A Plain Sailorman in China by Bruce Swanson

Author:Bruce Swanson [Swanson, Bruce; Morrison, Vance H.; McDowell, Don H.; Tomasko, Nancy N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612513928
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

CHAPTER 6

Career Decision: Gillis Retires and Returns to China, 1914–1917

RETIREMENT AND MORE DOLLAR DIPLOMACY: 1914–1915

Despite his long absences, Gillis had always kept in close touch with his family and was much devoted to them. He was regarded as the family hero, always dashing about the world engaged in some adventure. While Gillis was in Washington in spring of 1914, he took the opportunity to visit with his siblings. Brother Harry lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife, Emma, and their newborn son, Hanford. Harry was a prominent engineer, a member of the exclusive Chevy Chase Country Club, and an active member of the Navy League. He undoubtedly maintained excellent connections in Washington and was able to update Irvin on current naval affairs. Lyle, who became a patent attorney, also lived in Washington. He and his wife, Grace, had two children: James Henry, age thirteen, and Josephine, who was seven.

Most likely Gillis also traveled to Binghamton, New York, to see and console his sister, Carol. She had been widowed in June 1913 when her husband, David Murray, a very successful lawyer, died suddenly of a heart attack. The Murrays had six children: Agnes, twenty-nine; Marjorie, twenty-three; William, twenty-one; David Jr., eighteen; Marion, sixteen; and Helen, fourteen. During the course of his reunion with his family, Gillis probably also learned that his first cousin Ansel W. Gillis had recently arrived in Korea with his wife and baby daughter, Elizabeth. Ansel was a Methodist missionary who would soon become friends with a young Syngman Rhee, the future president of South Korea.

Gillis’ decision to seek an early retirement from the Navy and pursue a business career selling naval armaments to the Chinese was made despite the fact that he had invested all of his prime years in the pursuit of a naval career that remained exceptionally bright, placing him in a strong position to make captain within a few years. A successful captaincy would likely have resulted in his being selected for rear admiral sometime in the early 1920s. On the other hand, though he had once professed to then-Captain Rodgers that he was not much interested in money, the promise of handsome commissions on contracts concluded with China probably swayed him. By the time he was eligible to retire on 1 July 1914, with twenty years commissioned service, he had apparently worked out arrangements with a number of U.S. shipbuilders, including Bethlehem Steel and the Electric Boat Company, to represent their interests in Peking. He would receive retainers from individual companies that totaled as much as $6,000 per year per company (in dollars for that period), as well as commissions ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 percent on any contracts won.1 This could be quite lucrative if one calculates that the two projected Bethlehem contracts offered to the Chinese in the fall of 1913 ranged between $20.7 million and $46 million. Gillis started to earn between $103,000 and $460,000 annually in today’s dollars. Obviously he could live quite comfortably in China if he could summon that kind of income.

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