A recent
post mentioned some of our less savory administrative governmental
heritage dating from the time of President Woodrow Wilson. Not mentioned in the article or the
comments, understandably, was any reference as to how and why Pres. Wilson
came to represent a formative administrative state. The real
story is interesting, informative, and important.
At the end of the 19th century, a powerful Texas
political governor-maker by the name of Edward Mandel House – nicknamed
"Colonel," though he never served in the military – looked
to broaden his political and imaginative horizons by relocating to
the East, where he assessed national politics and ferreted out a role to
play at the highest possible social, political, and educational levels. He
found an opportunity in the person of Woodrow Wilson, Yale University
professor. Latching onto Wilson, just as he had when creating
elections for Texas governors-to-be whom he favored, Colonel House decided
to take a skillful and experienced shot at maneuvering Wilson into the
presidency. House had other ulterior motives in backing Wilson
and soon introduced global aspirations and possibilities into Wilson's
head that today must be recognized as having proved to be of great
importance.
House had authored a novel, published by various accounts
in 1905-6, titled Philip Dru: Administrator, which he made
available for Wilson to read, digest, and hopefully act
upon. The book depicts a second U.S. Civil War, with a participant,
Philip Dru, creating for the world, in the war's aftermath, a new world
order characterized by a single administrator (Dru) working through a
World Bank, World Court, World Army, and a League of Nations – i.e.,
utopia achieved!
President Wilson was
energized by the fictional creation of House and was advised by House all
through WWI. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, House
himself, along with Wilson, convinced the participant-nations to create
a League of Nations. The U.S. was saved from League of Nations
membership by the U.S. Senate's refusal to ratify such a relationship, but
then, in 1943, the U.S. joined the Allies in agreement to form a United
Nations after WWII.
House died in 1938, advising U.S. presidents up through FDR with
fading influence after WWI and with the ultimate failure of the League
of Nations. The
administrative state would go on to progress wildly beyond House's fertile
utopian imagination to the monster administrative states we experience
today.
House's Dru is available today, having
been reprinted in the 1990s after a decades-long absence.
Of major importance regarding the political course and influence
of House on the course of the 20th century, with vast echoes to the
very present, huge and detailed information is contained in the original
four-volume set of books by Charles Seymour up through the
mid-1920s, titled The
Intimate Papers of Colonel House, available today at a
major internet bookseller and at larger public and university libraries. The fourth
volume is hard to find. Paperback editions are also available.
As a final note, perhaps
Edward Mandel House was clapping in his grave as President GHW Bush gave
his "thousand points of lights" inaugural speech and mentioned a
new world order. One can wonder where President Bush's new
world order came from, but only for a microsecond if one knows anything
about House. Utopian fiction, indeed!