Forty-odd years ago, just after the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, political circles in the United States—indeed all over the world—were shocked by the report that the fabled partnership of President Wilson and his intimate adviser, Edward M. House, had been liquidated. Ii was not the first time the story had percolated through Washington corridors into the gossip columns of newspapers; but until now these had always been dissipated in the clear light of House’s continued personal intimacy and political influence. On this occasion, however, as the winter and spring of 1920 passed, there was evident and solid ground for accepting the credibility of a break. The comradeship of the preceding eight years had lapsed. It died as abruptly as it had flowered.

The unprecedented influence of House as presidential adviser rested primarily upon the mutual fondness and understanding which developed between him and Wilson immediately after their first meeting in 1911. House, a promineni Texas Democrat, threw his influence behind the ellorts to secure the presidential nominal ion lor Wilson and assisted in lining up William Jennings Bryan behind (he Wilson candidacy. Within a lew weeks of Wilson’s entry into the White House, Washington correspondents began to refer to the Colonel as the “silent partner” ol the new administration. Wilson himself declared to a politician who asked whether this unofficial adviser was authori/ed to speak lor the President on a certain matter: “Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughs and mine are one.”

Such personal intimacy was matched by the political confidence which, step by step, the President came to place in his new friend. The latter’s range of conncctions in local as well as in national politics was farflung. It served to facilitate the success of Wilson’s program of reform legislation. House’s interest in foreign affairs was even moic vivid. With the outbreak of the war in Kurope he was (ailed upon to serve as a sort of ambassador-at-largc. In Wilson’s name he carried on secret parleys with representatives of the belligerents designed to liquidate peacefully the crises that arose from Allied interference with U.S. commerce and from German submarine attacks on unarmed merchant vessels. Hc also proceeded to explore the possibility of negotiations that might lead to a compromise peace.

Following the active intervention of the United States in the European war and on the basis of his experience in foreign relations, House was naturally selected lor important posts involving great responsibility. He was placed in general charge of negotiations with the nation’s war associates designed to organize American potentials to meet their demands for assistance. In this capacity he became chief of the American delegation at the Inter-Allied Conference of December, 1917. To him the President turned for counsel on his exposition of American policy in his war speeches, and more specifically on preparations for the Peace Conference and the setting up of