Philip Dru: Administrator, by Edward Mandell House, Appleton, Wisconsin, RWU Press, 1998 Edition, 304 pages, paperback.

For those with the unquenchable desire to understand where we are in history, and to comprehend how the past has created the present, a valuable resource has just been made available by Robert Welch University Press. It is the 1998 edition of Philip Dru: Administrator, by Edward Mandell House. Anonymously published in 1912 as a “futuristic” novel, Philip Dru is only thinly fictitious; its real purpose was to popularize the political, economic, and social beliefs of House. Therein lies its unique value to us now.

“Colonel” House was the well-known alter ego of President Woodrow Wilson. In his day — from 1912 into the 1920s — House, although never in the military and only a private citizen, was arguably the most powerful man in America. His ideas, all of them atrociously collectivist, became Wilson’s commands. As has been well said, nothing is more dangerous than the person next to the person in power, for that person lacks all accountability. Wilson’s dependence on House was gratefully described by Wilson himself: “Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughts and mine are one.”

Small wonder that this period of our history saw the beginning of the great turning away from limited government to a kind of government intervention that is accurately described as Fascism.

“Spiritual” Marxism

Philip Dru (through whom House speaks) is a former West Pointer who is fanatically committed to saving mankind from what he sees as our rotten, oppressive system of American government which protects only the wealthy under the guise of private property rights. Dru’s ideal is “Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx,” albeit with a “spiritual element,” which will be the salvation of all those “unhappy many who have lived and died lacking opportunity, because, in the starting, the world-wide social structure was wrongly begun.” Possibly this could be the most arrogant statement ever written.

In order to set things right, Dru violently (in a civil war that slaughters hundreds of thousands) seizes control of the government, making himself “Administrator” — that is, a dictator with totalitarian powers. With a special hatred of our Constitution, Dru then issues a decree making any attempt to restore our constitutional order an offense punishable with death.

As we read Dru’s rantings we are revolted by their twisted conceptions and ignorance of the proper functions of government; then suddenly we realize that each and every one of his distorted ideas is now the law of the land, from a central bank to policing foreign nations. That Wilson, a Princeton professor of international law, could have been swept away by this miserable twaddle provides some insight into how and why we have been caught in the web of the elitist Establishment that was the power behind House.

Curiously, the villains of the piece are carbon copies of today’s Insiders. Although the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) had not yet come into existence, House betrays an intimate knowledge of how such a conspiratorial group should go about amassing power. He describes perfectly how a handful of powerful, wealthy individuals, led by a single ruthless senator “with a marvelous aptitude for political manipulation,” obtains a powerful hold on government by master-minding control of the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Presidency. House could have been describing himself in his depiction (and condemnation) of the power-drunk senator. How to explain this? Remember that his book appeared at the time of great public revulsion against the Wall Street Money Trust and its ties to government. By condemning his fictional villainous government which the moral, pure Dru destroyed, House put himself on the side of the angels. Heaven forbid that this eminently respectable personage could ever be associated with such nefarious, underhanded schemes.

Helpful Resources

The beauty of this 1998 edition of Philip Dru is that for the first time it includes both little known appendices and a fascinating foreword written by William Norman Grigg, senior editor of THE NEW AMERICAN. The appendices, except for one, contain excerpts from Volumes One and Two of The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, written by Yale University historian Charles Seymour, House’s biographer. These essays cover the following topics: “The Significance of Philip Dru,” “E.M. House’s Influence on President Wilson and Public Policy,” and “E.M. House’s Role in the Formation of the League of Nations Proposal.”

Seymour comments that throughout House’s book “runs the note of social democracy reminiscent of Louis Blanc [notorious French socialist/ Marxist politician] and the revolutionaries of 1848.” The extent of House’s “progressiveness,” writes Seymour, is seen in his espousal of a graduated income tax, unemployment compensation, old-age pensions (Social Security), and the right of labor to have a representative on the boards of corporations as well as to share a certain percentage of profits (determined by government). Quoting House’s own words, Seymour reveals House’s control over the selection of Wilson’s Cabinet and other top appointive posts. In order to discuss these men by phone or letter without revealing their identities, the two men invented a secret cipher. Interestingly enough, the code names chosen were largely from antiquity, as were those used by Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati in 1776, as well as today’s secret society at Yale University, Skull and Bones.

In describing Wilson’s private life, Seymour tells us that Wilson loved “a quiet evening by the fireside with the family, and an early bed,” and that “the President found relaxation in reading poetry and essays to his friend [Colonel House].” Although possibly unknown to Seymour, we now know that this hardly describes the kind of man Wilson really was. For many years he deceived his wife while carrying on a torrid love affair with a mistress, tortured by fear of exposure that would ruin his public image, yet unable to tear himself away. In the end, when Wilson finally attempted to end the affair, the lady threatened exposure; Wilson bought her off with a hefty payment. Although this kind of thing typically falls on calloused ears these days, there is no escaping the conclusion that lack of character and morality are reflected in one’s political posturings.

The fourth appendix is an unpublished letter written by House explaining his purpose in composing the novel and the extent to which the novel represents his beliefs. Now speaking in his own person rather than through Dru, House astounds the reader with juvenile observations such as, “When our Republic was conceived, there was no modern guide-post to point the right direction in which to go,” and, “The climate, the character of the population, and, more than all, our great natural resources have caused us to move forward in the acquisition of wealth at phenomenal speed.” Such unmitigated ignorance explains how House’s mind could have been captured by the blatant fallacies of socialism — which incidentally delivers all power into centralized hands.

Elitist Evaluation

The foreword by William Grigg is an expertly written examination of the characters of Wilson and House, the ideas presented in Philip Dru, and their disastrous consequences. Grigg notes that, true to his collectivist preachments, “House assembled an oligarchical vanguard that included such mega-bankers as Paul Warburg, Frank Vanderlip, and J.P. Morgan. These powerful representatives of the ‘Money Power,’ along with a cadre of 100 ‘forward looking’ social planners that were called ‘The Inquiry,’ helped to create the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which since 1921 has served as the ruling directorate for America’s Power Elite.”

Grigg also notes that columnist Westbrook Pegler thought that Philip Dru: Administrator “was among the most valuable pieces of evidence in the effort to prove that America’s descent into collectivism was the product of premeditated conspiracy, rather than the impersonal labors of indifferent historical forces,” as commonly claimed by the intelligentsia.

All in all, this new volume is a brilliant combination of source material and its analysis. It is enthusiastically recommended for all those with a passion for knowledge. 

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