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About the Author: Edward Mandell House By Henry Lamb James Stephen Hogg faced two formidable challengers in his 1892 bid for Governor of Texas. Hogg called on Edward Mandell House (1858-1938) to head his campaign. Hogg won the election and rewarded House with the honorary title of Lieutenant Colonel, which soon was shortened to "Colonel." House loved the excitement and challenge of politics. He developed a strong network of Democratic supporters that he referred to as "Our Crowd." House was the driving force behind the election of three Texas Governors, one of whom, Allen Culberson, moved to the U.S. Senate in 1898. House became disenchanted with politics after his candidate lost in 1904. He toured Europe for a while, studied, and moved to New York in 1910, to re-engage in Democratic politics at the national level. House met Woodrow Wilson on November 25, 1911. The two became close friends and House managed Wilson's Presidential campaign . By reactivating his Texas network of political allies, House secured the vote of Texas' 40 electors, which gave Wilson the nomination in 1912. Wilson's subsequent victory placed House at the pinnacle of influence in the White House. House refused every official position offered to him and chose to remain behind the scenes as the President's closest personal advisor. In 1912, House also published his first novel, anonymously. The novel, titled Philip Dru: Administrator, is a horrible novel by any literary standard. Nonetheless, it is an extremely important book. Many people believe the book is an autobiographical fantasy in which House sees himself leading the world to the perfect system of governance. It is essential to understand House's belief system. Let his words speak for him: "Philip Dru...saw many of the civil institutions of his country debased by the power of wealth under the thin guise of the constitutional protection of property" (p. 3). "When in the future children are trained from infancy that they can measurably conquer their troubles by the force of mind, a new era will have come to man" (p. 31). "The strong will help the weak, the rich will share with the poor, and it will not be called charity, but it will be known as justice. The man or woman who fails to do his duty, not as he sees it, but as society at large sees it, will be held up to the contempt of mankind" (p. 42). The purpose of House's novel is to describe the events that lead to the overthrow of the government, and the organization of the new government under "the Administrator." When the revolution is completed in the book, Dru says: "It was felt that the property and lives of all were now in the keeping of one man" (p. 154). Note the striking similarity of House's vision with the words of Thomas Hobbes. "Dru saw that the time had come ... for the National Government to take upon itself some of the functions heretofore exclusively within the jurisdiction of the States" (p. 182) "He also proposed making corporations share with the Government and States a certain part of their net earnings" (p. 182) "Government...was to have representation upon the boards of [every] corporation.... Labor was to have one representative upon the boards of [every] corporation and to share a certain percentage of the earnings above their wages" (p. 183) "...he thought, and perhaps rightly, that in a few centuries from now the killing of animals and the eating of their corpses would be regarded in the same way as we now think of cannibalism" (p.200). "...there were no legislative bodies sitting, and the function of law making was confined to one individual, the Administrator himself" (p. 221). "Our Constitution and our laws served us well for the first hundred years of our existence, but under the conditions of today they are not only obsolete, but even grotesque" (p. 222). "The American flag, the American destiny and hers [England's] were to be interwoven through the coming ages. Thus Dru had formulated and put in motion an international policy, which, if adhered to in good faith, would bring about the comity of nations, a lasting and beneficent peace, and the acceptance of the principle of the brotherhood of man" (pp 275-276). House's book is a window into the mind of a man who had a major influence on the development of the League of Nations, and on advancing the concept and structure of global governance. __________________________________ This book, Philip Dru: Administrator, is made available on the Internet by the Gutenberg Project. |