Colonel House: A Biography of Woodrow Wilson's Silent Partner

721 Pages·2014·3.582 MB·English

by  Charles E. Neu

COLONEL HOUSE

COLONEL
HOUSE

a biography of woodrow
’
wilson s silent partner
CHARLES E. NEU
1
1
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© Charles E. Neu 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neu, Charles E.
Colonel House: a biography of Woodrow Wilson’s silent partner/Charles E. Neu.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–504550–5
1. House, Edward Mandell, 1858–1938. 2. Wilson, Woodrow, 1856–1924—Friends
and associates. 3. Statesmen—United States—Biography. 4. United States—Foreign
relations—1913–1921. 5. United States—Politics and government—1913–1921.
6. World War, 1914–1918—Peace. 7. Treaty of Versailles (1919) I. Title.
E748.H77N48 2015
973.91’3092—dc23
[B]
2014015227
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Sabina
Also by Charles E. Neu
An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906–1909
The Troubled Encounter: The United States and Japan
Co-editor, The Wilson Era: Essays in Honor of Arthur S. Link
Editor, After Vietnam: Legacies of a Lost War
America’s Lost War: Vietnam, 1945–1975
Co-editor, Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and
Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy
Contents
Prologue: A Great Adventure ix
PART I THE TEXAS YEARS, 1858–1912
1. A Spacious Youth 3
2. Searching for a Career 13
3. Creating “Our Crowd” 27
4. The “Twilight Years” 39
5. “The Man and the Opportunity” 53
6. The Ideal Society 69
PART II WILSON IN POWER, 1913–1914
7. “Our Crowd” Goes to Washington 77
8. Foreign Horizons, 1913 91
9. The New Freedom 101
10. Reform and Intervention 113
11. “The Great Adventure” 123
PART III THE GREAT WAR, 1914–1917
12. America and World War I 139
13. The Search for Peace 155
14. London, Paris, Berlin 167
15. The Turn to War 183
16. American Interlude 193
17. The Lure of Peace 209
18. The House-Grey Memorandum 223
viii Contents
19. The Failure of Peace 239
20. Presidential Politics 253
21. Reelection and the Plea for Peace 263
22. America Goes to War 277
PART IV AMERICA AT WAR, 1917–1918
23. America Prepares for War 295
24. The Strains of Coalition Warfare 305
25. Envoy to the Allies 317
26. Crises at Home and Abroad 331
27. The Turning Point 349
28. The End of the War 361
PART V PEACEMAKING, 1919–1920
29. Waiting for the Peace Conference 377
30. The Peace Conference, I 389
31. The Peace Conference, II 405
32. The Fight for the League 425
PART VI ELDER STATESMAN, 1921–1938
33. The End of the Wilson Era 441
34. New Beginnings 449
35. Marking Time 463
36. Victory at Last 475
37. The Crisis of the 1930s 491
Epilogue: Crossing the River 507
Acknowledgments 513
Notes 517
Sources 637
Index 657
Prologue
A Great Adventure
C
olonel Edward M. House led, by any measure—including his own—
an extraordinary life, one as big as the limitless prairies of the Gulf
Coastal Plain on which he spent his youth. He experienced the turbulence
of post–Civil War frontier America and lived until the New Deal was fully
enacted and World War II an inevitability. The mythology of that frontier
and the heroic past of his state left a deep impression on him. After his father
died on January 17, 1980, House left Cornell University and returned to
Texas, where he married, pursued a variety of business activities, built an
elegant mansion in Austin, and pondered his future. Though he later lived
in New York and Boston’s North Shore, went to Europe frequently, and
became one of the most powerful Washington insiders in American politi-
cal history, he was fundamentally a Texan.
When he had settled in Houston after his father’s death in 1880, House
realized that he would not duplicate the feats of Texans who had “molded
a trackless wilderness into a great commonwealth.” In 1885 he moved to
Austin, both to escape the heat and humidity of Houston and to be closer
to the political center of the state. He yearned for a political career and
proceeded to build his own faction—“our crowd,” as he called it—which
would become a potent political machine and a powerful force in Texas
politics. House proved an effective political operator—arguably one of the
greatest in American political history—skilled in organizing and inspiring
others by working largely behind the scenes, developing ties of loyalty and
affection with his close associates and using patronage to rally party work-
ers behind his candidates. From 1894 to 1906, House’s protégés served as
governors of Texas, all of them Democrats. One of these governors, James
Stephen Hogg, bestowed the honorary title of “Colonel” on House, and
three successive governors repeated the honor. The title stuck.
By the turn of the century House had grown tired of Texas politics
and sought broader horizons. The energy and dynamism of New York