Who was Edward M. House?

• Author: Higgs, Robert
• Position: Etceteras ... - In memoriam

Edward M. House, a man now almost completely forgotten, was one of the most important Americans of the twentieth century. Given the sorry state of historical knowledge in the United States (most high school seniors do not know that the War Between the States was fought sometime between 1850 and 1900 [Long 2008]), we cannot reasonably expect many people today to identify House, much less to know anything about him. I suspect that scarcely anyone except a smattering of history teachers and a few history mavens can accurately state why he was an important figure in U.S. history. Yet he arguably had a greater impact on the past century than all but a handful of other actors.

Political history tends to be written primarily with reference to formal state leaders--pharaohs, Caesars, kings, prime ministers, presidents, and their most notable civilian and military officers. Probably at all times and places, however, much less prominent individuals have exerted potent influence out of the limelight or completely behind the scenes. I have long been interested in what we might call the general theory of gray eminence and in leading specimens of the genus. The typical American at present knows little or nothing, for example, about Eliju Root, Bernard M. Baruch, John J. McCloy, Clark Clifford, and David Rockefeller, although each of these men played a powerful role in shaping the world in which we now live. I do not mean to suggest that all such unofficial movers and shakers are rich and use their wealth as the key that admits them to the inner sanctums of official power. Some, such as House, were not outrageously rich, and some who were, such as Baruch, had great influence not simply because of their wealth, although having great gobs of money at one's disposal certainly never hurts when one sets out to cultivate so-called statesmen.

Edward Mandell House (1858-1938) grew up in Houston, Texas. His father, Thomas William House, an English immigrant who had made a fortune as a blockade runner during the War Between the States, died the third-richest man in the state in 1880, leaving to his children an estate valued at $500,000. Edward managed his share of the inheritance astutely, even though he spent much of his time engaged in politics--never running for an elective office or seeking an appointive one, but helping other men to gain office and make policy. Though a sickly man and certainly not a flamboyant one, he had a flair for making friends who appreciated his discretion, respected his views, and valued his counsel. This talent for winning friends and influencing people would remain the basis of his remarkable achievements in politics throughout his life. He was, in today's lingo, a very smooth operator, appreciated all the more because he clearly had no desire to displace the king he had just helped to place on the throne. The power he sought was the power behind the throne. (1)

In the first decade of the twentieth century, House was seeking a new, wider stage for his political activities. He had played an important part in getting four governors elected in Texas and in guiding their policies in office--the first of them, Jim Hogg, had given him the entirely honorific title of "colonel," by which he was known thereafter--but he was losing interest in the local scene.

Since 1886, House had maintained a capacious residence in Austin, where he wined and dined local politicos, but in 1902 he added an apartment in New York City, where he had many friends and contacts. He also spent a great deal of time in the summers at a rented house on the shore near Boston and in Europe. Wherever he went, doors were opened to him, and he and his wife, Loulie, entertained actively in return. The range of his friendships, acquaintances, and social connections was extraordinary. His recent biographer, Godfrey Hodgson, reports: "His diary records meals with Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Rudyard Kipling, as well as with the virtuoso pianist Ignazy Jan Paderewski, who became president of Poland. He mingled with politicians, generals, bankers, academics, journalists, and society hostesses in New York, Paris, and London. He knew J. P. Morgan Jr. well enough to call him 'Jack,' and he dined with Henry Clay Frick in the house that became his great art museum" (2006, 9).2 Not a bad showing for a man who had left Cornell before graduating and whose annual income ranged only from $20,000 to $25,000 (approximately $450,000 to $560,000 in today's dollars).

In 1911, he spied what he took to be a potentially rising star to which he might hitch his idle political wagon, a man with no prior experience as a politician until his election as...