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Critical Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Culture

Local Invisibility,
Postcolonial Feminisms
Asian American Contemporary
Artists in California
Laura Fantone
Critical Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Culture

Series Editors
Danielle Egan
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY, USA

Patricia Clough
Graduate Centre
City University of New York
New York, NY, USA
Highlighting the work taking place at the crossroads of sociology, sexuality
studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and performance studies, this
series offers a platform for scholars pushing the boundaries of gender and
sexuality studies substantively, theoretically, and stylistically. The authors
draw on insights from diverse scholarship and research in popular culture,
ethnography, history, cinema, religion, performance, new media studies,
and technoscience studies to render visible the complex manner in which
gender and sexuality intersect and can, at times, create tensions and fis-
sures between one another. Encouraging breadth in terms of both scope
and theme, the series editors seek works that explore the multifaceted
domain of gender and sexuality in a manner that challenges the taken-for-­
granted. On one hand, the series foregrounds the pleasure, pain, politics,
and aesthetics at the nexus of sexual practice and gendered expression. On
the other, it explores new sites for the expression of gender and sexuality,
the new geographies of intimacy being constituted at both the local and
global scales.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14939
 Laura Fantone

Local Invisibility,
Postcolonial
Feminisms
Asian American Contemporary
Artists in California
Laura Fantone
Gender and Women’s Studies
University of California
Berkeley, CA, USA

Critical Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Culture

ISBN 978-1-137-50669-6    ISBN 978-1-137-50670-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50670-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953884

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic
adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover Image © Nancy Hom

Cover design by Fatima Jamadar

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
 This book is dedicated to all the artists, activists, cultural producers,
creative workers and immaterial laborers, who keep struggling across
generations to reach visibility, not only for their own sake, but to
empower neglected communities in Asia, the Americas and across the
Pacific. I dedicate this work to the memory of Asian American artists
and activists I heard about, saw, met and recognized in their greatness
when I arrived in the Bay Area and those that have passed away since:
Al Robles, Carlos Villa, Ruth Asawa, Yuri Kochiyama and Him Mark
Lai. The generation I do not write about here, yet whose work inspired
my project, and keeps inspiring those who came after them. Asian
Americans or not, all those enjoying their bright light and powerful
words and images of these artists.
 Acknowledgements

Writing the acknowledgments for this book is a great task. It allows me to

go back in time and to recognize the efforts, conversations, events,
encounters with people, to walk through all the turns that shaped this
book—so much time and energy shared with amazing artists, col-
leagues and friends. Their intelligence is the greatest gift that went into
this book.
Time and connections are the first gifts that must be acknowledged. All
the mistakes I made in the trajectory, and the many I was able to avoid
because of my colleagues and friends’ generous feedback, also need to be
acknowledged here.
The Asian American art I am so passionate about, evolves on its own; it
does not need a book like mine to be recognized. Asian American art’s
depth, diversity and multidimensionality will be acknowledged in more
relevant arenas, soon. I hope that this aspect of Asian American culture
will become more and more central to American culture, whatever that is.
Becoming aware of its limited visibility made me immensely more
thankful for the opportunities to find out so much about it while being in
Berkeley.
Going back to the beginning of the project, my deepest gratitude goes
to Trinh T. Minh-ha, whom I encountered on a hot day in Naples, eventu-
ally leading to research visual art, gender and postcoloniality. My thanks
extend as well to Iain Chambers and Lidia Curti, the few experts who
endlessly support my oscillations between Asian and American cultures
and art, never asking me to stop crossing boundaries.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Nancy Hom and Michelle Dizon, whose work, politics and
ethics are an endless inspiration, and Cynthia Tom, whose energy and
dedication to Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) can not
be described fully with words. I am grateful to Cynthia for her welcoming,
friendly way of opening up to me, showing such amazing trust and soli-
darity given our differences. I would like to thank Moira Roth, whose vast
knowledge of AAWAA and feminist artists of color guided me, from afar,
and, at times, in wonderful, unexpectedly present ways.
There were many AAWAA artists whose work I could not include here,
even if their words sustained my project, bringing me new insights and
energy, welcoming me after my periods of absence: Shari de Boer, Kay
Kang, XiaoJie Zheng, Shizue Siegel, Lenore Chinn, Judy Shintani, Lucy
Arai, Susan Almazol, Reiko Fuiji and Irene Wibawa. Every show organized
by AAWAA led me to articulate new questions (certainly more relevant
than the naïve ones I had prepared) inspiring insights and turning points
in my research, becoming an endless conversation I do not wish to conclude
now that the book is printed. I regret that it has taken me so long to return
something to them.
On a scholarly level, I am deeply thankful and inspired by Margo
Machida, Mark Johnson, Gordon Chang, Alexandra Chang, Elaine Kim,
Constance Lewallen and Lawrence Rinder.
I am thankful to Tiffany Lin who accompanied me to my interview
with Betty Kano and Cynthia Tom, and helped me with recording and
transcribing.
I am thankful for the BAM PFA staff’s willingness to meet and show
me some of the original works by Theresa Hak-Kyung Cha. That experi-
ence was a turning point for my entire project.
While I was affiliated with the Beatrice Bain Research Group on Gender,
I benefited from the feedback of many brilliant scholars from all over the
world: Meeta Rani Jha, Wendy Sarvasy, Anna Novakov, Lin Bin, Veronica
Saenz, Nicole Roberts, Tomomi Kinawa and the amazing filmmaker Dai
Jin Hua. I don’t know how I could have managed without the friendship
of Yun Li, Rita Alfonso and the warmth of the BBRG common room.
In the same environment, sometimes I had the opportunity to meet
Berkeley graduate students in the decolonial working group lead by Laura
Peré​z, and especially the members of the visuality and alterity working
group: Annie Fukushima, Dalida Marìa Benfield and Wanda Alarcòn.
My thanks to BBRG Staff, Gillian Edgelow, Charis Thompson, Paola
Bacchetta, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Juana Rodrìguez for their support in
the early stages. Today I wish to send my best, thankful thoughts to all
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
   ix

the University of California Berkeley faculty with whom I had the pleasure
to discuss my project; especially Mel Chen, Greg Choy, Catherine Ceniza
Choy, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Alisa Bierrìa, Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong,
Francine Masiello and Heartha Sweet Wong.
I am deeply indebted for conversations on many topics that turned out
to be relevant to this book, though sometimes I was not open to take in
their insights, because they would have changed completely the structure
of my argument (as they ended up doing anyway obliquely).
My colleagues were a constant inspiration, offering conversation, com-
fort and tips, all gifts that last still today. I am especially thinking of Harvey
Dong, Greg Choy, Ayse Agis, Jac Asher and Barbara Barnes.
For their hospitality, generosity in listening to my many rants, thinking
hard on my early drafts’ feedbacks, thanks to Barbara Epstein, Lou De
Matteis, Marta Baldocchi, Silvia Federici, Shonya Sayres, Rose Kim, Patrizia
Longo, Martin Stokes, Eddie Yuen, Robin Balliger and Marco Jacquemet.
For their illuminating insights and criticism, I am indebted to Patricia
Clough, Hosu Kim and the anonymous reviewers who believed in the proj-
ect, and led me to major rearranging of the chapters, with a mix of grace
and piercing criticism that reminded me of many women in my family.
For the patient, meticulous editing, I am grateful for the assistance I
received from three brilliant women: Kathy Wallerstein, Lisa Ruth Elliott
and Katie Lally. I must thank Palgrave’s editorial team Lani Oshima, Alexis
Nelson and Kyra Saniewski for patiently guiding me from the beginning
to the end, pushing me to move on and conclude, beyond my doubts and
fears.
A final point on location: the book was completed in Italy. I am thank-
ful to all the women in my family who support me and who will never
read this book, but still understand how important it was for me to write
it. I am grateful to all those who believed in maintaining words and
images on the same plane, all those who cross borders with courage and
inspirations.
Finally, I am grateful for my rootedness: a specific place I always go
back to, my family home’s top floor. It is a former barn, where I could
hide and write in silence for hours and enjoy the view of the sun setting on
the Alps. Grazie nonni, papi e mamma per lo spazio fisico e mentale! In this
sentence the many struggles of living between languages lie, hardly hidden
behind this book’s inevitable surface—a trace of a wound, a gap, uno
squarcio, across languages, continents, cultures, generations of women:
appreciating art, being and writing in-between.
 Contents

1 Introduction: Visuality, Gender and Asian America 1

2 Asian American Art for the People 25

3 Traces and Visions of In-Betweenness 63

4 AAWAA: Visibility, Pan-Asian Identity and the Limits

of Community 93

5 Red and Gold Washing 139

6 Opacities: Local Venues, Cosmopolitan Imaginaries 181

7 Conclusions 211

Bibliography 221

Index 233

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Working Women, poster by Nancy Hom 26

Fig. 2.2 Nancy Hom and filmmaker Loni Ding at Kearny
Street Workshop, photo taken by Bob Hsiang 34
Fig. 2.3 Icons of Presence book cover, designed by artist Choppy Oshiro 37
Fig. 2.4 Chris Iijima and Nobuko Miyamoto, singing outdoors
in New York City, photo taken by Bob Hsiang
on MLK Day 1971 42
Fig. 3.1 Photo of Nothing but Ways installation by Lynn Kirby,
Trinh T. Minh-ha. Photo by Trinh T. Minh-ha 82
Fig. 3.2 Photo of L’Autre Marche installation 2006–2009
(photo taken by Trinh 2006) 84
Fig. 4.1 Cynthia Tom and Shari de Boer AAWAA’s 15th anniversary
timeline as a tree, photo by Cynthia Tom 96
Fig. 4.2 Cynthia Tom, Discards & Variances: Human Trafficking
from a Chinese Family Perspective, photo by the artist, 2015 111
Fig. 4.3 Cynthia Tom, Hom Shee Mock, 1923. Acrylic on canvas, 2008 113
Fig. 5.1 Hung Liu, Goddess of Love, Goddess of Democracy. 1989,
paint on canvas 145
Fig. 5.2 Hung Liu, Golden Lotus. Red Shoe. 1990, paint on canvas 149
Fig. 6.1 Stephanie Syjuco, MONEY FACTORY: Economic Reality Game,
Taiwan national museum, photo taken by the artist 195
Fig. 6.2 Michelle Dizon, Balikbayan Box, installation,
photo taken by the artist 200
Fig. 6.3 Michelle Dizon, Perpetual Peace, still from film frame,
photo taken by the artist 203

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Visuality, Gender

and Asian America

The persistent questioning of the insider’s and the outsider’s position in

terms of cultural politics is yet another way to work at the difficult edge
between these movements—inside out and outside in.
—Trinh T. Minh-ha, The Digital Film Event, p. 193

In 2005, I met Trinh T. Minh-ha in Naples and there I saw her films for the
first time. She presented The Fourth Dimension, as an experiment in decon-
structing Japan and exploring frames in digital art (2001). At the time
I was writing about colonialism, neo-orientalism and Japanese characters in
video games. Her visual work and writings shifted my trajectory towards
Asian Americanness, visuality, women artists and alterity. The only other
East Asian visual artists I had in mind at that time were Yoko Ono and
Theresa Hak-Kyung Cha—artists associated with highly experimental work,
centered around gender, otherness and visuality. The encounter with Trinh
T. Minh-ha changed my perspectives in deep ways, and some of the intel-
lectual and spiritual pathways where it took me are still unfolding today.
In 2007 I traveled to Berkeley to see a show at BAM-PFA (Berkeley Art
Museum) titled One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now. The occa-
sion was perfect for me because I had just started pursuing my research
interest in Asian American art, and the show’s curatorial statement promised
“a challenge to extend the category of Asian American art”:

© The Author(s) 2018 1

L. Fantone, Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms,
Critical Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50670-2_1
2 L. FANTONE

There can be no such thing as a collective definition of the constituency

called Asian America, … but the show was born from the desire to evaluate
an Asian American sense of self, an individualism that comprises an Asian
American cultural imagination. (One Way or Another brochure, 2007)

Curators Melissa Chu, Karin Higa and Susette Min surprised me in their
oscillation between using a collective, demographic category (Asian
American) and, at the same time, emphasizing the self and individuality
within it and thus denying its validity as a ground for a commonality, an
artistic style, or a shared set of concerns and foci in Asian American artists’
work. Theirs was a question coming from the inside, serving as a response
to the perception of art on the outside.
I wondered then how one was to define Asian American art. Is it art
made by people who live in the USA but are of Asian origins? Is it art that
reflects subjects and aesthetic styles or techniques typical of specific Asian
visual art traditions? Is it art that reflects the unique concerns, topics and
styles emerging from the experience of being part of the Asian diaspora in
the USA (Machida 2008, p. 29)? Many insides and outsides are at play in
the posing of such questions.
If there was no consensus on the definition of Asian American art
among the experts, then my initial research project was pointless. In that
moment I realized that my research would have to be an interrogation of
the history and meaning of Asian American art as an evolving, contested
cultural formation. As of now, after years of research and writing, those
same questions on Asian American art remain unsettled, even among
scholars and art historians specializing in Asian America—notably,
Machida, Chang and Johnson, Higa, Kim and Mizota—all of whom rec-
ognize the increased internal diversity of Asian American communities due
to the basic demographic growth of such groups across the USA, as well
as the vast differences among cultures and countries of origin. These are
some of the many outside factors shaping an externally imposed Asian
Americanness, a collective space of artistic, cultural and demographic shifts
and internal negotiations. The complicated question that remains on the
table is, how do demographics and cultural diversity influence style, sub-
jects and the foci of Asian American artists? Why, when, and to what pur-
poses do artists chose to identify with such a cultural or demographic
label, both in the past and today? Is it to claim visibility? To search for
belonging in the larger, diverse mix of American ethnicities and cultures?
These are the background questions to my investigation.
 INTRODUCTION: VISUALITY, GENDER AND ASIAN AMERICA 3

Margo Machida, an incredibly talented art historian, ended her seminal

book Unsettled Visions (2008) by stating that Asian American art is deeply
shaped by a poetics of positionality. In surveying most of the Asian American
artists emerging in the 1990s, she pointed out that it was impossible not to
examine three reemerging themes: othering (identity and difference),
social memory and trauma, and migration and relationship to place.
Machida sees a continuity across generations of Asian American artists and,
while registering important aesthetic and subject-choice differences, she
maintains a position based on an imagined connection ever enriched by
heterogeneity. Machida develops the idea of “communities of cultural
imagination” in describing contemporary Asian American art as moving
away from the opposing traps of either embracing one’s identity while
policing its boundaries or self-erasing. She “recognizes that cultural imagin­
ation is a communicative (and community) field in which the individual
and the collective flow back and forth, a field where human consciousness
(and creativity) is an active agent of innovation of the social imaginary”
(Machida 2008, p. 278). I use Machida’s conceptual guide to analyze con-
temporary art as a complex field full of tensions, yet still a shared ground.
She does not theorize a rupture among contemporary Asian American art-
ists, because ultimately her political goal is to promote a conception of the
Asian American art community as a plurality or, as she puts it, “communi-
ties of cultural imagination,” using art to give a heterogeneous group the
power of cultural, collective imagination (Machida 2008, p. 14).
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Karin Higa, in her 2002 survey
of Asian American women artists in California, entitled “What is an
American Woman Artist?” (in Art/Women/California, 1950–2000 2002),
claims that there are no connecting elements today to justify such a cate-
gory, even as she proceeds to describe the work of five major artists of the
twentieth century. Surprised again by this simultaneous negation and affir-
mation, I followed Higa’s writing, noticing how she honors the relevance
of the Asian American movement as the origin moment without which the
cultural and artistic production called “Asian American” would not be
recognized today. Higa also justifies the need to look at gender within that
category, given women’s double exclusion from feminist Eurocentrism
and from Asian American men’s oppression.
Superficially, this may seem a simplistic criterion based on an intersec-
tion of oppressions, justifying the search for the most oppressed subject,
the subaltern who can speak, and for whom, magically, the researcher-­
translator will provide articulation of her oppression. I remained fascinated
4 L. FANTONE

by that oscillation between the present need to claim an identity and the
simultaneous recognition of diversity within it, as if the label, while used,
has become stifling and stale. As a feminist, postcolonial scholar interested
in social movements, I find this oscillation interesting to explore in com-
parison with the debates in transnational feminism concerning the use of
terms “queer,” “gay” or “feminist” as accepted and rejected by younger
generations or by non-American LGBTQI* communities.
As I was immersing myself in the literature on Asian American Women,
I was exposed to a new set of ideas and genealogical questions on Asian
American art. In Fall 2008, I saw Asian American Modern Art: Shifting
Currents, 1900–1970 at the San Francisco de Young Museum, curated by
Mark Johnson and Daniel Cornell. Chinese American historian Gordon
Chang, art professor ShiPu Wang, and curator Karin Higa, wrote intro-
ductory texts that gave a comprehensive set of views on the contribution
of artists born in the first half of the twentieth century, mostly in Asia, who
resided in the USA. Many prominent names, such as Yayoi Kusama, Yun
Gee, Isamu Noguchi, Chiura Obata, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik were
featured in the show. From a feminist perspective, it featured few female
artists; with only nine out of sixty artists being female, they were outsiders
within the show. These artists were Miné Okubo, Miki Hayakawa, Hisako
Shimizu Hibi (married to painter George Matsaburo Hibi), Bernice Bing,
Tseng YuHo, Ruth Asawa, Kay Sekimachi and Emiko Nakano, all of them
connected to California. All the Japanese American women had experi-
enced internment.
I mention the show here because it was explicitly connecting Asian
American history with questions of representation, modernity and high
art. The show was defined by Higa as “the first comprehensive show that
examines the historical presence of artists of Asian descent in American art
[…] explicitly filtered through questions of race, identity and notions of
modernism” (Cornell and Johnson 2008, p. 15). This seems very much in
the same vein as Higa’s commentary on the One Way or Another show,
when Higa (together with Chu and Min) asks, rhetorically, what the poli-
tics of organizing a show around race could be, only to conclude its neces-
sity in the name of recovering the past of marginalized communities in the
United States (ibid., p. 17). The goal in each case is the validation of the
present communities by way of historicization, thus making the past useful
for the present. Higa demonstrates this in her language as well when she
points out that the term “Asian-American,” as one, hyphenated word, is
posthumous to most of the works and artists featured, and so the title of
the show keeps separate the terms “Asian,” “American” and “Modern.”
 INTRODUCTION: VISUALITY, GENDER AND ASIAN AMERICA 5

Reading Higa’s and ShiPu Wang’s insights led me to connect the

questions of modernity, modernism, primitivism and Eurocentrism in the
visual arts raised by cultural critics and postcolonial scholars like Kobena
Mercer, Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall and Isaac Julien in the 1990s. These
scholars address questions of the politics of art museums in the West and
interrogate how the public spectacle of art plays a part in excluding from
modernity the colonial other, opening to current questions of cultural
equity. With a Gramscian approach, I took great inspiration from the
Asian American Modern Art show as a counter-hegemonic project on
modernism, cultural hybridity, and parallel and divergent modernities (to
use a term of James Clifford’s). I connect the materials presented in the
show with the critical questions posed by Kobena Mercer in his book
Cosmopolitan Modernisms (2005), part of the related MIT series of vol-
umes, Annotating Art Histories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives in the Visual
Art (2004–2007). Mercer registered the 1990s growth of attention in
the art world to non-Western artists and those with minority backgrounds
in the West, partly due, he argued, to the rising generation of curators
and critics of non-Western or minority backgrounds whose agenda
involved a project of inclusion and diversity. Mercer asked questions that
became crucial to my own project: Why does the contemporary so often
take precedence over the historical as the privileged focus for examining
matters of difference and identity? Does the heightened visibility of Black
and minority artists in private galleries and public museums really mean
that the historical problem of invisibility is now solved? To what extent
has the curating of non-Western materials in blockbuster exhibitions led
to displays that may actually obscure the fine art traditions of countries
that experienced colonialism? Has the very idea of inclusion now become
a double-edged sword? Could the “cosmopolitan” serve as a conceptual
tool capable of cutting through the congested, confusing condition cre-
ated by competing vocabularies—terms such as the “global,” the “inter-
national,” the “cross-cultural” and the “culturally diverse” (Mercer 2005,
p. 9)? Mercer’s pointing at modernism and its underplayed cross-cultural
past becomes helpful in exploring the contemporary in terms of a multi-
plicity of time and diverse influences. His questions continue to guide me
in fundamental ways throughout this project, expanding from classic
texts like Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979), Franz Fanon’s Black Skins
White Masks (2008/1952), Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Woman, Native, Other
(1989), Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture (1994) and the journal
Third Text, edited by Rasheed Areen.
6 L. FANTONE

The other fundamental text that inspired this work is Fresh Talk/Daring
Gazes, Conversations on Asian American Art, published in 2003 and
edited by Margo Machida, Elaine Kim and Sharon Mizota. Machida, in
her preface to the volume, defends the project of collectively writing about
Asian American artists in a context where identity is seen as rigid and
essentialist. She warns against the conflation of attention to the cultural
specificity of minorities and cultural nationalism. She also evokes the
need to embrace cross-ethnic communications on the parallels and con-
trasts between Asian, Latino and African American artists—a need that has
not yet been met today.
In the same volume, the key essay that deeply shaped the trajectory of
my research was “Interstitial Subjects: Asian American Visual Art as a Site
for New Cultural Conversations” by Kim et al. (2003, p. 1). In fifty pages,
Kim traces all the historical evolution of Asian American art since the first
photography studio in the 1850s’ Chinatowns. She argues for Asian
American art’s distinctive and unique Americanness, criticizing the art his-
torian’s desire to identify Asian art elements in the work of Asian American
artists as the only element that would authenticate them as such. Most
importantly, Kim develops a long section about the lesser-known artists of
the 1970s who played a crucial role in starting Asian American cultural
productions—written, visual and aural—often choosing the political form
of the collective. Kim’s focus here emphasizes the historical and political
aspects of art: the 1960s and 1970s’ openness to the streets, the public
space, the crowds protesting the Vietnam War, racial segregation, and police
brutality. She makes apparent the importance of the Asian American
movement and its interconnections with Black and Brown coalitions and
liberation movements as well as the new kinds of freely accessible art cre-
ated in the streets: murals and experimental printed materials such as zines,
posters and flyers. The collective impetus of that time still resonates
strongly and in my preliminary research I discovered quite a few texts
devoted to that period, written by Asian American participants. As much
as I liked the period, I felt that its chorality would have been hard for me
to study as a total outsider, separate in time, space and identity from that
movement and moment. I listened to the female voices of women like
Nancy Hom, Nellie Wong, Genny Lim and Janice Mirikitani; read their
poems, and appreciated their addressing of women’s multiple roles, their
activist messages, and, equally of importance, their silences. Their political
side came first, always the most visible priority, and then slowly came the
discovery of the inside, the personal, marked by gender and ethnicity: the
painful silences of exile and uprootedness.
 INTRODUCTION: VISUALITY, GENDER AND ASIAN AMERICA 7

“Interstitial Subjects” also gives an interesting reading of the 1990s’

increased attention to Asian American art, offering an enlightening point
on how public museums were in a budgetary crisis when they started to
court Asian American communities for financial support (2003, p. 18).
The politics of guilt, following the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles,
also brought sudden visibility to the Korean artists in California. Kim’s
sociopolitical reading of the ups and downs of institutional interest in
Asian American art led me to analyze San Francisco museums’ cultural
policies with a critical lens, looking at processes of circulation and com-
modification of Asianness. Kim articulates her critique in connection with
Latino and Black cultural critics (Coco Fusco, Isaac Julien, Faith Ringgold
and Guillermo Gomez-Peña), denouncing the disconnect between height-
ened cultural visibility and increased exclusion of the actual, local ethnic
communities. Ultimately, Kim calls for an assessment of Asian American
art as a cultural process in which identities and aesthetics are evaluated for
their impact and influence on American art. This assessment takes into
account the artists’ belonging to a racialized group, not for superficial
multicultural diversity, but because racialization in the USA has always
meant exclusion and marginality (2003, p. 46).
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss these topics with
Elaine Kim, and our conversations led me to considerable changes in the
organization of this book. On a personal note, Elaine Kim also helped me
to feel comfortable about researching Asian American art despite my out-
sider status, being neither Asian nor American. I had shared my transna-
tional feminist perspective on the artists’ work, but maintained a cautionary
distance until Elaine Kim and, in a different way, Trinh T. Minh-ha,
encouraged me to move closer to the topic. I grappled with my autobio-
graphical distance from Asian American artists and my curiosity for the
subject, as a feminist scholar interested in current “multicultural” policies
in European visual arts and the ongoing controversies on inclusivity and
diversity in key art venues in Paris, Venice and London. The cultural con-
text and social imaginaries are different, but the politics of representation
are similar in both cases, for one of the key tools used to defuse racial
­tensions and xenophobia often involves cultural policies, art museums,
immigrant communities and ethnic minorities.
As an Italian feminist trained in social, cultural and postcolonial theory,
I struggled with the ways in which research areas and academic disciplines
in the United States tend to produce divisions based on identity. The
more or less implicit assumption is that one should speak from one’s own
8 L. FANTONE

biographical standpoint and only pursue research topics where biographical,

identitarian authority can legitimize the person’s statements. For obvious
reasons, I have no pretense to be an expert on Asian American history, nor
to be an American art historian. Yet I think that intellectual curiosity
should not be thwarted to the point that academic writing should be lim-
ited to a person’s background. If research is always moved by curiosity and
academic research is formalized curiosity (as argued by Zora Neal Hurston
almost a century ago), I believe that curiosity is the sister of difference;
both depend on each other and on the desire to listen to other voices, other
stories. My scholarship can work as an effort to translate the time and
space of women’s stories, within the Benjaminian conception of the
scholar as translator, always struggling with the fear and inevitability of
betraying the original, carrying the burden of being an archivist, and a
barely visible political ally. As a sociologist and a gender scholar, I under-
stand the power I have in gathering information on and about women,
starting from facts and objects of analysis, and choosing how to arrange
them into stories I frame according to my intellectual views. In the past,
in Italy, I dedicated myself to oral history precisely because I was uncom-
fortable with the power position of the detached researcher, gathering
objective information. I tried ethnographic writing, in which my authority
as storyteller and specialized expert was supposed to be compensated by
thick descriptions and extensive rounds of feedback from the people I had
interviewed. I embraced silence for a few years, uncomfortable with how
to be the one speaking “for” and about other women and gender minori-
ties, even when moved by the best intention to spread and convey their
voices further. Ultimately, I always found, and still find, the need to speak
against power or injustice. The writings of Trinh T. Minh-ha (1989) as
well as Assia Djebar in her preface to Women of Algiers in their Apartment
(1992)1 offered me a way to discuss what I was curious about: sitting in
the corner, tiptoeing around it without speaking about it or for it through
any sense of European authority. The idea of solidarity as proximity and
vicinity is evoked both by Trinh and Djebar in their commitment to speak
“nearby,” in the vicinity, neither as an outsider looking from afar, nor as
an insider knowing it all. Trinh, while presenting images shot in Senegal,
professes with her voice off-screen:
I do not intend to speak about, just to speak nearby
Stressing the Observers’ objectivity,
Circles around the object of curiosity
Different views from different angles
 INTRODUCTION: VISUALITY, GENDER AND ASIAN AMERICA 9

Creativity and objectivity seem to run into conflict.

[…]
I am looking through a circle in a circle of looks
[…]
just to speak nearby
(Trinh 1992, p. 105)

Through these inspiring words I started to think of circularity, of writing

as a narrative relation, not just as a power relation. The horizontal posi-
tioning, so fundamental in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s poetic and cinematic work,
allows for a plurality of views and voices. It allows for knowing the self and
knowing the other, the outside-in and the inside-out, the artist and the
writers in a mutual recognition of support, and for a loss of control.

In writing close to the other of the other, I can only choose to maintain self-­
reflexively a critical relationship towards the material, a relationship that
defines both the subject written and the writing subject, undoing the I while
asking what do I want wanting to know you or me? (Trinh 1989, p. 79)

Following Trinh’s ethical and aesthetic positions, dwelling in the readings

she gave me, and sitting in her classes at Berkeley deeply shaped my
thoughts on the current project, in ways I cannot fully express in words.
Her invitation to be inside/outside, neither one nor the other, gave me
the freedom to shift across different artists, speaking nearby their work
and life trajectories. Most importantly, it brought a new dimension to my
original commitment to female stories that were personal and biographi-
cal, moving at a different level than the great narratives presented by
the Western social sciences. The memories of Asian American women art-
ists of the 1970s and 1980s generations became a core part of my research,
bringing me back to my original passion for oral history, yet with a new
understanding of the circularity and shared repetition of such stories, told
in the vicinity of the ethics of “speaking nearby.”
In December 2008 I started following the activities of the Asian
American Women Artists’ Association (AAWAA), moved by the idea of
looking at art produced by women collectively, or at least art produced
within a female community. I went to their meetings and volunteered for
their art show preparation. I attended their panel discussion at the de Young
Museum in San Francisco, titled AsianAMERICANArt: Re-Framing
the Genre. In January 2009 I saw their Artists-in-Residence show at the
de Young Museum, featuring ten AAWAA artists. In these high-profile
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The battle of the
Swash and the capture of Canada
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The battle of the Swash and the capture of Canada

Author: Samuel Barton

Release date: November 12, 2023 [eBook #68344]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Charles J. Dillingham, 1888

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE

OF THE SWASH AND THE CAPTURE OF CANADA ***
THE BATTLE OF THE SWASH
AND

THE CAPTURE OF CANADA.

BY

SAMUEL BARTON.

NEW YORK:
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM,
718 AND 720 BROADWAY.

Copyright, 1888
by
Samuel Barton

[All Rights Reserved]

 DEDICATION

To the Senators and ex-Senators, Members and ex-Members,

of past and present Congresses of the United States
of America, who, by their stupid and criminal
neglect to adopt ordinary defensive
precautions, or to encourage
the reconstruction of

THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE,

have rendered all American seaport towns liable to such

an attack as is herein but faintly and imperfectly
described, this historical forecast is
dedicated; with much indignation and
contempt, and little or no
respect, by

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS

Chapter

Introduction

I. The United States Prior to 1890

II. Secretary Whitney's Efforts to Rebuild the Navy

III. Canada and the United States

IV. Retaliation

V. The English Fleet

VI. The British Fleet Arrives off Sandy Hook

VII. The Battle of the Swash

VIII. The Return of the Fleet

IX. The Panic and Flight

X. The Bombardment

XI. The Armistice and Treaty of Peace

XII. Conclusion

Appendix

INTRODUCTION.

The only apology which I offer for this authentic account of an event
which (having occurred more than forty years ago), can scarcely be
supposed to possess much interest for the reader of to-day, is, that having
been a participant in the battle myself, I feel a sort of pride in having an
accurate and complete account of it handed down to posterity.

In my humble judgment no such account has ever yet appeared; and

although I am but indifferently equipped for the task—having dabbled but
slightly in literature, during my busy life of three score and ten years,—yet I
trust that my earnest desire to relate the facts just as they occurred—and
which I propose to do, without fear or favor—will atone for any
shortcomings from a purely literary point of view. Although I have said that
no accurate and complete narrative of this occurrence has ever been
published, the reader must not therefore assume that there exist no
published accounts of it whatever. On the contrary, it has been described
more or less at length, by so many different writers, both in transitory and
permanent form, that my chief embarrassment arises rather from a
superabundance than from a paucity of materials.

In the library of the N.Y. Historical Society are to be found no less than
ninety-seven books and pamphlets giving what purport to be "full, true and
particular" accounts of the attack upon New York by the British fleet in the
year 1890.

The titles of some of these contributions to contemporaneous history are

decidedly amusing and suggestive of the sensational spirit which was such a
marked characteristic of the general literature, and especially of the
newspaper press of that period.

For instance, we have among them, "The New Armada;" "The British
Blackmailer;" "Modern Piracy;" "The Doom of the Iron Clads;" "The
Disappearance of the British flag from North America;" and one, more
pretentious than the rest, is entitled "An inquiry into the causes which led to
the acquisition of Canada by the United States of America."

In addition to these numerous books and pamphlets, the newspapers of

the period contained page after page of the most vivid and sensational
accounts, in which truth and falsehood, and sense and absurdity, are so
evidently mingled, that no conscientious historian would be willing to
utilize them as reliable authorities. Nevertheless, a perusal of them even at
this late day, may be found interesting to many of my readers, and as they
are kept on file in most of the leading city libraries, they are within easy
reach of all.

The reader of to-day will be vastly amused in looking over these old
journals, at the evidences to be found on every page, and in almost every
column, of intense and bitter rivalry and jealousy between their several
editors and proprietors. Indeed the journalistic world at that period seems to
have been suffering from an absolute epidemic of sensationalism, which
extended not only to the reading matter, but to the "make up" as well; and in
addition to the prurient details of social scandals, divorce proceedings, and
horrible crimes, the reader's attention was sought to be attracted by glaring
and suggestive head lines, such as would be tolerated in no respectable
metropolitan journal of the present day. As an evidence of how our tastes
are influenced by our surroundings, I may here state, that while I am now
shocked at the total lack of good taste and the superabundance of
sensational vulgarity displayed by most of the newspapers of that day, yet I
cannot remember that I regarded them with any such feelings at that time,
although I was a man, and certainly is competent a judge of propriety then,
as I am now. But this is to be a history, not a moral treatise.

With such a mass of material at my command, it will be apparent that it

has been no slight task to sift out the grain from the chaff, and to condense
the vast accumulation of authorities into a comparatively brief volume like
this.

I am fully aware that there are many defects in it, both of omission and
commission; but of one thing the reader may rest assured.

I have at least been conscientious in my efforts to get at the exact truth,

and to correct numerous errors which previous historians have made, either
through carelessness, prejudice, or willfulness.

With this brief introduction, and with extreme diffidence, I submit my

work to the consideration of the candid, unprejudiced, and I trust, kindly
disposed reader.

SAM'L BARTON.

NEW YORK, October, 1930.

 THE BATTLE OF THE SWASH
AND

CAPTURE OF CANADA.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNITED STATES PRIOR TO 1890.

Before entering upon a detailed account of what naval experts of all

nationalities have conceded to be the most interesting and important naval
event of that remarkable century (the nineteenth), whose later years many
of my older readers can doubtless remember, I will endeavor to present in
as brief and concise a manner as possible, a summary of the events which
preceded it, and the causes which led up to it; as without such an
explanation the story of the battle itself would possess little or no historical
value.

The first thing which it is necessary for me to explain, is my reason for

choosing the title "The Battle of the Swash."

I am not aware that this title has ever been used before, but if the reader
will consult a chart of the Harbor of New York, he will at once see the
propriety of it.

It will be seen that what is known among pilots as the "Swash," is a

straight channel, forming a sort of a hypotenuse to the two sides of the main
ship channel, which bends almost at a right angle at the Southwest spit.
 Assuming, therefore, that the Narrows is effectually blockaded with
torpedoes or other obstructions, and that an attacking fleet desired to
bombard New York at long range, and at the same time be in a position to
withdraw easily and quickly in case of repulse or accident, the Swash
Channel is the point which would naturally be chosen. The British Admiral
was undoubtedly familiar with the upper and lower Bays of New York, and
therefore it is not at all strange that he selected this spot as a base of his
operations against the city.

Here he anchored his fleet; and here the battle—such as it was—was

fought. I therefore claim that the title which I have chosen, is a most
appropriate one; and if this little work is to possess any value as a historical
authority, the remarkable contest herein recorded, will be known to future
generations as "The Battle of the Swash."

Having thus "made my title clear," I will endeavor to summarize briefly

the events, which either directly or remotely, contributed to the final
catastrophe, and induced Canada to declare war against the United States.

And here at the very outset of my task, I am confronted with greater

difficulties than at any other portion of it.

Our ancestors of the Nineteenth Century were so constantly occupied in

making history, that they seemed to have little or no time to record it; and
therefore there will probably never be any adequate historical record of the
settlement, improvement and development of the vast continent of North
America. I regard this as in a measure a calamity to the whole human race;
for I think that history may be searched in vain for any such grand and
marvelous example of progress and development, as that exhibited by our
ancestors of the last century.

In consequence of this dearth of detailed information, I have been

obliged to rely upon such data as could be collected from the files of
newspapers, magazines and similar publications, for the following meagre
sketch of the industrial and political condition of the United States previous
to the year 1890.
 What has been called the "War of the Rebellion" occurred in the years
1861-5 inclusive; and was an attempt by the southern slave holding States,
to secede from the Union, and establish a separate confederacy, based upon
Free Trade and Human Slavery. Although the rights of the slaveholders
were fully acknowledged by the law of the land, yet the growth of the
sentiment in favor of abolition of slavery was so rapid throughout the
Northern States, that the Southerners became alarmed lest their property
rights should be ignored and denied; and after several years of defiant
wrangling and threatening, at length formally seceded from the Union, and
by the attack on Fort Sumter—a fort in Charleston Harbor—inaugurated the
long and bloody conflict which finally resulted in the total abolition of
slavery, and the restoration of the authority of the United States
Government, in all portions of United States territory.

Previous to this war, the United States occupied a front rank among the
maritime powers of the world.

The "American Clipper Ships" (vessels propelled entirely by sail power;

which for purposes of ocean navigation is now practically obsolete) were
considered the perfection of marine architecture, and bore the stars and
stripes proudly and triumphantly upon every sea.

Over 2000 establishments were engaged in the shipbuilding industry,

giving employment to over 20,000 skilled laborers, whose wages amounted
to more than $12,000,000 annually; and who built from $30,000,000 to
$40,000,000 worth of vessels each year.

During the ten years immediately preceding the "War of the Rebellion,"
67 per cent. of the vessels entering the ports of the United States, carried the
American flag; as against 33 per cent. carrying foreign flags.

In 1887 only about 15 per cent. were American, as against 85 per cent.
foreign.

Several causes had conspired to bring about this vast and disastrous
decline in American ownership.
 The first, and most effective of these, unquestionably grew out of the
almost unconcealed and anxious efforts of England, to prevent the Northern
States from bringing the war to a successful issue, and thus assuring the
restoration of the Union.

The cause of this animus on the part of England, was, as is always the
case, where any of her interests are involved, a purely and intensely selfish
one.

The Northern, and especially the New England States, were mercantile
and manufacturing States, and had become formidable rivals to England in
the two great interests in which the latter power had hitherto deemed herself
unapproachable. The American shipowner outsailed and underbid his
English competitor in all parts of the world; and the American
manufacturer, by improved methods and ingenious mechanical appliances,
had begun to successfully compete with his English rival, not only in
American markets, but in foreign ones as well; and Englishmen viewed
with unconcealed dismay, the imminent prospect of having their immense
carrying trade as well as their enormous manufacturing interests, ruined by
the competition of their enterprising and ingenious American rivals.

Indeed, so marked had this development been, that an eminent French

writer, De Tocqueville, in a book called "Democracy in America," written
nearly twenty years previous to the outbreak of the "War of the Rebellion,"
in a chapter entitled "Some considerations on the causes of the Commercial
prosperity of the United States," wrote as follows:

"The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized people,

which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated country, at a
distance of three thousand miles from the central point of civilization.
America consequently stands in daily need of Europe. The Americans will,
no doubt, ultimately succeed in producing or manufacturing at home, most
of the articles which they require; but the two continents can never be
independent of each other, so numerous are the natural ties between their
wants, their ideas, their habits, and their manners. The Union has peculiar
commodities which have now become necessary to us, as they cannot be
cultivated, or can be raised only at an enormous expense, upon the soil of
Europe. The Americans consume only a small portion of this produce, and
they are willing to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore the market of
America, as America is the market of Europe; and maritime commerce is no
less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the United States to transport
their raw materials to the ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply
them with our manufactured produce.

"The United States must therefore either furnish much business to other
maritime nations, even if they should themselves renounce commerce, as
the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done, or they must become one of
the first maritime powers of the globe.

"The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a decided taste for the

sea. The Declaration of Independence by breaking the commercial bonds
which united them to England, gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to their
maritime genius. Ever since that time, the shipping of the Union has
increased almost as rapidly as the number of its inhabitants. The Americans
themselves now transport to their own shores nine-tenths of the European
produce which they consume. And they also bring three-quarters of the
exports of the New World to the European consumer. The ships of the
United States fill the docks of Havre and of Liverpool, whilst the number of
English and French vessels at New York is comparatively small. Thus, not
only does the American merchant brave competition on his own ground, but
even successfully supports that of foreign nations in their own ports. This is
readily explained by the fact, that the vessels of the United States cross the
seas at a cheaper rate....

"It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can navigate at a
lower rate than other nations; one is at first led to attribute this superiority
to the physical advantages which nature gives them; but it is not so.

"The American vessels cost almost as much to build as our own; they are
not better built, and they generally last a shorter time. The pay of the
American sailor is more considerable than the pay on board European ships,
which is proved by the great number of Europeans who are to be found in
the merchant vessels of the United States. How happens it then, that the
Americans sail their vessels at a cheaper rate than we can ours? I am of
opinion that the true cause of their superiority must not be sought for in
physical advantages, but that it is wholly attributable to moral and
intellectual qualities....

"The European sailor navigates with prudence; he sets sail only when the
weather is favorable; if an unforeseen accident befals him, he puts into port;
at night, he furls a portion of his canvass; and when the whitening billows
intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his course, and takes an observation
of the Sun.

"The American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He

weighs anchor before the tempest is over; by night and by day he spreads
his sheets to the wind; he repairs as he goes along, such damage as his
vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when he at last approaches
the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already
descried a port.

"The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so
rapidly. And, as they perform the same distance in shorter time, they can
perform it at a cheaper rate.....

"I cannot better explain my meaning, than by saying that the Americans
show a sort of heroism in their manner of trading. The European merchant
will always find it difficult to imitate his American competitor who, in
adopting the system which I have just described, does not follow
calculation, but an impulse of his nature.....

"Reason and experience prove that no commercial prosperity can be

durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, to naval force. This truth is as
well understood in the United States as anywhere else; the Americans are
already able to make their flag respected; in a few years they will make it
feared.....

"Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the prominent features of

their future destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardor
with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute commerce, the advantages
which aid them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot help
believing that they will one day become the first maritime power of the
globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the
world."[*]

[*] "Democracy in America," by Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated by

Henry Reeve, Esquire. Edited with notes by Prof. Francis Owen, of Harvard
University, Cambridge, 1863, Vol. 1, p. 648 to 552.

To a reader of the present day, these words, albeit they were written
nearly a hundred years ago, seem to have been almost inspired by
superhuman wisdom, so accurately do they describe the present position of
the United States as a maritime power; but if any American could have read
them about the time of the "Battle of the Swash," they would have seemed
either to convey the severest sarcasm of which human speech is capable, or
else to have been the wild and unmeaning utterances of drivelling idiocy.
For at this time, thanks to English privateers, and American stupidity and
indifference, the American flag had practically disappeared from the ocean.

As has been already mentioned, English shipowners and manufacturers

were suffering severely from American competition; they therefore hailed
the possible or probable dismemberment of the American Union with
delight, and immediately upon the outbreak of the "War of the Rebellion,"
determined to aid the seceding States in every possible way. These States
were exclusively agricultural communities, raising most of the cotton which
formed such an important portion of the raw material required by English
factories. Like all partially developed agricultural communities, they had no
capital to invest in vessels or factories; and in case they secured their
independence, they were pledged to Free Trade, and would thus offer a vast
and profitable carrying trade to English ships; and a vast and profitable
market for English goods. The temptation was a great one; too great in fact
to be resisted; and a short time after the commencement of the war, a
number of so-called "Confederate cruisers," which had been built and fitted
out in English ports with English money, were scouring the ocean,
capturing and destroying American merchant vessels wherever they could
find them, and compelling the transfer of such as were not destroyed, to the
protection of some neutral flag. As our ancestors were at that time engaged
in a life and death struggle to maintain their national existence, they could
only protest against this selfish and unfriendly action of England; but the
guilt of the latter power was practically conceded at an arbitration
conference held at Geneva several years later, at which the sum of
$15,000,000 was awarded as damages to be paid by England for the
depredations committed by these piratical cruisers upon American
commerce. The mischief, however, was done; our ocean commerce had
been ruined; and England could well have afforded to pay $15,000,000
annually for having thus paralyzed her great maritime rival.

Concurrently with this wiping out of our shipping by English cruisers,

iron and steel began to be used as a substitute for wood in ship building;
and by the time that the rebellion had been finally crushed, our shipbuilders
found themselves utterly unable to compete with those of Great Britain on
account of the greater cost of materials and wages here, as well as the
absence of machinery and appliances for building iron and steel vessels.
Gold remained at a premium for several years after the conclusion of the
war; and this, together with the tariff on imported materials required in ship
building, rendered competition with foreign builders absolutely impossible.
To make matters worse, all the principal maritime nations of Europe
inaugurated a system of subsidies or bounties, which stimulated
shipbuilding enormously, and increased the supply of vessels so rapidly,
that carrying rates fell to figures, with which unsubsidized vessels could not
possibly compete. England, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and
finally Spain, went into the subsidy business; and the latter power actually
subsidized lines of steamers to the extent of over $1,000,000 per annum, to
run along our whole Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, trading between Mexico
and Central America on the south, and Canada and British Columbia on the
north, and stopping at all important American ports on their respective
routes.

The only demand for American built vessels was for the coasting trade;
but this demand was sufficient to induce the establishment of several large
iron shipyards, most of which were located on the Delaware River, at or
near Philadelphia, Chester, and Wilmington.
 Thus was inaugurated that interest which has since attained such
enormous proportions, as to give to the Delaware River the sobriquet of
"The American Clyde."

The vessels built at these yards, even in those early days, proved
conclusively that American shipbuilders were still the best in the world, and
then as now, American coastwise steamships were conceded to be the finest
and fleetest and best vessels of their class afloat. The absolute refusal of
Congress to offer any subsidy, or even to offer decent compensation to
American vessels for carrying the mails to foreign countries, effectually
prevented the building of any ships suitable for that trade; and while
England and France and Germany and Spain were building swift merchant
steamers on plans approved by their naval departments, and paying them
liberal annual subsidies for the privilege of chartering or purchasing them at
a fixed price, at any time, and converting them into aimed cruisers; thus
providing themselves at a comparatively trifling cost with a most
formidable and efficient auxiliary naval force; the Congress of the United
States, with an apathy or indifference which seems utterly unaccountable at
the present time, absolutely refused to do anything to encourage the
rebuilding of the American Merchant Marine.

That such a suicidal policy should have been persisted in for more than
twenty years after the close of the war, at a time when the annual receipts of
the Treasury were over $100,000,000 in excess of the government
requirements, and when the extraordinary spectacle was presented day after
day, of senators and members of Congress, wrangling and arguing over the
question of "how to dispose of the surplus," seems absolutely incredible;
and yet, a perusal of the files of the newspapers published during this
period, (say from 1875 to 1888) will satisfy the most skeptical reader that it
is strictly true. For the convenience and satisfaction of such of my readers
as may not be able easily to refer to these files, I reproduce a few articles
and communications from some of the journals of that period.

SUBSIDIES TO BRITISH STEAMSHIPS—ARRANGEMENTS

WITH THE WHITE STAR AND CUNARD LINES.
 From the New York Journal of Commerce, March 31, 1887.

"A Liverpool cablegram received yesterday says: 'At the meeting of the
stockholders of the Cunard Steamship Company to-day the chairman
announced that the Government had granted the company an annual
subvention of $85,000 for a period of five years for the 'carrying of the
mails.'

"Details of the agreement entered into between the British Admiralty and
the owners of the White Star and Cunard companies, by which certain of
their vessels are placed at the disposal of the Government on specified
terms, are contained in a late parliamentary paper. The White Star Line
agrees to hold at the disposition of the Government for purchase or hire, at
the option of the Admiralty, to be exercised from time to time during the
continuance of the agreement, the following vessels: Britannic, value
£130,000; Germanic, £100,000; Adriatic, £100,000; Celtic, £100,000. In the
event of purchase the foregoing prices were to be held as the values of the
vessels on January 1, 1887, plus 10 per cent. for compulsory sale, less an
abatement of 6 per cent. per annum on the depreciated annual value for the
period that might elapse between January 1, 1887, and the date of purchase
by the Government. In the event of charter by the Admiralty the rate of hire
of the before-mentioned vessels was fixed at the rate of 20s. per gross
registered ton per month, the owner providing the crew, or at the rate of 15s.
per gross registered ton per month, the Admiralty finding the crew, all risks
of capture and of hostilities being assumed by the Admiralty. The company
has determined to build one or two vessels of high speed and of such a type
and speed as will render them specially suitable for service as armed
cruisers, and in accordance with the plans and specifications submitted and
approved by the Admiralty. In consideration of this the Admiralty will have
to pay to the company an annual subvention at the rate of 15s. per gross
registered ton per annum. On February 8, the Admiralty accepted similar
proposals made by the Cunard Line in respect to the following vessels:
Etruria, value £310,000; Umbria, £301,000; Aurunia, £240,000; Servia,
£193,000; Gallia, £102,000—a subvention of 15s. per gross registered ton
per annum, to be paid to the company on account of the Etruria, Umbria
and Aurania during the continuance of the postal contract, and in the event
of the termination of that contract before these three vessels received five
years' payment, the company to be entitled to receive for the balance a
subvention at the rate of 20s., the five vessels being still held at the
disposition of the Government. In the event of the Cunard Company
building new vessels for the mail service, they will submit the plans to the
Admiralty for approval.

"The subvention will amount to about £6,500 for each of the new vessels
of the White Star Line, so long as they carry the mails, or £8,500 should the
mails be withdrawn. The annual charge for the retention of the Cunarders
Etruria, Umbria and Aurania is stated at £5,400 each.

The Admiralty announce that they are ready to make the same
arrangement as with the White Star Company for the first ten steamers that
may be offered by any of the British steamship companies."

The following letter from Admiral D. D. Porter shows conclusively the

feeling which must have existed in Naval circles upon the subject of the
revival of the American Merchant Marine. The letter was addressed to a Mr.
Aaron Vanderbilt, representing the American Shipping and Industrial
League and was published in the New York World and other journals, some
time during the year 1888.

DEAR SIR: I received your letter and pamphlet this morning in relation
to American shipping. It is a matter in which I am greatly interested. I only
wish I really had some influence in this country to help forward measures
for the advancement of our mercantile marine, without which we can never
be a great naval power. I have written a great deal on the subject and the
files of the Senate have now many letters of mine in favor of granting
subsidies to ocean steamships, in order to open lines wherever they could be
run to advantage. Indeed, I have been so persistent in this matter ever since
the close of the civil war that I ran the risk of being considered queer—for
that is the term people apply nowadays to men of progressive ideas, whose
opinions come in conflict with those of persons who are altogether guided
by local prejudices.