6 h 23 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if saving a republic means giving one man the power to remake it?
Philip Dru, a young army officer trained at West Point, sees an America where wealth and political machines control government. Elections, legislatures and courts remain, but real power lies elsewhere. As ordinary routes to reform seem blocked, Dru moves toward rebellion.
In Philip Dru: Administrator, Edward Mandell House turns a political story into a plan for governing the United States. Taxes, banks, labor, trade and the Constitution all come under scrutiny. At its heart sits a troubling question: how much power should a reformer hold in the name of fairness?
What you’ll discover
- A republic under pressure See how House imagines a nation whose public institutions conceal the rule of private wealth.
- The limits of reform Explore why elections and debate seem powerless against the interests Dru wants to restrain.
- Money as a lever Follow proposals that turn taxes, tariffs and banking into tools for reshaping national life.
- Power in one pair of hands Confront the tension between a reformer's aims and his authority to rewrite the nation's laws.
- A political mind revealed Encounter the governing ideas of Edward Mandell House through his vision of sweeping national reform.
Who will love it
For readers who love American political history, Progressive Era ideas, and stories of reform and strong leadership, and anyone curious about plans to remake government.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A republic captured by wealth
- When reform fails, a leader steps in
- Taxes and tariffs as tools of fairness
- Banks, business and the working man
- A new constitution and a wider world
- How the book was read and what lasted
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Philippe Dru, Administrateur
by Edward Mandell House · 1912
A young army officer confronts a government captured by wealth, with the nation's laws and power at stake.
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In short
Philip Dru: Administrator is a political novel published in 1912, first without the author's name. Its writer was Edward Mandell House, a Texas political manager who would soon become one of the most trusted advisers of President Woodrow Wilson.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A republic captured by wealth
The book begins with a diagnosis. House pictures an America that still keeps the outward forms of a republic, with elections, legislatures and courts, but whose real decisions are made elsewhere. Large financial interests, he suggests, choose candidates, guide laws and shape the press. Ordinary voters think they govern themselves, yet they are mostly choosing between options that were prepared for them.
This was a common complaint in 1912. Americans had watched the rise of huge industrial combinations and railroad empires, and many believed that government had become too weak to check them. Reformers of many kinds, from Theodore Roosevelt to the Populists, drew on that anger. House shares it, but he writes in a calm voice. He is more like a manager describing a broken machine than a speaker stirring up a crowd.
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What is Philip Dru: Administrator about?
It is a political novel about a young officer who leads a movement against a government controlled by wealth and then, as Administrator, rewrites the nation's laws on taxes, banking, labor and the constitution.
Who wrote Philip Dru: Administrator and when?
Edward Mandell House wrote it and published it in 1912 without his name. He later became a leading adviser to President Woodrow Wilson, which is why the book drew attention afterward.
Did Colonel House's novel influence Woodrow Wilson?
Some of its ideas, such as a graduated income tax and central banking, appeared in Wilson's first term. Historians caution that these reforms were widely discussed then, so the book reflects its era more than it directed it.
The author
Edward Mandell House
1858–1938 · American diplomat
American diplomat with important role in WW I peace negotiations.
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