Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), American political leader, was one of the important Senate foes of the League of Nations.

Henry Cabot Lodge was born in Boston of parents from distinguished families. He received a bachelor's degree at Harvard, where he also earned a law degree and a doctorate in philosophy. From 1873 to 1876 he was assistant editor of the North American Review, which published his doctoral thesis, "The Anglo-Saxon Land Law." Subsequently he wrote several readable, but decidedly partisan, histories and biographies. Meanwhile he served two terms in the Massachusetts Legislature and was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1886.

As a congressman for 6 years and a senator for 30, Lodge was a curious mixture of reformer and conservative. He was intelligent, informed, and agile, but he lacked warmth and spontaneity. His letters reveal a man as calculating in the small things as in the large and predisposed to read...