Henry Cabot Lodge

Historian and statesman Henry Cabot Lodge was raised in the elite society of late-nineteenth-century Boston. During a political career lasting nearly forty years, Lodge served in the state and national legislatures, becoming a main player in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Lodge was known for his imperialist views, as he advocated annexation of the Philippines following the Spanish-American war. He also favored American involvement in World War I. When the war ended, Lodge stridently opposed President Wilson's Fourteen Points and helped to block participation in the League of Nations, believing that the penalties imposed on Germany were too weak and would not prevent the country from once again becoming a military threat. Courtesy of Boston Art Commission.