House, Edward M. 1858-1938

HOUSE, EDWARD M. 1858-1938

Presidential adviser, 1913-1921

Foreign-Policy Adviser

Few men cast a longer shadow in the corridors of power in Washington during the 1910s than Edward Mandell House, who served as President Woodrow Wilson's adviser on European affairs in the years leading up to and during World War I.

Background

Born in Houston, Texas, on 26 July 1858, House entered Cornell University in 1877, leaving before graduation to manage the cotton plantations he had inherited on the death of his father. After he sold the cotton plantations a decade later, he was able to live in financial independence for the rest of his life.

Entry into Politics

In 1892, while living in Austin, House successfully managed the gubernatorial reelection campaign of James S. Hogg, who appointed House to his staff and made him an honorary "Colonel"—a title House retained for the rest of his life. House withdrew from politics in 1902, but he returned for the 1912 presidential election. Working vigorously in support of Woodrow Wilson, House was instrumental in getting William Jennings Bryan to back Wilson's candidacy. During Wilson's two terms as president, House was the president's most intimate adviser, initially helping Wilson choose his cabinet and subsequently acting as Wilson's de facto secretary of state and "silent partner" in the White House.

On the World Stage

While on a summer visit to Europe in 1913, House engaged in foreign policy talks on a range of issues with British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. During the following spring and early summer House visited London, Paris, and Berlin in an effort to mitigate rising tensions in Europe. After the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo in Junel914 sparked the outbreak of war, in late July. House acted as Wilson's special emissary to Europe in 1915 and 1916, conducting secret negotiations with the governments of Germany, France, and England in an unsuccessful effort to win a "peace without victory." After the United States entered the war in 1917, House was appointed head of an American mission to Great Britain and France, and he headed the American delegation to the Interallied Conference in December 1917.

Planning the Peace

House was also responsible for gathering together "The Inquiry," the group of intellectuals, foreign-policy experts, social scientists, and politicians that collected facts and drafted policy agendas for the end of the war. In spring 1918 House, at Wilson's behest, drew up the lineaments of a "covenant" for the future League of Nations, which Wilson appears to have used in his subsequent formulations. In October 1918, as the war effort of the Central Powers was collapsing and Germany sought peace negotiations, Wilson chose House to represent the United States at the interallied meetings where the Allied response to the Germans was devised. At these meetings House insisted that Wilson's Fourteen Points be the cornerstone for the peace. These points generated acrimonious debate among the Allies, but House's persistence—and his threats that the United States would make a separate peace with Germany—finally convinced the Allies to adopt the Fourteen Points as a basis for negotiations.

Versailles and the Aftermath

House accompanied Wilson, Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and a large group of U.S. scholars and politicians to the peace talks in Paris, where he continued to be Wilson's closest confidant, taking the president's place at the negotiations when he was absent. During the intense negotiations over the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, however, relations between House and Wilson became strained, largely because of House's willingness to take a more conciliatory position toward the Allies than President Wilson. While Wilson was preparing to return to the United States to promote the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, House—who remained behind in Europe to continue working on peace initiatives—urged the president to seek compromise with Senate Republicans. Though it remains unclear precisely why, the close friendship between Wilson and House ended abruptly on 28 June 1919, and the two men were never to meet again. In 1921 House and Charles Seymour edited What Really Happened at Paris, and a few years later some of House's papers were collected in The Intimate Papers of Colonel House (1926-1928). House retired from the political scene after his break with Wilson, but he kept up contacts with many European leaders. In the 1932 election Franklin D. Roosevelt consulted House, but House did not contribute to the development of Roosevelt's New Deal.

Sources:

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (New York: Harper & Row, 1954);

Charles Seymour, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel House Arranged as a Narrative, 4 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926-1928).