Sherburne Gillette Hopkins (October 5, 1867 – June 22, 1932) was an American lawyer and influential lobbyist in Washington, D.C. His clients included oil tycoon Henry Clay Pierce, financier and "father of trusts" Charles Ranlett Flint, Guatemalan President Manuel Estrada Cabrera, and Mexican President Francisco I. Madero among others. He specialized in connecting American finance with Latin American revolutionaries. "According to Who's Was Who in America, Hopkins specialized in international matters and settlements with the government adviser to several Latin American Governments; adviser to provisional government of Mexico (Madero), 1911; constitutionalist government of Mexico, 1913–14; to provision government of Mexico (de la Huerta), 1920."quoted in Peter Calvert, The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1914: The Diplomacy of Anglo-American Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1968, p. 75, fn. 1. The most revealing source for Hopkins's activities is his testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
Family background and upbringing Born on October 5, 1867, in Washington D.C., he and his sister Jessie (born in 1876) could trace their roots to England. Hopkins' father, Thomas Snell Hopkins, had moved to Washington in the 1860s from Maine where the family homestead remains. Sherburne's ancestor Stephen Hopkins (1583–1644) came to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower.Azel Ames, The May-Flower and Her Log, July 15, 1620 – May 6, 1621, Chiefly from Original Sources; Houghton, Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1907, p. 181. Samuel Sherburne, his great grandfather, fought for American independence as a lieutenant in the New Hampshire Militia.Louis H. Cornish, editor, National Register of the Society of Sons of the American Revolution, New York, NY, 1902, p. 441. Sherburne Hopkins' mother was Caroline Eastman whose family came from England to Massachusetts on the Confidence in 1638.Frederick Virkus, editor, Immigrant Ancestors: A List of 2,500 Immigrants to America before 1750, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD, 1964, p. 28. Both sides of Hopkins' family tree count among the oldest families in U.S. history.
Hopkins attended school in Washington, D.C., and then the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis.National Archives, RG 165 Military Intelligence Division, Correspondence 1917 to 1941, Box 1266, File 2338-997. He graduated with a degree in international law from Columbia University in 1890 and joined his father's practice.
While establishing himself as a lawyer in his father's practice, Hopkins married Hester Davis in 1891, with whom he had two children, Sherburne Philbrick on December 3, 1891, and Marjorie on August 5, 1894. Their son, Sherburne, later also a lawyer in the family firm, briefly became a social star when he married Margaret Upton, better known as Peggy Hopkins Joyce, a famous stage actress. The law firm now called Hopkins and Hopkins became one of the top lobbying firms for Wall Street in Washington.
Early legal career One of their largest clients was the "King of Trusts," Charles Ranlett Flint. In 1892, Flint, also from an old Massachusetts family, had merged several rubber companies to form the monopolistic conglomerate United States Rubber Company. His principal lawyer for this merger was Thomas Snell Hopkins. In another famous merger, Flint organized the main bubblegum manufacturers into American Chicle Company in 1899. In 1911, Flint founded the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which later became IBM. His rubber business necessitated large investments in Latin America, Africa, and India. Flint especially had large real estate interests in southern Mexico. He joined with Henry Clay Pierce to become one of the largest investors in Mexican railways and international shipping companies such as the Pierce Forwarding Company of New Orleans. Pierce had purchased a majority share in the National Railroad of Mexico in 1903.The New York Times, August 4, 1903 "Railway Earning Prospects." In Mexico, one of Flint's competitors in the rubber industry was Evaristo Madero, the grandfather of future Mexican president Francisco I. Madero. The Maderos had dealings with Flint in the very beginning of the Mexican Revolution, which rightfully prompted historians to suspect Flint's financing of the upheaval. Flint also held large interests in Pierce's endeavors helping the oil magnate stay clear of hated rival John D. Rockefeller who owned the Standard Oil Company. "To the question whether Capt. Sherburne G. Hopkins of Washington had represented him [Pierce] in negotiations with Carranza he declined to answer, though he said that the law firm of Hopkins and Hopkins had looked after his interests in Washington for the last twenty-five years. His acquaintance with Capt. Hopkins is slight, but his father, Thomas S. Hopkins, has long been his attorney in Washington."The New York Times, June 28, 1914. Thomas Hopkins and his son Sherburne provided the legal work for Pierce and Flint. On January 3, 1900, the St. Louis Republic reported that Hopkins and Hopkins negotiated with the U.S. State Department on behalf of Flint. The British had confiscated several loads of flour off the coast of what is today Mozambique. The illegally seized freight had belonged to Flint's shipping concern. In the effort to force the British to release the cargo Hopkins had strong support from the State Department as well as from the German Foreign Office. In addition to Flint's flour, British warships had impounded a German mail steamer bound for home.The St. Louis Republic, January 3, 1900, "State Department Addresses Britain." The flour cargo spoiled, but Britain had to reimburse Flint for the damages.
Military service In 1898, Sherburne Hopkins joined the active navy in the Spanish–American War. It is unlikely that Hopkins saw much action. As the commander of the District of Columbia Naval Militia, Hopkins seemed to have stayed put while Admiral George Dewey defeated the Spanish on the other side of the world. Hopkins' name is mentioned in a newspaper article in October 1898, when he took command of the USS Fern, a twenty-five-year-old tugboat. However, rather than being dispatched to the war zone, Hopkins' task was to "bring the Fern to Washington."The Times, Washington, October 10, 1898. His rank is given as lieutenant. According to his own testimony to the U.S. Senate in 1912, Hopkins' responsibility "was …in the purchase of some materials of war for our own Government…"United States Senate, Investigation of Mexican Affairs, Subcommittee of the Committee of Foreign Relations, Government Printing Office, 1920, Testimony of Sherburne G. Hopkins, p. 2565. Through the years of his service in the naval reserves, Hopkins in fact had risen to the rank of lieutenant commander. When in the fall of 1899 Admiral Dewey returned to the United States a hero, Hopkins found mention in the official program of Dewey's Washington, D.C., rally as "Naval Battalion, Lieut. Commander Sherburne G. Hopkins, Commanding."Official program, Admiral Dewey Reception, October 2 and 3, Washington, 1899. His nickname among military peers was Sherby. Raised to the rank of Commander, Sherby remained in charge of the Washington, D.C. Naval Militia through 1904.Naval Militia Yearbooks 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904. Through his responsibilities as commander both professionally and socially Hopkins came to know the senior military establishment of Washington intricately.
Lobbying work in Central America The law firm showed its unparalleled manipulative might when it single-handedly shaped Central American history in the following years. After a skirmish between Honduras and Guatemala in 1906, the two countries and El Salvador had concluded the so-called friendship pact that isolated Nicaragua. In the spring of 1907 Nicaragua invaded Honduras in an attempt to unseat President Manuel Bonilla, a puppet of United Fruit Company. With the help of U.S. marines the Honduran leader survived. Virtually a protectorate of the United States with marines occupying Bluefields on the Atlantic side of the country, Nicaragua invaded Honduras in 1908 to install a new, less hostile government there. Despite the official support for intervention of the U.S. government, Hopkins and his international clients worked behind the scenes to contain the Nicaraguan Dictator José Santos Zelaya. The weapon of choice was to provide money for neighboring countries such as Honduras and Guatemala while denying finance to Zelaya. After years of effort, Nicaragua had finally concluded a loan for 1.25 million pounds Sterling (over $100 Million in today's value) from the Ethelburg Syndicate in London in 1909.Manzar Foroohar, The Catholic Church and Social Change in Nicaragua, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1989, p. 11. Hopkins and Hopkins signed Ethelburg as their client and promptly succeeded in canceling the loan. Apparently, Hopkins leaked crucial information on the impending U.S. intervention to unseat Zelaya to Otto Fuerth, a director of Ethelburg. The loan was cancelled and Zelaya gave up before the Marines landed. Hopkins testified in 1920: "I imparted the information to a friend of mine named Otto Fuerth, whom I had known for a number of years and who had vital interests in that Republic, and I did not want to see him make a loss, and I gave him a little quiet information." While Hopkins and his clients worked with the American government to unseat Zelaya, American mercenaries, the likes of Sam Dreben, Tracy Richardson, Tex O'Reilly, and Emil Lewis Holmdahl, together with forces from Guatemala and Honduras attacked Nicaragua full scale. Everyone expected an imminent invasion of the country by U.S. forces. As Hopkins managed to cancel the loan and American mercenaries began attacking the capital of Managua, the Nicaraguan dictator left.
Hopkins' involvement in the Nicaraguan change of government was critical. He represented his clients and acted on behalf of the U.S. government, especially Philander Knox who had become Secretary of State in 1909. Hopkins also supported Knox's efforts to properly finance and equip the rebel forces. Guatemalan President and another puppet of the United Fruit Company, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, received funds from the United States, mainly in the form of loans. The banana fleets of United Fruit and Pierce transported weapons and ammunition to the Central American republics. The main U.S. port from where tramp steamers sailed was New Orleans, a hot bed for mercenaries, revolutionaries, and intrigue of all kind. After Zelaya fled, the U.S. government installed a new puppet regime. "I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew that nothing could save Zelaya," Hopkins boasted to Senator Smith in 1912. Upon the question of whether Hopkins' intimate information about Nicaragua's troubles came from sources in the government, he replied: "I should not say directly from our Government, Senator. I knew what was going to happen before our Government did, and stopped Zelaya's loan from going through. I am also free to say that I received a great many hints that things were going to happen. I knew the sentiment in the State Department and elsewhere …"United States Senate, Investigation of Mexican Affairs, Subcommittee of the Committee of Foreign Relations, Government Printing Office, 1920, Testimony of Sherburne G. Hopkins, p. 2565, p. 2566.
Connection to Francisco I. Madero and the Mexican Revolution