Philip Dru: Administrator: A Story of Tomorrow, 1920-1935 is a futuristic political novel published in 1912 by Edward Mandell House, an American diplomat, politician, and presidential foreign policy advisor. The book's author was originally unknown with an anonymous publication, however House's identity was revealed in a speech on the Senate floor by Republican Senator Lawrence Sherman.The Publishers' Weekly, Volume 95 According to historians, House highly prized his work and gave a copy of Dru to his closest political ally, Woodrow Wilson, to read while on a trip to Bermuda.Colonel House: A Biography of Woodrow Wilson's Silent PartnerWoodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. HouseSee also: Link, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson - Volume 25
Book reviews Dru has been the subject of significant historical review and commentary, partly due to its popularity at the time. John Milton Cooper Jr. writes in his biography of Woodrow Wilson that this political novel is largely ghostwritten.Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, p. 193 House biographer Charles E. Neu disagrees with this, noting that within the House Papers there is an original manuscript in House's own writing, with another typed draft that has correcting notes.Colonel House: A Biography of Woodrow Wilson's Silent Partner, footnotes, p. 533
Historian Paul Johnson wrote: "Oddly enough, in 1911 he [House] had published a political novel, Philip Dru: Administrator, in which a benevolent dictator imposed a corporate income tax, abolished the protective tariff, and broke up the 'credit trust'—a remarkable adumbration of Woodrow Wilson and his first term."
Billie Jensen, a historian from the University of Kansas noted:
In a book review for The New York Times, Walter Lippmann wrote of the novel and its anonymous author:
In a mostly positive commentary on the book, Philip Bobbitt argued that it is unlikely Lippmann had so little to learn from the Colonel, noting how eight major reforms from the book, some of them initially opposed by both President Wilson and his Home Secretary Bryan, were passed into law only 4 years after House became advisor to the President.The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbitt (2002), ch. 14 'Colonel House and a World Made of Law'. Quote= "It is unlikely, however, that Lippmann had so little to learn from its author. For by the election of 1916 the following measures dreamt of by Dru had been adopted by the Congress and signed into law: the graduated income tax; a federal inheritance tax; the Federal Trade Commission; the Glass-Owen banking act; the parcel post; a maximum-working-hour law; a significant reduction in the tariff; the creation of a Federal Reserve Bank. ...a Federal Reserve (opposed by both Wilson and Bryan)"
Wilson's Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane noted, according to historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., that there were similarities between Wilson's governing style and the writings contained in the novel: "All that book has said should be, comes about slowly, even woman suffrage. The President comes to Philip Dru in the end."The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919-1933, p. 49
Senator Lawrence Y. Sherman talked about the book in congress, noting its substantial influence.Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the Second Session of the Sixty Fifth Congress, September 3rd, 1918 He said:
Historian Walter A. McDougall compared Philip Dru to the 1933 dystopian film Gabriel Over the White House.The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy, 2018
Synopsis Set in 1920–1935,English Mechanics and the World of Science, Volume 92 House's hero, Philip Dru, leads the democratic western United States in a civil war against the plutocratic eastern United States states. His forces win the war, and he becomes the acclaimed leader of the country, under the title "Administrator of the Republic." He establishes justice and democracy, bringing in progressive taxation, universal adult suffrage, a new national constitution, and peace-based foreign relations. He breaks up corporate monopolies and ends price-fixing, and in other ways makes a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." (p. 157) while rejecting "state ownership and the levelling of wealth”. In the course of the book, House outlines many political advances such as:What Colonel House Thinks Book review by William Marion Reedy, Reedy's Mirror, April 6th, 1917
Federal Incorporation Act, with government and labor representation on the board of every corporationChapter XXXII Public service corporations must share their net earnings with government Government ownership of all telegraphsChapter XXXIII Government ownership of all telephones Government representation in railroad management Single term presidencyChapter XLI Old age pension law reformChapter XXXIX Workmen's insurance law Co-operative marketing and land banks Free employment bureaus 8 hour work day, six days a week Labor not to be a commodity Government arbitration of industrial disputes Government ownership of all healthcare
Although he and his supporters carry the day and reign triumphantly, his reign does not go on forever.
Cast of characters The book has several characters. Philip Dru is the main protagonist of the story. Other characters include Gloria Strawn (Dru's love interest) and her brother Jack Strawn, John Thor, and Senator Selwyn.
References
External links Project Gutenberg: Philip Dru: Administrator Google books: Philip Dru: Administrator, PDF download