Item #48509 Eight Years with Wilson's Cabinet: 1913 to 1920 With a Personal Estimate of the President. David F. HOUSTON.
Eight Years with Wilson's Cabinet: 1913 to 1920 With a Personal Estimate of the President.
Eight Years with Wilson's Cabinet: 1913 to 1920 With a Personal Estimate of the President.

Eight Years with Wilson's Cabinet: 1913 to 1920 With a Personal Estimate of the President.

Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1926. Hardcover. Complete 2-volume set. Burgundy cloth with gilt spine lettering. 369pp, 360pp. Top edges gilt. Frontispiece, 2 illustrations. Very good. Bindings faintly edgeworn, with spine lettering rubbed and first volume front board showing couple of faint glass rings, but overall tight and internallly near fine. Item #48509

Attractive first edition of this pair that chronicles the fiery stints as Wilson's Secretary of Agriculture (1913-20) and Secretary of the Treasury (1910-21) of this academic and businessman (1866-1940). First volume front flyleaf bears a choice, nearly full-page presentation inscription to the sister of Illinois governor and twice presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson II -- Elizabeth "Buffy" Stevenson (1897-1996). Boldly penned in brown ink, Houston opens with a fine quotation from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famed poem "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" -- "Such was he: his work is done. / But while the races of mankind endure / Let his great example stand / Colossal, seen of every land." Below this he adds: "With appreciation of the com- / pliment you pay me and with / gratitude to your father for / his friendship and kindness, / I am / Faithfully Yours, / D.F. Houston. / To Elizabeth Stevenson. / Nov. 12, 1926." Elizabeth Stevenson's father was Lewis Stevenson (1868-1929), a politician who served as Illinois Secretary of State (1914-17) -- it seems more likely that Houston's reference to "your father" is in error and that he meant to write "your grandfather," for Adlai E. Stevenson I (1835-1914) was an Illinois congressman (1879-81), U.S. Postmaster General (1885-89) and U.S. Vice president (1893-97) and it seems probable that Houston would have crossed paths with him. In any case, a superb presentation copy -- from the library of Elizabeth's nephew, Adlai E. Stevenson III (1930-2021), U.S. Senator from Illinois (1970-81). Signed copies of this title are encountered once in a great while, but fine presentation copies are rare.

Price: $495.00

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