"Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self.
His thoughts and mine are one."3
George Viereck, an admiring biographer of House, tells us: House had the Texas delegation in his pocket.... Always moving quietly in the background, he made and unmade several governors of Texas.... House selected Wilson because he regarded him as the best available candidate....
For seven long years Colonel House was Woodrow Wilson's other self. For six long years he shared with him all but the title of the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. For six years two rooms were al his disposal in the North Wing of the White House.... It was House who made the slate for the Cabinet, formulated the first policies of the Administration and practically directed the foreign affairs of the United States. We had, indeed, two Presidents for one!...
Super-ambassador, he talked to emperors and kings as an equal He was the spiritual generalissimo of the Administration. He was the piiot who guided the ship.4
A SECRET AGREEMENT TO GET THE U.S. INTO WAR
As the presidential election neared for Wilson's second term, Colonel House entered into a series of confidential talks with Sir 1.
2. Charles Seymour,
3. Seymour, Vol. I, p. 114.
4. George Sylvester Viereck,
SINK THE LUSITANIA!
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VVilliam Wiseman, who was attached to the British embassy in Washington and who acted as a secret intermediary between House and the British Foreign Office. Charles Seymour writes: "Between House and Wiseman there were soon to be few political secrets."1
This was upsetting to the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan. Mrs. Bryan, as co-author of her husband's memoirs, writes: While Secretary Bryan was bearing the heavy responsibility of the Department of State, there arose the curious conditions surrounding Mr. E.M. House's unofficial connection with the President and his voyages abroad on affairs of State, which were not communicated to Secretary Bryan.... The President was unofficially dealing with foreign governments.2
What was the purpose of those dealings? It was nothing less than to work out the means whereby the United States could be brought into the war. Viereck explains:
Ten months before the election which returned Wilson to theWhite House in 1916 "because he kept us out of war," Colonel Housenegotiated a secret agreement with England and France on behalf ofWilson which pledged the United States to intervene on behalf of theAllies.
On March 9, 1916, Woodrow Wilson formally sanctioned theundertaking. If an inkling of the conversations between ColonelHouse and the leaders of England and France h a d reached theAmerican people before the election, it might have caused incalculablerevulsions of public opinion....
