WOULD-BE GOVERNOR OF GUAM

 

REAR ADMIRAL LOUIS KEMPFF

Captain Richard P. Leary is best known to us as the first American Governor of Guam.

But there was a prior Naval official who might have claimed that distinction but he never made it to Guam.

His name was Louis Kempff.

In December of 1898, the US Secretary of the Navy assigned him to take command of the Naval forces on Guam. This was eight months before Leary came to Guam.

Captain Henry Glass had taken the Spanish government officials away from Guam in June of 1898, but then sailed off to Manila, leaving Guam in a state of political uncertainty. A Spanish civilian official claimed power, and so did some local Chamorros, and various American Naval officials passing through made this or that change in Guam's government. But nobody knew what was up or down.

Even when the fighting stopped in August between American and Spanish forces, Guam's destiny was not immediately clear. It had to go all the way to December of 1898 for the Treaty of Paris to make clear that Guam would now be a possession of the United States.

Fine. But under who specifically?

Just before the Treaty was signed, President McKinley made that decision. Through Executive Order 108-A, Guam would now come under the rule of the US Department of the Navy. It took another month, in January of 1899, for McKinley to appoint Leary the first American Governor of Guam.

But prior to Leary's appointment, sometime in December of 1898, Captain Louis Kempff was supposedly tapped for the job as Governor of Guam, but by a lower authority than the President himself. It was Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long who had chosen Kempff. This was overturned by the US President within a month's time.

So what happened?

There were some reports that Kempff balked at the idea of going to Guam. Even his influential friends campaigned to have that appointment changed.

Apparently enough voices were heard in the Oval Office and McKinley changed the appointment and chose Leary instead.

Kempff went on to serve in a more newsworthy capacity in China and especially during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 when certain Chinese militants rose up against the foreign presence in China. It took close to 2 years for the Americans, Europeans and Japanese to put down the uprising. Kempff was made Rear Admiral in 1899.