---
title: Edward M. House
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/edward-m-house/
description: 4 verified quotes from Edward M. House, Confidential adviser to President Wilson ("Colonel House"), with sources.
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg)

[Quotes](https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/) · United States

# Edward M. House

![Edward M. House in 1920](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/wilson-administration/edward-m-house.jpg)

[Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Mandell_House_cph.3b17553.jpg): Unknown author, Public domain (published in the United States before 1931)

Confidential adviser to President Wilson ("Colonel House") · United States

On the regime page: [Wilson administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/wilson-administration/#edward-m-house)

4 quotes, oldest first. [Filter with other speakers](https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/#speaker=edward-m-house).

1. **Content note:** Fictional dictator threatens death for sedition. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “Failure to acquiesce in this, or any attempt to foster the policies of the late government, would be considered seditious, and would be punished by death.” — 1912 · Book — Passage from House's anonymous political novel, in which the title character, after leading a successful armed revolt, issues an address to his soldiers before taking control of the government. It is fiction, but House wrote it, he said, to express his own political and economic ideas. — [Edward M. House], Philip Dru: Administrator: A Story of Tomorrow, 1920-1935 (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1912), p. 150 (published anonymously; House's authorship is stated in Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. 1, p. 153) [Source](https://archive.org/details/philipdruadmini01housgoog)
2. > “The situation is extraordinary. It is militarism run stark mad. Unless some one acting for you can bring about a different understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm.” — May 29, 1914 · Letter · Berlin — Letter written on House's trip to Europe as Wilson's unofficial emissary, six weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, after meetings with German officials including Admiral von Tirpitz. — Colonel House to President Wilson, Berlin, 29 May 1914, in Charles Seymour, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. 1, "Behind the Political Curtain, 1912-1915" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926), p. 249 [Source](https://archive.org/details/intimatepapersof0000char_d1l9)
3. > “It was my opinion that we ought not to let our desires run away with our judgment in the matter of making peace. For instance, if Turkey and Austria were willing to break away from Germany, or were willing to force Germany to make peace, I thought certain concessions should be made to them other than what we would have in mind in the event we had our complete will.” — May 13, 1917 · Letter · New York — Letter to Wilson five weeks after the United States entered the war, on House's talk with the British foreign secretary then visiting Washington about what to do if Germany made a tentative peace offer. — Colonel House to President Wilson, New York, 13 May 1917, reporting a lunch with Arthur Balfour, in Charles Seymour, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. 3, "Into the World War" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), p. 56 [Source](https://archive.org/details/intimatepapersof007804mbp)
4. > “Some time ago I had a letter from Page proposing that we start a propaganda in England to improve the feeling towards us. I spoke to Balfour about this and suggested that it would be better if this were done by the English themselves. He agreed to take it up with his government and see that it was properly done.” — May 13, 1917 · Letter · New York — Postscript to the same letter, about a suggestion from Walter Hines Page, the American ambassador in London, for American publicity work in Britain. — Colonel House to President Wilson, New York, 13 May 1917, in Charles Seymour, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. 3, "Into the World War" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), p. 57 [Source](https://archive.org/details/intimatepapersof007804mbp)