Progressives at War Craig, Douglas B
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Progressives at War Craig, Douglas B. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Craig, Douglas B. Progressives at War: William G. McAdoo and Newton D. Baker, 1863–1941. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.22248. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/22248 [ Access provided at 28 Sep 2021 00:39 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Progressives at War This page intentionally left blank Progressives at War William G. McAdoo and Newton D. Baker, 1863–1941 Douglas B. Craig The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2013 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2013 Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Mary land 21218- 4363 w w w . p r e s s . j h u . e d u Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Craig, Douglas B. Progressives at war : William G. McAdoo and Newton D. Baker, 1863–1941 / Douglas B. Craig. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 1- 4214- 0718- 0 (hdbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 1- 4214- 0718- 3 (hdbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 1- 4214- 0815- 6 (electronic) — ISBN 1- 4214- 0815- 5 (electronic) 1. McAdoo, W. G. (William Gibbs), 1863– 1941. 2. Baker, Newton Diehl, 1871– 1937. 3. Cabinet offi cers— United States— Biography. 4. Lawyers— United States— Biography. 5. Progressivism (United States politics) 6. United States— Politics and government—1913– 1921. 7. United States— Politics and government—1865– 1933. 8. World War, 1914– 1918—United States. I. Title. E748.M14C73 2013 973.91'30922—dc23 [B] 2012018229 A cata log record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410- 516- 6936 or [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post- consumer waste, whenever possible. For Anne, with my love This page intentionally left blank Contents A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s i x Introduction 1 Spring: 1863– 1912 1 New South Rising, 1863– 1901 11 2 Gotham’s Class A Genius and Cleveland’s Little David, 1902– 1911 26 3 Changing Roles 51 4 Newton Baker, William McAdoo, and Progressivism 78 Summer: 1913– 1920 5 In Woodrow Wilson’s Cabinet, 1913– 1921 97 6 Secretaries at Peace 117 7 War time Ser vice, 1917 150 8 War time Ser vice, 1918 179 9 The Heir Apparent, the Crown Prince, and Woodrow Wilson, 1918– 1924 212 Autumn: 1921– 1932 10 Lawyers and Businessmen 239 11 Lost Causes, 1921– 1929 261 12 The Great Depression 295 13 Husbands and Fathers 326 viii C o n t e n t s Winter: 1933– 1941 14 The New Deal 353 15 “I have no quarrel with fate, no matter in what moods I have found her” 386 A b b r e v i a t i o n s 40 3 N o t e s 40 5 Essay on Sources 503 I n d e x 51 3 Illustrations follow page 116. Ac know ledg ments This book has taken many years to research and write, and along the way I have accumulated a long list of debts. I owe the fi rst of these to Robert J. Brugger, se nior acquisitions editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press. Bob has supported this project from its outset, and his patience with it has been exemplary. Later Juliana McCarthy, Maria denBoer, and Kimberly Johnson formed a superb editorial team to see this project to completion. I owe them all sincere thanks. As the bibliography indicates, I undertook most of the research for this book in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. There I was blessed by the help of a team of archivists, led by Jeffrey Flannery, which included Frederick Augustyn, Fred Bauman, Jennifer Brathovde, Joseph Jackson, Patrick Kerwin, Bruce Kirby, Cathy Miller, Julia Schifi ni, and Lewis Wyman. I could not have done my work without them, and I could not have done it so happily without their support and friendship. Jeff and his team run one of the fi nest manuscript facilities in the world, and they do it with a winning combination of professionalism and warmth. My gratitude to them all runs very deep. Other libraries and archivists across the United States have also assisted my work. The staffs of The Western Reserve Historical Association Library in Cleve- land, the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, the David- son Library at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Department of Special Collections at the University of California at Los Angeles, and the Hun- tington Library in San Marino, California, went out of their way to help me and I acknowledge them all with sincere gratitude. I am also grateful to the institutions and copyright own ers who gave their per- mission to reproduce the illustrations in this book. I owe a special debt to the Fol- ger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which for many years has allowed me to stay in its scholars’ residences during my research trips. A group of scholars and friends in the United States has provided me with intellectual support and personal friendship during my frequent research trips. In Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia, Bill and Huong Bach, Fred and Jutta Bauman, Ira and Martha Berlin, Jeff and Carrie Flannery, David Kyvig, Jim x A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s Lengle, and Beth and Stephen Van Beek have been delightful dinner compan- ions, generous hosts, and kind friends. Jim Baughman in Madison, Susan Smu- lyan in Providence, Malcolm and Barbara Crystal in Boston, Caroline Ziv in Chi- cago, and Alletta Bredin Bell in Charlottesville have been trea sured companions on my journeys. My thanks to them all are heartfelt. Closer to home, the Australian National University has made it possible for me to conduct long- distance archival research through sabbatical leaves, research grants, and teaching assistance. I owe par tic u lar thanks to Professors David Marsh and Adam Graycar, past and present directors of the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU, for their advice and support. John Hart and Kate Lee- Koo from the School of Politics and International Relations, Caroline Bradshaw from the Colleges of Science and Medicine, Professor Peter Read of the University of Syd- ney, and Dr. Marivic Wyndham of the University of Technology in Sydney have been loyal friends and colleagues for many years, as has the entire staff of the School of History in the Research School of Social Sciences. I owe my greatest debts to my family. My parents, Ronia and David, and my siblings, Andrew, Hugh, and Mary Lou, have been tireless proofreaders and de- voted supporters of this and all my projects, while my own family— Anne, Lani, and Rosalie (and Mary and Duncan)— have made all things worthwhile. Progressives at War This page intentionally left blank Introduction Dual biographies once were unusual but now are fashionable. Nearly thirty years ago John Milton Cooper’s The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theo- dore Roo se velt was lauded not only for its brilliance but also for its novelty, and in 1991 Allan Bullock’s Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives was acclaimed for examining two lives that had long been connected in pop u lar and academic thinking but were rarely analyzed together. Neither Cooper nor Bullock invented dual biogra- phy, which has a much longer pedigree, but their work reinvigorated interest in this biographical genre. Since then it has proliferated as historians explore lives in combination to bring out their individual and collective signifi cance. Most dual biographies focus on individuals who knew each other well; who worked either in concert or in confl ict; and who individually and together encapsu- late the vague but vital essence of “historical signifi cance.” Robert E. Sherwood’s study of Franklin D. Roo se velt and Harry Hopkins, now more than sixty years old, is a durable example of this trope, as is Kristie Miller’s recent study of Ellen and Edith Wilson. But nowadays some biographers are more adventurous: Daniel Mark Epstein’s study of Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln deals with two subjects whose personal contact was minimal and whose knowledge of each other was almost completely one- sided.1 This dual biography is more conventional, in that its subjects were well ac- quainted with each other, worked closely together for a while, and then came into genteel but direct confl ict for the rest of their lives. In examining William G. Mc Adoo and Newton D. Baker together, this book therefore follows esteemed foot- steps. It sets out to examine the lives of two key fi gures in an era that encompassed reform, world war, economic depression, urban growth, corporate expansion, and changes in family structures. 2 P r o g r e s s i v e s at Wa r I originally thought of this book as a contribution to our understanding of US war time policy between 1914 and 1918, with an or ga niz ing theme of “citizen soldiers.” As my research progressed, however, a variety of factors pushed me to- ward full biographies of McAdoo and Baker.