This seems to be the only evidence of the Kaiser's view of an extraordinary episode. This was nothing less than a semi-official attempt on the part of an American private citizen President Woodrow Wilson's confidential agent - Edward Mandell House Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, met Edward House in the summer of 1914. He later wrote about the meeting in his autobiography Twenty-five Years (1925). Edward Mandell House, the son of a banker, was born in Houston, Texas on July 26, 1858. He studied at Cornell University and afterwards returned to the family plantation on the death of his father in 1880. A wealthy man, House was now able to concentrate on politics. A member of the Democratic Party he advised Texas governors including Charles A. Culberson (1895-1899), Joseph D. Sayers (1899-1903) and S.W. Lanham (1903-1907). A close associate of Woodrow Wilson, he helped him win the presidential campaign in 1912. On the outbreak of the First World War, House became Wilson's personal representative in Europe. He visited most European capitals in 1915 and 1916 but his attempts at achieving a negotiated peace ended in failure. After the United States entered the war in 1917, House was responsible for working with Allied nations in order to organize manpower and supplies. House worked closely with Woodrow Wilson and Walter Lippmann in drafting the Fourteen Points Peace Programme. House was a member of the USA's delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and helped draw up the covenant of the League of Nations. Edward Mandell House died on March 28, 1938. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhouse.htm http://www.library.yale.edu/un/house/hist_sig.htm
