Willard Dickerman Straight

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Willard Dickerman Straight (January 31, 1880 – December 1, 1918) was an American investment banker, publisher, reporter and diplomat.^[1]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Legacy 3 Children 4 References 5 Further reading

[edit] Biography

An orphan, Straight was born on January 31, 1880 in Oswego, New York.^[1] His father had been a faculty member at Oswego Normal School.^[2] He attended Bordentown Military Institute in New Jersey, and in 1897 he enrolled at Cornell University and graduated in 1901 with a degree in architecture. While a student at Cornell, he joined Delta Tau Delta, edited and contributed to several publications, and helped to organize Dragon Day, an annual architecture students' event. He was also elected to the Sphinx Head Society, membership in which was reserved for the most respected men of the senior class.^[3]

After graduating, he was appointed to the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs Service in Peking and worked as a secretary to Sir Robert Hart, the Service's Inspector General. While in the Far East, he worked as a Reuters correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, bringing him to Korea in 1904. In June 1905, he was made personal secretary to Edwin V. Morgan, the Consul General to the Kingdom of Korea and American Vice-Counsel in Seoul, Korea.^[1] After briefly working in Havana, Cuba, he returned to China in 1906 as American Consul-General at Mukden, Manchuria. While there, he and Ms. Mary Harriman were reportedly romantically involved, but their marriage was prevented by E. H. Harriman, her father.^[2] He then went on to work for J. P. Morgan & Co. In April 1908, Straight was involved in a diplomatic incident involving a Japanese mailman's attack on an American consulate coolie who had been perceived to insult him, which resulted in Straight brandishing a revolver and eventually turning in the Japanese attackers to their government for punishment. Before his engagement to Dorothy Payne Whitney, there were society pages rumors that he was engaged to Ethel Roosevelt.^[2]

Straight married Dorothy Payne Whitney, a member of the prominent Whitney family, in 1911 after 5 years of courtship. They married in Geneva, Switzerland, and moved to China. They moved back to the United States in 1912, having judged it too unsafe due to the Chinese Revolution^[4]. In 1915, Straight, his wife and Herbert Croly began the publication of The New Republic, a weekly political magazine. In 1917 they helped to found Asia Magazine, a prominent academic journal on China. Also in 1915, he left J.P. Morgan and went to work as a vice-president for American International Corporation.

During 1915, Straight became involved with the Preparedness Movement, and when the United States entered World War I, he joined the U.S. Army. His service in Europe won him the Distinguished Service Medal and he was promoted to the rank of Major.

He died of pneumonia as a complication of the Spanish Flu in Paris while working to arrange for the arrival of the American Mission to the Paris Peace Conference.^[1] He was buried in the American cemetery at Suresnes, outside of Paris.^[5]

[edit] Legacy

In his life he made major donations to fund the construction of Schoellkopf Memorial Hall,^[6] and after his death his wife made a substantial donation to Cornell to build the school's first student union building, which was named in his honor.^[7]

[edit] Children

Children with Dorothy Payne Whitney:

• Whitney Willard Straight (1912–1979)
• Beatrice Whitney Straight (1914–2001)
• Michael Whitney Straight (1916–2004) ^[8]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Cohen, Warren I. (2000). America's Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations. New York: Columbia University Press. 10-ISBN 0-231-11929-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-231-11929-0