Willard Dickerman Straight papers, 1825-1925.
Collection Number: 1260

Willard D. Straight was born on January 31, 1880 in Oswego, New York. His father died in 1886; the following year Straight and his family moved to Japan. In 1890 his mother died and he returned to Oswego. He attended Bordentown Military Institute in New Jersey, 1896-97, and majored in architecture at Cornell University, 1897-1901. In November 1901 he was appointed to a position with the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, and from 1902-04 he was personal secretary and assistant to Sir Robert Hart, Inspector General of the Service in Peking. Also in 1902, he illustrated Verse and Worse for J.O.P. Bland. He served as a Reuters war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05, traveling to Japan and Korea in 1904 and China in 1905. That June he was appointed Vice-Consul under Edwin V. Morgan in Seoul, Korea. The consulate closed in November, and Straight was appointed to the same post under Morgan in Havana, Cuba. In June 1906 he was appointed Consul-General at Mukden, Manchuria. In November 1907 he met William Howard Taft in Vladivostok to discuss possible investments in China. In 1909 he illustrated Housboat Days in China, again for Bland. That June he left the consular service to represent J.P. Morgan and Company and other banks and investors, the American Group. The next year he negotiated Chinese currency reform and an industrial development loan for the American group.

In 1911, Straight married Dorothy Payne Whitney. They left China in 1912 when revolution broke out, returning to the United States. Straight continued his association with J.P. Morgan and also continued to encourage investment in China through the American Asiatic Association, of which he was elected president in 1913. In 1914, the Straights began publication of The New Republic. In 1915 Straight resigned from J.P. Morgan and was appointed third vice president of American International Corporation, work which took him to Europe in 1916. In the summers of 1915 and 1916 he attended U.S. Army training camps, strongly supporting the Preparedness Movement. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917. In 1918, while arranging for the arrival of the American Peace Mission in Paris, Straight contracted pneumonia, and died on December 1, 1918.

Willard Dickerman Straight papers, #1260. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Microfilmed papers of Willard D. Straight consist of personal and official correspondence, both original and typescript copies, and reports chiefly concerning his association with the Chinese Imperial Customs Service (1902-04). Documented is his employment with Reuters during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05); with the United States Department of State in Korea and Manchuria (1904-09); and with Edward H. Harriman, Jacob H. Schiff, and J.P. Morgan and Company (1904-09).

Letters and reports address in particular the interest of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in the Harriman-Schiff-Morgan proposals for investments in China from 1907-09; and concern Japanese diplomacy and finance, 1909-10; Straight's interest in THE NEW REPUBLIC and the American Asiatic Association; his role in the "preparedness" campaign in New York through the Mayor's Committee on National Defense (1915-17); his connection with the American International Corporation (1916-18);

his conduct of joint purchasing operations for the French and British governments through J.P. Morgan (1915-16); his efforts to establish the merit system in the State Department career service; and his administration of the War Risk Insurance Bureau and the establishment of its headquarters overseas (1918). In addition, there are many letters to his wife, with comments on the Red Cross, U.S. Army promotional policies, Pershing as a commander, and the American Expeditionary Force.

The collection also includes his diaries (1901-18), with transcriptions, reports, and other papers about the development of railroads, waterways, and coal mines in China and Manchuria, currency reform in China, the proposed international loan to China (1909-11), and the Far Eastern situation in general. There are also books of clippings on the Russo-Japanese War and other events in the Orient, and on the World War I work of Mr. and Mrs. Straight.

Also many letters of condolence, memorials and memoirs written at the time of Straight's death, and correspondence and reports about the building of Willard Straight Hall at Cornell (1919-22).

Non-microfilmed papers include documents on his parents and genealogy; Bordentown Military Institute; military training; Cornell; George Collingwood Bennett, Straight's valet, including photographs and memorabilia; tributes, publications, drafts, inventories and seances following Straight's death; correspondence; and a diary.

Also included are photographs and photograph albums, postcards, and commercial views; published and unpublished watercolors; pen, pencil, and crayon sketches; and charcoals by Willard Straight. This includes student work such as architectural drawings, watercolors, life drawings, and sketches for the CORNELLIAN and the WIDOW, two Cornell newspapers. Also, artwork collected by the Straights, certificates, and maps; and a brass Chinese lock.

Also one leather notebook embossed in gold letters: "Major W. D. Straight."

Article from the Toronto Sunday World, Oct. 13, 1912, "How I escaped the Chinese bandits", chronicling Dorothy Whitney's escape from looters at the Pierpont Morgan compound in Peking during a recent uprising.