Voting Station

Henry Cabot Lodge

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U.S. Senator

The Resume

    (May 12, 1850-November 9, 1924)
    Born in Beverly, Massachusetts
    Republican
    American politician, historian, author, biographer, and lecturer
    Graduated from Harvard Law School, in 1874
    Admitted to the bar in 1875, practicing at the Boston firm (now known as Ropes & Gray)
    Represented Massachusetts' 6th District in the US House of Representatives from March 4, 1887 to March 4, 1893
    Served in the United States Senate, representing Massachusetts, from March 4, 1893 until his death in 1924
    Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (March 4, 1919 – November 9, 1924)
    First officeholder of Senate Majority Leader, a position he also held until his death
    President pro tempore of the United States Senate (May 25, 1912 – May 30, 1912)
    Appointed by President Harding as a delegate to the Washington Naval Conference (International Conference on the Limitation of Armaments), led by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, in 1922
    Wrote 'Life and letters of George Cabot' (1877), 'Ballads and Lyrics, Selected and Arranged' (1880), 'Alexander Hamilton' (1880), 'Daniel Webster' (1883), 'Alexander Hamilton' (1884), 'George Washington, Vols. 1-2' (1889), 'Boston' (1891), 'The Restriction of Immigration' (1891), 'The story of the Revolution, Vols. 1 - 2' (1898), 'A Fighting Frigate, and Other Essays and Addresses' (1902), 'A Frontier Town and Other Essays' (1906), 'The Best of the World's Classics' (1909), and 'The History of Nations' (1910), 'Early Memories (1913), 'The Democracy of the Constitution' (1915), 'The Senate of the United States' (1921)
    Co-wrote with Theodore Roosevelt 'Hero tales from American history' (1895)
    Portrayed by Sir Cedric Hardwicke in Darryl F. Zanuck's political epic 'Wilson' (1944)

Why he might be annoying:

    His wife's pet-name for him 'Pinky.'
    He jokingly designated Alice Roosevelt 'Colonel in the Battalion of Death' (she called him 'Uncle Cabot').
    He was notoriously stodgy, bellicose, ill-tempered, and thereby difficult to work with.
    He was an avowed social Darwinist who subscribed to the belief of 'inferior races.'
    He was an Imperialist but hated the word. He preferred the term 'Expansionist.'
    He was the original 'chicken hawk' who was credited with forcing the United States' hand in the Spanish-American War.
    He admitted to Teddy Roosevelt, 'I never expected to hate anyone in politics with the hatred I feel toward [then-President] Wilson.'
    He was a stone-cold nativist; perhaps the most vocal proponent of immigration bans, especially with poor Eastern Europeans and Southern Italians.
    He argued that the mass influx of uneducated immigrants would result in social conflict/national decline. He proposed the controversial 'literary test' solution as a way of weeding out the productive from the undesirables (it passed Congress, but was vetoed by President Cleveland).
    He was a staunch advocate of entry into WWI, attacking objectors as unpatriotic, and President Wilson as a weak, ill-prepared novice.
    When the US eventually did enter, he proceeded to attack Wilson as a naïve idealist, mocking his 'Fourteen Points' as unrealistic, arguing that Germany had to be economically/military shut down completely (and we all know how that worked out...)
    No, his son didn't run with Nixon against the JFK-LBJ ticket in 1960. That was his grandson.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was a witness in a kidnapping trial, as a child.
    He was prolific as a historian; penning a variety of written works, nearly thirty in total.
    He was beloved by the constituents he represented.
    This was especially true for the New England fishermen, who called him 'the senior senator from the fishing grounds' for his advocacy on their behalf.
    He was President Roosevelt's closest national security/foreign policy advisor from Capitol Hill; more than that, the two were unlikely best friends (in Lodge's case, probably his only friend).
    Although prejudiced against blacks, he vocally condemned the lynching carried out in the Jim Crow south.
    He co-authored a bill which guaranteed federal protection of voting rights for black men, in 1890 (it was blocked by a Senate filibuster from Democrats).
    He opposed unrestricted immigration, but said '[the American] flag is just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the man whose people have been here many generations.'
    He had a blatant disdain for party bosses and machine politics; as such he advocated campaign reform, as well (albeit due to his disdain for 'new money').
    He led the successful fight against American participation in the short-lived League of Nations, after President Wilson blocked his motion for Congressional authorization of war (which would be included in the United Nations' structure).
    He was aided in his fight against the League of Nations by William Jennings Bryan, his ideological adversary on almost every issue (history wasn't kind to either of them).
    Warren Zimmerman wrote of him: 'Nobody, not even Theodore Roosevelt, did more to establish the United States as one of the world's great powers.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 21 Votes: 52.38% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 16.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 90 Votes: 47.78% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying