NON-FICTION
House Papers*
The History. This is the story of one man's activities over a period of about five years, activities linked with the welfare of several hundred million people, of half a dozen countries, several colors and many faiths. In chief, it is the story of Colonel Edward Mandell House, unofficial (and unprecedented) emissary of President Woodrow Wilson, and his attempts to end or prevent war and of his four journeys to Europe in the cause of peace.
In the first journey (1913), he merely made friends, talked a little of a way for bringing about co-operation instead of competition among the great nations.
In his second journey (May, 1914), he went abroad to induce Germany, England and France to agree to limitation of armaments. He called this trip "the great adventure." From Berlin he wrote President Wilson that the situation there was "extraordinary." "It is militarism run stark mad. . . . There is some day to be an awful cataclysm." As he returned home at the end of July, having made some progress with his plan, the cataclysm came.
In his third journey (1915) he went to propose to the belligerents not only that they should end the War, but that in doing so arrangements should be made for permanent peace. Germany would not listen, France was wary, England thought the time was not opportune.
In his fourth journey (1916), he went to propose to the belligerents should call a peace conference and either force peace or enter the War against the side which would refuse reasonable terms. He assumed that Germany would be the one to refuse, and he believed that it was in the interest of the U. S. to see militarism crushed and democracy set up in Germany. But the Allies did not trust Germany and feared that Wilson would not bring the U. S. into the War even if Germany refused equitable terms. House felt that it was necessary to have Allied consent to the plan.
So in one sense all his four efforts came to naught. But he had established intimate relations with the statesmen of Europe—Grey, Balfour, Lloyd George, Cambon, Briand, Zimmermann, a host of others that were invaluable to President Wilson in conducting his foreign policy.
These journeys are the great stories of the book; but it also tells the story of the strategy of House in twice winning election for Wilson; the story of ths passage of the Federal Reserve Act; gives the impressions House formed of all the leaders of England, Germany and France; tells the methods of diplomacy which House used; tells a hundred incidents, such as how the imperturbable House lost his temper with the British Ambassador at Washington, how Von Bethmann-Hollweg explained his famous phrase, "a scrap of paper."