Henry Lane Wilson
Encyclopedia
Henry Lane Wilson was an American
diplomat
.
, Montgomery County, Indiana
to Indiana congressman James Wilson and his wife, Emma (Ingersoll) Wilson(10 September, 1830-22 January, 1912)http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=33060542; he was the younger brother of John L. Wilson
, and had been named for Henry Smith Lane
. He was a law graduate of Wabash College
and practiced law and published a newspaper in Lafayette, Indiana
. He married Alice Vajen in 1885http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/IN/MA5.html, and moved to Spokane, Washington
where he was in business until he was financially wiped out in the Panic of 1893
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5f59p1tj.
corps during the presidencies of William McKinley (1897–1901), Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) and William Howard Taft (1909–1913). He was appointed Minister to Chile in 1897, remaining in that capacity until 1904, when he was made Minister to Belgium, serving in Brussels during the height of the Congo Free State
controversy. Wilson was appointed ambassador to Mexico in 1910, where he was witness to the fall of the Mexican government of General Porfirio Diaz
, and was one of the main actors in defining the Mexican Revolution
.
He became personally acquainted with some of the most important figures of the Revolution, such as Álvaro Obregón
, Venustiano Carranza
, Pancho Villa
, and Francisco Madero Francisco I. Madero
. As Taft
's Ambassador to Mexico, and fearing the leftist tendencies of the new federal government of Francisco I. Madero
upon the ouster of Diaz (not to mention the fact that he considered Madero a 'lunatic')http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/henry_lane_wilson.htm, he assumed the role of catalyst for the plot of General Victoriano Huerta
, Felix Diaz, and General Bernardo Reyes
against President Madero http://mexfiles.net/category/mexican-history-1910-20-revolution/henry-lane-wilson/, and was purported to have assisted in arranging the murder of Madero and his vice-president, José María Pino Suárez
, during La decena tragica
(The Ten Tragic Days) in February 1913, a point that was later disputed by Wilsonhttp://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9502E1DB113FE233A25752C1A9639C946796D6CF. After his inauguration in March of that year, President Woodrow Wilson
was informed of events in Mexico by a clandestine agent, reporter William Bayard Hale
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/Hale-Wil and was appalled by Henry Lane Wilson's assistance to the Huerta coup d'etat
against Madero. The President supplanted him by sending as his personal envoy John Lind
, the former governor of Minnesota
, and on 17 July, 1913http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/henry_lane_wilson.htm, the President dismissed Ambassador Wilson.
, Wilson served on the Commission for Relief in Belgium and, in 1915, accepted the chairmanship of the Indiana State Chapter of the League to Enforce Peace
, a position he held until his resignation over US involvement in the League of Nations
after the close of the war. Wilson was a member of Sons of the American Revolution
, Society of Colonial Wars and the Loyal Legion
http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/IN/MA5.html. He published his memoir in 1927, and died in Indianapolis
in 1932. He is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
diplomat
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
.
Biography
He was born in CrawfordsvilleCrawfordsville, Indiana
Crawfordsville is a city in Union Township, Montgomery County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 15,915. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County...
, Montgomery County, Indiana
Montgomery County, Indiana
Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2010, the population was 38,124. The county seat is Crawfordsville-Early history and settlement:...
to Indiana congressman James Wilson and his wife, Emma (Ingersoll) Wilson(10 September, 1830-22 January, 1912)http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=33060542; he was the younger brother of John L. Wilson
John L. Wilson
John Lockwood Wilson was an American lawyer and politician from the U.S. states of Indiana and Washington. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate...
, and had been named for Henry Smith Lane
Henry Smith Lane
Henry Smith Lane was a United States Representative, Senator, and the 13th Governor of Indiana; he was by design the shortest-serving Governor of Indiana, having made plans to resign the office should his party take control of the Indiana General Assembly and elect him to the United States Senate...
. He was a law graduate of Wabash College
Wabash College
Wabash College is a small, private, liberal arts college for men, located in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Morehouse College, Wabash is one of only three remaining traditional all-men's liberal arts colleges in the United States.-History:Wabash College was founded...
and practiced law and published a newspaper in Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 67,140. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, which has a large impact on...
. He married Alice Vajen in 1885http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/IN/MA5.html, and moved to Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
where he was in business until he was financially wiped out in the Panic of 1893
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5f59p1tj.
Diplomatic Service
Wilson served in the US diplomatDiplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
corps during the presidencies of William McKinley (1897–1901), Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) and William Howard Taft (1909–1913). He was appointed Minister to Chile in 1897, remaining in that capacity until 1904, when he was made Minister to Belgium, serving in Brussels during the height of the Congo Free State
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...
controversy. Wilson was appointed ambassador to Mexico in 1910, where he was witness to the fall of the Mexican government of General Porfirio Diaz
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...
, and was one of the main actors in defining the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
.
Ambassador to Mexico
Wilson was appointed Ambassador to Mexico by President Taft on 21 December, 1909 and presented his credentials to President Diaz on 5 March, 1910http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/henry_lane_wilson.htm.He became personally acquainted with some of the most important figures of the Revolution, such as Álvaro Obregón
Álvaro Obregón
General Álvaro Obregón Salido was the President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. He was assassinated in 1928, shortly after winning election to another presidential term....
, Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. He ultimately became President of Mexico following the overthrow of the dictatorial Huerta regime in the summer of 1914 and during his administration the current constitution of Mexico was drafted...
, Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....
, and Francisco Madero Francisco I. Madero
Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician, he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce...
. As Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
's Ambassador to Mexico, and fearing the leftist tendencies of the new federal government of Francisco I. Madero
Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician, he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce...
upon the ouster of Diaz (not to mention the fact that he considered Madero a 'lunatic')http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/henry_lane_wilson.htm, he assumed the role of catalyst for the plot of General Victoriano Huerta
Victoriano Huerta
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a Mexican military officer and president of Mexico. Huerta's supporters were known as Huertistas during the Mexican Revolution...
, Felix Diaz, and General Bernardo Reyes
Bernardo Reyes
Bernardo Reyes was a General in the army of Mexico under Porfirio Díaz. He served as governor of Nuevo León he helped in the modernization of that state. While governor of Nuevo León, Reyes approved a workers compensation law. He was the father of the writer Alfonso Reyes, and grandfather of the...
against President Madero http://mexfiles.net/category/mexican-history-1910-20-revolution/henry-lane-wilson/, and was purported to have assisted in arranging the murder of Madero and his vice-president, José María Pino Suárez
José María Pino Suárez
José María Pino Suárez was a Mexican statesman, revolutionary, poet, journalist and jurist who served as Vice President of Mexico , Secreatry of Education and Governor of Yucatán...
, during La decena tragica
La decena trágica
The Ten Tragic Days was a series of events that took place in Mexico City between February 9 and February 19, 1913, during the Mexican Revolution. They culminated in a coup d'état and the assassination of President Francisco I...
(The Ten Tragic Days) in February 1913, a point that was later disputed by Wilsonhttp://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9502E1DB113FE233A25752C1A9639C946796D6CF. After his inauguration in March of that year, President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
was informed of events in Mexico by a clandestine agent, reporter William Bayard Hale
William Bayard Hale
William Bayard Hale was an American journalist. He wrote the 1912 campaign biography of Woodrow Wilson.-References:...
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/Hale-Wil and was appalled by Henry Lane Wilson's assistance to the Huerta coup d'etat
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
against Madero. The President supplanted him by sending as his personal envoy John Lind
John Lind (politician)
John Lind was an American politician.-Background:Lind was born in Kånna, Kronoberg County in the Swedish province of Småland and emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was thirteen years old. He served in the Spanish-American War in 1898...
, the former governor of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, and on 17 July, 1913http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/henry_lane_wilson.htm, the President dismissed Ambassador Wilson.
Post-government activities
During the First World WarWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Wilson served on the Commission for Relief in Belgium and, in 1915, accepted the chairmanship of the Indiana State Chapter of the League to Enforce Peace
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
, a position he held until his resignation over US involvement in the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
after the close of the war. Wilson was a member of Sons of the American Revolution
Sons of the American Revolution
The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution is a Louisville, Kentucky-based fraternal organization in the United States...
, Society of Colonial Wars and the Loyal Legion
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States
The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, also known by its acronym MOLLUS or simply as the Loyal Legion, is a United States patriotic order, organized April 15, 1865, by officers of the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States who "had aided in maintaining the honor,...
http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/IN/MA5.html. He published his memoir in 1927, and died in Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
in 1932. He is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.
External links
- Henry Lane Wilson - Find A GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...