J.P. Morgan

From Merida to Monterrey, Americans ruined by April 1914 U.S. invasion of Veracruz

 

Up until the U.S. Invasion of Veracruz, American ranchers, farmers, miners and merchants were affected by the Mexican Revolution in much the same way as Mexicans of similar station: expropriations, inflation, and payment in rebel currencies, all worthless outside of Mexico. The situation changed for the worse when the blue jackets landed in Veracruz.

While the assets of Texas oil interests and the major investors such as J.P. Morgan Jr. and John Stillman were protected, the result of the U.S. intervention for the typical American settler in Mexico was utter ruin. From Sonora to Jalisco, from Monterrey to Merida, Americans suffered the wrath of enraged Mexicans.

What Wilson knew before the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

Contemporary historians still incorrectly refer to the cargo of the SS Ypiranga destined for Victoriano Huerta’s regime as German arms, so perhaps we might wonder what the senior members of the Wilson administration actually knew at the time.   After all, J.P. Morgan’s control of the Hamburg-American Packet Line, owner of the Ypiranga, was carefully obscured for decades.  The actual nature of the cargo, though, was apparently not a complete secret, as is evidenced by this letter to the editor of the New York Times from South Dakota Representative Charles H. Burke, published 14 months after the U.S. invasion of Veracruz:

April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz: a cast of characters

The cast of characters engaged in and around the events leading up to the US invasion of Veracruz in April 1914 were:
 

Petroleum interests around Tampico at the time were controlled by Americans, but around Veracruz, it was British, with Weetman D. Pearson, aka Lord Cowdray, representing the British consortium. Pearson  enjoyed the ferocious support Sir Lionel Cardon of the British Consulate in Mexico City, who had represented British interests in Mexico for decades.  Pearson's secretary was J.B. Body and Cardon's secretary was Thomas Hohler.   Cardon will figure big in our story.

WMD's and the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

The US invaded Veracruz, Mexico in April 1914, and interestingly enough, one might still wonder why: nearly a century has passed, and the actual objectives of the war are still rather obscure. The cover story that ran at the time was of a valiant effort to stop weapons of mass destruction (machine guns) from falling into the hand of a dictator. 

Ironically, the reactionary US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, a holdout from the Taft administration, had given the diplomatic green light for General Huerta to climb over the dead bodies of President Francisco Madero and Vice President Jóse Mária Pino Suarez, to assume the presidency that the Wilson administration sought to bring down.

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