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
You will enjoy this book if you like political fiction, big ideas argued out in conversation, and imagined futures that ask how a nation could be rebuilt from its foundations.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A graduate who doubts the army
- A desert walk ends his army career
- Tenement suffering sets his life's cause
- Gloria takes the cause to the rich
- Selwyn quietly builds a hidden power
- A secretary's choice starts the crisis
- Open war, and one decisive battle
- The struggle begins with persuasion
- What the book argues and how it speaks
Who’s who
- Philip DruA Kentucky West Point graduate who studies the country's ills and leaves the army to fight for equal opportunity.
- Gloria StrawnA rich New Yorker who becomes Dru's closest partner, working to win her own class to the cause.
- Jack StrawnGloria's brother and Dru's loyal friend, an army officer who follows his comrade.
- Senator SelwynA clever political boss who wants to rule the nation in secret through money and a puppet president.
- John ThorThe powerful financier who funds Selwyn's plot and keeps hidden recordings of private talks.
- James R. RocklandA governor with big ambitions whom Selwyn makes president and keeps under his thumb.
- Thomas SpearsThor's quiet secretary, who struggles with his conscience over what he hears.
- Janet SelwynThe Senator's cheerful daughter and Gloria's school friend, who hides her feelings for Dru.
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Philip Dru: Administrator
by Edward Mandell House · 1912
An eye injury leads Philip Dru out of the army and toward a struggle for equal opportunity, with Gloria beside him.
Challenging5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What would you do if you saw that a few rich men secretly ran your country? In Philip Dru: Administrator by Edward Mandell House, a young West Point graduate decides to fight them.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A graduate who doubts the army
Philip Dru graduates from West Point in 1920, yet he feels out of step with the parade. The book sets its scene at once: wealth has grown so strong that the many feel strangled, and talk of civil war is everywhere. Dru, a farm boy from Kentucky, has studied economics as closely as tactics.
At the ceremony he meets Gloria Strawn, the sister of his friend Jack. She asks why anyone would choose a soldier's life when wars are rare. Dru answers with a sweeping speech. He pictures a giant, the common people, who woke in France and struck blindly, and who must now win fair opportunity in America. Gloria's own father is one of the rich men Dru means, and she listens, moved.
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What is Philip Dru: Administrator about?
It follows a young West Point graduate who resigns from the army after an eye injury and works for social reform. When a secretary brings evidence of a secret political scheme to a newspaper editor, Dru helps organize the public response.
Who are Selwyn and Thor in the book?
Selwyn is a powerful senator who plans to control the Senate, the courts and the presidency in secret. Thor is the leading financier who raises the hidden fund that pays for his plan.
Is Philip Dru a true story?
No, it is fiction set in an imagined future, starting in 1920. Edward Mandell House uses the story to explore ideas about taxes, courts and parties.
The author
Edward Mandell House
1858–1938 · American diplomat
American diplomat with important role in WW I peace negotiations.
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