Sugar, Surveillance, and Citizenship: The Global Crisis of 1919–20 in Buenos Aires and New York

Abstract

During the demobilization from the First World War in 1919, people around the world participated in mass protests over stagnant wages and the rising cost of living. With the Soviet revolution fresh in their minds, leaders used two strategies to contain dissent: xenophobic political repression on the one hand, and heavy-handed economic interventions to control the prices of basic foodstuffs on the other. In fact, the same law enforcement agency charged with repressing radicals, the US Justice Department, carried out sugar policies in 1919 and 1920. They created a cost of living bureau, which worked with New York sugar brokers to purchase cheap sugar on the world market. In the spring of 1920, they attempted to buy sugar in Argentina, which was neither a major sugar exporter nor one of the United States’ trading partners for sugar. This plan quickly ran into trouble, however, as protest in Argentina shaped politicians’ trade decisions. By the time the exports were approved, New York sugar prices had fallen and prices in Buenos Aires had skyrocketed. The resulting debates over sugar policy in both countries revealed how liberal democracies addressed political dissent through consumer markets. Policy-makers began to think of urban immigrants as political actors, ones who could either be incorporated through consumer populism or contained through police repression. And, in making calculations about how to control urban immigrant political participation, both Argentina and the United States implemented policies with lasting consequences for what people ate.

Keywords:

• Sugar
• wartime
• working-class consumers
• inflation

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Jeffrey Pilcher in the preparation of this article, along with insightful comments from Donna Gabaccia and one anonymous reviewer from Global Food History. An earlier version benefited from suggestions by Deborah Fitzgerald, and discussion among participants in the Latin American (Inter)Dependencies conference, held at New York University in 2014.

Notes

¹ See, e.g. Stovall, Paris and the Spirit of 1919, 212–20; Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, 66–73; Kennedy, Over Here, 287–91; Winter and Robert, Capital Cities at War; Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded; Davis, Home Fires Burning; Jung, “Revolutionary Currents,” 64. Manela, The Wilsonian Moment describes anticolonial nationalist protests of the same years.

² This essay draws on comparative scholarship from immigration history and food studies. On comparative immigration histories, Baily, Immigrants in the Lands of Promise; Gabaccia, “When the Migrants Are Men,” ; Gabaccia, Italy’s Many Diasporas. On US ethnic food history, Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat; Pilcher, Planet Taco; Diner, Hungering for America; Ziegelman, 97 Orchard.

³ Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization; Ayala, American Sugar Kingdom; Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint; Mapes, Sweet Tyranny Migrant Labor.

⁴ Lamborn Sugar Resolution, Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives 67th Congress, 2nd Session, April 17–18, 1922, 10.

⁵ For more on the First World War sugar price controls and local politics, see Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization, Chapter 3. On food during the war more broadly, see Veit, Modern Food, Moral Food. On Brazilian attempts to control coffee prices, see Seigel, Uneven Encounters, Chapter 1.

⁶ On the formation of the SEB, see Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization, 98–100; Bernhardt, Government Control, 693–5.

⁷ Simpson, “Price Fixing and the Theory of Profit,” 139.

⁸ Report of the Federal Trade Commission on Sugar Supply and Prices, 79.

⁹ Bernhardt, Government Control, 109–24.

¹⁰ Herbert Hoover to President Woodrow Wilson, June 15, 1918, Sugar Equalization Board Minutes, 1918–1919, Entry 1, Box 1, RG 6, NARA-II. Also quoted in Bernhardt, Government Control, 44.

¹¹ More broadly on Latin American food politics and social engineering, see Veit, Modern Food, Moral Food; Stefan Pohl-Valero, “‘La raza entre por la boca’,” 455–86. On the United States, see Cullather, “The Foreign Policy of the Calorie,” 337–64; Levenstein, Revolution at the Table; Levine, School Lunch Politics.

¹² Palmer, Charges of Illegal Practices of the Department of Justice, Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearings. 1921, 636. See also Palmer’s testimony in Investigation Relating to the Price of Louisiana Sugar, 149.

¹³ “Palmer and Kane Differ over Food Prosecutions,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 16, 1919, 1.

¹⁴ 41 Stat. 297–8.

¹⁵ Lamborn Sugar Resolution, 38.

¹⁶ Disposition of Sugar Imported from Argentine Republic, 26.

¹⁷ Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded, 118–20, 172; “Food Stored in Breweries; Hylan Inquiry Discloses Millions of Pounds Kept Off the Market,” New York Times, August 23, 1919.

¹⁸ Palmer, Charges of Illegal Practices, 636.

¹⁹ On international policing more broadly, see Andreas and Nadelmann, Policing the Globe. Argentina and the United States had participated in anti-anarchist conventions in the early 1900s, and they had similar anti-anarchist statutes. Stovall, Paris and the Spirit of 1919, 67 discusses policing, fear of revolution, consumer protest in wartime Paris.

²⁰ "Argentina Police Outwit Terrorizing Reds,” The National Police Journal 6, no. 3 (June 1920): 29.

²¹ "International South American Police Conference,", 404–6; Conferencia Internacional Sudamericana de Policía. Argentina.

^{22 “}United States Asks South America to Join in an Espionage System Against Radicals," New York Times, December 16, 1919, 17.

²³ On “acaparadores judíos,” see Lolo, El Peligro Semita en la República Argentina. On right wing groups in the United States, see Kennedy, Over Here, and Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded.

²⁴ Ferreras, “Evolución de los Principales Consumes Obreros,” 164–5. See also Frank, "Housewives, Socialists, and the Politics of Food," 255–85; Palermo, “En nombre del hogar proletario,” 585–620.

²⁵ For example, Repetto, La carestia de la vida, 15. Repetto was a Socialist who served in the Chamber of Deputies. His primary recommendation was for workers to form consumer cooperatives. On representations of wartime profiteers in Europe, see Robert, “The Image of the Profiteer.”

²⁶ Ruthenberg, “War and Revolution,” March 1920. Reprinted in Lovestone, Ruthenberg: Communist Fighter and Leader, 13–14.

²⁷ Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization, 84–5; Stovall, Paris and the Spirit of 1919, 70–3; Bonzon and Davis, “Feeding the Cities,” 340.

²⁸ Affidavits re: Max Markowitz case, Box 1 and re: Hiram Sklamberg case, Box 6, Entry 171–7, RG 4, NARA-NY. For a similar account of French policing and consumer politics during and after the First World War, see Stovall, Paris and the Spirit of 1919.

²⁹ Annual report, New York City Police Department (1919), 186.

³⁰ “Food Stored in Breweries,” New York Times, August 23, 1919, 1.

³¹ "Cities Will Sell Surplus Army Food,” New York Times, August 1, 1919.

³² “City To Be Government Sales Agent,” New York Tribune, August 1, 1919, 1; "Orders 400 Cars of Food for city," New York Times, August 14, 1919; "Sale of Army Food Begins in City Today," New York Times, August 21, 1919; "Thousands in Line to Buy Army Food," New York Times, August 22, 1919.

³³ “Election Is Most Pacific in History of New York,” New York Tribune, November 5, 1919, 4.

³⁴ "New York Police Plan Rout of H.C.L.," The National Police Journal 5, no. 3 (December 1919), 19; Annual report, New York City Police Department (1919), 98; Annual report, New York City Police Department (1920), 270. The New York police department stores sold shoes, sugar, tea, coffee, and other necessities at cost. By 1921, all but one of the stores closed and the Home Service Division was abolished in 1922.

³⁵ Annual report, New York City Police Department (1920), 281.

³⁶ “Women of Nation,” Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, November 21, 1919, 1. On women and consumer citizenship, see Veit, Modern Food, Moral Food; Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics; Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic.

³⁷ “Here Are Foes to H. C. L.,” The Duluth News Tribune, September 26, 1920, 13.

³⁸ Lamborn Sugar Resolution, 16.

³⁹ United States. Congress. House. Agriculture Committee, Sugar Hearings, January 1921, 88, 92.

⁴⁰ Rocchi, Chimneys In The Desert, 1. See also Walter, Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires.

⁴¹ Rocchi, Chimneys in the Desert, 31, 149. On food budgets in Argentina in these years, see Baily, Immigrants in the Lands of Promise, 110–3.

⁴² Rocchi, Chimneys in the Desert, 20.

⁴³ Pite, Creating a Common Table in Twentieth-Century Argentina, 4.

⁴⁴ On Argentine sugar tariffs, see Chamosa, The Argentine Folklore Movement; Guy and Wolfson, “Refinería Argentina, 1888–1930,” 353–73. On tariffs in Argentina generally, see Pineda, Industrial Development in a Frontier Economy. On US sugar tariffs, see Merleaux, “The Political Culture of Sugar Tariffs.”

⁴⁵ On Argentina’s sugar consumption, see Schleh, La Industria Azucarera.

⁴⁶ Art. 3, Ley Nacional No. 8877, February 15, 1912. This bears some broad resemblance to the sugar quotas developed in the United States during the New Deal.

⁴⁷ Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 3.

⁴⁸ Karush, Workers or Citizens, 2–3; Adelman, “Political Ruptures and Organized Labor,” 120; Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 115. On rural patronage networks in sugar regions, see Chamosa, Argentine Folklore Movement, 73–9. Chamosa argues that patronage was crucial for the electoral power that helped sugar industrialists maintain protectionist tariffs.

⁴⁹ Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 7; Karush, Workers or Citizens, 2; Adelman, “Political Ruptures,” 120.

⁵⁰ Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 23.

⁵¹ Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 28.

⁵² Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 365.

⁵³ Yrigoyen asserted control over bonded warehouses, which in some ways parallels the DOJ’s insistence that sugar could not be warehoused if there was a shortage of sugar. The war disrupted the sovereign space of bonded warehouses, a topic which deserves sustained attention. See, e.g. Margolies, “‘Factors of Universal Commerce’,” 19–25.

⁵⁴ Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 369.

⁵⁵ Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 327–28, 370–2.

⁵⁶ Disposition of Sugar Imported from Argentina, House Committee on Agriculture Hearings (1921), 12.

⁵⁷ “Palmer’s Failure Shake-Up Signal,” Wyoming State Tribune, May 14, 1920, 8.

⁵⁸ Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 373.

⁵⁹ “La Relaciones del Peludo,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] Crítica, June 12, 1920, 1. On anti-US sentiment in Argentina in this period, see Sheinin, Argentina and the United States, 32.

⁶⁰ “Poca Azúcar para tanto Amargo,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] Crítica, June 15, 1920, 1.

⁶¹ Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 374.

⁶² Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 307.

⁶³ Walter, Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 35; “Ferias Francas,” La Nacion [Buenos Aires], October 28, 1917, 12.

⁶⁴ Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 54; “Venta de Azúcar a 55 Centavos,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] La Nación, February 15, 1919, 8; “Importacion y Venta de Azúcar,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] La Nación, February 18, 1919, 8.

⁶⁵ Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party, 52.

⁶⁶ For a discussion of blackface in Argentina, see Chasteen, National Rhythms, African Roots.

⁶⁷ “El ‘Abaratamiento’ de la Vida por la Accion Oficial,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] La Vanguardia, July 6, 1920, 1.

⁶⁸ “El Azúcar,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] La Vanguardia, July 7, 1920, 1; “La Carestia de la Vida y La Mentira Oficial; Los Casos del Pan y El Azúcar,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] La Vanguardia, July 9, 1920, 1; “El Salario Actual y el Encarecimiento de la Vida,” La Vanguardia [Buenos Aires], August 6, 1918, 4.

⁶⁹ Schleh, La Industria Azucarera, 422.

⁷⁰ Pite, Creating a Common Table, 8, 5. See also Palermo, “En nombre del hogar proletario.”

⁷¹ “A la pobre gente que no tiene parientes ricos,” Crítica, July 6, 1920, 1; “La Carestia de la Vida; El Azúcar,” [Buenos Aires, Argentina] La Vanguardia, July 30, 1920, 1.

⁷² Fisher, "Stabilizing the Dollar." See also, Warburg, "Inflation as a World Problem," 90.

⁷³ Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World; Drake, The Money Doctor in the Andes.

⁷⁴ "The Cost of Living and the Purchasing Power of Money in Argentina," translation of El Costo de la Vida y el Poder de Compra de Moneda (Report No. 9, Series E, No. 1) published by the General Bureau of Statistics, Dr. A.E. Bunge, Director General, Buenos Aires, February 8, 1924, reprinted in Bulletin of the Pan American Union (June 1924).

⁷⁵ U.S. Federal Reserve Bulletin (July 1922): 821–2; Sheinin, Argentina and the United States, 53.

⁷⁶ See, e.g. Cohen, Making a New Deal; Frank, Purchasing Power; Glickman, A Living Wage. For the longer history of consumer politics in Argentina, see Elena, Dignifying Argentina; Milanesio, Workers Go Shopping in Argentina; Karush, Culture of Class; Pite, Creating a Common Table.

⁷⁷ Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, Chapter 2 argues that consumer protests coupled with war-time administration coalesced to solidify the cost of living as a major political issue in the United States through the 1920s. See also, Stovall, Paris and the Spirit of 1919, 183–7.