Edward M. House (1858 - 1938)

Edward Mandell House (July 26, 1858 – March 28, 1938) was an American diplomat, politician, and presidential advisor. Commonly known by the title of Colonel House, although he had no military experience, he had enormous personal influence with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson as his foreign policy advisor until Wilson removed him in 1919. Edward House was born July 26, 1858 in Houston, Texas. He was the son of Houston mayor Thomas William House, Sr., a gunrunner during the Civil War who amassed a fortune. House was educated in Southern prep schools and went on to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1877, but he was forced to drop out when his father died. He married Loulie Hunter on 4 August 1881. On his return to Texas, House ran his family's business. He eventually sold the cotton plantations, and invested in banking. House moved to New York City about 1902. In 1912, House published anonymously a novel called Philip Dru: Administrator, in which the title character, Dru, leads the democratic western U.S. in a civil war against the plutocratic East, becoming the dictator of America. Dru as dictator imposes a series of reforms which resemble the Bull Moose platform of 1912 and then vanishes