire district. The native labor conforms readily to sanitary j
regulations and the death-rate is normal.

Rio Frio, a town of 3,000 inhabitants, Sevilla with 2,500,
Aracataca with 3,000, and Fundacion and Buenos Aires

294 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

with 1,000 each, are scattered through this vast banana
district, and all of these towns enjoy good sanitary con-
ditions.' Well-equipped hospitals are maintained in all of
them, and the inhabitants make a sincere effort to cooperate
with the medical department of the company.

CUBA

The Government of Cuba has the official supervision of
sanitation in the Nipe Bay section, but the United Fruit
Company provides medical attention for all of its employees
and most of those who live in Banes, Preston, and else-
where. The company maintains hospitals in Saetia, Pres-
ton, and Banes. Sanitary and protective measures are
energetically promoted and the general conditions of health
are as good as in the United States.

The medical department of the Nipe Bay Company has
headquarters in Preston, and the hospital service, sanitation
and health measures are entirely under its supervision. This
service extends to the 5,000 inhabitants of Preston and to a
total population in this district of more than 12,000.

The medical supervision of Banes and its surroundings
is a model of efficiency. Banes is divided into two parts,
one of which consists of the municipality of Banes, under
the jurisdiction of the Cuban Government, while the other
section is devoted to the use of the several thousand em-
ployees of the United Fruit Company. Here are the homes
of the local officials of the company, hotels, neat cottages
for the laborers, parks, tennis and baseball grounds, a
well-kept polo field, and other places of recreation. There
is keen athletic rivalry between Preston and Banes. Both
have polo teams and fine strings of ponies, and thousands
witness the tournaments and cheer for their respective
champions.

Here also is the excellent Banes hospital, a modern struc-
ture and efficiently conducted. From it radiate a compre-
hensive system of smaller hospitals and dispensaries which
serve a population exceeding 15,000.

The extent of the operations of the medical department

HEALTH CONQUEST 295

of the United Fruit Company is indicated in the last annual
report of its medical department. In 1913, 10,383 patients
were admitted to the hospitals, and the deaths from all
causes were 306, a proportion difficult to duplicate in any
part of the world. The dispensaries treated 53,082
patients, and the total number receiving attention was
63,465. The number of employees on the pay-roll receiv-
ing treatment was 25,121, and 17,515 persons not in any
way connected with the company were given hospital or
some sort of medical attention.

The company has ^240,166 invested in hospitals. Each
employee pays a small sum per month for medical service,
but this is not sufficient to meet the expenses and there is
always a considerable annual loss which the company is
glad to meet. It is to be doubted if any private enterprise
in the world has originated or maintains any service ap-
proaching that under the direction of the United Fruit
Company.

The sanitary work and discoveries of the United Fruit
Company constitute a notable contribution to medical
science. At a sacrifice of money and of human lives the
means have been found to safeguard the health and lives of
those who care to go to the American tropics to partici-
pate in the development of its hardly touched resources, or
to assist in building up new and important markets for the
products of their own country.

CHAPTER XV
An International Tropical Farm

HE United Fruit Company is
immeasurably the greatest
agricultural enterprise of
which we have any record.
There are individuals and cor-
porations owning a greater
acreage, but none approaches
it in the extent of cultivated
tracts or in the market value
of output. It is a fact worth
noting that this has been ac-
complished by American citi-
zens operating in virgin fields
in widely scattered foreign
countries. In this work the United Fruit Company has had
no advantage of subsidies or special 'favours of any kind.

The annual report for 191 3, as submitted by Andrew W.
Preston, president of the company, places its improved
land holdings at 271,737 acres, its unimproved lands at
810,917, making a total of 1,082,654 acres owned or
leased by the company. This does not include the sugar
lands belonging to the Saetia Sugar Company and the Njpe
Bay Company in Cuba. All of the stock of the former iJDe-
longs to the United Fruit Company, and all save a small por-
tion of the stock of the Nipe Bay Company which carries the
voting privilege has been purchased by it as an investment.
It is therefore proper to include these land holdings in the
total owned and operated by the United Fruit Company.

Including Nipe Bay and Saetia, the company owns or
leases 1,210,443 acres of land, of which 313,347 are improved
and 897,096 are unimproved. The distribution of these
lands as compared with its holding when the United Fruit
Company was organized is shown in the following table:

296

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM

297

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF LANDS OWNED AND

LEASED BY THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY ON

SEPTEMBER 30, 1900 AND 1913

ACRES OF LAND OWNED BY THE COMPANY

LOCATION

IMPROVED

UNIMPROVED

TOTAL

1900 I9I3

1900

I9I3

1900

1913

Colombia

13,035

32,826

49,177

13,035

82,003

Costa Rica

18,810

65,081

70,382

184,698

89,192

249,779

Cuba

17,183

106,186

43,147

149,073

60,330

255,259

Honduras

500

10,362

300

38,391

800

48,753

Jamaica

8,235

17,329

20,802

17,487

29,037

34,816

San Domingo

3,500

16,500

20,000

Guatemala

^8,2^3

97,956

126,189

Nicaragua

193,000

Panama

38,906

70,290

109,196

Total

61,263

298,923

151,131

800,072

212,394

1,098,995

ACRES

OF LAND

LEASED BY COMPANY

IMPROVED

1900 I9I3

UNIMPROVED
1900 I9I3

TOTAL
1900 I9I3

Costa Rica
Guatemala
Honduras
Jamaica

1,000
4,031

3,321

""2i6

10,887

18,776

2,071
67,392
16,892
10,723

1,000

22,807

5,338
67,392
17,108
21,610

Grand total

5,031
66,294

14,424

313,347

18,776
169,907

97,024
897,096

23,807
236,201

111,448
1,210,443

Jt is difficult to comprehend the vast areas indicated by
th^se figures. Even at its inception the United Fruit Com-
pany was the greatest of known agricultural enterprises.
Th^re were cattle ranches in the United States and Mexico
wh\\ greater acreages, mostly of barren wastes, but no other
concern had 66,000 acres of land under cultivation.

In the short space of thirteen years the company increased
its area of cultivation from 66,294 ^cres to the impressive
total of 313,347, and its total owned and leased lands from
236,201 to the stupendous aggregate of 1,210,443 acres. This
means that its cultivated tracts extended over an area of
almost exactly 500 square miles, and that all of its lands had
an area of 1,891 square miles.

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM

299

This area of 1,891 square miles is 641 square miles more
than the size of Rhode Island, it almost equals the area of
Delaware, and is about one-third of the size of the State of
New Jerse/k It would be about equal to a farm three-
quarters of a, mile wide and extending from New York to
San Francisco. It surpasses the combined area of the fol-
lowing great cities of the United States:

AREA IN
CITIES SQUARE MILES

New York City . . . .326

Chicago 190

Philadelphia 130

New Orleans 192

Boston 43

Washington, D. C. . . . 69

Baltimore 31

Cincinnati 43

Cleveland 45

Detroit 36

St. Louis 61

Indianapolis 31

Milwaukee 23

Minneapolis 53

St. Paul 55

Omaha 24

Pittsburgh 38

Providence 18

Louisville 21

AREA IN

CITIES SQUARE MILES

San Francisco ... . 44

Duluth . .

Denver .

Grand Rapids

Houston .

Kansas City

Mobile .

Scranton

Rochester .

Atlanta .

Columbus, Ohic

)

Dallas . .

Jersey City

Memphis

New Haven

Buffalo . .

Newark .

San Antonio

Total, sq. miles . . . .1,887

It is thus seen that thirty-seven of the more populous
cities of the United States do not cover a territory equal to
the land holdings of the United Fruit Company in the
American tropics. The dwellers in New York, Chicago, and
New Orleans can well comprehend the stupendous extent
of plantations whose areas dwarf their own vast municipal
domains.

Some of this land is unfitted for cultivation of any kind,
but a large percentage of it will later be utilized in an attempt
to keep pace with the rapidly increasing demand for tropical
fruits in the United States and abroad. The following table
gives a clear idea of how the cultivated tracts are distributed
in the different countries and the crops raised on them:

300

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

STATEMENT SHOWING THE LOCATION, ACREAGE, AND CHARACTER
OF CULTIVATIONS ON SEPTEMBER 30, 1913, AND TOTAL FOR 1900

Description

LOCATION AND ACREAGE

Colom-
bia

Costa
Rica

Cuba

Guate-
mala

Hondu-
ras

Ja-
maica

Pan-

ama

Totals

1913

1900

Fruit:
Bananas
Oranges
Pineapples
Sugar Qane

Miscellaneous:
Cocoa nuts
Cocoa
Rubber
Paistures, •
roads, etc.

22,790

47
9,989

47,723

441
66

20,1 IS
68,402

III

694

58,972

123
846

45,440

27,122
I, III

9,037

97
21

1,423

8,767
88

4,112

77
15

15,15;

34.903

1,143

2,860

150,453
834

58,977

4,332

2,554

102

96,095

38,463

315

7,803

1,842
313
307

17,234

Total Acreage

32,826

106,186

28,233

10,578

28,216

38,906

313,347

66,294

The banana and sugar plantations cover a combined area
of 209,430 acres, or 327 square miles. The average western
farm is a quarter of a mile square. It would require 1,309
farms of this size to contain the sugar cane and banana plants
now growing on the United Fruit Company's tropical lands,
most of which have been reclaimed from virgin wildernesses.
This would. make an unbroken farm a quarter of a mile wide
extending from Boston to the Mississippi River. Those
who have motored for weeks over Long Island can obtain
a fair conception of the total land assets of the United Fruit
Company when informed that they would cover all of that
island, spanning the 112 miles from Brooklyn to Montauk
Point and from the Sound to the Atlantic, and would over-
lap its shores with 250 square miles of surplus territory.

Those who have travelled up the broad expanse of the
Hudson River from the Battery to Albany, a distance of
about 150 miles, may be interested to know that its surface
is less than one-half that of the banana plantations owned
by the United Fruit Company, to say nothing of the planta-
tions owned by independent banana growers who sell their
fruit to the company.

802

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Enormous as are these banana cultivations of the United
Fruit Company, they are less than 29 per cent of those now
being operated in the tropics. Against the 150,000 acres
of banana plantations owned by the company are about
370,000 acres owned by its competitors and independent
growers who sell to the various importing concerns. The
United Fruit Company is simply the leading producer and
dealer in this tropical product, but it exercises no control
over the sources of supply or of pricg§ charged to the dealer
or consumer. It has the legitimate trade adv-ajitage of the
chain of banana plantations described in these chapters,
and it has the further advantages of systems of transporta-
tion, communication, distribution, and administration which
have been perfected after years of study and unflagging
determination to reduce this business to a science.

The American farmer who owns a dozen horses and fifty
head of cattle is exceptionally well provided. A further
idea of the magnitude of the operations of the United
Fruit Company can be obtained from the fact that its
plantations contain more than 30,000 head of live stock,
as :fpllows:

CATTLE

Cow$ .

. . 5,261

Bulls . . .

. . 1,506

Oxen ...

■ . 8,099

Steers

. . 3,668

Calves .

. . 3,051

Heifers . .

. . 2,207

Total . .

. . 23,792

HORSES AND MULES

Stallions 224

Mares 505

Geldings I,I99

Colts 271

Mules 4,388

Asses 24

6,611

Total head of live stock . 30,403

So far as I can ascertain, the United Fruit Company stands
absolutely without a peer as an industrial exterprise in the
extent of its transportation facilities. This transportation
service has three general divisions, viz: (i) Means of con-
veying the bananas, sugar cane and other products from the
fields to the docks or mills; (2) a fleet of ships to carry
these products to the United States and foreign ports; (3)
improved facilities by which to protect and expedite the

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM

303

transportation of Its fruit products from the ports of entry to
the consuming centres.

In conveying the products from the fields to the docks three/
distinct means of transportation are employed, viz: rail-l
roads, tramways, and animal traction power. Nearly 18,000 1
head of oxen, steers, horses, and mules are thus employed,
and for their upkeep enormous tracts of pasture lands must be
cleared and maintained. The mythological king who thought
to dismay Hercules with the task of cleaning the stables occu-
pied by 3,000 oxen was a puny agriculturist compared with

The Picturesque Plateau of Costa Rica

the concern which finds constant use for more than 30,000
head of live stock, including nearly 12,000 oxen and steers.

Interlacing the banana and sugar-cane plantations owned
by the United Fruit Company are 907 miles of railways and 532
miles of tramways, a total steel trackage of i ,439 miles, all save
a small percentage of which Is the property of the company.
The traction and freight equipment of this private railway and
tramway system consists of 144 locomotives and 4,105 cars.

These are not toy railroads, engines and cars. There has
been expended on them not less than ^25,000,000. The
tracks are well ballasted and the right of way Is kept to a

304

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

high standard of maintenance and repair. Massive steel
bridges span wide rivers and resist the rushing tropical floods.
These roads are equipped with the best of safety devices, and
all parts of the various divisions are connected with telegraph
and telephone systems, also with wireless installation at the
principal operating headquarters. In a word, these rail-
roads are modern and permanent in their construction,
equipment, and administration. This is an imperative re-
quisite. The banana must come from the fields to the docks
at a certain period in its development, and the failure of the
railroad to provide swift and sure transportation means the
absolute loss of a valuable but perishable product.

The use of the tramways has been fully explained in a
former chapter. They help serve to bring the fruit from the
more remote parts of the plantation to the railroad platforms.

When the United Fruit Company had finished its first
fiscal year it had 112 miles of railways, 17 locomotives and
289 cars. Its progress since 1900 is thus shown:

RAILWAYS OWNED OR OPERATED BY THE UNITED FRUIT
COMPANY IN 1913

ROADS OWNED

Location

Miles of Road
Tram-
Railways ways

Equipment
Locomo- Number of Cars
tives Tram-
Railways ways

Colombia
Costa Rica .
Northern R'y Co.
Cuba ...

11.46

91 -54

126.57

183.67

43^96

23.03

16.20

247.40

19
324

28'
13

; 30
3

489

223

1,189
12

72
506

69
606

Guatemala .
Honduras
Jamaica .
Panama .

113

53
17
58
73

273

125

Total owned

743-83

532

117

2,535

1,114

ROADS OPERATED

Costa Rica R'y

163.21

456

....

Total owned and
operated

907.04

532.09

144

2,991

1,114

306 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

There is every reason to believe that the coming ten years
will witness a growth of these railroads which will equal or
surpass that of the last decade. The restoration of peace in
Mexico should insure the speedy completion of the links which
will complete the International Railways of Central America
and thus make it possible to journey by rail from any part
of the United States to Panama City, and, in the near
future, to all of the great commercial centres of South
America.

It is safe to predict that the railways in Guatemala, Hondu-
ras, Costa Rica, and Panama will be extended and become
feeders of a comprehensive system which will open all of
Central America to the development and progress possible
under stable conditions of government. At the present time
these roads are devoted almost entirely to the transportation
of bananas and to the materials used by the United Fruit
Company in the prosecution of its enterprises, but the time
is athand when the innumerable possibilities of these sections
will be embraced by investors from all parts of the world. The
triumphs of sanitation insure that new towns will be founded
along the lines of new railroads, and that the millions who
one day will live and prosper in these redeemed coast lands
will realize that all this was made possible by the American
citizens who were the pioneers in this Conquest of the
Tropics.

These paragraphs may give the reader an idea of what has
been expended in a successful attempt to carry the banana
from its parent stalk to the wharves where await the ships
which convey it to the ports of the United States and of
Europe.

The fleet of the United Fruit Company was established
primarily for the purpose of transporting its products from
the tropics to the markets of their consumption. Prior to
Ithe advent of the enterprises headed by Mr. Preston and Mr.
pCeith there was practically no commerce with Central
/America. As has been explained, there were no harbors and
no railway communication with the populated interiors of
Guatemala, Salvador, Costa Rica, and the western parts of
the Republic of Panama. It therefore followed that the

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM 307

original ships owned or leased by the United Fruit Company
were "fruit boats" in the strict sense of the term. There was
little to attract passenger traffic to the new ports, and the
ships operated by the company had limited accommoda-
tions for those who dared venture such trips.

In these early years nearly all of the ships employed in the
banana trade were chartered from Norwegian or other for-
eign owners, and the largest one in the service of the com-
pany had a tonnage of about 2,000 and a capacity of 35,oocr\
bunches of bananas. The forty-four ships owned or leased/
in the first year of the life of the United Fruit Company had f
accommodations for only 350 passengers, or an average of V^
eight to a ship. The present Great White Fleet has unsur-^
passed accommodations for fully 2,500 passengers, and the /

ships now building will increase this to 3,000 or more. ,

Most significant is the increase in the amount of general --'
freight carried for the public. In its initial year, 1900, the
forty-four small ships of the company carried about 319,000
tons of freight, of which only 51,000 tons, or 16 per cent,
was general freight carried for the public. The remaining
84 per cent consisted of bananas, miscellaneous fruit, and
merchandise belonging to the company and carried for its
account. This insignificant 51,000 tons of freight repre-
sented the commercial possibilities of trade intercourse be-
tween the United States and Central America.

In the short space of twelve years this 51,000 tons has
mounted to 359,686 tons, or an increase of more than yoor
per cent. There is a practical sort of eloquence in those/
figures. They mean that the activities of the United Fruit
Company have opened new and profitable markets to our
manufacturers and to the people of Central America whq
had been shut off from the world of trade.

In the eleven years between 1900 and 191 1 the single port
of New Orleans, according to certified custom-house rec-
ords, increased its exports to British Honduras, Guatemala,
Spanish Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, -
and Cuba from $4,410,139 to $17,909,658, and a large per- /
centage of these manufactured exports were carried in ships \
which bore the flag of the United Fruit Company.

308

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

' Early in its history the company decided that it must
construct ships specially adapted to its purpose. The awak-
ening of Central America stimulated travel, and each
succeeding ship as it came from the builders had added con-
veniences and luxuries for the passenger. The steady and
rapid growth of the Great White Fleet has been narrated.
There are no ships afloat so skilfully designed to meet the
peculiar requirements of tropical cruising. Most of them
look like huge private yachts, and the service and accessories
comport with their appearance.

The broad decks of a ship of the Great White Fleet

Willis J. Abbot, in his entertaining book, "Panama and
the Canal," has this to say concerning this great fleet:

"The United Fruit Company would welcome the oppor-
tunity to transfer their ships to American registry, except
for certain requirements of the navigation laws which make
such change hazardous. Practically all the ownership of
the ships is vested in Americans, and to fly the British flag
is to them an offensive necessity. Chief among the objections
is the clause which would give the United States authority

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM

309

to seize the vessels in time of war. It is quite evident that
this power might be employed to the complete destruction
of the Fruit Company's trade; in fact to its practical extinc-
tion as a business concern. A like power existing in England
or Germany would not be of equal menace to any single
company flying the flag of that nation, for there the govern-
ment's needs could be fully supplied by a proper apportion-
ment of requisitions for ships among the many corporations.
But with the exceedingly restricted merchant marine of the
United States, the danger of the enforcement of this right
would be an ever-present menace.

"It is for this reason that the United Fruit Company
steamers fly the British flag, and the American in Colon may
see, as I did one day, nine great ocean steamers in the port
with only one flying the stars and stripes. The opening of
the canal will not wholly remedy this. In all respects save
the registry of its ships, however, the United Fruit Company
is a thoroughly American concern, and to its operations in the
Caribbean is due much of the good feeling toward the United
States which is observable there. . . . To my mind the
United Fruit Company, next to the Panama Canal, is the
great phenomenon of the Caribbean world to-day. It has
accomplished a creative work, wonderful and romantic."

The following table gives the names and the tonnage of
the ships which now constitute the fleet of the United Fruit
Company:

STATEMENT OF STEAMSHIPS OWNED BY SUBSIDIARY
COMPANIES OF THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

Steamships

Gross

Tonnage

Steamships

Gross Tonnage

Orleanian 2,293

Sixaola 5,oi8

Greenbrier

3»332

Tivives .

5,017

San Jose .

3,296

Pastores .

7,782

Limon

3,298

Tenadores

7,783

Esparta

3,298

Calamares

7,783

Saramacca

3,284

Matina .

3,870

Marowijne

3,192

Miami

3,762

Suriname

3,275

Manistee .

3,869

Coppename

3,192

Nicoya

3,911

Cartago

4,937

Pacuare .

3,891

310

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Steamships
Parismina .
Heredia
Abangarez
Turrialba .
Atenas .
Almirante .
Santa Marta
Metapan .
Zacapa
Carillo

Gross Tonnage
4,938
4,944
4,955
4,961
4,962
5,010

5,013
5,011
5,013
5,013

Steamships
Zent . .
Barranca .
Chirripo .
Reventazon
Tortuguero
Manzanares
Aracataca
Chagres .
Bayano .
Patia . .
Patuca

Gross Tonnage

. . 3,890

. • 4,115

. . 4,041

. . 4,161

. . 4,400

. . 5,288

• . 5,948

• • 5,911

• . 5,900

Total tonnage of these 41 steamships 187,998

Tonnage of the 49 ships chartered from other companies . 60,609

Total tonnage for the 90 ships operated 248,607

Most of the names of these steamships are derived from
cities, towns, rivers, and mountains in our American tropics.
Four of them, viz: Saramacca, Marowijne, Suriname, and
Coppename, obtain their names from Dutch Guinea. Twenty
of these names are of Costa Rican origin, and I have pre-
pared a map of this republic with the places properly located
and numbered. The general map of the American tropics
touched by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea con-
tains thirteen other geographical originals of these steamship
names. This system of designating ships was originated
partly with the idea to familiarize the public with the geo-
graphical points of interest in the fields where the company
conducts its operations.

In busy seasons this fleet of ninety ships is materially in-
creased by the addition of chartered vessels, and there have
been times when the total has reached and exceeded one
hundred. The policy of the company, however, is to in-
crease its fleet by the construction of new ships specially
adapted to meet the peculiar requirements of a growing pas-
senger and freight business.

With that end in view the United Fruit Company placed
orders in the latter part of 191 3 for fifteen new ships, seven
for service to the United States, and eight for the use of its
rapidly increasing European trade. It is to be doubted
if any shipping interest ever made a similar increase in a

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM 311

given year, and it is a certainty that no industrial or agri-
cultural enterprise ever was compelled to take similar steps
to keep pace with an augmenting demand for a staple product
of food consumption.

Three of the ships ordered for the United States will
have passenger accommodations surpassing even those of the
fine new ships Pastores, Tenadores, and Calamares, and will
give the United Fruit Company exceptional facilities as a
caterer to tropical travel. These three ships will be deliv-
ered in 191 5. The other four ships for the United States
are intended for freight service only.

Two of the new ships for the European banana trade will
be delivered in 1914 and the other six in 191 5. It is likely
that other ships will be ordered before these are in commis- /

csion. The banana trade, while not in its infancy, has far
to go before it can meet the probable demands of a world
which is seeking cheaper food products, and it is not beyond
reason to predict that the coming ten years will witness the
doubling of the size of the Great White Fleet.

The ships which serve the United States enter the ports
of Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. New Orleans is byi
far the leading port of banana entry in the United States or(
in the world, with New York, Boston, and Philadelphia fol-
lowing in the order named.

There is no duty on bananas — thanks to a press and .
the common-sense of a public which was quick to denounce | )

and defeat a proposed clause to that end in the present
tariff measure — with the result that no officials delay
unloading and no custom-house brokers exact a tribute
ultimately paid by the consumer. There are no ware-
houses for the storage of bananas, with charges mount-
ing every day. There is no speculative exchange with an
army of employees and principals, all of them depending
for a living and income on alleged services later charged to
the consumer. There are no insurance charges. No muni-
cipal official has an opportunity to extort graft in the transit
of the bananas from the docks to the push carts and retail
stores.

IBB E A N

L.L.POATE9 CO. N,

COSTA RICA

Here

No. I,
No. 2,
No. 3 '
No. 4.
No. 5.

No.
No. 7.
No. 8.
No. 9,

No. ID,

No. II.

No. 12,

No. 13.

No. 14.

No. IS.

No. i6.

No. 17,

No. i8.

No. IQ.

No. 20.

is the key to the above map:

'San Jose," capital of Costa Rica.

'Limon," principal port of Costa Rica on the Caribbean.

Esparta," a railroad town on west coast of Costa Rica.

'Cartogo," a famous city in Costa Rica, once destroyed by earthquake.

'Parismina," a Costa Rican river flowing into the Caribbean.

'Heredia," a province and town in Central Costa Rica.

'Abanquarez, a mining district in western Costa Rica.

'Turrialba." a town in Central Costa Rica.

'Atenas." a town in western Costa Rica .

"Carrillo," a town in Central Costa Rica.

"Sixaola." the river which divides Panama and Costa Rica.

"Tivives," a village on the west coast of Costa Rica.

"Nicoya," a gulf and town on west coast of Costa Rica.

"Pacuare," a river flowing into the Caribbean.

"Zent." a town in the heart of the banana plantations.

"Barranca," a small town in the mountains of Costa Rica.

"Chirripo." a village in eastern Costa Rica.

"Reventazon." a river flowing into the Caribbean.

"Tortuguero," a river in northern Costa Rica flowing into the Caribbean.

"Matina." a river a few miles north of Limon.

312

WHERE THE BANANAS COME FROM

Here is the key to the above map:

No. 21, "Ahnirante," a bay and also a town in Panama.

No. 22, "Santa Marta," a city on the north coast of Colombia.

No. 23, "Metapan," a town in San Salvador.

No. 24, "Zacapa." an important railroad centre in Guatemala.

No. 25, "Pastores," a town in the western part of Gautemala.

No. 26. "Tenadores," the junction of two rivers in Central Guatemala.

No. 27, "Calamares," a town in Colombia.

No. 28, "Miami," a bay and town in Florida.

No. 29, "Manistee," from several sources in the United States.

No. 30, "Aracataca," a town in Colombia.

No. 31, "Chagres," the Panama River that the engineers of its canal had to harness.

No. 32, "Patuca," a river in Spanish Honduras.

No. 33, "Manzanares," a river in Colombia.

313

314 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

It is all very simple. The fruit steamer arrives, ties to
her dock, and a few minutes later the bunches of bananas
begin to pour out of her holds. In several of the larger
ports they are unloaded by machinery, but in all cases the
local supply goes to the trucks of the wholesale dealers_and a
feWTiqursTater most of it is in the hands of the^Jietailers.
Some of these dealers have limited storage capacity for sur-
plus purchases, or for the ripening of undeveloped fruit, but
the great percentage of the bananas for local consumption
is in the hands of the retailors, and sold by them within two
or three df^ys from their arrival frofn the tropics. The
irnporting company sells bananas to the dealers by weight,
■and the price varies so little that it is seldom that a rise or
] fall is reflected in the prices charged to the consumer.

The population thus served by local distribution from
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston,
Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston may roughly be esti-
mated at 15,000,000, nearly half of whom live in or near
New York City, the banana-consuming metropolis of the
world. There remains the more difficult problem of placing
the perishable banana within reach of the largest possible
percentage of the 65,000,000 people living away from these
seaport centres of population.

The Fruit Dispatch Company was organized to serve this
function for the United Fruit Company. During the early
days of the business, not long ago, bananas were practically
unknown in many parts of the interior of the United States,
and it was necessary to create and develop some organiza-
tion which would be able to handle this fruit product with
the intelligence and promptness which its perishable nature
/ demanded.

At its inception as a corporation the United Fruit Com-
1 pany established as a part of its policy the dictum that it
would make absolutely no effort to acquire control, directly
or indirectly, of either the wholesale jobbing or retail trade.
In accord with that policy it has no financial interest in
any banana jobbing house or retaiL^tQie in the United
Staples. OTits own volition the company has consistently
refrained from attempting to raise, lower, or control in any

316 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

way the prices charged by wholesalers or retailers. Stu-
dents of the affairs and policies of great corporations will
find in this novel procedure something well worthy of reflec-
tion.

Experience had taught Andrew W. Preston that one of the
vital problems of the banana business was to insure prompt
and efficient distribution of this perishable fruit to the inter-
ior markets of the United States, and as executive head of
the Boston Fruit Company he suggested and secured the
incorporation of the Fruit Dispatch Company, ^which, has
\ always acted as the marketing and distributing agency of
j the United Fruit Conipany. In building up this important
department of the United Fruit Company it was deemed
advisable to make it stand squarely on its own feet, and,
accordingly, to regard and treat it the same as though it
were a separate organization selling fruit in the same man-
ner as the ordinary broker doing a general commission
business, but with this very important difference — the
Fruit Dispatch Company was to perform all of these duties
liov the wholesalers pratically at cost.

As the business of the United Fruit Company has increased
and the efficiency of the Fi:uit Dispatch Company has been
enhanced, the commissions charged by the latter have been
reduced. There have been years when this corporation has
returned slight profits, and there have been years when it
has operated at a slight loss, but its function is not to pay
dividends, but to insure that the dealers in bananas in all
parts of the United States will receive good fruit promptly
and in perfect condition, and the success attained in accom-
plishing this result has had an advertising and good-will value
difficult to express in terms of dollars.

In order to give the requisite assurance to the banana
merchants of the interior that their orders could be filled,
it was necessary to have local representatives who could
advise them of probable importations and receive orders to
be forwarded to the seaboard. It was also necessary that
these orders should be received at the seaboard by some
official whose particular business should be to see that they
were promptly and properly filled.

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM 317

Its most beneficent function is to render the interior
dealer absolutely independent of any intermediary interest
at the port of banana entry. In the place of a clique of
competing or confederated middlemen in all of these ports
we see the Fruit Dispatch Company performing an indis-
pensable service practically at cost, and doing this on an/
enormous scale and with a system perfected after years
of study and experience.

Some idea of the magnitude of this duty may be obtained
when it is stated that in 191 3 the Fruit Dispatch Company
handled for the United Fruit Company alone a total con-
siderably exceeding t;o,ooo cars of bananas, which would
make a solid train more than 400 miles long!

The orders from the interior dealers are in before the ship
arrives. Let us take a fruit vessel arriving at New Orleans
for instance. A considerable part of her cargo of 40,000
bunches of bananas have been purchased by dealers in
Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City,
Omaha, and other points. The specially constructed refrig-
erator cars are in waiting at the New Orleans docks of the
United Fruit Company.

As soon as the fruit ship is warped to her dock the banana-
unloading machines are lowered into position and a small
army of men assists in bringing her cargo from her cham-
bered hold. A keen-eyed corps of inspectors is on watch,
trained men who represent the New Orleans Board of Trade.

There is no law or port regulation requiring an inspec--
tion by these representatives of the New Orleans Board off
Trade. Why, then, are they there, and armed with power
to reject any bunch of bananas? Because of the request
of the Fruit Dispatch Company. A number of years ago the
executives of this company earnestly requested and finally
arranged for the official inspection and weighing of all of
its bananas by such organizations as the New Orleans Board
of Trade, the Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Mobile
Chamber of Commerce & Business League, and the Galves-
ton Cotton Exchange & Board of Trade. It was the purpose/
of the Fruit Dispatch Company to give its customers jusi/
what they had ordered and had a right to expect. So far as

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

I can learn, this solicitation of an official stamp of approval
by a disinterested outside organization on the weight and
quality of a competitive product is not only unique and
worthy of praise, but marks a new attitude on the part of
corporations in their dealings with the public.

Here is fruit for which the company has paid an independ-
ent grower in Costa Rica or Panama 30 or 35 cents a bunch.
This particular bunch has been carried by rail by the com-
pany from the field to the dock, has been inspected and
passed three or four times, has been insured against ship-
wreck, has been loaded and unloaded at considerable ex-
pense, has. been carried over a thousand miles of water —
and now an inspector makes a dash at the man who is
abpyt to^put it in the car. So far as you or I can see there is
not,a. blemish on it, but away it goes to join other "rejects'*
which make a mounting pile to one side of the unloading
machines.
\ /Some of these bunches are rejected for interior shipment
because they are sufficiently ripe for immediate use, and
lare sold to local merchants. VOthers with slight defects are
Isold to manufacturers who convert them into banana flour,
panana vinegar, dried bananas, coffee substitutes, and other /
valuable edible products which have been discovered.

Each bunch of bananas, in passing from the ships to the
'cars, is under the careful observation of at least six inspec-
tors.who make sure that no guilty bunch escapes. As soon
as a sufficient number of cars to constitute a train are loaded
they are at once started on their journey to the interior.
Accompanying each train are at least two trained experts
in. charge. of the bananas. These employees are known as
"banana^^^^^ssengers," and they go with the train to its
destination. These banana trains are run on very fast
schedules. At each junction or division point it is the duty
of the messengers to inspect each car of fruit, ascertain
accurately the temperature inside and outside of the car,
and to keep informed regarding the probable conditions of
weather later to be met on the journey, and to regulate the
temperature of the cars accordingly. They are also re-
quired to keep a careful record of the time of arrival and

A TOUR Ui h\SPECTION

The banana railroads are equipped with motor cars of high speed by

which a plantation manager can cover 200 or more miles a day

320 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

departure from each division point, and to enter this and
other data on printed forms.

At the larger division points are stationed other experts
known as *^ resident messengers/^ These men are required
to meet all trains on arrival at their agencies, to make care-
ful inspection of the contents of the cars, to receive and
verify the reports of the messengers in charge of them and
to give instructions regarding their care until they arrive
at the zone of the next resident messenger.

In addition to these officials located along the lines of the
principal railroads, each large city has its local manager
whose duty it is to take charge of the cars destined for local
consignees and care for the same until the purchasers of the
bananas are ready to take possession. By this system the
fruit is under the observation and care of experts from the
time it is cut from the stalk in the tropics until it is de-
livered to the dealer. At several places along the prin-
I cipal routes large sheds are maintained into which the
1 banana trains may be run, where certain cars may be
cut off and diverted to branches leading from the trunk
/ railroad line. These banana depots are equipped with
apparatus for cooling in summer and heating in winter.
In extreme weather conditions, or where the condition of the
fruit may require it, the trains are held in these cooling and
heating stations until the bananas are brought to the proper
temperature.

The result of the adoption of this system is the delivery
of perfect bananas to all of the centres of large population
of the United States. With the old methods in vogue it was
practically impossible to induce dealers to handle bananas
during the periods of extreme heat and cold, but with this
service the sellers of bananas pay little attention to the
weather.

The Fruit Dispatch Company has also taught the dealer
how to take care of his fruit, how properly to ripen it, make
it attractive to the consumer, and how best to distribute it.
All sales of bananas are made f. o. b. seaboard, and the pur-
chaser takes the risks of interior transportation, but the
system maintained by the Fruit Dispatch Company re-

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM 321

duces the percentage of damaged fruit almost to the zero
point.

Corporations engaged extensively in interstate trade,
though administered by executives who are sincerely desir-
ous of conforming not only to the letter but also the spirit
of the laws governing such corporations, are sometimes in-
volved in legal troubles because of the overzealousness of
employees anxious to make favorable personal showings.
The various minor officials of the Fruit Dispatch Company
certainly have no excuse for acting counter to the policy
clearly and emphatically expressed in a circular letter issued
a number of years ago by Andrew W. Preston, President
of the company, under the title, "Policy of the Company,"
from which I quote the following:

"The high principles which govern the business of the
Fruit Dispatch Company are entirely inconsistent with un-
fair competition. It is the policy of the company to
obtain and hold its trade by offering extensive variety, 1^
constant supply, careful selection, fair prices, uniform/^
treatment, prompt attention, and absolute reliability.
Accordingly, you should rely upon these points in solicit-
ing business, and be careful to refrain from criticising
or making derogatory remarks respecting any of our
competitors, even though it should be called to your
attention that some of them are engaged in unfair tactics.
Such an attitude on your part, maintained constantly even
in trying circumstances, is sure to win the respect of the
trade and react strongly to the advantage of the company.
It is the object of the company to merit and have the con-
fidence and respect of its trade, and in your business rela-
tions with your customers you should have this in mind at
all times."

This was not a new theory of business with Mr. Preston,
neither was it promulgated to meet some crisis or emergency.
It was the reaffirmation of the policy which for years had
been urged and enforced in the affairs of the Boston Fruit
Company and later with the United Fruit Company, and

322 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

much of the.success attained by these enterprises may be
ascribed to the humane, broad, and charitable spirit expressed
by President Preston in the above quoted injunction to his
official subordinates. It sounds the keynote to the. "New
Competition" which is rearing itself on the ruins of that
ruthless and destructive type which wrecked itself by its
own barbarity.

What the Fruit Dispatch Company had done to widen the
markets for the sale of bananas is best evidenced by the
fact that in 1,899 i^ had only sixteen agencies., .while to-day
it has sixty and more distributed among all of the large
cities of the United States and Canada. The sale of bananas
in the United States has increased from about 16,000,000
bunches in. 1900 to more ;than 46,000,000 in .1913.

It is skie to predict that the shipload of bananas cut from
the plantations of Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, or Gua-
temala will all have been eaten within jthree weeks from the
hour they were removed from the native stalk, and that the
cargo will have been distributed over a section of the United
States inhabited by from 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 people.
And the banana, which was practically unknown a gener-
ation ago, now is the source of an industry which demands
that froip. i^5PQ/to .2^000 shipload? of this tropical fruit shall
be landed in our ports each year! Truly, the banana and
the autojnobile, born at about the same time in a commercial
sense, ar^'astoundingly lusty, youths !

I have attempted to make clear to the reader how the
United Fruit Company brings the banana from the tropical
plantation to .Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake, San
Francisco, Seattle, and other cities. It is all very simple, but
it is also very stupendous. There are the great plantations
scattered 2,000 miles along the coasts and islands of the 1
Caribbean; there are the railroads and tramways with their
thousands of cars and hundreds or more of powerful loco-
motives;'there is the great fleet with ships plying back and
forth froiTft>the coasts of the United States and Europe;,
there is the wonderful wireless flashing instantaneous in-"'
structions and warnings to this banana squadron; there is
the sv/ift unloading of these tens of millions of bunches of

w.a

O G

(u 'a,

1:1

Oh o

^ o

^ ^

324 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

bananas all along the Gulf and Atlantic seaboard of the
United States, and there is the perfected system of distribu-
tion by which this fruit goes out all over the interior sections
of the nation.

The leading competitors of the United Fruit Company
operate on a somewhat similar jgeneral system^but none~of
them^n this scale. The fa"crthaTthey are not as large as the
United Fruit Company does not prevent them from making
fair profits uilder favorable conditions, but the banana
producer and importer must measure up to a certain stand-
ard of size and of assets if he expects to meet the prices
which are fixed by a keen and unceasing competition. The
sole reason why the banana is the cheapest fruit and food
product now offered in the United States is because it is
produced and handled on a big scale, with an enormous
product distributed and sold under keen competition with a
minimum of profit per unit.

All of the ordinary commodities which are sold at a rea-
sonable price are produced on a large scale and offered at a
minimum of profit, and all of the commodities which enter
into the high cost of living are produced on small and
unscientific scales and sold in a haphazard way at any
extortionate profit which can be forced from the public.
This is the alpha -and omega of the cost of living, and those
who pray for the return of the day of little things have an
instinctive longing for an environment suited to their in-
tellect.

The United Fruit Company has invested and disbursed
for wages in the American tropics a sum not less than
^200,000,000, and two monumental results of world-wide
benefit have accrued from this crusade for the peaceful
Conquest of the Tropics. This vast expenditure founded
an industry and stimulated a competition which have given
to the peoples of the temperate zone of the Northern Hemi-
sphere a fruit-food product which has had an immeasurable
effect in sustaining human life. Next in importance to this
great contribution is that of quickening to industrial and
commercial life the neglected republics along the shores of
the Caribbean. These are achievements mighty in compar-

326 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

ison with the question of whether or not the founders of the
United Fruit Company have sufficiently profited by this
enterprise.

The vast constructive work of the United Fruit Com-
pany, coupled with its broad and creative policy, is largely
responsible for the measure of success which has attended
the building of a comprehensive railway system for Central
America. The more progressive statesmen of all of the
Central American republics are planning and looking for-
ward to a day when it will be possible to confederate into
one nation the present republics of Guatemala, Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The
educated peoples of these republics speak the classical lan-
guage of Spain, they cherish the same traditions, and are
naturally linked by the strong ties of mutual self-interests.
They have been held apart by the lack of the greatest of all
commercial ties, viz: the spanning of their boundary lines
by railways which should connect the United States and
Mexico through them with the Panama Canal.

This is the great work to which Minor C. Keith has devoted
a large share of his active life. Under his direction the
International Railways of Central America are now con-
structing the gaps which will weld these countries into a
commercial whole, and possibly pave the way for the states-
manship which will rear a great republic reaching from
Mexico to South America.

The International Railway system is now operating 431
miles of railroad in Guatemala, and 62^ miles in Salvador,
and has to construct y^ miles in Guatemala and 214 miles
in Salvador, which will give these two republics a total
mileage of 783.50. This includes the connecting link with
the National Railway Lines of Mexico.

Work is in progress on a line through Salvador to the
frontier of Honduras, and the company has an agreement
with the Government of Honduras for a line through its
territory which will connect with the Nicaragua system of
railroads, owned by that government. From Nicaragua a
line will be constructed to connect with the Costa Rican
system, most of which is the property of the United Fruit

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM 327

Company. The latter is now building a spur to establish
communication with Bocas del Toro, Panama, and a rail-
road is planned to span the remaining 210 miles between Bo-
cas del Toro and Panama City. The total mileage of these
missing links is 438, and under normal conditions the work
will be completed in a few years. It is difficult to over-
estimate the commercial and other benefits which will
accrue from the completion of this steel highway linking the
United States with the Panama Canal, and eventually with
South America.

The annual report made by President Andrew W. Pres-
ton for 191 3 placed the assets of the United Fruit Company
at$82, 545, 384.33, as compared with $16,949,753.58 in 1900 at
the end of the first year of the existence of the company.
The capital stock of the company in 1900 was $11,230,000,
or $5,719,753 less than its assets. The capital stock in 1913
was $36,594,300, with assets exceeding this amount by
$45,951,084, an exhibit certainly not approached by any of
the so-called "industrials" of financial importance. . The
protest against "watered stock" so often urged against cor-
porations engaged in interstate or international trade has
no point against the United Fruit Company, which, from
its inception, has had tangible assets much in excess of its
stock and all security liabilities.

The creative character of this tropical enterprise is in-
dicated in the tabulation of its assets, the more important
features of which are these:

Plantations and Equipment:

Lands $17,964,543

Houses and buildings .... 3,299,644

Cultivations 9,325,405

Live stock 1,078,133

Tools and machinery .... 380,736

Railroads 10,004,496

Tramways 1,540,795

Telephones 144,530

Wharves, lighters, etc 600,709

Merchandise (stores) .... 1,100,979

Material on hand 1,413,565

Sugar mill 1,455,107

45 -

— $48,308,638.84

328 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Domestic and Foreign Divisions 384,155.78

Investments:

Agricultural (bananas) . . . . $ 899,740.06

Agricultural and manufacturing

(sugar) 3,443,447.84

Tropical railways 1,627,717.03

Miscellaneous 93,831.44

$ 6,064,736.37

Steamships 14,136,973.88

Notes Receivable 59,653.16

Current Assets:

Cash $8,627,574.69

Accounts collectable .... 3v565,075.93

$12,192,650.62

Coupon, Dividend, and Trustee

Account $ 708,341.37

Advance Payments:

Charters, wharfage and steamship

supplies 690,234.15

Total assets . . . . . $82,545,384. 33

' In 191 3 the United Fruit Company took the important
step of purchasing all of the remaining stock of the Saetia
Sugar Company. It had formerly acquired all of the hold-
ings of the Tropical Fruit and Steamship Company, Lim-
ited, the British steamship company of Elders & Fyffes,
Limited, and also of the Northern Railway Company, in
Costa Rica. President Preston prefaced his annual report
for 19-I3 with this statement:

"Attention is called to the fact that, in order to make
a more complete presentation of the company's financial
affairs, there have been consolidated v^ith the figures for the
United Fruit Company proper those of several companies
in w^hich, v^ith one unimportant exception, the United Fruit
Company owns the entire capital stock. In any case where
the investment had been carried, at a premium, adjustment
has been made on the basis of book value, and the differ-
ence charged to income account."^

To meet the outlay demanded by the enlargement of its
fleet, and to provide for important extensions to the tropical
plantations, an issue of $I2,ckdo,cxxd of four-year 6 per cent

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM

329

notes was authorized and the bonds subscribed. New
lands were planted to bananas to the extent of 17,141
acres during the year, and additional tracts of 7,787 acres of
banana cultivations were purchased, thus increasing the ban-
ana acreage of the company by more than 25,000 in 1913.
These new plantations should produce more fruit than all of
the tracts owned by the United Fruit Company at the end of
its first year of operation, 1900.
The great Cuban sugar mills ground out 261,000,000

On the way to market

pounds of sugar and 5,600,000 gallons of molasses, but the
low market prices for these commodities greatly reduced
the profits from the preceding year. This factor, combined
with the policy of making extensive permanent improve-
ments, precluded the payment of any extra dividends in
this fiscal year — an extra dividend of 2 per cent being
declared just after its close, making a total of 10 per cent
for 191 3 — but an analysis of the annual income account
of the company for 191 3 indicates a degree of prosperity rare
in a period marked by depression in all parts of the world:

330 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

INCOME ACCOUNT OF THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

FOR 1913

Total Net Earnings of the year were:
From bananas and miscellaneous

tropical fruits, including profits from

transportation and merchandise

business ........... $ 5,696,065.49

From the sugar business .... 452,410.84

Miscellaneous income 49)399-75

T6tal incbme v $ 6,197,876.08

Deduct interest charges .... 882,245.03

Balance, net income for year . $ 5>3i 55631. 05

Regular dividend of 8 per cent . . 2,927,544 . 00

^,;. 'Balance surplus for fiscal year $ 2,388,087.05

Brought forward from the close of the
previous year a surplus of. . . 16,645,853.16

^A:: - ■■ . ■ -' ''

taking the total amount at credit of

income account . . . . . $19,033,940.21

Direct charges have been made to
income as follows:
. Premiums on investments in sub-
sidiary companies and depre-
ciation oh tropical properties . $ 2,050,349.54
Investment in wireless tele-
graph; discount in full on
;.^. $i2,ooo,ooc four-year 6 per
X:^.: cent notes issued during the
4*' " -yje^r, a-nd miscellajieous . . 699,378.90

2,749,728.44

Surplus, September 30, 1913 $16,284,211.77

VI have compiled from the fourteen annual reports of the
United, Fruit Company what may be termed an epitome of
its iinanciai history. These reports are not only models of
accuracy and completeness but also models of frankness.
From its inception the company has withheld no essential
financial detail from its stockholders or the public. This is
in refreshing contrast to many large corporations.

The table now submitted gives for the years inclusive of
1900-1913 the assets, capital stock, amounts of dividends,
disbursements, percentage of dividends to capital stock,

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM

331

and, finally, the percentage of dividends to the capital actually
invested in these enterprises. The latter is what really
counts. The question of whether or not a corporation is
deriving unjust profits can-
not be determined by its
dividend rate. There are
corporations in the United
States which pay from 50
to 500 per cent annually
on their capital stock, and
these rates are fair when
measured by the capital
invested. There are other
corporations which pay
from 4 to 6 per cent on their
capital stock, and this ap-
parently low rate is act-
ually extortionate, it being
based on inflated securities.

It is for the purpose of
getting down to bedrock
facts that theUnited States
Government is now under-
taking, at enormous ex-
pense, the task of ascertain-
ing the actual physical cost
of the railroads of the
United States. The
amounts of the capital
stocks of these public ser-
vice corporations mean
little or nothing, but the
public has a right to know
what legitimately has been

invested in these common a banana carrier

carriers.

As has been pointed out in an early chapter of this book,
the individual or the corporation making an investment in
the American tropics assumes risks which, in the event of

332

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

success, justify much higher profit rates than those fixed
by competition in the United States. No just complaint
can be made against the tropical producer of agricultural
or other wealth who fixes prices which yield profits of from
10 to 20 per cent on capital actually invested. I had al-
ways supposed that the United Fruit Company made at
least 25 per cent on the capital actually invested in its
tropical operations, and, being posted through costly per-
sonal experience in tropical investments, considered this no
more than their due.

Let us see what money rewards have accrued to the men
who dared invest their capital in districts which others
feared and ignored:

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT SHOWING ASSETS, CAPITAL

STOCK, AMOUNTS OF DIVIDENDS PAID, DIVIDEND

RATES, AND DIVIDEND EARNINGS IN PERCENTAGE

TO CAPITAL ACTUALLY INVESTED BY THE

UNITED FRUIT COMPANY IN THE FOURTEEN

YEARS OF ITS CORPORATE EXISTENCE

YEAR

ASSETS

CAPITAL STOCK

DIVIDENDS

STOCK
PER CENT

INVEST-
MENT
PER CENT

1900
I9OI
1902
1903
1904

1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
I9IO
I9II
I912
I913

$16,949,753.58
18,469,490.48
19,251,189.21
21,314,675.24
22,824,251.99
24,413,114.63
26,599,683.31
32,721,183.14
35,215,178.27
40,756,493.72

45,033,752.97
52,232,833.51

67,500,393-34
82,545,384.33

$11,230,000.00
12,369,500.00
12,369,500.00
12,575,500.00
15,782,000.00
17,485,000.00
17,961,000.00
18,525,000.00
21,328,300.00
21,340,000.00
23,474,000.00
27,058,900.00
36,594,300.00
36,619,300.00

$ 1,119,257.50
1,084,767.50
1,051,407.50
877,150.00
967,675.00
1,167,792.50
1,235,745.00
1,419,350.00
3,524,484.00
1,707,042.00
4,011,472.00
4,624,612.00
5,101,678.00
2,927,544.00

10
9

8.5

7-75
18

8
18
18
18
10

5
5
4
4
4
4
4
9
4
8
8
7
3

9
8
8

^30,819,973.00

10.8

Thus it is seen that the stockholders of the United Fruit
Company have received average annual dividends of 10.8
per cent, and that the actual money return on capital really
invested has been less than 6 per cent. For the average

AN INTERNATIONAL FARM 333

tropical investment this would be an absolutely inadequate
percentage of profit, but those who study this question from
the investment viewpoint will not ignore the fact that dur-
ing all of these years the United Fruit Company has been
reinvesting a large share of its earnings in new plantations,
new railroads, new ships, and other productive assets, and
that each share of stock represents a substantial equity in
the huge excess of tangible assets over the security liabil-
ities.

When the time arrives that the production of bananas
catches up with the increasing world demand for this fruit
it will not be necessary for the United Fruit Company to
appropriate huge annual sums for betterments. Good busi-
ness management and average good fortune under such cir-
cumstances would warrant an expectation of not less than
lo per cent annual profit on the capital actually invested
in these tropical properties. This would mean that the
annual dividends of the United Fruit Company would aver-
age about 25 per cent, and neither the recipients nor the
public would have any justifiable protest.

CHAPTER XVI
Lessons Taught by the Banana

OT until an attempt was made to
impose an import tariff tax on
bananas did that humble trop-
ical fruit arrive at the dignity
of a recognized factor in our
national life. From relative
obscurity it became in a few-
brief weeks one of our cherished
American institutions. Under
attack it forgot that it was a
meek and lowly immigrant with
a "yellow streak," and when it
donned its fighting garb millions
of housewives, toilers, and con-
sumers of all classes rallied to
its defense and demanded of
our lawmakers that it be left free to enter the United States
from the tropics without paying for the privilege.

It was a peculiar and most interesting episode, and is a
striking illustration of the power of public opinion when
wielded in a just cause. A clause taxing bananas 5 cents a
bunch was inserted by the United States Senate when the
Underwood-Simmons tariff bill came to it from the House of
Representatives, which had left bananas on the free list, as
they always had been, and probably always will be. The
Senatorial sponsors for this banana tax undoubtedly acted in
good faith. The reduced tariff rates on other articles of im-
port threatened a deficit. Careless writers and speakers
had given circulation to statements calculated to create the
impression that there was a "banana trust," and that
it made enormous profits. The United Fruit Company,
known to be the leading producer and shipper of bananas,
was presumed to be the beneficiary of this rumored mon-

334

LESSONS TAUGHT 335

opoly, and certain of the Senators saw no reason why
$2,000,000 a year should not be collected on the 40,000,000
bunches of bananas imported annually, it being assumed
that the prosperous United Fruit Company would pay prac-
tically all of this tidy amount.

What ensued was rather amusing. The fruit trade was
well aware that there was most spirited competition in:^
bananas, and that the United Fruit Company had powerful /
.and alert rivals and absolutely no control over wholesale or(
retail prices. Congress was soon made aware that there
was no subterfuge about this competition, that it was real
and vital, also that the rivals of the United Fruit Company
were in deadly earnest. They pointed out that the prices
of bananas were not fixed so much by the supply on the
market at a given time as they were by the relative scarcity
of native fruits, and that no importing company, or all of
them combined, could artificially raise the price of this
tropical fruit.

They also submitted undisputable evidence which indi-
cated that the average importer receives less than 5 cents net
profit on a bunch of bananas, and warned (ingress that the
proposed tax would annihilate all save the more powerful
companies, which would be able to stand losses until a pos-
sible time when banana prices should adjust themselves on
a higher level.

The Public — that mysterious entity which is respected
and reviled, feared and defied, but which always wins when
it gets mad — aroused itself and sounded a deepening
thunder of protest. The public knew nothing and cared
nothing about the mysteries and statistics of the banana
trade. It did not care if there was one importer, or ten or
a hundred. The irate public was content to know that the-*
banana was the cheapest fruit and food product on the mar-|
ket, and had a dead sure premonition that it would pay all
of the tax and a lot more. The public was entirely satisfied
with the banana situation as it was. If there was com-
petition, well and good; if there was a banana trust it was
a most excellent and righteous monopoly and should not be
disturbed in its well-doing by a tax imposed by a political

S36

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

party which had charged high food prices to an iniquitous
tariff system.

And the Press fell in line with the Public, as it generally
does and should, and the Banana never knew until then how
many friends he had and how welcome he was to the millions
who had come to appreciate his gastronomic charms. And
that was the end of the proposed tax.

An interesting feature of this episode was the fact that cer-

Type of Central American architecture

tain of the competitors of the United Fruit Company found
it good tactics to point out and prove that that concern did
not exercise, and never had exercised, a monopoly or any
control over bananas. The public is inclined to be skepti-
cal when a successful and admitted leader in an industrial
enterprise defends itself against such charges, but it is en-
tirely another matter when competitors, presumed to be
at its mercy, indignantly declare and prove that they are ^
enjoying a steadily increasing prosperity, and that they have ^

LESSONS TAUGHT 337

no complaint whatever against the concern which happens
to be selected for attack because of its size, and, possibly,
because those making the attack had been deluded into
accepting as true, certain sensational and false statements.

The facts were obvious and were at the command of any
one who cared to verify them. Bananas are not smuggled
into the United States. They pay no duty, but the port
officials keep accurate count of every bunch unloaded at the
various ports, and the records show the number of bunches
brought in annually by the various shippers. If the United
Fruit Company had operated during its thirteen years of
existence in a manner calculated to overwhelm all competi-
tion the statistics of banana imports would tell the tale of
its merciless rapacity.

What did these trade statistics show.'* They showed
that in 1900 the United Fruit Company shipped to the
United States 11,153,881 bunches of bananas, and that in
that year its competitors imported 4,862,449 bunches. This'
indicated that the United Fruit Company then held a very
decided trade advantage over its competitors, but far from
a monopoly.

In 1913, the year in which the banana became a tariff
issue anTa subject of acute public interest^ the United Fruit
Company shipped to the United States 24,975,640 bunches.]
of bananas as against 17,529,801 bunches shipped by its com^
petitors. In these twelve years the United Fruit Company*
had increased its shipments by 13,821,759 bunches, or less^
than 124 per cent, and in the same period its competitors had
fclimbed from 4,862,449 to 17,529,801 bunches, an increased
importation exceeding 260 per cent, or more than twice the
rate of increase enjoyed by the United Fruit Company.

Such officially verified figures are enough to dishearten the
most aggressive and persistent of trust hunters.

One of the most interesting and remarkable features of
this whole subject is the astounding retail price charged for
bananas. Bananas at 10 cents a dozen, 15, 20, and even
25 cents a dozen, are a positive phenomenon in this era of
high food prices.

Here is one of the most perishable of tropical fruits, one

338

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

requiring: a fortune to attempt its large production and im-
portation, one which must be sold within a day or two after
it ripens, one which was justly esteemed a luxury a few years
ago, and yet it is offered for sale all over the United States
at all times of the year for less than the average prices
charged for hardy native fruits grown in superabundance
within a few miles of the market-places.

If this outcome could justly be charged to the operations
of a "banana trust" it would glorify that alleged iniquity.
If the prices charged for native grown apples, pears, oranges,
and other year-around fruits be the outcome of competi-
tion, the sooner we substitute monopoly the better. In an

Palm garden of the SS. Pastores

editorial entitled "Consider the Banana," published in the
Houston Post under date of January 27, 1913, this pointed
comment was made:

"How does it happen that the home-grown apple is placed
beyond the reach of the average consumer and that the
foreign-grown banana has increased in quality and decreased
in price .^ The banana is a perishable fruit. It must be
marketed immediately on its importation, and the business
is one which requires millions in investment and the risks
incident to fleets sailing in waters menaced by hurricanes
and northers. It is a farce when apples grown within ten
mrles of St. Louis or New York sell by weight for ten times

LESSONS TAUGHT 339

the price charged for bananas shipped from Costa Rica or
Colombia, South America.

"There is no secret about the low cost of bananas. They
are produced and handled on an enormous scale by com-
panies which put them on the market without the inter-
vention of middlemen who extort large commissions. These
companies have learned that there is more money for them
in selling a huge total of product at a low net profit than
there is in extracting a high profit from small sales at prices
prohibitive to the average consumer. When those in the
apple industry learn this lesson there will be more orchards,
less apples rotting on the ground, and more prosperity and
happiness for all concerned. Consider the banana."

The New York Times later sarcastically remarked that
"There is much need of an apple trust, as * bad' as the fruit
trust," and that "people are eating bananas, pranges, and
grapefruit because domestic fruits are dear and inaccessible."

It is a common thing to see apples and bananas displayed
for sale on stands or in stores, with lo cents asked for the
apple and three fine bananas oflFered for 5 cents. The apple
grew a few miles away and the bananas c^me from Panama^

The United Fruit Company is primarily responsible -fpr
the low banana prices, and the remaining credit belongs to
its competitors, who have had the sagacity to imitate its
systems of production and distribution.

What would happen if some corporation imitated the
United Fruit Company in the production and distribution
of apples.^ Would its oflftcials be hailed as benefactors or
would they be sent to jail.^* This is an interesting conjecture
and worth analyzing.

The last ten or twelve years has witnessed an advance in
food prices which has dazed the statesmanship of the world
and inflicted untold hardships on all classes save those of
Independent means. This astounding climb In food prices
has been most marked in the United States, and it is mere
chicanery to ascribe any considerable portion of it to the
tariff or any other political or partisan policies. Scores of
causes are alleged by Intelligent students of this phe-

340 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

nomenGn, and it is fair to assume that it is the composite
result of a number of conditions deeply embedded in our
social and economic structure.

It logically follows that in this general rise in the cost of
raw materials, labor, service of various kinds both needful
and useless, and finally in the cost of the article offered for
sale — it logically follows, I say, that any commodity which
has maintained a practically uniform scale in all of these
years has actually fallen in price. This decided inflation of
retail prices for food and other necessities really means a
depreciated dollar; a debased dollar which will not purchase
as much food as it did ten or twelve years ago. There can
be no intelligent dissent from this proposition. It is ele-
mentary and painfully obvious.

Now, are there any food products which are exceptions to
this decreased ability of a dollar to acquire them.^ Yes,
there are two such products, and only two of consequence
— bananas and sugar — and it happens that these are the
two food necessities on which are based the extensive opera-
tions of the United Fruit Company. If there be any other
corporation catering to the food hunger of the public which
can claim and prove this distinction, its identity has escaped
my observation.

Why are bananas and sugar conspicuous exceptions to
the rule of high and advancing prices ? It is impossible to
escape the conclusion that the reason is to be found in the
fact that bananas and raw sugar are produced and marketed
under comprehensive and scientific systems which avoid the
wastes and losses inevitable to petty and badly organized
production. Every known fact points to this conclusion.

The United States Department of Labor issued early in
191 3 a comprehensive bulletin containing startling statistics
relative to the mounting prices of food. The table which
I now submit was compiled from this official report. In
this table "100" stands for the average retail price of the
food stated in the decade 1890-99. For instance, sG^loin
steak in 1902 cost at retail the equivalent of "115," which
means that it had advanced in price 15 per cent, over the
average established in the ten years inclusive of 1890-99.

LESSONS TAUGHT

341

The prices stated for bananas are compiled from the trade
statistics which show the prices paid by the dealers to the
importing companies in these years. There has been so
little fluctuation in the actual retail prices that one quotation
would practically serve for the entire period considered.
The rates given indicate fairly the part played by the ba-
nana producers and importers in determining what the con-
sumer should pay.

Here is a table which is well worth studying by those who
wish to understand why millions of people rallied to the de-
fense of the banana when the proposal was made to impose
an import tax on it. It also throws an interesting light on
the low and steady range of the sugar used to sweeten sliced
bananas:

RELATIVE RETAIL PRICES OF THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF FOOD CON-
SUMED IN ALL SECTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AS CONTRASTED
WITH THE SELLING PRICES OF BANANAS IN THE YEARS SINCE
THE INCORPORATION OF THE UNITED FRUIT COMPANY

Sirloin steak

Round steak

Rib roast

Pork chops

Bacon (smoked)

Ham (smoked)

Lard (pure)

Hens

Flour

Corn meal

Eggs (fresh)

Butter

Potatoes

Milk

Sugar

BANANAS

1900

1901
109

1902

1903

1904

1905

1906

1907

1908

190911910

I9n

1912

107

115

114

119

126

134

13s

153

109

114

122

lib

121

120

124

128

135

141

149

153

174

109

113

118

117

120

123

128

132

138

139

156

109

127

126

123

125

136

141

144

159

178

170

188

121

135

140

138

139

150

158

163

176

214

197

199

106

III

121

122

127

131

134

142

159

156

160

105

120

136

126

127

133

134

ISO

173

145

154

loo

los

114

121

124

128

132

135

146

155

152

158

102

108

127

139

136

128

133

108

124

122

123

124

133

143

146

148

147

160

108

119

125

131

134

138

143

155

158

ISO

162

lOI

103

108

127

128

134

140

131

147

114

117

119

109

122

130

133

157

168

100

lOI

104

107

108

123

126

132

133

136

104

102

100

102

lOI

100

102

109

103

104

Note. — In this table 100 is the average retail price in the
and all above or below is a percentage of increase or decrease in
preceding decade.

ten years preceding 1900,
price compared with that

It will be noted that bananas sold in 191 2 at a figure below
that of ten years previously, during which period sirloin
steak advanced 38 per cent in price, round steak 52, pork
chops 61, bacon -64, flour 37, eggs 43, butter 37, potatoes 51,

342 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

and sugar i6 per cent. In the period between 1910 and
191 3, when all of these food products made their most
astounding advances, the price of bananas actually dropped
more than 1 1 per cent. If this tropical fruit had advanced
only slightly in sympathy with this gigantic elevation in
other food prices it would have been a result for which the
harassed consumers would have been thankful, but bananas
actually dropped 11.6 points or per cent — and, unless the
people had protested, this kindly feat would have been
rewarded with a tax!

The newspaper poets probably were not familiar with all
of the statistical virtues of the banana as now set forth, but
they knew how the masses felt on the subject, and the theme
was chosen by many able versifiers. Here are two selected
from an impressive collection. Poet Nelson proving that it
is not difficult to find words to rhyme with "bananas":

THE TAX IS OFF!
Bananas will be restored to the free list. — Joy Message from Washington

Come all ye good citizens, raise

Your loudest hosannas,
With paeans of popular praise

For taxless bananas. '

Food fit for the gods of Olympus,

For doughty Dianas
And heroes of legend: who'd skimp us

Of blessed bananas."*

Meat fit for an Orient sultan,

For dusky sultanas —
The infant one or the adult un,

Soul-filling bananas!

Giuseppis and Abrahams eat 'em, -

And Gretchens and Hannas,
Vox populi says you can't beat 'em.

World-building bananas.

And whether it's clay you'll be smoking

Or fragrant Habanas,
None thinks you are lying or joking

If you praise bananas.

LESSONS TAUGHT 343

They're slender and tender, nutritious,

Most mighty of mannas;
They're yellow and mellow, delicious —

Praise be for bananas!

You tax us for air and for water,

For faith and bandannas;
We go like a lamb to the slaughter —

But halt! on bananas.

What sound from the northernmost mountain,

From southern savannahs?
The East and the West are thanks shoutin'

For untaxed bananas.

— E. T. Nelson in New York Sun.

Poet John O'Keefe tuned his harp and sang:

THE FREE BANANA

You may tax the silk stockings from Paris

Or the hat from the street of peace,
Or the jewels the womenfolk carry

From the land of the aureate fleece,
Or the smoky old Scotch from Glengarry,
Or the braid that was made in Milan;
But the President's sure
You will injure the poor
If you tax the nutritious banan'!.

If a damsel who dances ta-ra-ra.

Till it seems that her foot is a wing,
Should arrive with a lovely tiara

That she got with the heart of a king,
You may call it an avis that's rara
And assess it by Congress' plan;
But our people are such
You'll be getting in Dutch
If you venture to tax the banan'!

We are anxious that beef should be cheaper,

So we'll lower the tariff on cow;
Though it come from the Platte or the Dnieper,

We will lessen its price to the frau;
And the wheat of the Muscovite reaper
May sustain the American man;
But far greater than these
Is the joy that he sees
As he lives on the handy banan'!

344 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

Oh, a poet of stature Miltonic

Should be happy to write on this theme!
To the ghost of Beethoven symphonic

It should furnish an orchestra scheme!
Let the tariff protectionists chronic
Raise objections from Maine to Japan;
But we'll cry, "It's a hit!''
(If our mouths will permit)
While we gulp the untariffed banan'!

— John O'Keefe in New York World.

Pleasing bit of steamship architecture

There is no mystery concerning the cheapness of bananas.
Three factors combine to make them the minimum cost
article of fruit-food ever offered to the American pubHc, viz:

(i) Bananas are produced on an enormous scale and are
transported and distributed on a scientific plan which has
been developed to approximate perfection.

(2) The producing importers receive only a nominal per-
centage of profit over the actual cost of cultivating and
delivering bananas to the great centres of distribution.

LESSONS TAUGHT 345

(3) The wholesalers or jobbers obtain only a nominal^rpfit
for services whicFare indispensable, and the retailei^receives
profits_insigrd£cant when compared with those extorted
from most food products.

For a standard bunch of bananas containing nine hands
and, we will say, 144 individual bananas, the producer and
shipper will receive on the average less than a dollar for such
a bunch of fruit.

Enormous quantities of bananas are sold at retail for i^
cents a dozen, and I doubt if the average price exceeds 15
cents a dozen. On this latter basis the retailer would re-
ceive $1.80 for the 144 bananas in the bunch which the ini-
porter sold to the jobber for^gj^ At 20 cents a dozen the
retailer would receive $2.40 for this bunch. When we add to
the original dollar charged by the importer the various items
of freight, a few cents to the Fruit Dispatch or some similar
company, and also a fair profit for the wholesaler, we have
the entire bill with the exception of what the retailer receives
as his share. We do not begrudge him that. It is not a
profit in the true sense of that word. It is a wage for
manual services performed.

Thus the banana bunch which was sold by the producer
and importer for $1 reaches the consumer with not more
than another dollar added to it for freight, delivery, and all
of the charges imposed by middlemen. Does the American
consumer obtain any native farm product at any such pro-
portionate charge.'* Hardly!

According to one of the railroad authorities of the coun-
try the potatoes for which the farmers received $8,437,000
in 1910 were sold to consumers in New York City for
more than $60,000,000. Onions, for which the farmers
got $821,000, consumers paid $8,212,000. Consumers
paid $9,125,000 for cabbages the farmers had sold for
$1,825,000.

This means that when a housewife spends $1 for cabbage
that only 20 cents of her money goes to the farmer who raised
these cabbages, and that the remaining 80 cents has been
absorbed by transportation charges, commissions, profits to
various classes of middlemen, and to the retailer. This means

346 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

that when the housewife spends $i for potatoes that 14
cents of this represents the farmer's share, and that 86 cents
of her money is absorbed in the process of bringing them
from the farm to her. In the case of onions the farmer gets
almost exaetlyi JO .cents out of every dollar expended ,by;,the
consumer.t^:'^n *i:'.-: /. ! * /:>*./'*.'.

But when this, housewife spends ^i for bananas she can
rest assured that about 50 cents of this goes to. the pro-
ducer and importer for honest value delivered, and that the
remaining 50 cents stands for legitimate and indispensable
services rendered by railroads, truckmen, and the retailer.
In its banana business the United Fruit Company is a farm-
ing enterprise, its ships serving in place of wagons to bring
its produce from the fields to the markets. Counting all of
the services of distribution and selling under the head of
"Transportation and Middlemen," let us see what sort of an
exhibit these four food products make displayed in a cold-
looded table:

Percentage of retail Percentagje of retail price

Food price received by the received by transporta-

Article farmer tion and middlemen

Onions- v'' /i ^ ' . 10 90

Potatoe^^ ''.t .;V 14 ' 86

Cabbages . 20 80

Bananas' \. . / 5^ 5°

"^ Plain efiotlghy isn't' It .^" Bananas are produced scierttifi-
cally,'and distributed and sold with a minimum of service by
the middlemen. Onions, potatoes, cabbages, and scores of
the other necessities of life are produced unscientifically,
and handled by a lack of system which invites and assures
all forms of extortion. .

Farmers living within five miles of my residence in
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, in the autumn sell such
apples as are not left to rot under the trees from 40 to
60 cents' a bushel, and my neighbors and Ibuy them a few
months'later at from^2 to $3 a bushel. We pay 5 cents for
a decent eating apple raised a few miles away, but we can
buy for this 5 cents three delicious bananas which were
raised in the valleys of Central or South America.

348 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

FOOD VALUE OF THE BANANA

The banana will never enjoy the popularity it deserves
until the people of the temperate zones learn to know when
it is ripe, and learn not to eat it in its raw state. There is
popular delusion that the banana has ripened when it turns
from its original green to a golden yellow, and those thus
deluded decline to touch this fruit when dark spots appear in
the yellow skin of the banana.

The banana is not fully ripe when it is yellow. This
change from green to yellow is the first outward appearance
of a chemical process incidental to the ripening process. Not
until a considerable portion of the skin has turned to a deep
brown has this ripening process sufficiently developed to give
the fruit its greatest value as a delicious and healthful
food. A writer in a recent number of the Journal of the
American Medical Association brought this fact out clearly
when he said:

*'The dictum that fruits should be eaten Mn their season'
finds "its limitations as regards variety in the temperate
zones at certain periods of the year. There is, however, one
fruit which is readily available fresh in the American markets
at practically all seasons. It is unfortunate that an article
of diet which meets nutritive requirements so well and so
easily obtainable at reasonable cost as the banana should be
the subject of so much misunderstanding among both
physicians and laymen. For, despite the fact that over
40,000,000 bunches are reported to have been brought to the
United States last year, it is popularly stated in many quar-
ters that the banana is difficult of digestion and may give
rise to alimentary distress.

"The fruit is brought to our northern markets green, and
is ripened by artificial heat. The color of the peel gives
evidence of the degree of ripeness. The green banana con-
tains, in the part exclusive of the skin, about 1.5 per cent of
protein and 20 to 25 per cent of carbohydrate, almost en-
tirely starch. In the ripe banana with the yellow-brown
peel the edible part contains somewhat less of carbohy-

LESSONS TAUGHT 349

drate; but that which remains is now almost entirely in the
form of soluble sugars. Broadly speaking, then, the ripe
banana is about one-fifth sugar; the green, one-fifth starch.
"Inasmuch as bananas are commonly eaten uncooked, it
is obvious that more or less raw starch will be ingested if the
fruit is not ripe, i. e., if the skin has not begun to shrivel
and darken. No one would advise the use of uncooked
potatoes; yet many people eschew a thoroughly ripe banana
in the belief that this wholesome fruit is 'rotten' when the
skin becomes darkened, whereas they eagerly eat the yellow-
green starch-bearing fruit at its stage of incomplete
ripeness."

It is an entirely different matter when the green or semi-ripe
banana is cooked. The application of heat renders the pulp
nutritious and readily digestible, and the tropical natives
prepare many delicious dishes by baking green bananas in
ashes.

The Magazine of the Housewives^ League discusses the food
value of bananas entertainingly in a recent article, from
which the following extracts are selected:

"The food value of the banana, long known in tropical
countries, has within the past twenty years begun to be more
highly appreciated by the masses of the northern countries,
and the following facts, collated from authoritative sources,
will indicate the progress made by science and commerce in
familiarizing the people living outside of tropical countries
with its value as a foodstuff.

"From a sanitary point of view, the banana is superior to
many other fruits. Exposed on stands on the street, in
fruit stores and othciwise, by reason of the fact that it is
always first peeled to ^et at the edible portion, it escapes all
forms of germ life communications either by the air or con-
tact with polluted substances. The skin of the fresh apple
is generally eaten, with the risk of dirt and disease, by the
ordinary people. Cooked, the baked apple is open to the
same objection — and the same facts apply to many other
forms of fruit in a greater or less degree.

350

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

-"For further comparison, the following table has been
prepared by the Government:

Bananas

Porterhouse
Steak

Price per pound
Cost of roo calories

Energy —
Total weight food material
Fuel value, calories

.07 cents
23.30 cents

1.43 lbs.
. 429.00 lbs.

25.00 cents
22. 50 cents

.40 lbs.
444.00 lbs.

IXDIAX AND MARIMBA
The marimba is a musical kistrument similar to the xylophone

"This table indicates that the most strenuous form of
labor can be supported by a banana diet equally as well as
by the highest class meat diet. It is a well-established fact
that in the States of Parana and Santa Catarina, Brazil, the
entire population subsists exclusively on bananas as a food,
and coffee as a drink; and these sections are famous for the
strength and endurance of their laboring classes.

LESSONS TAUGHT 351

"The familiar form of the banana in the tropics, other
than the fresh fruit, is the flour or meal made from the dried
fruit. The tabulated statistics show, among other data,
that banana flour contains an average of 85 per cent of car-
bohydrates, as compared with 75 per cent from wheat flour,
but it is lower in protein or flesh-forming values. This flour
is used in combination with milk, sugar, etc., in the prepara-
tion of cakes, custards, and similar articles. It is very palat-
able and never cloys. It is particularly adapted for persons
of weak or inferior digestive organs, and is now marketed
by a New York company. Seven hundred weight of fruit
are used to make a hundred weight of flour. -

"The banana is further used to make breakfast foods — -
like the ordinary cereal; one preparation taking the place of
coffee as a nutriment instead of a stimulant; banana bis;**
cuits are now on the menu of many households; banahi
vinegar is said to have many excellent qualities to recom-
mend it; banana marmalade, banana prepared as a substitute
for figs, raisins, grapes, and currants are some of the other
commercial articles which are rapidly making their way into
everyday use in households, and are advertised by supply
houses.

"In view of the importation of upwards of 44,cxx),ooo
bunches of bananas per annum, under the auspices of several
powerful American corporations, subsidiary companies,
equipped with scientific laboratories, have been established
in New York City and elsewhere, supplementing the efforts
of the United States Government for the definite purpose of
continuing the study of how to increase the value of the
banana in new forms of foodstuffs."

While the banana can be prepared in various ways, it is
surprising to find the number of persons who are amazed to
learn that it can be served baked, fried, or in many other
ways. The American and European people are just begin-
ning to appreciate the advantages and desirability of the
banana as a most appetizing vegetable cooked for the daily
consumption of the rich and poor alike.

The test of the food value of any article of diet is found

352 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

in the relative proportion of flesh-forming principle it con-
tains, viz: proteid; after this the amount of carbohydrate
and fat is taken into consideration. The following analysis
showing the composition of the apple, orange, and banana
is by Atwater:

Water

Proteid

Fat

Carbo-
hydrate

Asi

Apple . .
Orange . .
Banana . .

. . 84.6
. . 86.9
• . 75-3

•4
.8

1.3

•5
.2
.6

14.2
11.6

22.0

•3
•5
.8

The exceptional qualities of the banana as a wholesome
and nutritious food are recognized and extolled by the lead-
ing medical authorities. Albert Harris Hoy, M. D., in his
famous book on "Eating and Drinking," says:

"It is a remarkable fact that the albuminates are present
in the banana in almost the same proportion that they are
found in milk, this substance, according to three investiga-
tors, containing them to the extent of 4.03 per cent. Dry
wheat flour contains 12 per cent of albuminates, and hence
one pound of it would be equalled in nourishment by three
pounds of bananas. Were these dried and reduced to flour,
one pound of this flour would probably equal two pounds of
wheat flour in nourishment. The analysis of the banana
then but confirms that which experience has proved to be
true, that it is a fruit of high nutritive value. In fact, it
stands alone in this respect, as well as being the only sweet
fruit which can be obtained fresh and in a suitable condition
in all parts of the country and at all seasons of the year."

This very important fact is also generally recognized and
commented on by the leading medical authorities abroad.
No less an authority than Dr. Arnold Lorand of Carlsbad, in
his recent book on "Health and Longevity through Ra-
tional Diet," says:

"There is probably no more nourishing food, or one whose
cultivation is of more value to mankind, than the banana.
. . . In view of the very great influence of fruit upon the

LESSONS TAUGHT 353

health of the population in general it would be very desir-
able that the duties collected on fruits be abolished."

In the course of a speech delivered recently on his return
to London from Jamaica, Sir James Crich ton-Browne, M.
D., F. R. S., a leading medical authority of England, said:

"I wish all of our school-children could have bananas from
time to time. The banana is not a flavored fruit, that is to
say, a little sugar and water with some essence thrown in,
but a fruit- food containing, in an agreeable form, all of the
essential elements of nutrition. As an adjunct to our other
foods it is of great value, being at once acceptable to all —
for it is not an acquired taste — giving variety to the domestic
diet and mingling well with other comestibles. I am quite
sure that the Jamaica banana, than which there is none finer
or better flavored when it is of the proper degree of ripeness,
is, in the guise of a cheap luxury, a substantial addition to
our food supply, and one which is certain more and more to
commend itself to the working classes of our large towns.
Its portability, palatability, and digestibility are immense
advantages, and I am glad to see that it is largely taking the
place of the stale sandwich on railway journeys."

HOW TO COOK BANANAS

As has been explained, the banana should not be eaten
raw until its yellow peel is mottled with brown. It is then
not only readily digestible but delicious. On account of its
natural protection from contamination, it has well been said
that "The banana was put up and sealed by nature in a germ-
proof package," and so long as that package is intact the
banana itself furnishes absolute guarantee that it is pure food.

Professional chefs and amateur cooks are constantly
finding new ways to cook bananas. Here are a few recipes
which have attained wide popularity:

BANANA FRITTERS

One-half cup of flour, one-quarter cup of cold water, one egg beaten,
one-fourth teaspoon of melted butter, one pinch of baking powder.

Beat the yolk of the egg; add the water, and stir into the flour; add the

354 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

salt, baking powder, and melted butter, then the white of egg whipped to
a stiff froth.

Put sliced bananas into this batter and fry. About three or four slices
should be incorporated in each fritter. When done, dredge with pow-
dered sugar and serve hot.

FRIED BANANAS

Select firm and rather slender fruit; peel and cut into sections about
three inches long. Fry in hot butter, and, as the bananas cook, sprinkle
with a little sugar, and roll about carefully in the frying pan until a light
brown all over. Dish, pouring over any butter and sugar remaining in
the pan. Serve very hot.

BANANA CROQUETTES

Peel the bananas, cut into short lengths, round the cut edges, dip in
beaten egg, roll in sifted crumbs, and fry until tender and brown. Serve
hot with any kind of roast meat.

BANANAS WITH BACON OR HAM

Prepare fruit as above. Cook in the same manner, using bacon or
ham fat in place of butter, and serve on the platter with broiled bacon or
ham. This dish, with a salad, makes an exceedingly good luncheon.

GELATINE OF BANANAS

Make a lemon, an orange or a wine jelly, according to the rule for the
kind of gelatine used. Mould this with sliced bananas only, or with
oranges, white grapes, a few figs cut up, nuts, or any mixture liked.

Turn out and serve with whipped cream.

BANANA SHORTCAKE

* When berries^ or fresh peaches are out of season, use sliced bananas
between and on top of layers of shortcake.

Add the fruit the moment before serving, as the heat will discolor the
iruit if allowed to stand after slicing when uncooked.

SPICED BANANAS

Stir gently thick slices of bananas in a syrup flavored with cinnamon,
cloves, and a very little mace.

BANANA LOAF

Take a small loaf of sponge cake or angel food, and cut a well in the
centre. Fill with sliced bananas and heap with whipped cream sweetened
to taste.

BANANA CAKE

Bake a sponge cake or a plain cup cake in two layers.

Just before serving, put freshly sliced bananas between and on top of
the layers of cake. Cover the top thickly with whipped cream and serve
at the table in wedge-shaped pieces.

LESSONS TAUGHT 355

BANANA ICE CREAM

One quart of cream. One cup of sugar, pulp of five or six bananas,
juice of one lemon, a pinch of salt.

Heat the cream with three-fourths of the sugar. Let it cool. Peel
the bananas, split and remove the seeds and dark spots; rub through a
sieve; add salt, lemon juice, and the fourth of a cup of sugar. Mix with
the chilled cream and freeze at once.

BANANA BAVARIAN CREAM

One pint of cooked banana pulp sweetened, one-half box of granulated
gelatine, one-half pint of cold water, one pint of cream.

Stew ripe bananas in a little water until there is a pint of pulp.
Sweeten to taste. Soak the gelatine in the cold water. When thoroughly
dissolved, beat through the pulp and stand in cracked ice, and stir until it
begins to thicken.

Add the cream whipped very stiff, and a cup of chopped nuts. Put in
a mould to harden. To serve, turn on a platter, surrounded with
whipped cream, dotted with maraschino cherries.

At the meeting of the British Medical Association in July,
1910, Dr. Eric Pritchard recommended the use of banana
flour in infant feeding. Dr. Pritchard asserted that it was
cheap and wholesome, rendered the milk more digestible,
and possessed high nutritive value. He stated that for
many years he has recommended the addition of mashed
banana to the milk mixtures with which babies are fed when
the natural source is unavailable. As the results of careful
experiments he recommended the substitution of banana
flour, made into a gruel or decoction, for the more expensive
proprietary infant foods. It is of great importance that
infants should be trained early to digest cow's milk, and this
cannot be done by giving them artificial substitutes which
are predigested, and Dr. Pritchard finds that a decoction of
banana gruel has much to recommend it.

Thus we see that the banana is a fruit, a food, a drink, a
breakfast dish, a dessert, a confection, and a medicine. It
shares with bread the distinction of a staff of life, and is a
welcome addition to the menu of the affluent.

Created into an industry by the men who founded and who
have made of the United Fruit Company a mighty enter-
prise, the banana has bequeathed to the United States a vast
extension of its commerce, and has pointed the sure and hon-
orable way for the further peaceful conquest of the American

356

CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

tropics. It already has taken a place as a fixture in our
social economy, but it is destined to a much higher rank in
the future as a factor in promoting the health, happiness,
and prosperity of hundreds of millions of people who were
strangers to this tropical fruit-food only a short generation ago.
The United Fruit Company is more than a corporation.
It is an institution, an American institution founded by cer-
tain of its citizens and conducted with a broadness of policy
and an industrial statesmanship which lift it out of the
class of mere money making and profit hunting corporations.

Myrtle Bank Hotel, Kingston, Jamaica

It is doing for the American tropics and the American people
what the Hudson Bay Company did for the British Empire
in the frozen north of Canada. It has awakened the slum-
bering nations bordering on the Caribbean with the quicken-
ing tonic of Yankee enterprise. It has proved to the world
that these tropics can be converted from a harassing lia-
bility into an asset of stupendous value, and it has solved for
the world the problem of transforming deadly swamps and
jungles to gardens on which can be raised the food products
demanded to keep pace with the ever-increasing hunger of
the city-housed multitudes.

LESSONS TAUGHT 357

Andrew W. Preston is, and always has been, President of
the United Fruit Company, and is the active executive head
and directing spirit of it and all of its subsidiary interests.
His rise from a fruit merchant in Boston to the front of vast
enterprises, national and international in their scope, is a
striking illustration of what opportunity offers in America
to the one who hears the call, and is swift and earnest to take
honest advantage of possibilities in new fields reached by
untrodden paths.

I called on Mr. Preston in his Boston office and asked him
to explain the general policy which has been followed by the
United Fruit Company in relation to its competitors and to
the consuming public which purchases its products. In his
frank answers to my rather pointed questions Mr. Preston
takes a position which may be studied with interest by all
who have intelligent concern in the vital problems which
have arisen with the growth of wide-reaching industrial cor-
porations. My first question was:

"What is the competitive policy of the United Fruit
Company?''

Mr. Preston: "Competition, in its ordinary trade
sense, is not a vitally important factor in the banana in-
dustry. The total of marketable bananas produced in the
American tropics is not sufficient to meet the demands of
existing markets and those which are yet practically ufi^
touched, and there is every indication that the demand in the
established market centres will continue greatly to increase.
There are periods, of course, when there is an over-supply of
this fruit, and at such times prices automatically fall below
the cost of production and handling, but the slight fluctua-
tions in the wholesale prices are seldom reflected in the rates
paid by the consumers. The United Fruit Company and its
competitors are planning in confident expectation that the
banana is destined to have a decidedly enhanced use as a
fruit and a food in the coming years. Since the known field
is large enough for all of us there is no incentive to waste
money and energy in a struggle for something which would
be of no advantage if won."

"Is there any understanding or agreement, written or

358 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

implied, between the United Fruit Company and any of its
competitors?"

Mr. Preston: "There is absolutely none, and there has
never been a time when our company has attempted to direct
or influence the policies or acts of its competitors. We have
been busy with other and vastly more important matters.
Whatever of success we have attained has been because of
creative and not of destructive endeavor. No combination
or agreement would have any appreciable influence in de-
termining banana prices. If an artificial increase in banana
prices were possible, and if we were so foolish and criminal
as to participate in such a conspiracy, the very success of
it would precipitate business disaster. There are legitimate
profits in the banana industry only because the natural laws
of trade and of free competition have made this tropical
fruit a staple article with a recognized food value, and be-
-;Cause the consumers know that it can always be obtained at
an unvarying low price.

''We have keen competition with the steamship com-
panies which bid for the passenger and freight traffic to and
from the ports in the American tropics. We have keen com-
petition in the production and sale of our Cuban sugar out-
put. The leading railroads of the United States carry for
us not less than 50,000 carloads of freight annually. In these
and in all of the other ramifications of our business we have
rigidly adhered to the policy of making no alliances, combi-
nations, or agreements with competitors, and we have neither
solicited or received any discriminating favors from railroad
lines. Our company has not been a party to any pooling
agreement, to any agreement having as its object a division
of territory, division of traffic, or any other stipulation which
would interfere in the free exercise of competition."

*' Would not the weaker rivals of the United Fruit Com-
pany be at its mercy in the event of a cut-rate war.^"

Mr. Preston : ''Possibly, but what pretext could justify
a cut-rate war in bananas.? It is not only illegal but im-
moral for a strong competitor to use such a weapon on a
weaker one. It is true that this was not a part of the
general business code years ago. Selling below cost was

LESSONS TAUGHT 359

frequently resorted to, and there was no law and little
public sentiment against this feature of competition in a
period not far remote. But the records will show that no
such tactics ever have been employed in the banana
trade.

"With our widely scattered plantations and highly de-
veloped systems of transportation we have legitimately
acquired advantages over all of our competitors, but we exer-
cise these advantages fairly and, I believe, generously. It
sometimes happens that a competitor loses a ship or has one
disabled. If it is possible for us to do so, we do not hesitate
to place one of our ships at his disposal. Again, it happens
that a flood or a wind or some other disaster may ruin the
plantations from which he draws his supplies. Instead of
taking advantage of this calamity to invade and absorb his
market we make it a practice to furnish him with bananas
from our own plantations until such time as he can arrange
for a permanent source of supply. We claim no special
merit for this, and we should expect an honorable competitor
to do what he could for us under similar circumstances. It
is in accord with the spirit of the new competition. When
a newspaper building is destroyed by fire its most bitter rival
is likely to offer the use of its plant. The United States has
evoluted from the savagery of old-time competition, and I
am glad to say that our company never has been afflicted
with it."

"What is the general policy, the aim, and the ultimate
ambition of the United Fruit Company.'"'

Mr. Preston: "A corporation has the double duty of
conserving the interests of its stockholders and of rendering
a service to the public which has authorized its corporate
existence. These duties do not conflict. The stockholders
are entitled to fair profits on their stock investments, and the
public is entitled to the benefits of prices and services based
on just dividend rates. That has been our general policy,
and the present management will continue it. We deal
jnainly in bananas and sugar, the two cheaper food products
now at the command of the American consumer.

"The aim of the United Fruit Company is to continue its

)

360 CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS

work of linking the United States commercially and indus-
trially with the American tropics, and to share in the rewards
of the mutually enhanced prosperity of both sections. We
are proud of what we have already accomplished. We are
jealous of a prestige earnestly fought for, and we shall do our
\ best to preserve and increase it."

I have presented in these chapters the operations of the
United Fruit Company as I have seen and studied them.
If I am prejudiced in its favor it is because of an admiration
for great enterprises which perform great services in a com-
prehensive and scientific way and which, consequently, de-

The United Fruit Company SS. Tenadores

servedly are crowned with success. The fair-minded traveller
or student who analyzes the record and achievements of this
far-reaching tropical and international enterprise may, in his
verdict, recall President Woodrow Wilson's eloquent sum-
ming-up of his attitude toward big business:

"I am not jealous of any progress or growth no matter
how huge the result, provided the result was indeed obtained
by the processes of wholesome development, which are the
processes of efficiency, of economy, of intelligence, and of

THE END

INDEX

PAGE

Ahangarez 310

Abbot, fVillis J 308

Almirante Bay 148

Almirante District:

Great banana production 156

Almirante, Town of . . 291

American Fruit Company 82

Antilla 243-254

Aracataca 237-292

Aspintoall Fruit Company 70

At€nas 309-312

Atwater 352

Bananas and Banana Industry:

Unknown to Jefferson and Franklin 15

Not known in U. S. prior to 1870 . . 16

Under-production of 19

Rare in 1876 21

Delusions concerning 24

Do not ripen on trees 26

Do not grow wild 27

Mystery concerning origin 30

Unknown in ancient Rome- 30

"Fruit of Knowledge" 32

The "Gros Michel" 32

The "Claret" or red banana ... 34

Doubt concerning first importations 35

Importations by Carl B. Franc .... 35

Fomerly deemed a luxury 36

Original scarcity in tropics 36

Part taken by Andrew W. Preston . 39

Risks of cultivation 48

Parttakenby Minor C. Keith 61

First shipped to New Orleans 61

Planted in Bosca del Toro 62

ImpKDrtations in 1898 69

Impossibility of monopoly 70

Early conditions of industry 72

Menaces to plantations 75

Cannot be conducted on small scale . 80

Prices not affected by disasters 96

Becomes a staple product 97

Severe losses from at times 105

First shipped to Great Britain in

1903 106

Low profits per bunch 109

Cultivation abandoned in Cuba . lii

Production in Jamaica 134

PAGE

Bananas and Banana Industry — Cont.

Competition in Jamaica 136

Export duties on 147

Changuinola bananas 156

Profits per acre 158

Plantations of Costa Rica 171

Loading in Puerto Limon 177

Rigid inspection of 180

Refrigeration of 188

Cultivation in Guatemala 197

Cultivation in British Honduras . . . 217

Cultivation in Nicaragua 217

Cultivation in Spanish Honduras . 218

Irrigation in Colombia 234

Plantations in Colombia 234

Size of plantations 300

Railroads used in transporting .... 303

No middleman 314

The attempted import tax 334

Cheapness of 337

Opinion of Houston Post 338

Opinion of N. Y. Times 339

Table of retail prices 342

Verse concerning 342

Secret of cheapness 344

Companion of prices 346

Food value of 348

How to cook 353

Banana Messengers 318

*' Banan-Nutro" 187

Banana River 174

Bahamas 128

Baker, Captain Lorenzo D.

Pioneer in banana industry 38

Balboa 30

Banes Fruit Company 82

Banes Sugar Company 102-254

Banes, Town of 244

Description of 294

Barrios {See Puerto Barrios)

Bayer, Henry y Son 70

Barranca 3 10-312

Belize, City of 49-216

Belize Royal Mail i^ Central American
Steamship Company

Beranga, Thomas di 32

Bluefields 241

Bluefields Steamship Company, Ltd. ... 70

363

364

INDEX

PAGE

Blue Mountain Peak 130

Boca Chica 222

Boca Granda 222

Becas del Tore:

Beauties of 146

Description pf 149

Climate and rainfall 152

History of ISS

Bog Walk 140

Boston Central 246

Boston Chamber of Commerce 317

Boston Fruit Company:

Organized by Andrew W. Preston

in 1884 44

Its early success 47

Oneof the leaders in 1898 74

Sold for $5,200,000 82

, Exempt from hurricanes 94

Founded Cuban sugar company . . . 244
British Honduras:

Peaceful conditions of 216

Agricultural possibilities 217

Buenos Aires 292

Buckman Fruit Company 82

Cabot 30

Calamares 309-3 1 1

Camors, McConnell y Company 70

Camors, Weinberger Banana Company
Ltd.

Cape Gracias a Dios 241

Cape Maisi 129

Cape San Antonio 241

Carthage 3

Cartago 171-309-3 12

Carillo 310-312

Cartagena:

Pronunciation of 221

History of 222

Map of 223

Description of 224

Capture by Sir Francis Drake 225

Attacked by American colonists . . 228

Castleton Gardens 140

Ceballos, J. M. ^ Company 70

Cefalu, J. B. y Brother 70

Central America:

Part of the true tropics 6

Dread of the coastlands 49

Awful death-rate 50

Former lack of railroads 50

Its social classes 161

Population of 194

" Central " Boston 246

" Central " Preston 246

Chanler, Dr.G.C, 284

PAGE

Changuinola District:

Acquired by U. F. Company 107

High quality of bananas 156

Chagras 3 10-3 1 1

Chiriqui Lagoon: 68

Scenic wonders of 148

Chiriqui Mountain 150

Chirripo 310-312

Clifford, Sir Hugh 207

Colombian Land Co., Ltd 68

Colon, City of:

Early banana shipments from 35

West of Panama City 141

Leading port of U. F. Co 143

Colon, Cristobal 128

Colorado River 279

Columbus, Christopher 128

Columbus Island 149

Competition:

Always existed in banana industry . 47

Active in Central America 64

None between Preston and Keith

interests in 1898 74

Popular dread of in 1899 87

Keen competition in Jamaica 134

Copan 205-209

Coppename 3^0

Costa Rica:

Building its first railroad 58

Comes to aid of Minor C. Keith ... 78

"An oasis of progress" 163

A white man's republic 164

Crichton-Brown, Sir James 353

Cuba:

Not really tropical 5

Devastated by revolutions 37

Banana cultivation abandoned .... 1 1 1

Conditions in 1900 253

Dartmouth, Town of 200

Dominican Fruit Company 28

Drake, Sir Francis:

Capture of Cartagena 225

Dumois-Nipe Company 244

Duke, Rio 198

Elders ^ Fyffes, Ltd.:

English Banana Company to6

Addition to its fleet 115

U. F. Co. acquires stock 118

El Pilar 200

Esparta 309-312

Estrella River I74

Fawcett, William 188

Fort Pastillo 232

Fort San Fernando 222-232

INDEX

365

PAGE

Fort San Jose 222-232

fort San Lazar 232

Franc, Carl B.:

Began banana importations in 1866 35

Not real founder of banana industry 3 8

France:

Reaching out into tropics 7

Fruit Dispatch Company:

Its function 83

Why organized 3^4

Magnitude of operations 317

Educational work 320

Increase in business 322

Fundacion , 237-292

Galveston Cotton Exchange 317

Germany:

Reaching out into tropics 7

Gorgas, Col. fV. C. 264-266-272

Great Britain:

Reason for commercial supremacy. 4

Enormous tropical possessions.... 7

First banana shipments to 106

*'Gros Michel " 32

Guatemala :

Start of banana industry iii

Population of 194

Its dread of the lowlands 196

Sanitary work in 273

Guatemala City I9S

Hart, J. D. ^ Company 70

Havana 141

Henderson, Sir Alexander 68

Heredia 3 10-312

Hetvett, Prof. Edward L 207

Hoadley y Company:

Failure of 78

Honduras {British) :

Peaceful conditions prevailing .... 216

Agricultural possibilities 217

Honduras {Spanish):

Banana development of 218

Its backward condition 219

Lack of railroads 219

Sanitation of 279

Hope Gardens 140

Houston Post:

Editorial from 338

Hoy, Dr. Albert Harris:

Quotation from 352

Humboldt 28

Indians:

Character in Central America 161

In Costa Rica 164

Treatment in Guatemala 201

PAGE

International Railways of Central

America 306-326

Izabel, Lake 198

Jamaica:

Did not initiate banana industry .. 39

Devastated by hurricane in 1900 . . 95

Hurricane of 1903 107

Importanceof banana industry ... 131

Has 1 1,000 banana farmers 133

Keen competitive conditions 134

Quality of its bananas 137

Jamaican Negroes:

Best of tropical workmen 56

Their loyalty to Mr. Keith 58

Part played by in Central America . 162

Wages paid to in Costa Rica 173

Comforts enjoyed by 174

Journal of American Medical Associ-
ation:

Extract from 349

Jones, Chester Lloyd:

Article in North American Review . 167

Keith, Henry M 55

Keith, Minor C:

Sketch of early career 54

His start in Texas 55

Ambition to build railroads 55

Begins railroad work in Costa Rica 56

Difficulties encountered 58

Founded city of Puerto Limon .... 59
Why he engaged in banana cultiva-
tion 61

Shipped first bananas to New Or-
leans 61

Development of Bocas del Toro ... 62

His banana investment in Colombia 66

Financial complications in 1898 ... 78

Aided by Costa Rica 78

First meets Andrew W. Preston ... 79
Railroads in Guatemala and Salva-
dor 196

Life work of 326

Kerr, John E. y Company 70

Kingston 140

Kipling, Rudyard I77

Kitson, Sir Thomas 68

La Cienaga 292

La Popa, Convent of 232

Lindsay, James 68

Live Stock of United Fruit Co.:

Owned in 1900 9^

Owned in 1913 302

Livingston, Town of 198

366

INDEX

PAGE

Loma Cristal 263

Loranda, Dr. Arnold 352

Los Andes 200

Macabi 254

Magazine of Housewives^ League 350

Magalhaes 30

Manistee 309-3 1 1

Manzanares 310-3 1 1

Marowijne 310

Marshall Field l^ Company 88

Matina 309-312

Meiggs, Henry 55

Metapan 3 10-3 1 1

Miama 309-3 1 1

Mobile Chambet of Commerce 317

Monroe Doctrine 67

Monianas de Poco 279

Monumental Trading Company 70

Morley, Sylvanus Griswold 205

Mosquito:

The fight against 272

Motagua River 197-200-203

Myrtle Bank Hotel 140

Nances Cay Island 149-291

National Railway Lines of Mexico .... 326
National Geographic Magazine . . . . 201-2 1 1

Nelson, E. T. 343

New Orleans i^ Belize Royal Mail 13

Central American Steamship Co. . . 70

New Orleans Board of Trade 317

New Orleans Importing Company .... 73
New York Times:

Extract from 339

Nicaragua:

Its banana production 217

Nicoya 309-3 12

Nipe Bay Company:

Why founded 246

North American Review:

Extract from 167

Noyes, W.W.^C.R 70

O'Keefe, John 344

Orr, Laubenheimer Company, Ltd 70

Oteri, S 70

Pacuare 309-3 12

Panama Banana Flour Company .... 187
Panama Canal Zone 144

Sanitary condition of 270

Panama City 144

Panama, Republic of 144

Its banana industry m

Pan-American Railways 54

Parismina 3 10-312

PAGE

Pastores 309-3 11

Patuca 3 10-3 1 1

Peten 205

Plantain:

Its uses 28

Confused with the banana 29

Port Antonio:

Its scenic beauties 130

Its excellent hotel 138

Port Morant 188

Port Royal 142

Porto Bello 230

Pico Blanca 150

Pinzon 30

Pizarro 30

Preston, Andrew fV.:

Early work in banana industry .... 39 "

Sketch of early career 41

Reorganized Hancock National

Bank . .'. 42

Boston fiuit merchant in 1884 44

Organizes Boston Fruit Company . 45

His business policy 47

Adopted precautionary measure ... 48

His early business start 55

One of the banana pioneers 74

First relations with Minor C. Keith 79

Lucidity of his annual reports 88

Anticipated climatic disasters .... 94

Extract from second annual report . loi

His policy of reinvestments " 112

Extract from 13 th annual report . 120

His report on Cuban sugar 2/^

Name given to a Cuban town ..... 254

Work in tropical sanitation 270

Part taken in promoting tropical

commerce 306

Organized Fruit Dispatch Company 3 16

Instructions to employees 321

Statement by 328

Leading spirit of banana industry . . 357

Interview with 357

Preston, " Central " 246

Preston, Town of 254

P rite hard. Dr. Eric:

Opinions of 355

Pringle, Sir John 136

Puerto Barrios:

Its fine harbor 198

Sanitary work in 274

Puerto Cortez:

Its fine harbor 218

Puerto Limon:

Its creation by Mr. Keith 59

Growth and population 173

Plantations of United Fruit Co.:

Acreage in 1900 91

Acreage in 1913 291

INDEX

^N^

367

PAGE

Quaker City Fruit Company 82

Quirigua Hospital 276

Quirigua, Ruins of:

Location of 204

Description of 205

Quirigua, Town of:

Location of 200

Quirigua Roo 205

Railroads owned by United Fruit Co.:

Holdings in 1900 ,.. ..,04

In Costa Rica 174

On Cuban sugar plantations 250

Holdings in 1913 . .^ 777 ^qj.

Rathbun, IV . L. ^ Company 70

Reventazon 310-312

Rio Dulce 198

Rio Frio 237-292

Saetia Sugar Company 122-247

Salina Cruz 49

Salvador 194

Sama Fruit Company 82

Sands, W. F 205

San Domingo:

Devastated by revolutions 38

Hurricane of 1900 95

. U. F. Company seiU property 116

San Jose:

Capital of Costa Rica 55

Lacked railroad to coast 56

Charms of 169

Sanitation:

Recognition of its necessity 99

Early conditions in Bocas del Toro . 155
U. F, Co. pioneer in tropical sanita-
tion 264

In Guatemala 272

. Quirigua hospital 276

Triumphs of 278

In Spanish Honduras 279

In Costa Rica 281

In Panama 287

In Bocas del Toro 290

In Colombia 292

In Cuba 294

Magnitude of 295

Santa Marta:

Description of 233-235

Map of 233

Banana development 236

Population of 292

Saramacca 310

Sevilla 237—292

Seward, J. H. Importing Company ... 70

Sierra Nevada Mountains 233-237

Showalter, William Joseph 201

Simmons^ Process 256

PAGE

Sixaola River 158

Snyder Banana Company 68

Southern Banana Exchange 73

Stevenson, Robert Louis 146

Sugar:

Investments in Cuba 99

Early losses from 102-254

Cheapness of 104

Productions in 1912-13 243

The "Simmons Process" 256

Making paper from bagasse 261

Sugar Cane Plantations:

Must be cultivated on large scale ... 80

Acreage of U. F. Co. in Cuba 247

Treatment of independents 248

Railroad systems 250

Map of 251

Surinam^ 310

Swan Island 24V

Talamanca 150

Tegucigalpa 219

Tela 279

Tenadores 309-3 1 1

Tierra Bomba Island 222-232

Tivives 309-3 12

Tivoli Hot^l 141

Titchfield, Hotel 138

Tortugero 3 10-512

Tropical Fruit Steamship Co.:

Organized in 1904 107

Tropical Trading Iff Transport Co. Ltd. 68
Tropics:

Limited extent of in New World . . 6

Investments in by the U. F. Co 166

Description of jungle 199

Treves, Sir Frederick:

Description of Cartagena 225

Tropical America, Extract from 159

Trujillo 66

Tucurinca 237

Turrialba 3 10-3 12

United Fruit Company:

Record should be studied 13

Not a trust 17

Corporations antedating it 70

Not a consolidation 81

Incorporated March 30, 1899 82

Purchase of non-competing com-
panies 82

Purchase of Keith interests 85

Predictions of failure 85

Had no exclusive advantages 86

Its diversified interests 90

Assets in 1900 91

Plantations in 1900 91

Live stock owned in 1900 92

368

INDEX

United Fruit Company — Cont.

Railroads owned in 1900 94

Survives disasters in initial year . . 96

Assets in 1900 98

Sugar investments in Cuba 99

Reasonable anticipation of profits . 101

Earnings in 1900 loi

Not discouraged by disasters .... 102
Begins banana shipments to Great

Britain 106

Fine record in 1907 112

No bananas sold at retail 113

Remarkable creative work 116

Sale of properties in San Domingo . 1 16

Acquires holdings of Elders & Fyffes 118

Acquires new sugar properties 122

Its position in Jamaica 133

Development of Panama 156

7,000 men employed in Panama .... 161

In Costa Rica 165

Expended $200,000,000 in tropics . 166

Its army of 60,000 men 176

Its rigid inspection of bananas . . . 180-3 18

Development of Guatemala 194

Praised by Showalter 201

Operations in British Honduras . . . 216

In Spanish Honduras ...., 218

In Colombia 236

Extends financial aid to small

growers 237

Its wireless system 240

Sugar investment in Cuba 243

Acquires majority interest in Nipe

Bay Co 246

Purchase Saetia Sugar Co 247

The " Simmons Process" 256

Pioneer in tropical sanitation 264

Lands owned and leased 297

Table of cultivations 300

Holdings of live stock 302

Railroads and tramways 304

United Fruit Company — Cont.

Fleet in 1913 307

Increase in freight carried 307

Names of ships 309

New ships ordered 310

Policy of 314

Scope of business 322

Assets in 1913 .' 327

Income account for 1913 330

Statement concerning 332

An American institution 356

United Fruit Company Fleet:

Its extent in 1900 98

Organization of Tropical Fruit

Steamship Company 107

Excellence of ships 123

Size of fleet in *9i3 306

Names of ships 309

Fifteen ships ordered in 1913 310

" War of Jenkins^ Ear" 230

Washington, Lawrence:

Fought at Cartagena 229

Cause of death 231

West Indian Fruit Company 70

West Indian Trading Company 70

Windward Passage 129

Wilson, President Woodrow:

Quotation from 360

Wireless Telegraph:

In Puerto Limon 168

Its warnings 176

Station in Santa Marta 240

A novel feature 240

List of land stations 241

Woolworth Building 45

Yucatan.. 212

Zacapa 311

Zent 312

lil

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