Angel Dorothy

by Jane Brown

  47 Sheldon Whitehouse (1883–1965), Eton and Yale, diplomatic postings in South America, Athens, Russia, Stockholm and Paris for the 1919 Peace Conference; he married Mary Alexander in 1920.

  48 WSPU branches from all over the country sent their members to march through the streets of London to Hyde Park on Sunday 21st June 1908; photographs show the park ‘a sea of faces’ – ‘an extraordinary scene’ never witnessed before, Daily Chronicle, 25th June.

  49 Atterbury married Dorothy Johnstone in 1923.

  50 Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960), after this meeting with Dorothy, became increasingly at odds with Christabel and the ‘middle-class’ WSPU; she worked with the Labour Party and with working women.

  51 Details of Willard’s early life are taken from Dorothy’s edited versions in Croly’s Willard Straight, 1924; his diaries from his schooldays and earliest writings were included in his papers left at Old Westbury, now the Willard Dickerman Straight Archive 1825–1925 at Cornell, WDS 1260; his notebooks, photographs and drawings of his time in China are also in WDS 1260.

  52 Senator Root’s letter 17th June 1909, DWS 3725 Series I, Box 2, folder 27.

  53 Katie Hickman, Daughters of Britannia, 1999, pp. 38–43.

  54 Willard from Peking, 4th September 1909, this letter begins Series I of the Cornell Archive DWS 3725 (not WDS 1260), Box 1, sixty letters from Willard to Dorothy 1909–18; her letters to him are in DWS 3725 Series I, Box 4, 36 folders.

  55 Swanberg pp. 278–80 records their diary notes of their days in Peking.

  56 Tony Scotland, The Empty Throne, 1993, explains these names and relationships.

  57 Valder pp. 172–8; Willard’s Yu Chuan San is Yuquan Shan, Jade Spring Hill; Mrs Little says ‘it is quite a place to spend a happy day in’ and visitors rave about it; clearly the most serious destruction was yet to come.

  58 Rudyard Kipling, ‘Recessional’, 1897, ‘The White Man’s Burden’, 1899.

  59 Valder pp. 190–91 quoting Mrs Little.

  60 ‘Oh Wise Man of the East’ 17th November 1909 on China Navigation Company notepaper is the first letter in the Dorothy to Willard sequence, DWS 3725 Series I, Box 4, folder 4.

  61 ‘Dear Guardian of Borderland’ 26th November 1909 on Palace Hotel Shanghai notepaper, refers to ‘Borderland’, their code for their future happy life together. ‘Borderland’ was a dream place, a happiness afar off, much used by architects of ideal housing for young married couples.

  62 Dorothy to Kate Barnes, DWS 3725 Series I, Box 4, folders 42/3.

  63 Swanberg pp. 285–6 describes her time in Cairo.

  64 Robert Bacon, now Ambassador in Paris, seems the key to her taking cover ‘in our little American family group here’, see Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton, 2007, p. 272.

  65 King Edward VII had died on 6th May 1910 and was buried at Windsor on 20th May; his people were stunned and political circles were embroiled in a constitutional conference that kept them at their desks until late July. Almeric Paget was the newly elected MP for Cambridge. The Deepdene, ripe for gothic romance, was Thomas Hope’s Greek Revival treasure house. See David Watkin, Thomas Hope and the Neo-Classical Idea, 1968.

  66 Professor Morse Stephens’s letter, 8th July 1910 from 7 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, was tucked into Dorothy’s diary or notebook and came to England, DWE/G/9/Box R–V.

  67 ‘real lasting American influence’, Klein p. 343; Klein p. 440 notes the tale of the house-painter working at Arden, the Harrimans’ house, who ‘happened to look down at the loggia below’ and saw the frail Harriman sitting with ‘a heavy-set visitor who wielded an enormous black cigar’ – the painter had worked for J.P. Morgan and recognised him and thus became the only witness to this last meeting between ‘the two most powerful men in America’. Harriman had died on 9th September 1909. Swanberg p. 291 comments that it was Willard’s ‘misfortune’ to be so romantically involved while his career was on the line; he was the specialist who understood the Chinese whereas his American masters did not; they needed him but he was not one of them. J.P. Morgan (1837–1913) was the doyen of western bankers, well known to Dorothy’s father; Harry Pomeroy Davison, aged forty-six, had worked his way from the teller’s desk to the partners’ room at Morgan’s and had his own prospects to consider.

  68 Klein p. 300 on Willard’s increasing contact with the elite: ‘he was not only poor, he was an artist, with an artist’s temperament and sensitivity. His character was made of porcelain, theirs of marble – dense, polished and solid’.

  69 Roosevelt family correspondence DWS 3725 Series I, Box 2, folder 43 and Box 3, folder 10.

  70 Swanberg p. 309.

  71 Ibid.

  72 Ethel Roosevelt Derby (1891–1977) was Theodore Roosevelt’s only daughter with his second wife Edith and she became Dorothy’s closest friend at this time; correspondence as note 69 above.

  73 Swanberg p. 321 notes Harry’s announcement in New York, press clippings DWS 3725 Series II, Box 5, folder 14; the headlines aside, Swanberg p. 319 adds: ‘[Dorothy] had become increasingly maternal towards Straight. She had babied him and he seemed to enjoy babying more than his normal hearty masculinity would make one expect’. I might add that with the loss of his great god Harriman he had anointed Dorothy the goddess of his fate.

  74 Dorothy had confided in Lillian Wald; they discussed her indecision over Willard, and they had both visited Henry Street before leaving for Europe and their marriage.

  75 DWS 3725 Series I, Box 4, folder 18 has this sequence of letters and cables from leaving the Olympic to their wedding day, 7th September, ending with Willard’s note of that morning. Dorothy disliked having her photograph taken; the few wedding photographs that survive are in DWS 3725 Series II, Boxes 6, 7 and 9.

  76 Klein p. 300, see note 68 above.

  77 ‘My Wonder of the World’ letter is undated on Hôtel Vendôme, Paris notepaper but headed ‘at Erquelinnes’ on the Belgian border not far from Mons; Dorothy’s from Versailles is dated 23rd September; letters of congratulations on their engagement and marriage, DWS 3725 Series I, Box 3, folders 1–14. Right up to and beyond their marriage it seems Beatrice Bend maintained her opposition, though there is no other written evidence of this.

  78 Ebrey 1996, pp. 265–6 for the bomb incident etc. Their time in the Philippines was not wasted: an agricultural school was founded in Willard’s name and still being supported by Dorothy thirty years later. Swanberg p. 329 for New York headlines.

  79 Willard’s papers, notebooks, press cuttings, articles and photographs recording his life in China are a major part of his archive, WDS 1260 at Cornell.

  80 Details of the ‘lovely Chinese things’ from the sale catalogue for the property of Westbury Holdings Corporation at Gimbel Brothers, 33rd Street and Broadway, 19th to 21st February 1942, private collection.

  81 Nancy Langhorne Astor (1879–1964), Viscountess Astor, was the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, as Member for the Plymouth Sutton constituency in 1919. In personality Nancy was fearless, outspoken and at times abrasive and so unlike Dorothy, but they were sisters beneath the skin.

  82 The International Exhibition of Modern Art, mid-February to mid-March 1912, held at the National Guard’s Armory at Lexington Avenue and 26th Street, was sensational for its introduction of European Cubism and Impressionism as well as contemporary American Realism. Photographs show the stark Armory interiors wreathed and swagged in luxuriant evergreens, and Gertrude and Dorothy each gave $1,000 ‘for decorations’, Friedman pp. 324–6.

  83 The date of the loan was 18th June 1912, between the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in London, Deutsche-Asiatiche in Berlin, Banque de L’Indochine in Paris, J.P. Morgan, Kuhn Loeb, First National and National City Banks, these latter of New York (the American Group), and was to be administered by Morgan Grenfell, 22 Old Broad Street, London, M.M. Warburg of Hamburg, Morgan Harjes of Paris, the Russo-Asiatic Bank of St Petersburg and the Yokohama Bank of Japan, all bearing equal costs, rights and shares. The Wilson administr
ation’s cancellation of the loan ‘with the hose of presidential rhetoric’, Croly p. 460, was especially galling as – Croly insists – the Washington Conference 1921–2 would reinstate the benevolent protectorate over China that the Group had attempted. See Jerry Israel, Progressivism and the Open Door: America and China 1904–21, 1971; Michael H. Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship: the U.S. and China to 1914, 1983.

  84 Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872–1959), an enterprising and largely self-taught garden designer and landscape architect with several clients on Long Island, was the natural choice for their garden. For her connections see my Beatrix, 1995, Chapter 6 ‘Aunt Pussy [Edith Wharton] Miss Nimrod [Beatrix] and Old Celimare [Henry James]’. She designed a children’s playhouse and garden and a kitchen garden for the Straights. Their Chinese garden has gone but a similar pink-walled version by Farrand for the Rockefellers’ Eyrie at Seal Harbor, Maine, survives; the original plans are in Farrand’s Reef Point Gardens Collection, Library of the College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley.

  85 ‘blow of his disappointments’, Croly pp. 461–2. Swanberg pp. 334–5 made a ‘judicious estimate’ of Willard’s earnings: $2,000 per year as consul at Mukden, $3,000 in the State Department, $10,000 in Peking, doubled as his success with the loan was imminent, but this would not go far in Manhattan even in 1913. Dorothy gave $50,000 to Smith College, Northampton, Ma., for its Million Dollar Appeal that summer, acknowledged on 21st June 1913.

  86 ‘big job for Willard’, DWS 3725 Series I, Box 2, folder 43; Roosevelt’s Autobiography, 1913, tells his story up until his 1912 defeat by President Wilson, and explains his policies, ostensibly setting the scene for his 1916 campaign. Chapter XIII ‘Social and Industrial Justice’ and Roosevelt’s words, ‘because of things I have done on behalf of justice to the workingman, I have often been called a Socialist’, pp. 523 ff, confirmed Dorothy’s political loyalties.

  87 Eric Rauchway, A Gentleman’s Club in a Woman’s Sphere: How Dorothy Whitney Straight Created the New Republic, pp.60–85, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 11, No. 2 Summer 1999, a copy sent to the author by Michael Straight; Herbert David Croly (1869–1930) was the son of David Goodman Croly, editor of New York World, and Jane Cunningham Croly, ‘Jenny June’, a nationally syndicated columnist. David Croly was strongly humanist, and his son ‘was presented to the goddess of Humanity’ confirming the belief that private life was subordinate to public service. Herbert spent two years at Harvard but returned home to assist his ailing father in editing The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide, which became Architectural Record after his father’s death in 1889. In 1892 he had married Louise Emory, a Radcliffe student and artist, his perfect partner; ‘it is not too much to say [both the Crolys] loved Dorothy as a daughter’, Levy, p. 277.

  88 Alvin Johnson recounting this story in Pioneer’s Progress, p. 233, added, ‘I doubt the accuracy of the reporting. Nobody has ever recorded a miracle accurately... how could it have happened that Fate should have placed an immense fortune in the hands of a woman so brave, so true, so beautiful as Dorothy Straight? A real angel.’

  89 Rauchway pp. 73–5; Levy pp. 186 ff on Croly and his vision.

  90 From a surviving menu it seems the lunches were very healthy: appetisers of olives, radish, celery and grapefruit, followed by consommé, shad, roast chicken with redcurrant jelly, asparagus, rice croquettes and tomato-jelly salad, finished with strawberry shortcake and coffee.

  91 The 14th November issue carried war reports from Frank Simonds and Noel Brailsford.

  92 The raids were on 16th December, Liddell Hart, The First World War, 1970, p. 105.

  93 Swanberg p. 348.

  94 Willard’s letters to the infant Whitney Straight, Swanberg p. 350.

  95 Edward Mandell House (1858–1938), honorary colonel, ‘small, pale, self-effacing and frail’, appeared sympathetic and friendly, ‘an intimate man – even when cutting your throat’; President Wilson was dependent on him as ‘the only person... with whom he could discuss everything’, Macmillan p. 25; ‘a small, dapper tetchy Texan, wealthy – whom Wilson called “my alter ego” – soft-voiced, enigmatic, and sent around Europe touting for peace’, George and George, 1964.

  96 Pauline Payne Whitney Paget is buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Hertingfordbury in Hertfordshire, her monument sculpted by Gertrude Whitney in 1920.

  97 Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) was cutting his teeth on The New Republic on his way to becoming ‘the greatest journalist of his age’; Steel, 1980, Chapter 9 ‘Electing a War President’, portrays Lippmann’s brilliant cajoling of Croly and his colleagues to make The New Republic indispensable to its readership and to President Wilson.

  98 It was Lippmann who conjured the reasons ‘to lead this great peaceful people into war’, and he flattered Wilson (in an editorial), writing ‘only a statesman who will be called great could have made American intervention mean so much to the generous forces of the world’, Steel pp. 112–13.

  99 Dorothy gave no indication that she suspected Colonel House of speaking with forked tongue, but this becomes clear in Steel pp. 116–17. Much to Croly’s displeasure, in June 1917 Lippmann ‘severed his connection with the editorial board’ to join the War Department; Lippmann applied himself to ‘studying and speculating on the approaches to peace and the reaction from the peace’ – surely Willard could have done something like this? Even the chosen Lippmann was criticised for his friendships with John Dewey, Charles Beard and John Reed, all radicals whom Dorothy knew well – was it Dorothy’s politics that baulked Willard’s progress?

  100 19th November 1917 at City Hall, Swanberg pp. 371–2.

  101 Major Murphy wrote to Dorothy ostensibly to thank her for befriending his wife Maud, but he added, ‘it is hard to have made the great sacrifice to serve – and then serve in a way comparatively small and seemingly inconsequential – but that is all many of us can do – and we must be content in doing as well as we may what comes to our hands – so do keep Willard from the line, where it would be wrong and in the ultimate analysis rather selfish for him to go’, 5th August 1918, WDS Microfilm reel 6, 52/3/322.

  102 For the 2nd Division’s engagement at Belleau Wood and Vaux, June–July 1918, Grotelueschen, 2006, pp. 206 ff.

  103 The magazines were Asia and Antiques as well as The New Republic, and Willard had ambitions to start a newspaper. A letter dated 9th August 1918, from Harry Davison now at Red Cross headquarters in Washington and returned from France, tells Dorothy, ‘As you know there is no one who is so loved by as many people as Willard Straight, and on every side “over there” I was told of the fine work he had done and predictions of the work he would accomplish.’ WDS 1260 Microfilm reel 6, 54/322.

  104 Twain’s 1889 satire was sinister reading for Willard’s state of mind: the time-travelling Hank Morgan makes his cynical way through medieval England, his future-knowledge masked as wizardry to wreak havoc, the last battle being an attack on a post defended by wire and machine guns.

  105 When Colonel House was still promising Willard a job ‘one day’ he was setting up a secret War Data Investigation Bureau, called the Inquiry, with Walter Lippmann co-ordinating the work of over a hundred experts in all fields – no job for Willard there either? It was an Inquiry Memorandum that framed the president’s ‘Fourteen Points for Peace’ speech, towards which Lippmann ‘felt a sense of paternity’, Steel pp. 128–34.

  106 DWS 3725 Box 1, folder 60 and Box 4, folders 38–41 have their last uncensored letters and cables; Daisy Harriman’s letters telling of Willard’s death, WDS 1260 Microfilm reel 7, 166/167/247. Mrs Harriman arranged the return of his belongings and papers and consequently letters, press clippings, medical records are in WDS 1260 Series V, mainly Boxes 22 and 23. Walter Lippmann wrote to Dorothy, ‘in the last eight weeks I was closer to Willard than ever before – we talked far into the night, hoping, planning, sometimes doubting, but in the end renewed – in that personal loneliness which is the background of so many of us
here there was mixed also a fear that what we had meant, and what alone could justify it all, was not the meaning and justification of those who will decide,’ Steel p. 151.

  107 The cards from the funeral flowers, DWS 3725 Series I, Box 2, folder 26; additional papers, copies of cables, photographs of Suresnes cemetery, DWS 3725 Series III, Box 8, folders 13, 14 and 15.

  108 George Bennett’s letters from France, WDS 1260 Series VII, Box 39.

  109 DWS 3725 Series I, Box 2, folders 25, 27 and 51 have some eight hundred letters of condolence from 12th December 1918 through the first six months of 1919.

  110 This letter from Mrs Herman Kinnicutt, formerly May Tuckerman, makes its presence felt; the simple entry ‘May’ is often in Dorothy’s diary. Their correspondence is in DWS 3725 Series I, Box 2, folders 47–49, dated 1904–22.

  111 Louisa Weinstein to George Bennett, Swanberg p. 449. Bennett returned to work at Old Westbury, and eventually accompanied Dorothy to Dartington.

  112 ‘Between two worlds’, a play by Adrian Bean and David Hendy, BBC Radio 3, 24th July 2011, drew my attention to the story of Raymond; the desperation of the bereaved was so widespread that every esoteric belief – Christian Science, Theosophy, Spiritualism and early Scientology – became important. Dorothy collected into her Commonplace Book Rupert Brooke’s Sonnet ‘Not With Vain Tears’ as well as ‘The Soldier’ and ‘Safety’.

  113 Moreton Frewen of Brede in Sussex, a larger than life knight errant, maker and loser of fortunes in the Wild West, aged seventy-one, was considering Spiritualism, ‘[it] brings me a nice humble simple note which satisfies me that I am going to see my old friends again. This is rather what one wants’, Anita Leslie, Mr Frewen, England, 1966, p. 201.