Skull & Bones and the American National Red Cross

Bonesmen (and ancestors of Bonesmen) incorporators in 1905 include Charles C. Glover (Charles C. Glover III is S&B 1940); William K. Van Reypen (Jr. is S&B 1905); Gifford Pinchot, S&B 1889; William H. Taft, S&B 1878; William Draper (William Draper III is S&B 1950); and Daniel C. Gilman, S&B 1852.

"Clara Barton, Hilary A. Herbert, Thomas F. Walsh, Charles C. Glover, Charles J. Bell, Mabel T. Boardman, George Dewey, William R. Day, Nelson A. Miles, James Tanner, William K. Van Reypen, John M. Wilson, Simon Wolf, James R. Garfield, Gifford Pinchot, S. W. Woodward, Mary A. Logan, Walter Wyman, of Washington, District of Columbia; George H. Shields, of Missouri; William H. Taft, F. B. Loomis, Samuel Mather, of Ohio; Spencer Trask, Robert C. Ogden, Cleveland H. Dodge, George C. Boldt, William T. Wardwell, John G. Carlisle, George B. McClellan, Elizabeth Mills Reid, Margaret Carnegie, of New York; John H. Converse, Alexander Mackay-Smith, J. Wilkes O'Neill, H. Kirke Porter, of Pennsylvania; Richard Olney, W. Murray Crane, Henry L. Higginson, William Draper, Frederick H. Gillett, of Massachusetts; Marshall Field, Robert T. Lincoln, Lambert Tree, of Illinois; A. G. Kaufman, of South Carolina; Alexander W. Terrell, of Texas; George Gray, of Delaware; Redfield Proctor, of Vermont; John W. Foster, Noble C. Butler, Robert W. Miers, of Indiana; John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi; William Alden Smith, of Michigan; Horace Davis, W. W. Morrow, of California; Daniel C. Gilman, Eugene Lovering, of Maryland; J. Taylor Ellyson, of Virginia; Daniel R. Noyes, of Minnesota; Emanuel Fiske, Marshall Fiske, of Connecticut, together with five other persons to be named by the President of the United States, one to be chosen from each of the Departments of State, War, Navy, Treasury, and Justice, their associates and successors, are created a body corporate and politic in the District of Columbia." (Jan. 5, 1905, ch. 23, Sec. 1, 33 Stat. 599. Title 36 Patriotic Societies and Observances, Chapter 1, American National Red Cross.)

Mabel Thorp Boardman, "Leading Volunteer"

"The W.J. Boardman family, of which she is just now the most prominent member nationally, has long been acquainted with that of William H. Taft. The Boardmans went to Washington from Cleveland, Ohio; the Tafts made their first appearance in the National capital in the early nineties, and ever since the two families have been on terms of the closest intimacy. No one will dispute the fact that Miss Boardman is President Taft's most intimate woman friend outside of his own immediate family. He made the Boardman home his headquarters in Washington just before his inauguration, and he now visits it in the most familiar manner. In fact, that home is one of the few places in Washington where the President sometimes drops in to pass an evening informally. During the Roosevelt Administration the home of Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts was thus honored. In 1905 Miss Boardman went to the Philippines with Mr. Taft, who was then Secretary of War. Shortly thereafter she induced Mr. Taft to become the President of the American Red Cross Society, and Mr. Taft established this organization, of which Miss Boardman was the Secretary, in quarters in the War Department, where it still remains. Before Mr. Taft was nominated for the Presidency, but when politicians were inisisting on treating him as the heir-apparent and crowding his outer office daily, Mr. Taft's secretary, Fred Carpenter, and Miss Boardman were the only persons who could enter the inner office of the Secretary of War at any and all times. Mr. Taft has always addressed Miss Boardman by her given name, while she invariably refers to him as 'Mr. Taft.' Her sister married Sen. W. Murray Crane of Massachusetts, and that dignitary now enjoys a close intimacy with the President not only because of his official position but also because of his relationship to the Boardman family. Incidentally, Miss Boardman is a leader of the social set in Washington. Entree of the Boardman home socially, whether formal or informal, quickly establishes one's social standing in the National capital." (The Most Intimate Friends of President Taft. By E.J. Edwards. New York Times, May 29, 1910.) Mabel Boardman was her sister's only attendant at her marriage to Sen. Winthrop Murray Crane. It was avery small wedding by Society standards, with only thirty-two people in the room, besides the bride and groom and two officiating clergymen. Besides Cranes and Boardmans, the guests included Mr. and Mrs. A. Henry Mosle of New York, and Mr. and Mrs. S.G. Colt and T.L. Pomeroy of Pittsfield, Mass. (Josephine Boardman, Bride of Senator Crane, In Simple Ceremony at Manchester-by-the-Sea. Washington Times, Jul. 10, 1906.) Mosle was "an attorney who handled many routine financial and legal operations for William Jarvis Boardman." (Guide to the Boardman Family Papers. Yale University Library, accessed 11/12/09.)

"In 1900 her name appeared, apparently without her knowledge, as one of the incorporators of the American Red Cross for a congressional charter." She later "used her [unnamed] political influence to cause the withdrawal of government support" and depose Clara Barton in 1904. "In April 1917 a Red Cross War Council superseded the regular executive committee, and Boardman was relegated to relatively minor tasks. She failed to win reappointment to the reconstituted executive committee in 1919."

Mabel Boardman's father, William Jarvis Boardman (Trinity College 1854, Yale School of Law ex-1855), was a son-in-law of Joseph E. Sheffield, the benefactor of Yale's Sheffield Scientific School. They are descendants of Rev. Daniel Boardman of Wethersfield, Yale 1709, one of the earliest graduates. Her nephew, William Jarvis Boardman 2d, graduated from Sheffield Scientific School in 1908. (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale Deceased during the Year 1938-1939, p. 221.) William J. Boardman's nephew, Samuel Rossiter Betts, Scroll & Key 1875, studied law with him in Cleveland.

Mabel Boardman was a correspondent of fellow Cleveland native Harvey Williams Cushing, Scroll & Key 1891, in 1891 and from 1913 to 1925, while ARC Chairman William Howard Taft deferred to her. Cushing also corresponded with ARC incorporators Gifford Pinchot in 1908-1934, Samuel Mather in 1913-31, and Henry L. Higginson and Lee, Higginson & Co., 1914-32.

Mabel Boardman was a leading socialite in Washington, DC, whose crowd included Mrs. Richard H. Townsend, Mrs. Robert McCormick, her sister, and her granddaughter, Mrs. Robert W. Patterson, and Countess Cyzleki, Mme. Christian Hauge, widow of the former Minister of Norway to the United States, Mrs. John Hays Hammond, Mrs. Robert Hitt, Mrs. Marshall Field, Mrs. Henry C. Corbin and her sisters, the Misses Patten, Mrs. Hope Slater, Mrs. Stephen B. Elkins, Mrs. Billy Hitt, formerly Katherine Elkins, Miss Mary Sherrill, Mrs. Thomas F. Bayard, Mrs. Hennen Jennings, Mrs. James McMillan, Mrs. Preston Gibson, Mrs. Thomas F. Walsh and her daughter, Mrs. Edward Beale McLean, Mrs. Henry F. Dimock, Mrs. Mary McCallum, and others. (New Social Bosses of the Nation's Capital. By Mary E. Noyes. Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23, 1913.)

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 1905

Gen. Dmitri Feodorovich Trepoff, the head of the "Third Section" (political police), ruled by telephone from a heavily guarded room in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. He emerged only at night to review his troops, and "passed through the streets hidden in a Red Cross ambulance." "The Czar was led to believe that his only hope of personal safety was to trust himself to Trepoff, and so a few months ago he summoned the General from St. Petersburg to become Master of the Palace at Tsarskoe-Selo. Here he set himself with the aid of Count Ignatieff to influence the Czar toward reaction. They counseled firmness. They attempted to prove that the people were not ready for liberty. They organized the Black Hundreds through such willing tools as Durnovo. They poisoned the Emperor's mind against the Jews as the instigators of the revolution everywhere, and planned the anti-Jewish massacres for Easter, 1906, which were to demonstrate to the Emperor how the real Russian people had risen in their wrath to smite the revolution and its agitators." Trepoff's father, a foundling who had been raised by a German couple, had been the head of the Third Section under Alexander II. (Death of Gen. Trepoff, Most Hated Russian. New York Times, Sep. 16, 1906.) [Trepoff died of natural causes, said to be asthma and heart disease, although two of his own nieces tried to assassinate him, and the Marxists website claims that he was "slain."]

Official histories state that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was first published as the twelfth and final chapter of a book, "The Great in the Small," by Sergei Alexandrovich Nilus, at Tsarskoe Selo, Russia, in 1905. They never tell who the publisher was. According to Princess Catherine Radziwill, in an article by Isaac Landman in The American Hebrew, it came from the press of the Red Cross: "'I am now referring to the years 1904 and 1905. I lived in Paris at the time. Golowinsky called on me. As his mother's son I received him. I did not know at first that he was in the service of the Russian Secret Police. One day he showed me and some friends a manuscript he had been working on with Maniuloff and Rachowsky. He said this manuscript proved that there existed a great Jewish conspiracy against the peace of the world. The one measure to fight this conspiracy, he said, was the wholesale expulsion of Jews from Russia. We laughed at the whole affair, but Golowinsky was proud of his achievement. I handled the manuscript several times. So did my friends, including an American lady now in this country. The manuscript was in French, all handwritten, but in different handwritings. It was on a yellow-tinged paper. I recall clearly that on the first page there was a high [sic] blot of blue ink. Later I heard that this same manuscript was published from the press of the Red Cross at Tsarskoe Selo.'" She also said that "'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion had their beginning in 1884, many years before their publication by Nilus. They were created to serve a political purpose, following the assassination of Czar Alexander II.'" (Protocols Forged, Princess Says. New York Times, Feb. 25, 1921.) "[T]he title of this chapter 12, in the Table of Contents (un-numbered page 419) is Antichrist as an Imminent Political Possibility." (Velikoe v malom i antikhrist. Wikipedia, accessed 1-27-07.) "Tипографія Царскосельскаго КоМитета Краснаго Креста" translates as "Typography of the Tsarskye Selo Committee of the Red Cross." (User Talk: Alex Bakharev/Archive 11. Wikipedia, accessed 1-27-07.) The local committee of the Red Cross was founded in 1899. (Tsarskoe Selo Cathedral. The History of Tsarskoe Selo, A. N. Benois, 1910.)

The American Red Cross Mission to Russia, 1917

"Up to about 1915 the most influential person in the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. was Miss Mabel Boardman. An active and energetic promoter, Miss Boardman had been the moving force behind the Red Cross enterprise, although its endowment came from wealthy and prominent persons including J.P. Morgan, Mrs. E.H. Harriman, Cleveland H. Dodge, and Mrs. Russell Sage. The 1910 fund-raising campaign for $2 million, for example, was successful only because it was supported by these wealthy residents of New York City. In fact, most of the money came from New York City. J.P. Morgan himself contributed $100,000 and seven other contributors in New York City amassed $300,000. Only one person outside New York City contributed over $10,000 and that was William J. Boardman, Miss Boardman's father. Henry P. Davison was chairman of the 1910 New York Fund-Raising Committee and later became chairman of the War Council of the American Red Cross."

The American Red Cross Mission to Russia in 1917 was headed by Frank Billings. "Poor Mr. Billings believed he was in charge of a scientific mission for the relief of Russia... He was in reality nothing but a mask -- the Red Cross complexion of the mission was nothing but a mask," admitted Cornelius Kelleher, assistant to William Boyce Thompson, head of the US Federal Reserve Bank, who funded the charade. "Dr. Frank Billings, nominal head of the mission and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, was reported to be disgusted with the overtly political activities of the majority of the mission. The other medical men were William S. Thayer, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University; D. J. McCarthy, Fellow of Phipps Institute for Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, at Philadelphia; Henry C. Sherman, professor of food chemistry at Columbia University; C. E. A. Winslow, professor of bacteriology and hygiene at Yale Medical School; Wilbur E. Post, professor of medicine at Rush Medical College; Dr. Malcolm Grow, of the Medical Officers Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army; and Orrin Wightman, professor of clinical medicine, New York Polyclinic Hospital. George C. Whipple was listed as professor of sanitary engineering at Harvard University but in fact was partner of the New York firm of Hazen, Whipple & Fuller, engineering consultants. This is significant because Malcolm Pirnie — of whom more later — was listed as an assistant sanitary engineer and employed as an engineer by Hazen, Whipple & Fuller." The seven medical members quit and returned to the US. Other participants included lawyer Thomas Day Thacher, Skull & Bones 1904, member of the advisory committee of Yale's Institute of Human Relations (and son of Thomas Thacher S&B 1871); George W. Hill, President of the American Tobacco Company; James W. Andrews, then the auditor of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.; and Harry L. Hopkins, who was assistant to the general manager of the Red Cross in Washington, DC. (Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony C. Sutton. Chapter V - The American Red Cross Mission in Russia - 1917.)

Dermot Heywood Hardy (1893-1982), a 1917 law graduate of Georgetown University, was stenographer and secretary for the mission. "A native of Waco, Texas, Hardy was hired in 1913 as a secretary in the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.... After his work in Russia, he was attached briefly to the War Trade Board in Europe, employed as an attorney in the Department of Justice, and had a private law practice." (D. Heywood Hardy. A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress. Prepared by Michael Spangler.)

Malcolm Cummins Grow, M.D., had been recruited to work as a surgeon with the Imperial Russian Army Medical Corps in 1915, under Colonel Kalpaschnecoff [Andrew Kalpashnikoff]. (Surgeon Grow. An American in the Russian Fighting. By Malcolm C. Grow. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1918.)

Orrin Sage Wightman M.D. (1873-1965), N.Y.U. 1895, was born in New York City. During World War I, he was a major in the United States Army Medical Corps. In the 1917 Red Cross Mission to Russia, he went by boat from Vancouver, B.C. to Japan, and continued by train through China to Mongolia, by the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Petrograd, Russia, and finally Romania. Finally, he traveled back across Russia and sailed home from China. He took many pictures, with Lt. Harold Wyckoff as his assistant. His wife's aunt was the Mrs. Caleb C. Dula, the president of Liggett & Myers tobacco company. (Guide to the Orrin Sage Wightman Collection. New York University, accessed 1/5/10.)

The Rockefeller Foundation contributed $5,000,000, with no strings attached, to the 1917 Red Cross War Fund, through Team 6, headed by Edgar L. Marston, of which John D. Rockefeller was a member. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company contributed $1,500,000, and the General Electric Company, $1,000,000. The Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company contributed $50,000 through its various branches. James B. Duke's nephew, Angier B. Duke, "[i]nstead of soliciting big contributions from his wealthy friends," set out to collect donations of $1 to $5 from the poor folks of Newport, Rhode Island. (Rockefeller Donation To Red Cross $5,000,000. New York Times, June 22, 1917, p. 10.)

President Woodrow Wilson was named as the largely ceremonial President of the Red Cross in 1913; in turn, he appointed the seven-member War Council of Wall Street banksters who organized the 1917 mission to Russia. (Leaders of the American Red Cross. American Red Cross Museum.) The first official Chairman of the American Red Cross (1905-06) was Rear Adm. (ret) William K. Van Reypen, whose son, William Knickerbocker Van Reypen, Jr., was in Skull & Bones Class of 1905. William Howard Taft (S&B 1878) served as President of the ARC from 1906-13 and Chairman from 1915-1919. He was a close friend of Mabel Boardman and "deferred to her in most matters." Morgan banker Henry (Harry) Pomeroy Davison was Chairman of the War Council from 1917-1919; his sons, F. Trubee and Henry Pomeroy Davison, joined Skull & Bones in 1918 and 1920. Livingston Farrand, Chairman of the Central Committee from 1919-1921, was an old crony of William H. Welch from the National Association for the Prevention and Study of Tuberculosis, of which he was Executive Secretary from 1905-1914. Rear Adm. Cary T. Grayson was Chairman from 1935-38; his widow, who was a close friend of the second Mrs. Wilson, married George L. Harrison, S&B 1910, of the Federal Reserve in 1940, and Cary Travers Grayson Jr. joined Skull & Bones in 1942. FDR's crony, Basil O'Connor, was President from 1944-47 and Chairman from 1947-49. Edward Roland Harriman, S&B 1917, the brother of Averell Harriman, S&B 1913, was President from 1950-53 and Chairman from 1954-73. Frank Stanton, former president and CEO of CBS, succeded him as Chairman from 1973-79. Former National Institutes of Health Director Bernardine P. Healy was President from 1999-2001.

Harold Sherman Wells, S&B 1907, served with the American Red Cross in London, England in 1918-19, then as assistant director of organizations of the International League of Red Cross Societies at Geneva, Switzerland 1919-22. (Bulletin of Yale University, Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1936-1937, p. 109.)

Elisha Francis Riggs Jr., Scroll & Key 1909

Elisha Francis Riggs Jr., S&K 1909, was military attache at the American Embassy in Petrograd, Russia from 1916-1918, and chief of the Russian Field Mission with the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, and the American representative on the Armistice Commission in Klagenfurt Basin, Austria, Austria, from Dec. 1918 to Dec. 1919. He was in the office of the Military Intelligence Department in Washington from Dec. 1919 until June 1920. He was appointed Chief of Police of Puerto Rico in 1933, where he was assassinated in February 1936. His father, Elisha F. Riggs, was president of Riggs & Co. (later the Riggs National Bank). His grandfather, George Washington Riggs, was in the Yale class of 1833. His brother, T. Lawrason Riggs [S&K 1910] was chaplain of the Catholic Club at Yale. (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1935-1936, p. 108.) George W. Riggs was the business partner of W.W. Corcoran in Corcoran & Riggs, 1840-1848, and the head of Riggs & Co. from 1845 until his death in 1881. His father, Elisha Riggs, was the business partner of George Peabody. (Family of Elisha Riggs (of Samuel) and Alice Lawrason. In: The founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland. By Joshua Dorsey, 1905, p. 374.)

George W. Riggs' daughter, Cecilia Dowdall Riggs, in 1867 married Henry Howard, C.B., cousin and collateral to the Duke of Norfolk. He was formerly secretary of the British Legation in Washington, D.C., and later First Secretary of the British Legation at Peking. Her sister, Katherine Shedden Riggs, married Louis de Geofroy, of the French Diplomatic Service. (Family of George Washington Riggs (of Elisha) and Janet Shedden. In: The founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland. By Joshua Dorsey, 1905, p. 375; and: Titled Americans. New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 11, 1888; Person Page - 6038. thePeerage.com.) Ludovico de Geoffroy was the former French Consul General in New York. He was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from France to the Court of China in 1872. (A Marriage at Rome. San Francisco Daily Eveing Bulletin, Jun. 5, 1872.) Henry Howard was charge d'affaires at the court of Wurtemberg at St. Petersburg in 1892. Count Linden of Wutemberg was married to an American, Isabella Andrews, daughter of Loring Andrews, "so distinguished for his generosity to the charitable institutions of New York." The wife of the German ambassador, de Schweinitz, was a daughter of John Jay. (Behind the Scenes. By the Marquise de Fontenoy. New Orleans Daily Picayune, Jul. 17, 1893.) Henry Howard was knighted in 1899. (New Orleans Daily Picayune, Jan. 25, 1899.) "Mr. George Howard, son of Henry Howard of England" was one of the notable guests, including eight members of the Rumsey family of Buffalo, at the wedding of Stephen Van Rensselaer Thayer to Julia Porter. (Thayer-Porter. New York Times, Jun. 6, 1895.)

Rev. Doremus Scudder, Skull & Bones 1880

"Attended Union Theological Seminary 1880-82, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 1881-82, and Northwestern University Medical School 1882-84 (M D 1884), interne Mercy Hospital, Chicago, 1884, medical missionary in Japan under American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 1884-89, ordained in Kobe 1885, stationed in Nugata 1885-89; minister Workers' (now Doremus) Church, Chicago, 1890-92, East Congregational Church, Brooklyn, 1892-95, and First Congregational Church, Woburn, Mass., 1895-1901, superintendant of mission work among Japanese in Hawaii 1902-04 and superintendent and secretary of all Congregational missions in Hawaii under Hawaiian Evangelical Association 1904-07, minister Central Union Church, Honolulu, 1907-16 and Union Church, Tokyo, Japan, 1916-18, assimilated rank of Major, American Red Cross, October, 1918 - July 26, 1919; executive secretary Siberian Commission, American Red Cross and later director Civilian Relief for Eastern and Western Siberia... minister at large 1922-42 residing at Claremont, Calif." His brother-in-law, Henry Choate Ordway, was also Skull & Bones 1880. (Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1942-1943, pp. 10-11.)

Charles Richard Crane, an International Machiavelli

In 1909, Charles R. Crane was nominated by President Taft to be Minister to China. "Mr. Crane has had large experience in foreign affairs, and has been seventeen times to Russia and speaks Russian. His uncle, Prof. Williams, was Professor of Chinese at Yale and wrote a book on China." (President Taft Delighted. New York Times, Jul. 17, 1909.) However, he was recalled by Sec. Knox just as he was about to board the boat for China.

His uncle was Samuel Wells Williams (1812-1884): "Williams was born in Utica, New York and studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. On graduation he was elected as a Professor of the Institute. On the June 15, 1833, and still in his twenties, he sailed for China to take charge of the printing press of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Guangdong, China. In 1837 he sailed on the Morrison to Japan. Officially this trip was to return some stranded Japanese sailors, but it was also an unsuccessful attempt to open Japan to American trade. On November 20, 1845 Williams married Sarah Walworth. From 1848 to 1851 Williams was the editor of The Chinese Repository, a leading Western journal published in China. In 1853 he was attached to Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's expedition to Japan as an official interpreter. In 1855, Williams was appointed Secretary of the United States Legation to China. During his stay in China, he wrote A Tonic Dictionary Of The Chinese Language In The Canton Dialect (英華分韻撮要) in 1856. After years of opposition from the Chinese government, Williams was instrumental in the negotiation of the Treaty of Tientsin, which provided for the toleration of both Chinese and foreign Christians. In 1860, he was appointed chargé d'affaires for the United States in Beijing. He resigned his position on October 25, 1876, 43 years to the day that he first landed at Guangzhou in 1833. Around 1875, he completed a translation of the Book of Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew into Japanese, but the manuscripts were lost in a fire before they could be published. He returned to the United States in 1877 and became the first Professor of Chinese language and Chinese literature in the United States at Yale University. Williams was nominated as president of the American Bible Society on February 3, 1881. He died on February 16, 1884." (Samuel Wells Williams. Wikipedia, accessed Jun. 28, 2009.)

Samuel Wells Williams' brother, William Frederic Williams, was a missionary in Turkey between 1849 and 1871. His son, Talcott Williams, was the first director of the Columbia School of Journalism from 1912 to 1919, and a trustee of Amherst College. (Talcott Williams Papers. University of Delaware.)

Samuel Wells Williams' nephew, John Porter Williams, was in charge of the electric telegraph on the Perry expedition of 1853. He died in Macao in 1857. (Genealogy of Thomas Williams of New Hartford, Oneida County, N.Y. By George Huntington Williams. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. XXXIV, 1880, p. 72.)

Samuel W. Williams' daughter, Sophie Gardner Williams, married Thomas George Grosvenor, C.B., second son of Baron Lord Ebury of England in 1877. (Genealogy of Thomas Williams of New Hartford, p. 75.) He was appointed secretary to the British legation at Peking in 1879. (Annual Register. By Edmund Burke and James Dodsley, 1879. Promotions and Appointments, p. 246.) He died in 1886. He was best man at the wedding of Horace Rumbold, who said of him: "After greatly distinguishing himself by his venturesome journey through the heart of China in search of the unfortunate Magary, and when he had before him every prospect of a great career, it was hard to be cut off in his prime at St. Petersburg." (Recollections of a Diplomatist. By Horace Rumbold, 1902, p. 210.) Her second husband was Sir Albert Gray of England. He was in the Civil Service in Ceylon, 1871-1875, and was Counsel of the Chairman of Committees at the House of Lords, 1896-1922. (GRAY, Sir Albert (1850-1928). Archives in London and the M25 area.)

Samuel Wells Williams' son, Frederick Wells Williams, was a member of Wolf's Head, 1879. He was instructor in Oriental history at Yale from 1893 to 1900, and then assistant professor of modern Oriental history until retiring in 1925. He was chairman of the executive committee of the Yale Foreign Missionary Society 1902-1917, and chairman of the board of trustees of Yale-in-China since 1917. (Obituary Record of Yale Graduates 1927-1928, p. 81.)

Samuel W. Williams' grandson, Wayland Wells Williams, graduated from Yale in 1910. (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1944-1945, p. 125.) He was an usher at Edmund W. Peaslee's wedding to Emily Delafield, daughter of Lewis L. Delafield. (Old Families See Delafield Wedding. New York Times, Feb. 16, 1926.)

Charles R. Crane's brother, Richard Teller Crane Jr., was a member of Book & Snake 1895. He was connected with the Crane Co. since 1896. He gave $100,000 to endow the Department of Therapeutics of New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. He was a trustee and life member and director of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1931-1932, p. 177.)

Charles R. Crane was a longtime correspondent and the authorized representative of Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu in the translation of his book, "L'empire des tsars et les Russes," on the religion and various sects in Russia, translated by Mme. Ragozin. (lLiterary Notes. Portland Oregonian, May 22, 1892.) He endowed a chair in Russian history at the University of Chicago, of which his uncle, Martin Ryerson, was a trustee. Its president, William Raney Harper, made a two-month tour of Russia, and met Emperor Nicholas II and other Russian officials. (Dr. W.R. Harper on Russia. New York Times, Jun. 16, 1900.) Crane was reportedly the unnamed hero of a novel called "The Golden Peril," by a German-American war correspondent "wherein the central character is an eccentric American plutocrat obsessed with the idea of freeing the oppressed peoples of all lands. While Mr. Crane was at Sofia he hobnobbed on terms of the greatest intimacy with some of the most famous Macedonian revolutionary leaders. He is said to have been lavish in the distribution of money... The hero of 'The Golden Peril' is depicted as employing not only his colossal American fortune, but his brilliant American Business ability for organizing a revolution throughout the world on strictly business principles. He chooses this occupation partly for excitement and partly because he is dominated by the idea that his money has been given to him to play the role of a world-wide liberator." (Novel Built Around Crane. New York Times, Oct. 15, 1909.)

In 1911, Charles R. Crane financed the China Press at Shanghai: "Most of the money for the purchase of type and mechanical equipment for the China Press was supplied by Charles R. Crane, a Chicago manufacturer, who became a stockholder and director in the enterprise." Its editor was Thomas Franklin Fairfax Millard, an alumnus of the University of Missouri, who first went to China as a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald to cover the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Millard had been forced to resign when the paper was taken over by "a local American real estate and insurance concern," and subsequently founded Millard's Review of the Far East in 1917. (My Twenty Five Years In China, by John B. Powell. Macmillan, 1945.) Crane left his home in Chicago to the use of the School of Civics and Philanthropy and moved to his summer home at Wood's Hole, Mass., in protest of the Illinois personal property tax on bonds. He was interested in the Marine Biological Laboratory there. (New York Times, Mar. 30, 1915.) Crane was a member of the corporation that controlled Harper's Weekly for three years, which also included Julius Rosenwald, George F. Porter, David Benton Jones, Thomas D. Jones, and Franklin MacVeagh [S&B 1862] of Chicago, Walter S. Rogers of La Grange, Ill., and Cleveland H. Dodge, Frederick L. Collins, and Norman Hapgood of New York. (Independent Buys Harper's Weekly. New York Times, Apr. 29, 1916.)

In politics, Crane was a Progressive who supported Cleveland and Taft, but opposed Roosevelt. He was one of the biggest backers of Sen. Robert LaFollete of Wisconsin, and was vice chairman of the Finance Committee in Woodrow Wilson's campaign for President. His banker friends included James B. Forgan, David R. Forgan, George F. Roberts, and Charles G. Dawes. "His father came from Paterson, N.J., and Mrs. Crane was Cornelia W. Smith of that city." (Men Who Will Raise Money. New York Times, Aug. 18, 1912.) [James B. Forgan was the uncle, and David R. Forgan was the father, of J. Russell Forgan, who wrote the act creating the Central Intelligence Agency.] Crane supported Sen. Robert M. La Follette "to the end" of his presidential campaign. (La Follette Says He Was Betrayed. New York Times, Oct. 19, 1912.)

From Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony Sutton, Chapter IV: "The best-documented example of Wall Street intervention in revolution is the operation of a New York syndicate in the Chinese revolution of 1912, which was led by Sun Yat-sen. Although the final gains of the syndicate remain unclear, the intention and role of the New York financing group are fully documented down to amounts of money, information on affiliated Chinese secret societies, and shipping lists of armaments to be purchased. The New York bankers syndicate for the Sun Yat-sen revolution included Charles B. Hill, an attorney with the law firm of Hunt, Hill & Betts. In 1912 the firm was located at 165 Broadway, New York, but in 1917 it moved to 120 Broadway (see chapter eight for the significance of this address). Charles B. Hill was director of several Westinghouse subsidiaries, including Bryant Electric, Perkins Electric Switch, and Westinghouse Lamp — all affiliated with Westinghouse Electric whose New York office was also located at 120 Broadway. Charles R. Crane, organizer of Westinghouse subsidiaries in Russia, had a known role in the first and second phases of the Bolshevik Revolution.... The work of the 1910 Hill syndicate in China is recorded in the Laurence Boothe Papers at the Hoover Institution. These papers contain over 110 related items, including letters of Sun Yat-sen to and from his American backers. In return for financial support, Sun Yat-sen promised the Hill syndicate railroad, banking, and commercial concessions in the new revolutionary China." [The "Schmedeman" who sent the cipher message of Feb. 21, 1918, from the U.S. Embassy at Christiana (Oslo), Norway, advising the location of the Bolshevik funds in Sweden was Albert G. Schmedeman, a Democrat who supported Wilson, and future Mayor of Madison, Wis. and Governor of the state. (Albert G. Schmedeman. Wikipedia, accessed 11/01/09.)]

From Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony Sutton, Chapter II: TROTSKY LEAVES NEW YORK TO COMPLETE THE REVOLUTION. "Consequently, by virtue of preferential treatment for Trotsky, when the S.S. Kristianiafjord left New York on March 26, 1917, Trotsky was aboard and holding a U.S. passport — and in company with other Trotskyire revolutionaries, Wall Street financiers, American Communists, and other interesting persons, few of whom had embarked for legitimate business. This mixed bag of passengers has been described by Lincoln Steffens, the American Communist... Notably, Lincoln Steffens was on board en route to Russia at the specific invitation of Charles Richard Crane, a backer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party's finance committee. Charles Crane, vice president of the Crane Company, had organized the Westinghouse Company in Russia, was a member of the Root mission to Russia, and had made no fewer than twenty-three visits to Russia between 1890 and 1930. Richard Crane, his son, was confidential assistant to then Secretary of State Robert Lansing. According to the former ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Crane "did much to bring on the Kerensky revolution which gave way to Communism." And so Steffens' comments in his diary about conversations aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord are highly pertinent:" . . . all agree that the revolution is in its first phase only, that it must grow. Crane and Russian radicals on the ship think we shall be in Petrograd for the re-revolution."

"Crane returned to the United States when the Bolshevik Revolution (that is, "the re-revolution") had been completed and, although a private citizen, was given firsthand reports of the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution as cables were received at the State Department. For example, one memorandum, dated December 11, 1917, is entitled "Copy of report on Maximalist uprising for Mr Crane." It originated with Maddin Summers, U.S. consul general in Moscow, and the covering letter from Summers reads in part: 'I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of same [above report] with the request that it be sent for the confidential information of Mr. Charles R. Crane. It is assumed that the Department will have no objection to Mr. Crane seeing the report ....'

"In brief, the unlikely and puzzling picture that emerges is that Charles Crane, a friend and backer of Woodrow Wilson and a prominent financier and politician, had a known role in the "first" revolution and traveled to Russia in mid-1917 in company with the American Communist Lincoln Steffens, who was in touch with both Woodrow Wilson and Trotsky. The latter in turn was carrying a passport issued at the orders of Wilson and $10,000 from supposed German sources. On his return to the U.S. after the "re-revolution," Crane was granted access to official documents concerning consolidation of the Bolshevik regime: This is a pattern of interlocking — if puzzling — events that warrants further investigation and suggests, though without at this point providing evidence, some link between the financier Crane and the revolutionary Trotsky....

TROTSKY'S INTENTIONS AND OBJECTIVES

"Consequently, we can derive the following sequence of events: Trotsky traveled from New York to Petrograd on a passport supplied by the intervention of Woodrow Wilson, and with the declared intention to "carry forward" the revolution. The British government was the immediate source of Trotsky's release from Canadian custody in April 1917, but there may well have been "pressures." Lincoln Steffens, an American Communist, acted as a link between Wilson and Charles R. Crane and between Crane and Trotsky. Further, while Crane had no official position, his son Richard was confidential assistant to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and Crane senior was provided with prompt and detailed reports on the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution. Moreover, Ambassador William Dodd (U.S. ambassador to Germany in the Hitler era) said that Crane had an active role in the Kerensky phase of the revolution; the Steffens letters confirm that Crane saw the Kerensky phase as only one step in a continuing revolution.

"The interesting point, however, is not so much the communication among dissimilar persons like Crane, Steffens, Trotsky, and Woodrow Wilson as the existence of at least a measure of agreement on the procedure to be followed — that is, the Provisional Government was seen as 'provisional,' and the 're-revolution' was to follow."

Charles R. Crane was a member of the 1917 Special Diplomatic Commission, or Root Commission to Russia, service as a member of the American Section of the Paris Peace Conference, and the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey in 1919 that now bears his name (King-Crane Commission). Crane later helped finance the first explorations for oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and was instrumental in gaining the American oil concession there. (Crane Family Papers at Columbia University)

Incorporators and directors of the American Central Committee for Russian Relief were Samuel Bertron, Miss Mouimistrow, Charles R. Crane, Charles Dawes, Henry De Bach, James Duncan, David R. Francis, Alexander J. Hemphill, Otto H. Kahn, Herman Kohlsaat, Cyrus McCormick, Samuel Gompers, Harold F. McCormick, Samuel McRoberts, Dr. John R. Mott, Honore Palmer, Potter Palmer, Harold I. Pratt, Mrs. T.J. Oakley Rhinelander, Mrs. William Rockhill, Elihu Root, Charles E. Russell, Charles H. Sabin, Montgomery Schuyler, James A. Stillman, Robert Winsor, and Elihu Root Jr. Elihu Root presided. Charles W. Eliot, President-Emeritus of Harvard University, was elected its first president. "Princess Julia Cantacuzene Speransky was given the chairmanship of the Board of Directors, which includes all civilian members of the Root mission to Russia, and prominent Russians in this country." (Organize Russian Relief. New York Times, Nov. 14, 1919.)

In 1919, he was interested in the purchase of The Washington Herald, along with former Food Administrator Herbert Hoover, and Julius H. Barnes. Walter Rogers, a former Chicago newspaperman who was in charge of cable censorship in New York during World War I, and later the Radio Press service of the Committee on Public Information, along with Herman Suter, a Princeton graduate, were to run it. "Regarding a comment that the purchase of The Herald might aid the former Food Controller materially if he desired to enter the Presidential race, either in 1920 or in 1924, Mr. Hoover said: 'If I hear anybody say that, I'll kill him.'" They also purchased the majority stock of the Pejepscot Paper Company from W.H. Parsons & Co. (Hoover and Crane Buyers of Herald. New York Times, Dec. 7, 1919.) President Wilson set up his Summer White House at Crane's estate at Wood's Hole. (Wilson to Spend Summer at Wood's Hole, Mass.; Taken to Indicate Improvement in Health. New York Times, Mar. 30, 1920.) Wilson appointed Crane the Ambassador to China from 1919 to 1920. On his return, he took the Trans Siberian Railroad from Harbin, China, across Russia. "[B]y personal intervention with Lenin of the Far Eastern Republic's President, Krasnacheckoff, an ex-Chicago lawyer, permission to make the trip across Russia had been accorded." (Crane Tells of Trip With Load of Rubles. By Walter Duranty. New York Times, Aug. 12, 1921.)

Colonel Andrew Kalpashnikoff, who was preparing to send a special train loaded with ambulances and cars to the Red Cross Mission in Rumania, was arrested on December 18, 1917 and charged with complicity in a plot to overthrow Trotsky. He said of the mission to Russia that "Their last piece of 'relief work' was not done to please the sound Russians. It was the donation to the Red Army of Trotzky of hundreds of thousands of cans of condensed milk sent to the starving babies of Russia. I found this out when I was in the fortress from one of my jailkeepers, who bought me some in the public market and brought it to me, saying, 'Look at this! The Americans have given it to the lazy Soviet soldiers for nothing and we fathers have got to pay 40 rubles a can to the Bolsheviki for it.' At first I would not believe this, but was forced to later when I read about this wonderful gift of the American Red Cross in the Bolshevist papers just at the time they began their newspaper campaign for the nomination of Colonel Robins for American Ambassador to the Lenin Government." Kalpashnikoff was in the U.S. in 1916, "delivering lectures and raising funds for the purchase of motor ambulances for the Siberian Regiments American Ambulance Society, of which he was commissioner general." Before the war he had been an attaché of the Russian Embassy at Washington, and when arrested was employed as chairman of the American Red Cross Mission to Rumania. (Raymond Robins and the Reds. New York Times, Jun. 27, 1920.)

Canadian Forces in Siberia

"Another development of the Russian situation was the Allied decision to send a force to Siberia in the autumn of 1918. The primary reason for this move was the relief of some four thousand Czecho-Slovaks who had worked their way across Siberia as far as lake Baikal. There they were surrounded by Bolshevik forces and prevented from proceeding to Vladivostok, where they had planned to embark for the Western front. Had the war continued into 1919, it is conceivable that a strong Allied force in Siberia would have been of considerable military value.

"The expedition was comprised of units from all the Allied nations, but the Canadians constituted nearly three-fourths of the British quota. The Canadians totalled 4,188 of all ranks and were under the command of Brigadier-General J. H. Elmsley, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. Practically every arm of the Service was represented, but two battalions of infantry made up more than half of the force. The first convoy left Canada on the 11th of October, 1918, just one month before the signing of the Armistice, and the last on the 27th of March, 1919.

"The relief of the Czecho-Slovaks was accomplished before the Canadians reached Vladivostok. Moreover, the signing of the Armistice cancelled any further military reasons for the presence of Allied troops in Russian territory. Nevertheless, some 3,500 of the Canadians were despatched after the 11th of November, 1918... The force, with the exception of a few stragglers, was returned to Canada between the 9th of April and the end of June, 1919." (Canada in the Great World War, Vol. 6, Special Services, Heroic Deeds, Etc. By Various Authorities, 1921, p. 238.) Brig. Gen. Harold Child Bickford (1876-1956) was the infantry brigadier who was to get to Vladivostok. (Allied Intervntion in Siberia, 1911-1919. Report No. 83. Historical Section (G.S.) Army Headquarters, Oct. 20, 1959, p. 17; The Canadian annual review of public affairs By John Castell Hopkins, 1918, p. 401.)

After the war, Harold C. Bickford lived in Buffalo, N.Y. He was a director of the Frontier Mortgage Corporation, whose fellow directors included Bronson Rumsey and U.S. Sen. James W. Wadsworth Jr. [S&B 1898]. (Display Ad. Dunkirk Evening Observer, Jun. 23, 1921.) His daughter, Mary Hastings Bickford, married Lowell P. Weicker [Yale 1927]. (Weicker-Bickford. New York Times, Oct. 23, 1927.) Another daughter married Gordon Follette York [Yale 1924] of Cleveland, Ohio. (York-Bickford. New York Times, Jan. 27, 1928.) He was the son of Robert H. York (1866-1924), whose uncle was Standard Oil magnate Henry M. Flagler. (Biography of Robert H. York. A History of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland. By William R. Coates, 1924.) Another daughter married James Granville Tremaine of Buffalo [Wolf's Head 1927], son of N.Y. State Controller Morris S. Tremaine. (Phyllis H. Bickford is Bride in Buffalo. New York Times, Jan. 13, 1934.) Mrs. H.C. Bickford of Buffalo was forbidden to re-enter Britain after arriving from Berlin, Germany by plane. (U.S. Woman Barred by British as a Spy. New York Times, May 24, 1938.) Brig.-Gen. Harold Bickford was an uncle of British Lieut-Commander Edward Bickford, of the submarine Salmon. (Nephew of Veteran. Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 19, 1939; Canadians Decorated By King. Winnipeg Free Press, Feb. 6, 1940.)

Denman Fleming Fox, Yale 1904, of Madoc, Ont., Canada, "volunteered for North Russia Relief Force as ordnance officer in charge of depot at Onega May-October, 1919; taken prisoner by the Bolshevists and rescued by British, returned to England and demobilized November, 1919." He was later a priest in Liverpool, England. (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1946-1947, p. 72.)

O.S.S. founder William J. Donovan is reported to have said, ""The door for intelligence work opened for me when I undertook my first secret mission while on my honeymoon in Japan in 1919. The United States Government asked me to take a two-month trip to Siberia to report on the anti-Bolshevik movement in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Well, it wasn't your usual honeymoon, but Mrs. Donovan was very understanding. The mission was successful and opened doors to many more missions for the government. I was heading down the intelligence path and I was loving it." (William Joseph Donovan. Wikipedia, accessed 2/20/10.) Donovan had previously been as an assistant to the head of the War Relief Commission of the Rockefeller Foundation. (Greene Heads War Relief. New York Times, Mar. 18, 1916.)

On to China

Clement James Smith and Helen Bruce Cleveland

Clement James Smith and Helen Bruce Cleveland met while both were in Siberia working for the Red Cross. She was the daughter of Mrs. Ralph Dwinel Cleveland of New York City. After marrying, they planned to reside in Shanghai, China, where Smith joined C.V. Starr and the American Asiatic Underwriters, which ultimately became part of the American International Group (AIG). During World War II, Clement J. Smith was an expert on China for "Wild Bill" Donovan.

Lansing W. Hoyt

"Hoyt was an American trade commissioner in China during the Hoover administration. He was president of the Yangtzse Rapids Steamship Co. in China, which operated a fleet of 12 American flag vessels from Shanghai to Chungking until the Japanese closed the Yangtzse in 1937." He was chairman of the Republican Party of Milwaukee County from 1940-42 and a member of the State Republican executive committee in 1940-41. He ran for Congress in 1942, 1944 and 1946. "A native of Wausau, he attended the University of Wisconsin and graduated from Princeton as an engineer in 1906." (Lansing Hoyt, GOP Leader, Is Dead at 69. Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, Jan. 13, 1954.) The steamship company began operations in around 1923. Its operations extended about 1500 miles throughout the navigable course of the Yangtzse. He married Josephine Cudahy in 1917. (New Fast Ships on Yangtze Fly American Flag. Waterloo Evening Courier, Aug. 18, 1928.) In 1932, one of his captains, Charles Baker, was kidnapped and held for ransom by a group calling themselves the Kienli Soviet Republic. Baker's wife lived in Oakland, Calif. (Washington Remains Inactive Despite Kidnaped Americans. San Antonio Light, May 22, 1932.) Lansing W. Hoyt was the son of Howard Hoyt of Evanston, Ill., and the nephew of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Hoyt of Madison. His wife was the daughter of Patrick Cudahy of Milwaukee. (Society. Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 14, 1916.) Howaard H. Hoyt was the General Manager for Wisconsin and Northern Michigan of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. (Display Ad. Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, Mar. 22, 1902.) He married Emma Robinson of Batavia, Ill. in 1879. (Marriage Licenses. Inter Ocean, Jun. 24, 1879.) His grandfather, Madison businessman Lansing W. Hoyt, died in 1892. His daughter was Mrs. Burr W. Jones. (Wisconsin News. Milwaukee Journal, Oct. 1, 1892.) Mr. and Mrs. Lansing Hoyt were among the ultra-elite of 1850s Madison society, holding fancy dress parties with the likes of Judge and Mrs. Levi B. Vilas and Gov. and Mrs. Farwell. (City's Diamond Anniversary a Time For Recalling Life and Diversions of Earlier Days. By Mary Livingston Burdick. The Capital Times, Mar. 4, 1931.)

The American-Russian Chamber of Commerce

"Organized originally to foster trade relations while the imperial Russian Government was in power, the Chamber later allied itself with the Kerensky régime, of which Boris Bakhmettieff was the Ambassador to this country for a time. After Mr. Bakhmettieff left its activities dwindled. It still favored trading with Russia, but protested against recognition of the Soviet Government." It was reorganized in 1926, with Reeve Schley as president and Allen Wardwell as vice president. Directors included Percival Farquhar, Lamar Fleming of Anderson, Clayton & Fleming; W.A. Harriman of W.A. Harriman & Co.; George H. Howard of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett; H. Arnold Jackson, President of the Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co.; M.H. LaBoyteaux, President of Johnson & Higgins; George LeBlanc, Vice President of the Equitable Trust Co.; Charles M. Muchnic, Vice President of the American Locomotive Sales Corp.; M.A. Oudin, Vice President of the International General Electric Co.; Edgerton Parsons, Vice President of Marsh & McLennan; E.P. Thomas, President of the United States Steel Products Co.; H.H. Westinghouse, Chairman of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company; and W.H. Woodin, President of the American Car and Foundry Company. "Many of these men, including Mr. Westinghouse, Mr. Woodin, Mr. Muchnic and Mr. Thomas, served as directors in 1920, about which time the Chamber practically ceased to function." (Campaign to Revive Trade With Russia. New York Times, Jun. 24, 1926.) Hugh L. Cooper, president of the engineering firm of Hugh L. Cooper & Co., G.P. Whaley, president of the Vacuum Oil Company, and Alex Gumberg, Vice President of the United States Company, were elected directors. The American-Russian Chamber of Commerce was the only organization in the U.S. through which passport visas to Russia could be obtained. (Three Added to Board for Russian Trade. New York Times, Nov. 7, 1927.)

George C. Hanson, former U.S. Consul General at Moscow, accused New York bankers of meddling in State Department affairs to their own advantage. The Chamber complained about his complaints, and got him removed from his position. In a letter to the State Department, Hanson complained that "Mr. Browne [executive secretary of the chamber] inferred that the chamber was practically a branch of the ____ ____ Bank and that the chamber did what the bank wished it to do. It is a well-known fact that this bank has a monopoly of financing American Russian trade." Reeve Schley was president of the Chamber. Hanson committed suicide on an ocean liner while returning home from Greece. (Hanson Laid Fall to Bank Meddling. New York Times, Sep. 12, 1935.)

cast 08-07-10