Scholar and politician, Henry Cabot Lodge was born in Boston in 1850. He received one of the first PhD degrees in history and government from Harvard and became a professor of history as well as editor of the North American Review. In the 1880s he ran for political office, first in the state legislature and then in the U.S. Congress. Elected to the United States Senate in 1892, he remained in office until his death in 1924. During his Senate career, Lodge served as president pro tempore and chair of the Republican Conference (which also made him de facto majority leader). As chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Republican Lodge opposed Democratic President Woodrow Wilson over the post–World War I Treaty of Versailles. The bitter debate between the two men led to the Senate’s rejection of the treaty in 1919 and 1920. Despite his busy legislative career, Lodge found time to write many books and articles, including The Senate and the League of Nations, a personal memoir of the important treaty debate.
