Colonel House in Latin America The Laboratory of Progressive Internationalism

Peter Russell

Junior

Greenwich High School

2013

Riverside, CT

pjr2442@gmail.com

Introduction

Not often in the study of American history does one find a character as intensely

interesting and unique as Colonel Edward Mandel House. House was, perhaps, the most

influential American statesman of his time, a private citizen who, as a close personal

friend and trusted confidante of President Woodrow Wilson, stood at the crossroads of

the 20th century’s most important and far reaching decisions.i Colonel House, as is

evidenced by his obscure legacy, was not in the business of politics for fame or notoriety.

Never having had a title or an official U.S. government position, Colonel House remains,

in many cases, a footnote in textbooks of American and European history, despite having

exercised significantly more influence than all but a few of his counterparts. The actions

taken by Colonel House, often understated by historians, had a major impact on the

course of history.ii Among his many achievements, House preserved the sovereignty of

Mexico from intrusive European hegemony, as the country struggled through the ten

years of its revolution. House then stood at the forefront of the modern Anglo-American

relationship, developing the necessary rapport with Foreign Minister Edward Grey which

strengthened the Anglo-American relationship in the days leading up to World War I and

ultimately blossomed into the “special relationship” of President Roosevelt and Winston

Churchill. House, as a diplomat, politician and advisor, complemented President

Wilson’s personality, acting as a levelheaded force to calm an often-bombastic and

occasionally ill-tempered Head of State. In this way, House saved Wilson from repeating

the political and diplomatic errors of his predecessors, the mixed legacy of Theodore

Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet and William Howard Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy.” House

preserved the progressive image of Wilsonian diplomacy, helped to avert a number of

military adventures and worked unceasingly for peace right up to America’s entry into

World War I.iii House’s pioneering work on a Pan-American charter foreshadowed his

crowning achievement: his key role in the formulation and promulgation of the League of

Nations, a role far more critical than generally realized.iv In fact, he provided Wilson with

the idea for the policy, charted the League’s specifics, and provided Wilson and the world

with the cogent reasons and resolve to pursue this vision of international cooperation. In

effect, Colonel House transformed Woodrow Wilson into the President having the most

influence on hemispheric external policies since James Monroe. House’s contributions

ushered America unto the world stage and linked the domestic progressive agenda with

the nation’s foreign policy. House remains, to this day, frequently overlooked and under-

appreciated in the histories of American Foreign policy. Beyond a doubt, House ushered

American diplomacy onto the global stage, leading a new wave of internationalism that

would rise to dominate the progressive movement and 20th century foreign policy for

decades to come.

The Relationship Between House and Wilson

To understand Colonel House and his legacy, it is important to discuss the meaningful

and powerful rapport that House shared with Woodrow Wilson. In this respect, House is

arguably unique. He occupied a role in Wilson’s administration that blurred the lines

between advisor and friend, and more closely resembles a mentor and guiding hand.v

Colonel House advised Wilson on almost every aspect of his life, from personal

relationships to policy matters. He met Wilson in 1911, arriving on the scene with a

reputation as an incomparable campaign manager who had secured the election of several

Democratic governors in Texas.vi The two men bonded immediately, in complete

agreement on a wide range of issues and finding total comfort in each other’s company.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Wilson asked House to advise his Presidential

campaign. Upon Wilson’s victory, House was offered any position he desired in Wilson’s

cabinet, with the exception of Secretary of State (that position was reserved for

Democratic loyalist William Jennings Bryan).vii Colonel House declined the honor,

however, choosing instead to serve “wherever and however I am needed by the

President.” In this way, House chose influence over fame, real power over a title. He

always wanted to control things behind the scenes and have a profound impact on the

course of history. Having the President’s ear, and his confidence, enabled House to

influence the foreign policy of the United States. Often standing at the President’s side

and frequently living in the White House itself, he achieved a great deal of success. He

advised the President on a wide range of issues and was instrumental in seeing that the

most important parts of the President’s programs were implemented.

As George and George’s Personality Study points out, both House and Wilson brought

something to the partnership that each needed desperately.viii Wilson was erratic and

undiplomatic while House served to temper Wilson’s raw emotions. Yet, without access

to presidential power, House would have existed as an advisor without portfolio, a

kingmaker without the requisite king, making House’s dependency on Wilson equally

acute. The two were complementary, and were almost alter egos. Unfortunately, with the

passage of time, the Colonel’s contribution has received much less appreciation than it

rightfully deserves.ix

What needs to be re-examined and re-assessed is the scope of House’s influence in

encouraging Woodrow Wilson’s international aspirations and his role in executing the

President’s vision for the future of both the industrialized and the developing world. It

cannot be disputed that House had a great impact on Wilson’s policies, which, in turn,

made a great impression upon the developing world: stabilization of the Government of

Mexico, peace efforts in Europe, military intervention in World War I when all efforts at

peace had failed, proposing the creation of the League of Nations, and representing the

United States at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, House was ubiquitous on the

world stage, a private citizen, without an official capacity, molding foreign Heads of

State to American positions. He eclipsed the de jure Secretary of State, William Jennings

Bryan. It is undeniable that the President had placed plenipotentiary authority in House’s

hands, making him, in effect, the de facto Secretary. His legacy, no doubt, saved some of

the world from itself, at least temporarily, and forever changed the predominant currents

of international relations.

The Conflict of Ideals and Business in Revolutionary Mexico Colonel House and President Wilson kept British oil interests from transforming Mexico

into a puppet state, while protecting United States commercial and political interests and

safeguarding American principles.

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) was an opportunist’s dream, with frequent changes

in the Federal Government, and with warlords outside the national capital controlling vast

territories and dispensing oil exploration and mining franchises to the highest bidder. The

Mexican people and their ineffective governments were the least important force driving

the revolution in its early stages. Foreign diplomats were, by far, more influential, as their

financial support and recognition were the keys to entrenched connections within

Mexico’s corrupt bureaucracy. These connections and resources also enabled them to

decide which upstart strongman would have the backing of the international community.

American Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson was one of these wheeler-dealer diplomats.

Ambassador Wilson had maintained a very close relationship not only with Mexican

dictator Porfirio Diaz but also with a number of revolutionary figures. It was generally

believed that Wilson had received his appointment as ambassador due to the influence of

the Guggenheim family.x The Guggenheim family held vast mining and smelting

interests throughout the world, including the largest copper mining and smelting

operation in Mexico. Having enjoyed the protection of President Porfirio Diaz (President

of Mexico 1884-1911), they amassed one of the largest fortunes in the world. The

overthrow of Diaz in 1911 by Francisco Madero (President of Mexico 1911-1913)

represented a real threat to their investments. Consequently, they were viscerally opposed

to President Madero and his reform policies. In addition, Madero competed directly with

the Guggenheims, as he owned a large copper smelting company at the time of his

election in 1910, making him an economic adversary as well as a political one. Therefore,

with these factors influencing his calculus, Ambassador Lane supported the overthrow of

Madero and the appointment of Victoriano Huerta as provisional President, with an

understanding that Felix Diaz, nephew of former dictator Porfirio Diaz, would become

president.xi

This plan of succession was agreed to by the ambassadors of the major powers at a

meeting at the American embassy. The “Pact of the Embassy” provided for the removal

from office and exile of Madero and Vice President Jose Maria Pino Suarez.xii In what

Mexicans call la decena tragica, both Madero and Suarez were assassinated by military

officers loyal to and subsequently promoted by Huerta.xiii There was no doubt that

Ambassador Wilson had blood on his hands. Nonetheless, his connections in such a

volatile country made him indispensable; without a suitable replacement at the time,

Wilson was forced to let him remain. In the meantime, however, Wilson sent a number of

Presidential advisors to keep him apprised of the situation, and dispatched Colonel

House, as well, to run diplomatic interference.xiv

These events took place during the lame duck presidency of William Howard Taft and

served as a source of major concern to President-elect Wilson who was forced to watch

from the sidelines. In fact, early in 1913, Wilson had sent Colonel House on a fact-

finding mission to Mexico for the sole purpose of evaluating Madero’s suitability as

President of Mexico. House had reported to Wilson, in January of that year, about

Madero’s good character, and his worthiness of receiving United States support and

sympathy.xv In many ways, Madero’s nationalist campaign represented many of the

progressive ideals which Wilson and House espoused. Madero’s anointed successor

Victoriano Huerta was just the opposite; he was corrupt and in fief to the economic

oligarchs. In addition, there was considerable evidence that he had been bought and sold

by British interests. Wilson and House feared that the British had exclusive access to the

man and, consequently, were not prepared to support a dictatorial, plutocratic regime well

within the United States sphere of influence. On a moral and a practical level, the United

States, as Edward Grey described, was resolved that “Huerta could not stay.”xvi

American fears that the British were conspiring to convert Huerta’s government into a

puppet regime can be traced to that modern root of all evils: oil. Weetman Pearson, an

Englishman and 1st Viscount Cowdray, had come to dominate the Mexican railway

system. He had come to Mexico in 1889 at the request of former dictator Porfirio Diaz,

who wanted him to build a railway across Mexico as part of his plans for

industrialization. After taking a wrong connection during one of his trips, Lord Cowdray

stumbled across a small town in Texas, wild with the oil craze. Thinking that the oil

could replace coal and power the Mexican railways, Lord Cowdray bought a vast amount

of acreage of land with promising geological structure. He eventually struck oil on the

Mexican portion of his holdings at Potrero de Llano in November of 1910.xvii And, from

that first wildcat well, he built the largest oil empire in Latin America. To some

sycophants, he was known as the Rockefeller of Mexico. Then, Madero appeared on the

scene, an implacable enemy of the old regime and its minions. As one of his first moves,

the revolutionary announced his plans to nationalize the oil industry, the railways, and

other critical industries in Mexico, many of which were foreign especially British, owned

or controlled.xviii Huerta, in the aftermath of the coup, was in the market to sell protection

and, in return, wanted British money and recognition. Ultimately, he did receive de facto

provisional recognition. In the early months of his regime, Huerta was already well

underway in the process of reversing Madero’s nationalizations. Added to the moral

outrage over Madero’s assassination was Washington’s fear that Great Britain and its

bailiff, Lord Cowdray, would get the biggest, if not the only, cut of the Mexican pie.xix

President Wilson saw that British business interests in Mexico, represented by Sir Lionel

Carden, British Ambassador to Mexico, and led by Lord Cowdray, were poised to hijack

the Mexican government.xx Fortunately for American interests, Britain had only extended

provisional recognition in an era when the term provisional had a strictly limited

meaning. There was still time to deter formal recognition. Recognition past the

provisional level would have serious consequences, primarily destroying the unified

diplomatic front that Wilson and House had managed to achieve. Up to that point, no

major power had yet extended the formal recognition that the Huerta government desired

and was prepared to pay for, and the Wilson administration wanted to keep it that way.

Wilson and House could not afford to have Britain break ranks and give Huerta what he

desperately wanted.xxi In Europe, legal recognition was never viewed as the equivalent of

moral approval, but rather was rooted in realpolitik. Wilson and House’s views were

radically different; they were convinced that formal recognition conveyed not only

approval but also carte blanche for business, mostly corrupt, as usual. The United States

believed it must prevent Britain from permitting the perversion of Mexican democracy in

return for oil concessions. The United States was not about to stand idly by and let that

happen.xxii

President Wilson sent Colonel House, a private citizen but with an unofficial role as

minister plenipotentiary, to stop the British lion in his tracks and he did nothing less.

After negotiations with the British foreign Ministry, House succeeded in defusing the

crisis. Britain agreed to withhold formal recognition, meaning that there would be no

preferential treatment of British companies at the expense of American competitors.xxiii It

had even greater significance; it would render Huerta’s government increasingly unstable

and subject to change. The President and Colonel House knew that, without British

support and with almost no other formal or informal international foreign backing, Huerta

was in no position to continue ruling Mexico. His days were numbered, which was

exactly what the United States wanted.

House and Wilson solved the dispute between the UK and the US over Panama toll

exemptions, breaking ranks with the Democrats by doing so, both to placate the British

for changing their policy on Mexico, and also out of righteousness, believing that such an

exemption violated a pre-existing treaty.

Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, had already made it clear that Mexico was

too important to Great Britain to allow it to blindly follow the United States demands.

The Empire, he decided, was in full right “take its own line” of approach.xxiv In order to

turn British policy into reality, Grey wanted to resolve a standing conflict that Britain had

with the United States over the Panama Canal. The United States Congress, with its

Constitutional responsibility for imports and import duties, had imposed a tariff on goods

passing through the Panama Canal in foreign vessels. American shipping was exempted

from the tax. Whether he knew it or not, Grey had an ally in the person of President

Wilson. While Wilson was very much against the exemption for American ships, he had

to deal with Congress, whose members, especially the Democrats, were strongly in favor

of the exemption.xxv Senators of Irish-American descent were especially vociferous in

their opposition to an exemption for Great Britain, while claiming, hypocritically, that

they supported an “open canal” policy.xxvi The exemption also appeared to be in direct

violation of the ratified Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, which promised equal treatment

of all nations’ trade with regards to the canal. Colonel House wrote about his concurrence

with Wilson: “I asked him concerning his views in regard to the Panama Canal tolls

controversy with Great Britain. I was glad to find that he took the same view that I have,

and that is that the clause should be repealed.”xxvii With the benefit of hindsight, it

appears that a diplomatic agreement was there for the making.

House set up a meeting with Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, at the first

possible opportunity in the sweltering summer of 1913. Their meeting led to a general

agreement on a number of important matters. Grey promised that the recognition

provided to Huerta was merely provisional, and that, given Huerta’s numerous assurances

that he would not run for President, if he did run for office, Huerta’s government would

not be recognized by Great Britain. House, in turn, guaranteed that the Panama tariff

issue was of utmost priority. However, given the small margin of support that President

Wilson was able to command in the U.S. Senate, the issue would possibly jeopardize the

progress of other important legislative measures. Therefore, House suggested that, for the

time being, the British stick to provisional recognition, and that, given some time, the he,

Wilson and their Congressional allies would repeal the tariff exemption after other

programs were legislated. Grey accepted the arrangement, and for the moment, the

United States and Britain were able to act with unity on an important matter of foreign

policy, and maintain the united American-European front on Mexican affairs.xxviii January

of 1914 saw Wilson bring the matter up with the Congress, and June saw the repeal of the

special exemption become law.xxix Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office instructed Sir

Lionel Carden (the pro-Huerta British Ambassador to Mexico), to “not take steps to

interfere in any way with Wilson’s anti-Huerta policy in Mexico,” upholding Grey’s end

of the bargain.xxx

On October 27, 1913, Woodrow Wilson gave a speech to the Southern Commercial

Congress in Mobile, Alabama. Here, he rallied once again against “interest groups” that

threatened progressive programs.xxxi However, in this speech, Wilson expanded his

definition to include international capitalist circles. In this instance, Wilson specifically

referred to European interests in Mexico, which had sought to pervert democracy for

profit.xxxii “Say no to Huartists” became part of his political rhetoric. This speech clearly

suggested that Wilson had won this fight. If Wilson and House had not acted, the British

were likely to have recognized the Huerta government in Mexico, destroying the united

front and crushing moral diplomacy in Mexico. It was also almost certain that control of

Mexican oil development would have fallen under the complete control of Lord

Cowdray’s mining operations, which would have proved disastrous for American oil

companies. President Wilson and Colonel House’s first diplomatic initiative had met with

complete success, a first step in the long road to democratic government in Mexico. As

expected, Huerta failed to maintain political power, and was ousted by armed insurrection

the following July of 1914. Progressivism had been extended beyond domestic policies,

and the support for democratic ideals in other countries defined a new approach to

international relations for the United States. Hints of the principle of “self-

determination,” a concept destined to dominate U.S. foreign policy in the aftermath of

World War I, date to these day of American diplomacy in Mexico. House did not allow

personal ambition or interests to influence his positions at the negotiating table.xxxiii xxxiv

Rather, he stood for American ideals of freedom and democracy.

Houses ABC’s: Pan-America and the Creation of Article X of the League

House found himself obsessed with the possibility of a Pan-American Treaty, the treaty

that had eluded his predecessors despite their determined efforts. The Secretary of State,

William Jennings Bryan, as well as former Secretary of State James Blaine, both had

unsuccessfully pursued a super-national government for the countries of North and South

America. Their efforts had met with little success because of determined opposition in the

United States, primarily from isolationists who unwilling to commit U.S. military and

economic power to promote the sovereignty of its neighboring countries. A Pan-

American Union, at least in name, surprisingly had resulted from this three decade long

effort; however, the Union itself was largely powerless, and U.S.-South American

relations, in general, had deteriorated after an 1891 US invasion of Chile as retaliation for

treatment of US military personnel at Valparaiso. The invasion itself and the peace terms

that followed solidified the opinions of South American governments and citizens who

were already convinced that the United Sates had replaced Spain as an imperialist power.

To them, this episode was but further confirmation that their northern neighbor was

nothing more than an unjust, aggressive bully.

In the aftermath of the Mexico crisis, Colonel House saw a genuine need for the United

States to intervene to prevent neo-colonial adventures on the part of European powers. —

in short a re-assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. The true motives for this renewal from the

US-side remain a subject of debate. Nonetheless, ideas of a Pan-American Union were

undoubtedly renewed, with Colonel House leading the charge.

In 1914, House had called for the “ABC Powers,” Argentina, Brazil and Childe, to

mediate a dispute. The Niagara Conference, as it is now known, narrowly avoided war

between the US and Mexico over an incident earlier in the year, the Tampico Incident.xxxv

The successful mediation provided the US government much needed credibility among

the South American nations, and partially ameliorated the discredited US image. As

indication of this success, the Chilean Minister wrote to Colonel House of “the

President's success in the Mexican difficulties-turning, as he did, a situation fraught with

difficulties and danger to our American relations into a triumph of Pan-

Americanism.”xxxvi

It was about this time in August 1914 that the Great War broke out, a failure of European

diplomacy of monumental consequences that House blamed largely on a lack of

transparency, dialogue and cooperation amongst the imperial powers. Looking to keep

the Americas from experiencing the same unfortunate fate as Europe, House felt a new

sense of urgency to pursue permanent Pan-American policies and erect permanent

instruments of Pan-American cooperation. In the summer, House met with Wilson and

urged him, “to pay less attention to his domestic policy and greater attention to the

welding together of the two western continents.”xxxvii Wilson immediately agreed, almost

without hesitation, confirming his commitment to a legacy of American involvement in

maintaining world peace.

While House had advised Wilson of this change in course verbally, he now sent Wilson a

letter reinforcing his points.xxxviii Still unwilling to let matters rest without complete

agreement and immediate adoption on the part of President Wilson, House drew up a

plan to present to the President later that month at the White House. House, as he

recounted in his diary, sought “nothing less than a rather loose league of American states

which should guarantee security from aggression and furnish a mechanism for the pacific

settlement of disputes.xxxix This “league” would be led chiefly by the United States and

the ABC Powers, and would agree to two things in particular: first, unquestionable

sovereignty over national territory; second, government ownership of “munitions of war.”

At the urging of House, the President wrote these ideas down by hand, and immediately

typed them out, “excited in his enthusiasm,” before providing the document and its

wording to the Colonel for immediate use in negotiations with South American

ambassadors.xl

The wording of these resolutions bears resemblance with what would become Article X

of the League of Nations charter.xli While historians have credited Wilson for conceiving

the creation of the League of Nations, the idea and, perhaps, even the wording of the

most critical and historic articles of the League of Nations charter were a product of

Colonel House, a private US citizen.

From this time onward, House focused on negotiations, and did so with surprisingly

furious efficiency. A meeting was held immediately, and the Argentine Ambassador fell

in love with the proposal, even asking to keep the original copy that Wilson had

typewritten, convinced it would become an important historical document. The Brazilian

Ambassador, da Gama, was equally convinced and almost immediately embraced the

covenant that House had constructed and Wilson had typewritten.xlii The Chilean

Ambassador, however, was reluctant to sign on, as they stood in the midst of border

dispute with Peru.xliii The agreement implied renouncing war as a means to solve conflict

within the proposed League, which meant that Chile would not be able to enforce its

claim to land disputed with Peru. However, House was able to convince the ambassador

that such claims would be settled quickly, as there were other disputes in territory

between Costa Rica and Peru, and that all disputes would be worked out before Chile

surrendered its right to wage war on Peru.xliv As a result, within the day, House had won

over the representatives of the ABC powers, doing so masterfully. As a testament to his

work and to the extent to which persuasion had won over the diplomats, the normal rules

governing the speed of diplomatic response did not apply; the Brazilian Ambassador

secured the approval of his government to the treaty less than a week after the initial

meeting with House, with the Argentine Ambassador following not long after.xlv

The treaty required a certain degree of political stability to be had in all participatory

nations, so that the provisions concerning munitions control could be enforced. This was

a sort of “Catch-22,” as much of Central and South America at the time was composed of

smaller, independent states still in the process of chartering their future government, and

were not necessarily in a position to ratify a Pan-American Treaty so radical as the

Colonel’s. Furthermore, while it was officially supported by the State Department as a

consequence of the President’s complete endorsement, Secretary of States William

Jennings Bryan himself did not find the treaty to be necessary.xlvi Bryan had recently

adopted accords with the South American nations, which, while not as inclusive, he

thought were sufficient to stave off conflict. They provided for a “cooling off” period

before military action could commence, during which neutral arbiters would be brought

in to get both sides to the negotiating table. Anything more, Bryan thought, was

superfluous.xlvii As a result, even though the treaty negotiations had received

ambassadorial approval, the respective governments did not actively pursue them. When

House turned the negotiations over to the U.S. State Department, there was no further

progress and the fact that he was a private citizen came home to roust.

The Original “Special Relationship”

The Colonel established the special relationship through his cordial approach to

diplomacy, which was appreciated by Edward Grey, British Foreign Minister, and gave

the Anglo-American relationship an openness, frankness and efficiency which it had

never before contained.

The agreements concerning Mexico and the Panama Canal tolls inaugurated a new

awareness of mutual interests between the United States and Great Britain. Prior to

Colonel House’s involvement, British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey and his

associates at the Foreign Office were unsure of American resolve on these issues. After

all, Ambassador Lane Wilson’s involvement in the removal of Francesco Madero clearly

demonstrated that he had far different political connections and goals than President

Wilson. In fact, prior to the agreements made by House and Foreign Minister Grey, the

British government had every reason to be skeptical about American policy, and was

quite skeptical in actuality.xlviii These doubts, however, quickly evaporated. Grey and

House immediately became friends. House’s frankness and openness, his clearly

demonstrated lack of ulterior motives, all played a major role in the development of

Grey’s confidence and trust. Their very first meeting is described in the Intimate Papers

as one in which the two men expressed their views on diplomacy “as a means by which

the representatives of different states could discuss frankly the coincidence or the clash of

national interests and reach a peaceable understanding...like a personal business.”xlix

This frank discourse between the two men who were friends and remained so is

remarkable. In a meeting between Sir William Tyrrell, one of Grey’s confidants, Colonel

House and the President, the Panama tolls came up spontaneously as a topic of

conversation. Wilson candidly acknowledged that the current state of affairs was a

flagrant violation of treaty on the part of the United States; Wilson assigned the blame to

“Hibernian patriots who always desired a fling at England,” emphasizing that the one

person behind most of the opposition was New York Senator O’Gorman. The President

caricatured him as “an Irishman contending against England rather than as a United

States Senator upholding the dignity and welfare of this country.” Later, Tyrrell said to

House that, if “veteran diplomats had heard us, they would have fallen in a faint,” all the

while thanking House for the interview. Tyrell had “never before had such a frank talk

about matters of so much importance.”l A new level of openness and trust had emerged

from the prior days of unproductive bickering, an unquestionably novel epoch of Anglo-

American relations.

This cordiality, shared by diplomats of both Great Britain and the United States, led

ineluctably to the development of a special relationship between the two nations. While

their primary responsibility was to represent the positions of their respective

governments, empires, these diplomats were kind, respectful and friendly with their

counterparts, which made innate trust come all more naturally. For the first time, nations

were working not just out of nationalist interests, but out of the feeling of a common

bond, which has influenced Anglo-American relations to this day. From the repeal of the

special exemption in June of 1914, “the United States Government could count upon the

sympathy of Sir Edward Grey.”li The “special relationship” long predates the cooperation

of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt; rather, it had its initiation in the

early days of the Wilson administration and at the behest of a remarkable private citizen,

Colonel Edward House.

The Bottom Line: How House and Wilson Changed the Progressive Image

President Wilson’s tenure marked the end of the progressive era. While this implies that

the ideas of the Age of Wilson were not immediately continued by his conservative

Republican successors, it signifies that Wilson, and to a great extent Colonel House, had

the last opportunity to define the core of the progressive movement. The Federal Reserve

entered the financial sector as an organ separate from Congress to regulate all-important

monetary policy, promote opportunity, equality and stable growth in American markets.

While the Federal Reserve System and other regulatory agencies of the era limited the

pace at which rapid capital growth could take place, they also assured that this growth

was stable and not the inevitable boom/bust. The Federal Reserve Act, in large measure,

a product of Colonel House’s input continues to fulfill its purpose, regulate monetary

policy and stabilize the economy one hundred years after the final negotiations to

establish it.

House provided the inspiration for the foundation and structure of the League of Nations,

even going so far as to directly influence Article X, the most famous section of the

charter. It was Article X that would lead to the eventual failure of the ratification battle in

the Senate. Yet Article X also re-emerged in spirit in the United Nations, the more

successful successor to the short-lived League of Nations. No matter your view, the

modern UN attempts to and has even succeeded in defusing some a number of later

conflicts, many of which might have led to war, an unachievable result as recently as a

century ago. While it has many limitations, still, the UN has saved countless lives

through peace-keeping operations and economic assistance. In this way, the legacy of

Colonel House continues to benefit mankind to this day.

Perhaps one of House’s more interesting contributions to the development of President

Wilson’s political philosophy and to the progressive movement in general was his novel

Philip Dru: Administrator, written and anonymously published in 1912.lii The book can

be read as House’s political dream, and was largely adopted by Wilson as one of his

favorite titles after House provided a copy for his 1912 Bermuda vacation.liii In the novel,

the main character, Philip Dru, leads a democratic Western United States in a second civil

war against the corrupt plutocratic Eastern seaboard, delivering the nation from the

tyranny of big business in the process. Dru, upon seizing power, names himself

Administrator of the Republic, institutes a number of reforms that resemble the Bull

Moose platform of 1912, and vanishes.liv The novel embodies the Colonel’s progressive

thinking, and foreshadows the crusade he and Wilson undertook in his later years as a

warrior preacher of progressive ideals. It places emphasis, especially, on the altruistic

side of progressive policy and the progressive reform movement, a message that

resonated with Wilson. Dru, clearly the protagonist of House’s own views, was presented

as selflessly looking to expand democracy to those areas of the world that did not have it,

a cause seamlessly adopted by Wilson as well. The progressive movement was, by

connection, equally influenced by the Colonel since its leader had been irreversibly

indoctrinated.

Yet to the Colonel and President, this altruism that comes with the progressivism of

Philip Dru has a different definition relative to contemporary morality. While both men

looked to promote democracy throughout the world, they looked to do so on their own

terms. Each can be accurately portrayed as racist, as can be expected of many men of

their era; Wilson would call the Germans “the Huns” in World War I, a popular term

amongst American and British diplomats and officers during the War. House became so

frustrated with Latin American affairs that he advocated intervention to teach the Central-

Americans how to self-govern and “create order out of chaos.”lv (Wilson too once

remarked to a British diplomat that it was his responsibility to “teach the Latin Americans

to elect good men.”lvi) Undoubtedly, each looked to further their own self-interest and

beyond racial tendencies. Colonel House, despite his denials, owned land, silver stock

and possessed other in Mexico, may explain his brief advocacy of intervention.lvii

President Wilson undoubtedly had to temper his lack of sympathy for Latinos. Wilson

had ambivalent feelings about capitalism, alternating between distaste and distrust, and

admiration for corporations that looked beyond profit and projected what he felt were

“American ideals overseas.”lviii In reality, the last progressive administration hedged their

approach to foreign policy by defining self-determination as democracy on American

terms. The effects this policy outlasted 1921, when the Age of Wilson came to an official

electoral end, with House’s progressive foreign affairs policies, in one form or another,

continuing to the present day.

Conclusion

Progressivism defied and re-defined the goals of politics in terms of ideals and moralistic

reform. While, domestically, it struck against the inherent moral and fiscal corruption in

big business, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House expanded progressivism and their

interpretation of its moral message to the international arena as well. Mexico provided the

perfect testing ground for these new policies. Through Wilson and House’s diplomacy,

American idealism, for better or worse, prevailed against the interests of international

business in Mexico. As a consequence of this experience, House envisioned and

presented to Wilson the framework for the Pan-American Treaty embodying a Congress

to settle regional conflicts. The conduct of the Wilson administration, strongly influenced

by Colonel House’s style of diplomatic negotiation, led to the construction of a bond of

unprecedented cordiality and trust between the British Foreign Office and the United

States, the inauguration of the famous “special relationship” between the United States

and the United Kingdom. Mexico was a critical success for “Wilsonian” ideals and

diplomacy, perhaps even providing Wilson and House with the necessary international

savoir-faire for the looming conflict developing across the Atlantic. Above all, House’s

experience with the Pan-American negotiations created the foundations of the League of

Nations, his signature legacy. These policies were the beginnings of what Wilson would

later characterize as an attempt to make the world “safe for democracy.” Ironically, it is

this lofty goal for which Wilson is now famous—while House remains without the credit

that is due him. Such is the fate that Colonel House himself probably would have chosen.

                                                                                                               

i  Robert H. Butts, "An Architect of the American Century: Colonel Edward M. House and the Modernization of United States Diplomacy" (PhD diss., Texas Christian University, 2010), 1, accessed June 4, 2013, ProQuest (UMI No. 3443311).

ii  George Sylvester Viereck, The Strangest Friendship in History: Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House (1976; repr., Praeger, 1976).  

iii  Ibid.

iv  Ibid.  

v  Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study, Dover ed. (John Day Company, 1956; New York: Dover Publications, 1964), [Page #].  vi  Arthur D. Howden Smith, "Mr. Smith's 'The Real Colonel House.,'" The New York Times (New York), June 23, 1918, accessed September 14, 2013, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10615FD3C5A11738DDDAA0A94DE405B888DF1D3.

vii  Robert H. Butts, "An Architect of the American Century: Colonel Edward M. House and the Modernization of United States Diplomacy" (PhD diss., Texas Christian University, 2010), 1, accessed June 4, 2013, ProQuest (UMI No. 3443311).

viii  Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study, Dover ed. (John Day Company, 1956; New York: Dover Publications, 1964).

ix  Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study, Dover ed. (John Day Company, 1956; New York: Dover Publications, 1964).  x  Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 87.  xi  Ibid.

xii  Ibid.  xiii Staff Presidencia, "Decena Trágica" [The Ten Tragic Days], Mexico: Presidencia de la Republica, last modified September 2, 2013, accessed September 15, 2013, http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/decena-tragica/.

xiv Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 88.

xv David S. Foglesong, America's Secret War Against Bolshevism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 15.

xvi Edward Grey, K.G, Twenty Five Years: 1892-1916 (New York, USA: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1925), 2:96-97.  

xvii Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 88.

xviii Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 87.

xix Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 88.

xx  House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 200.

xxi Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 88.  

xxii  Edward Grey, K.G, Twenty-Five Years: 1892-1916 (New York, USA: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1925), 2:100.  

                                                                                                               

xxiii  Woodrow Wilson, "Address Before the Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, Alabama," The American Presidency Project, accessed September 14, 2013, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65373.

xxiv  Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 87.

xxv  Edward Mandell House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, comp. Charles Seymour (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926), 196, 203-205.  xxvi  Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 89.

xxvii  Edward Mandell House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, comp. Charles Seymour (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926), 193.

xxviii  Ibid.  

xxix  House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 206.  

xxx  House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 202.

xxxi  Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 88.

xxxii  Woodrow Wilson, "Address Before the Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, Alabama," The American Presidency Project, accessed September 14, 2013, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65373.

xxxiii  Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 87.

xxxiv  Grey, Twenty-Five Years: 1892-1916, 2:97.

xxxv  Edward Mandell House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, comp. Charles Seymour (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926), 208.

xxxvi  Ibid, 218.

xxxvii  Ibid, 207.

xxxviii  Ibid, 208.

xxxix  Edward Mandell House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, comp. Charles Seymour (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926), 210.

xl  Ibid, 209-210.

xli  House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 209.  

xlii  House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 213.

xliii  Ibid.

xliv  Ibid, 213-214.

                                                                                                               xlv Ibid, 214-218.

xlvi House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 211.

xlvii Ibid.

xlviii Grey, Twenty-Five Years: 1892-1916, 2:94-99.

xlix House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 195.

l House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 201.

li House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel, 206.

lii  Butts, "An Architect of the American," 58.

liii  Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 53.

liv  Ibid.

lv Foglesong, America's Secret War Against, 15.

lvi  Williams, The Tragedy of American, 70.

lvii  William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, new edition ed. (New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1972), [Page #]; Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 87.

lviii Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand, 88.

                                                                                                               

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