Auchincloss, Gordon, 1886-1943

Gordon Auchincloss was the Assistant U. S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1913-1915; assistant to Frank Polk, Counselor of the State Department from 1917-1918; and secretary to Edward M. House at the Interallied Conference (1917) and during the Armistice negotiations and the Paris Peace Conference (1918-1919).

From the description of Gordon Auchincloss papers, 1914-1951 (inclusive). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702206418

Gordon Auchincloss was the Assistant U. S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1913-1915; assistant to Frank Polk, Counselor of the State Department from 1917-1918; and secretary to Edward M. House at the Interallied Conference (1917) and during the Armistice negotiations and the Paris Peace Conference (1918-1919).

Gordon Auchincloss, lawyer and diplomat, was born in New York on 15 June 1886. He was the seventh of eight children of Edgar Stirling Auchincloss and Maria La Grange (Sloan) Auchincloss. His father, a merchant in New York City, died in 1892. His mother, a daughter of Samuel Sloan, president of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad and the Hudson River Railroad, survived until 1930. The other children were Elizabeth (died in 1905), Samuel, Edgar, Jr.(died in 1910), Hugh, Charles, James, and Reginald.

Gordon graduated from the Groton School in 1904, from Yale College in 1908, and from Harvard Law School in 1911. He met Janet House, daughter of Edward Mandell House and Loulie (Hunter) House, during a summer vacation in Europe in 1909. They were married in September 1912. Their first child, Louise, was born in 1914; the second, Edward House, in 1929.

Auchincloss began his legal career in the office of Hawkins, Delafield & Longfellow in 1911, but two years later, against the advice of his father-in-law, he became Assistant United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He returned to private practice in April 1915, joining David Hunter Miller in the firm of Miller & Auchincloss. While in partnership with Miller, he was also special assistant to the Attorney General for certain tax litigation.

Beginning soon after his marriage if not before, Auchincloss became involved in Democratic politics in New York, serving as liaison between his father-in-law and other prominent men and developing a certain standing of his own. He became acquainted with William Gibbs McAdoo, Thomas Watt Gregory, Vance McCormick, Frank L. Polk, and other members of the Wilson administration and with local politicians in New York. In 1916 he was assistant treasurer of the Democratic National Committee.

Auchincloss was appointed to represent the State Department in New York City in March 1917. Two months later he moved to Washington to become assistant to Frank Polk, Counselor of the State Department. His job was to relieve Polk of whatever work did not require his personal attention. This meant answering inquiries in the context of current policy, drafting letters and memoranda for the signature of high-ranking officers in the Department, and representing the Department in discussions of policy and practice with American and British officials. In performing these duties, Auchincloss followed Polk in transacting a great variety of diplomatic business, much of which had little to do with the formal responsibilities of the office. His own responsibility grew with his experience, with the volume of war-related work, and with Polk's illness beginning in April 1918. By the time he left Washington the following October, he had acquired several assistants of his own.

While Auchincloss was in Washington, he served his father-in-law as a channel of communication with federal officials and members of the diplomatic corps. He accompanied him to London and Paris in 1917 as secretary of the American War Mission to England and France (the Inter-allied Conference), and he was House's secretary in Paris during the Armistice negotiations and the Peace Conference in 1918 and 1919. At the Interallied Conference, his activities may have been as circumscribed as his title suggests, but at the Peace Conference he worked more or less independently on press relations, the organization of the League of Nations, and Herbert Hoover's plan for economic relief to Russia.

Auchincloss returned to the United States in August 1919 and resumed the practice of law as a member of the firm of Parker, Marshall, Miller & Auchincloss. Besides representing his clients, he served as trustee and receiver in several major bankruptcies and reorganizations and sat on the boards of directors of a number of American and foreign corporations. He also took part in charitable and alumni activities, beginning with the Young Men's Christian Association of New York City in 1920 and the Groton Alumni Fund in 1923. He died on 16 April 1943, survived by his widow, his daughter (now Mrs. Edward H. Robbins), his son, and four brothers.

This information is taken from the New York Times, the History of the Class of 1908, Yale College , the New York Social Register, and the Gordon Auchincloss Papers.

From the guide to the Gordon Auchincloss papers, 1914-1951, (Manuscripts and Archives)