Edward M. House: Difference between revisions

{{shortShort description|American diplomat (1858–1938)}}

| birth_place = [[Houston]], Texas, U.S.

| death_place = [[Manhattan]], New York, U.S.

| spouse = {{marriage|Loulie Hunter<br />|1881|March<!-- 28,Omission 1938|end=hisper deathTemplate:Marriage instructions -->}}

| children = Two2

'''Edward Mandell House''' (July 26, 1858 – March 28, 1938) was an American diplomat, and an adviser to President [[Woodrow Wilson]]. He was known as '''Colonel House''', although his ranktitle was honorary and he had performed no military service. He was a highly influential back-stage politician in Texas before becoming a key supporter of the presidential bid of Wilson in 1912 by managing his campaign, beginning in July 1911. Having a self-effacing manner, he did not hold office but was an "executive agent", Wilson's chief adviser on European politics and diplomacy during [[World War I]] (1914–1918). He became a government official as one of the five American commissioners to the [[Paris Peace Conference of 1919]].<ref>His appointment was announced November 29, 1918. Neu (2015), p. 379.</ref> In 1919, Wilson broke with House and many other top advisers, believing they had deceived him at Paris.

As a young man, House and his companions harassed [[Freedman|recently-freed slaves]] verbally and with [[slingshot]]s. His diary entries "consistently reveal a deeply felt racism" and a belief in [[white supremacy]].<ref name="Minutaglio">{{cite book |last=Minutaglio |first=Bill |author-link=Bill Minutaglio |date=2021 |title=A Single Star and Bloody Knuckles: A History of Politics and Race in Texas |url=https://wwwbooks.google.com/books/edition/A_Single_Star_and_Bloody_Knuckles/lYcHEAAAQBAJ?hlid=en&gbpv=1lYcHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA70 |location= |publisher=University of Texas Press |page=70 |isbn=9781477310366}}</ref>

In 1912, House anonymously published a novel called ''[[Philip Dru: Administrator]]'', in which the title character leads the democratic Western U.S. in a civil war against the [[plutocratic]] East, becoming the dictator of America and turns it into “Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Edward Mandell House |url=https://archive.org/details/philipdruadmini00housgoog/page/n58/mode/1up |title=Philip Dru: Administrator: A Story of Tomorrow, 1920-1935 ... |date=1912 |publisher=B. W. Huebsch |others=Harvard University |language=English}}</ref> Dru as dictator imposes a series of reforms which resemble the [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|Bull Moose platform of 1912]] and then vanishes.<ref>Lasch, pp. 230–35.</ref>

<blockquote>is working out the problems which are nearest my heart and that is the equalization of opportunity&nbsp;...&nbsp;. The income tax, the employers' liability act, the old age pension measure, the budget of last year and this insurance bill puts England well to the fore. We have touched these problems in America but lightly as yet but the soil is fallow.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1IgBQAAQBAJ&q=colonel+house+old-age+pensions&pg=PA69 | title=Colonel House: A Biography of Woodrow Wilson's Silent Partner| isbn=9780195045505| last1=Neu| first1=Charles E.| year=2015| publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref></blockquote>

After a German U-boat sank the British passenger liner {{RMS|Lusitania||2}} on May 7, 1915, with 128 Americans among the 1198 dead, many Americans called for war. Prior to departure from New York, the Imperial German Embassy had announced that ships sailing into warzone waters in order to aim for Germany's enemies would be targeted as enemy supply. The ship was carrying war munitions, although this was not publicly revealed at the time.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/divers-find-ammunition-in-lusitania/article_b6fdd7ba-32e4-50d8-8cd1-009db211b1ba.html#:~:text=Anne%20Constable%20The%20British%20passenger,to%20have%20been%20on%20board.|title=Divers find ammunition in Lusitania |last=Constable |first=Anne |date=September 26, 2008 |website=Santa Fe New Mexican}} </ref> Wilson demanded that Germany respect American neutral rights, and especially not sink merchant ships or passenger liners without giving the passengers and crew the opportunity to get into lifeboats, as required by international law. Tension escalated with Germany, until Germany agreed to Wilson's terms. House felt that the war was an epic battle between democracy and autocracy; he argued the United States ought to help Britain and France win a limited Allied victory. However, Wilson still insisted on neutrality.

House played a major role in shaping wartime diplomacy. He supported as well [[Thomas Garrigue Masaryk]]’s Czechoslovak legions, especially in Russia as well.<ref>Preclík, Vratislav. Masaryk a legie (Masaryk and legions), váz. kniha, 219 str., vydalo nakladatelství Paris Karviná, Žižkova 2379 (734 01 Karvina, Czech Republic) ve spolupráci s Masarykovým demokratickým hnutím (Masaryk Democratic Movement, Prague), 2019, {{ISBN|978-80-87173-47-3}}, pp. 87 - 89, 118 - 128,140 - 148,184 - 190</ref> Wilson had House assemble "[[The Inquiry]]", a team of academic experts to devise efficient postwar solutions to all the world's problems. In September 1918, Wilson gave House the responsibility for preparing a constitution for a [[League of Nations]]. In October 1918, when Germany petitioned for peace based on the [[Fourteen Points]], Wilson charged House with working out details of an [[armistice]] with the Allies.

House's perspective, as reflected in his personal papers, differs. House traveled in Europe to explore the possibility of peace as Wilson's unofficial agent. House was dismayed by German militarism, which he believed the main cause of the war, but also by the hardened self-interest of each of the warring nations which included territorial aspirations, andas well as Britain's fear of Germany's challenge to their military power, in particular naval primacy. The belligerents in the grip of war fever considered even discussing a peace conference a show of weakness; rejected automatically any proposal their enemy favored. Wilson's hopeful call for a reasonable, practical "peace without victory" backfired; angered the French and English fighting for Germany's utter and decisive defeat. Soldiers started calling dud shells "Wilsons." The efforts to offer American mediation foundered not for lack of trying, but because the intransigent warring nations were not ready for peace -- thispeace—this, according to House's contemporaneous correspondence. Then Germany's decision to resume unrestrained submarine attacks against vessels of neutral nations, together with the [[Zimmerman telegram]] offering a German-Mexican alliance on the understanding Mexico would be assisted to reconquer New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona -- precipitatedArizona—precipitated Wilson's decision to ask Congress to declare that a state of war existed between Germany and the United States. But both Wilson and House viewed entering the war to end it not just as a necessity of national interest, but as a Progressive project for a better future. Mankind would reject militarism after the horrors of this war; out of it would come a League of Nations to team against any single nation that waged aggressive war. It was to be (they thought) the War to End All Wars. <ref>{{Cite book|last=Seymour|first=Charles|title=The Intimate Papers of Colonel House|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Co.|year=1926}}</ref>

In February 1919, House took his place on the [[Treaty of Versailles|Council of Ten]], where he negotiated compromises unacceptable to Wilson. The following month, Wilson returned to Paris. He decided that House had taken too many liberties in negotiations, and relegated him to the sidelines. After they returned to the US later that year, the two men never saw or spoke to each other again.<ref name=Berg/><!--page=601}}--> Shortly after returning to Washington, Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, the extent of which was concealed from the public and the press. Other than his doctors, direct access to the preisdentpresident was now limited tooto and controlled by Wilson's wife and Chief of Staff. Though House continued to send memos and reports to the president during this time, Wilson's wife made sure he did not see any of them.<ref>Neu (2015), p. 434.</ref>

* Edward Mandell House and [[Charles Seymour]]. ''What Really Happened at Paris: The Story of the Peace Conference, 1918–1919''. New York: [[Charles ScribnersScribner's Sons]], 1921.

* {{Gutenberg author |id=House,+Edward+Mandell 2170| name=Edward Mandell House}}

* [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0466 Edward Mandell House papers (MS 466). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0466]

[[Category:DeathDeaths infrom New York (state)pleurisy]]