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Henry Cabot Lodge Correspondence

An inventory of his correspondence at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: EL
Date: Jul 1976

Biographical History

Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924) was an author and editor, and a United States senator from Massachusetts.

Henry Cabot Lodge was born at Boston on 12 May 1850, the son of John Ellerton and Anna (Cabot) Lodge. After graduation from Harvard College with the class of 1871 and a year of travel, he entered the Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1874. Offered an assistant editorship of the North American Review, Lodge began a literary career whose products include biographies of Washington, Hamilton, Webster, and George Cabot, his great- grandfather, as well as several collections of essays and speeches and contributions to various periodicals. In 1876 he obtained his Ph.D. in political science, the first doctorate in that field awarded by Harvard.

His political career was initiated in 1879 by his successful candidacy for the Massachusetts House of Representatives from Nahant, which he represented for two terms. Failing in attempts to win a state Senate seat and a Republican nomination for Congress, he enhanced his political stature by successfully managing the 1883 Republican gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts. Although defeated for Congress in 1884, his adherence to the Republican regulars made possible his nomination and election in 1886. During his terms in the House (1887-1893), he became known for his association with the Force Bill and his advocacy of civil-service reform.

Selected by the Massachusetts legislature as senator in 1893, he began his thirty-one- year service in the Senate, where he helped draft the Pure Food and Drug Law, displayed protectionist views on tariff matters, fought free silver, supported acquisition of the Philippines, and opposed women's suffrage and direct election of U.S. senators. He was re- elected to the Senate in 1899, 1905, 1911, 1916, and 1922. In the field of foreign affairs, Lodge held great influence during the Roosevelt presidency. In 1918 he was elected the majority leader of the Senate, and from the Foreign Relations Committee, of which he was chairman, he led opposition to the Peace Treaty and Covenant of the League of Nations. As the senior member of the Senate, he continued in his role of influence on foreign affairs during the Harding administration. Lodge married Anna Cabot Mills Davis; their children included George Cabot Lodge (1873-1902), the poet. Senator Lodge died at Cambridge on 9 November 1924.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Henry Cabot Lodge Correspondence contains 237 letters and two enclosures of printed material. Span dates are 1877 to 1924, although the years 1910 to 1922 are the most heavily represented. All letters save one are outgoing. The principal correspondents of Senator Lodge in this collection are John D. Henley Luce (69 letters), Stephen Bleecker Luce, naval officer and founder of the Naval War College (39 letters), and Curtis Guild, Jr. (14 letters). There are 108 other letters from Lodge to approximately 77 correspondents and six letters to unidentified correspondents. An index of the correspondence is appended to this inventory.

An enclosure in a note of 29 September 1908 is a Boston imprint of 1822, Defence of the exposition of the middling interest (Shoemaker 8523). The letters reflect constituents concerns on pending legislation. Subjects treated include tariff revision, child labor, national defense, the Corrupt Practices Act, sugar, Puerto Rico, arbitration commissions and treaties, the Spanish-American War, and World War I.

Arrangement of the Collection

Arrangement of the letters is chronological, and enclosures are filed with the letters they accompanied.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Related Material

See also the Theodore Roosevelt Collection for a bound, 400-page volume of typescript carbon copies of letters exchanged between Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt from 1884 to 1917.

Subject Headings

Persons

Coolidge, William H.
Filene, E. A. (Edward Albert), 1860-1937.
Guild, Curtis, 1860-1915.
Johnson, Robert Underwood, 1853-1937.
Kirtland, Harry B.
Kyle, William S.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 1850-1924.
Luce, John D. Henley.
Luce, Stephen Bleecker, 1827-1917.
Moses, George Higgins, 1969-1944.
Sedgwick, W. T. (William Thompson), 1855-1921.
Turner, A. R.
Woodward, Frank Ernest, 1853-1921.

Subjects

Legislators -- United States.
Politicians -- United States.

Places

United States -- Foreign relations -- 1865-1921.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933.

Occupations

Legislators.
Politicians.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Henry Cabot Lodge Correspondence
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Purchase, 1962-1969.

Table of Contents

Correspondence

Index to correspondence

Inventory

Index to correspondence

All correspondence is outgoing (from HCL) unless otherwise indicated.