Straight, Willard Dickerman, 1880-1918

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 HOUSEBOAT 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.