James Watson Gerard Jr. was a United States lawyer and diplomat.
Background
Gerard was born on August 25, 1867 in Geneseo, New York, the son of James Watson Gerard and Jenny Jones Angel Gerard, at the home of his maternal grandfather, Benjamin F. Angel, a former U. S. minister to Norway and Sweden. Gerard's father was a successful lawyer in New York City who also wrote books on historical and legal topics and served briefly (1876-1877) as a state senator.
Education
Gerard enjoyed a comfortable upbringing that included European travel and a brief attendance at an English preparatory school. He graduated from Columbia B. A. in 1890; and M. A. in political science in 1891.
Career
After graduating Gerard was admitted to the bar in 1892 and entered his paternal grandfather's old law firm, with which he was to maintain an intermittent connection until 1941. As a young lawyer in New York, Gerard not only participated energetically in the city's social life, but also contributed both money and legal services to Tammany Hall. In 1907, through the good offices of Charles F. Murphy, Gerard obtained the Democratic nomination for an associate justiceship of the New York Supreme Court. He was elected and served from January 1908 until July 1913. After making substantial contributions to the Democratic party's campaign funds in 1912, Gerard indicated that he wished to be rewarded with an ambassadorship and his claim was strongly pressed by Senator James A. O'Gorman of New York. Originally assigned to Madrid with the assurance that the ministry would be upgraded to an embassy, Gerard was transferred to Berlin when Wilson's original choice, Henry B. Fine of Princeton University, declined the appointment. As U. S. ambassador to the German Empire from 1913 to 1917, Gerard was propelled onto the world stage by the outbreak of World War I. It was a severe test for a man without previous diplomatic experience who during his first year in Germany had been concerned with mastering the intricacies of court etiquette and the rudiments of the language. In some respects Gerard's energy and directness served him well. His dealings with the German government over Belgian relief won the praise of Herbert Hoover. Gerard's performance as an informant and representative of the U. S. government at this critical juncture has, on the other hand, been more variously assessed. Colonel House thought well of him, but President Wilson considered him gullible and unreliable. In his reports from wartime Berlin, Gerard emphasized the hostility toward the United States generated by the American sale of munitions to the Allies, the talk in Germany of postwar revenge, and the danger of German intervention in Latin America. He urged American preparedness. When the issue of submarine warfare arose in 1915, however, Gerard had some sympathy with the German point of view and doubted whether all the rights for which the United States was contending were of much practical moment. During the Lusitania crisis he caused himself some embarrassment by privately suggesting to the German Foreign Office compromise proposals that, when incorporated in the German note of 8 July 1915, were promptly rejected by Washington. Thereafter, Gerard undeviatingly impressed upon the Germans the firmness of the American position, notably on a visit to imperial headquarters at Charleville in April and May 1916, during the Sussex crisis. At the suggestion of the German government, Gerard returned to the United States in the fall of 1916 to urge Wilson to make an early move for peace. On his arrival in New York City, he gave a sensational interview to the New York World in which he predicted that, if the war was not brought to an end, Germany would launch unrestricted submarine warfare in the near future. When this occurred in February 1917, the U. S. government broke diplomatic relations and Gerard was recalled. On his return to the United States, Gerard published two volumes describing his experiences and impressions as ambassador, My Four Years in Germany (1917) and Face to Face with Kaiserism (1918). He spoke at more than 500 Liberty bond rallies and later campaigned for American participation in the League of Nations. His public prominence apparently stimulated his political ambitions. In 1914, while in Berlin, he had been the Tammany candidate for U. S. senator from New York, defeating Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Democratic primary but losing the election to James W. Wadsworth. In 1920 he declared himself a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and, through an alert use of the primary law in South Dakota, managed to get his name presented to the San Francisco convention. After failing to achieve the vice-presidential nomination for which he had hoped, Gerard was appointed chairman of the campaign finance committee. With his personal fortune and contacts among the wealthy, he was well qualified as a fund raiser, and he served the Democratic party in this capacity in most of the presidential elections of the next thirty years, either as treasurer or chairman of the finance committee. When the Democrats returned to power in 1933, Gerard's hopes of another European embassy were disappointed, but he was chosen to represent the president at the coronation of George VI in 1937. When World War II broke out, Gerard was an outspoken interventionist, calling for compulsory military service in the summer of 1940 and testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in favor of Lend-Lease in 1941. Despite his misgivings about some aspects of the New Deal, he maintained his lifelong allegiance to the Democratic party and was chairman of the New York delegation at the national convention in 1944. In 1950, President Truman appointed him to the Advisory Board on International Development. Gerard published his memoirs, My First Eighty-three Years in America, in 1951 and died at his home in Southampton, Long Island, in the same year.
Achievements
Connections
In 1901, Gerard married Mary Daly, the daughter of Marcus Daly, an Irish immigrant whose acquisition of a quarter share in the famous Anaconda mine in Montana had made him a millionaire.