MacDowell, Charles H.

Technical advisor to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace and member of several sub-committees of the Supreme Economic Council after World War I.

Charles Henry MacDowell (D. 1867) started his career as a back office stenographer for P. D. Armour. Eventually he became manager of the Fertilizer Department of Armour and Company and then president of Armour Fertilizer Works.

Upon the entrance of the United States into the World War, MacDowell was called to Washington as a dollar-a-year man on the War Industries Board, later being made director of the Chemicals Division, having personal charge of the procurement and allocation of nitrate for the United States. He served as a Technical Advisor to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace from early March to the signing of the German Peace Treaty June 28th, which he witnessed, returning with President Wilson as a member of his private party on the S. S. George Washington.

In Washington as well as in Paris he was associated with Bernard M. Baruch. In Paris Baruch was the American representative on Reparations, Raw Materials, the Economic Commission, and a member of the Supreme Economic Council. MacDowell was a member of a number of sub -committees of the Council including the Committee on Germany, and had to do with the organization of the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission, and the development of the laws for the occupied territory by the military forces during the occupation. He had no direct concern with the making of political policies.