Robert Bacon

For other people named Robert Bacon, see Robert Bacon (disambiguation).

Robert Bacon
United States Ambassador to France
In office December 31, 1909 – April 19, 1912
President	William Howard Taft
Preceded by	Henry White
Succeeded by	Myron T. Herrick
39th United States Secretary of State
In office January 27, 1909 – March 5, 1909
President	Theodore Roosevelt William Howard Taft
Preceded by	Elihu Root
Succeeded by	Philander C. Knox
26th United States Assistant Secretary of State
In office October 11, 1905 – January 27, 1909
President	Theodore Roosevelt
Preceded by	Francis B. Loomis
Succeeded by	John Callan O'Laughlin
Personal details
Born	(1860-07-05)July 5, 1860 Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, U.S. (now part of Boston)
Died	May 29, 1919(1919-05-29) (aged 58) New York City, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Martha Waldron Cowdin
Children	4, including Robert, Gaspar
Education	Harvard University (BA)
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Rank	Lieutenant colonel

Robert Bacon (July 5, 1860 – May 29, 1919) was an American athlete, banker, businessman, statesman, diplomat and Republican Party politician who served as the 39th United States Secretary of State in the Theodore Roosevelt administration from January to March 1909. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State from 1905 to 1909 and Ambassador to France from 1909 to 1912.

Bacon was a native of Boston, Massachusetts and attended Harvard College. While a student at Harvard, he starred in athletics, captaining the football team, rowing crew, and winning events in boxing and track. He befriended future president Theodore Roosevelt, leading to a lifelong friendship and professional relationship.

As Secretary of State, Bacon pressed Roosevelt's interests in the United States Senate to ratify treaties with Colombia and the new nation of Panama to resolve disputes over the Panama Canal. He continued to advance United States interests in Latin America after leaving office, conducting a tour of the region for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and publishing a treatise arguing for better relations with South America.

Bacon was a leader in the movement for military preparedness following the outbreak of the First World War, establishing training programs for potential soldiers and officers prior to American entry to the war. In 1916, he narrowly lost the Republican primary for United States Senator from New York to William M. Calder. He was commissioned as a major in the United States Army in 1917 and served under General John Pershing in France. Pershing appointed Bacon to a major role as the chief American liaison to British General Headquarters. Bacon returned to the United States following the war but died from complications following surgery less than two months after his arrival in New York City.

Early life and family

Robert Bacon was born on July 5, 1860 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts and raised in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. His father, William Benjamin Bacon, was a Boston merchant who founded Daniel G. Bacon & Company with his elder brother and served as the Boston agent for Baring Brothers. The Bacon family had early colonial roots and settled the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod. His mother, Emily Crosby Low, was ill for most of his childhood and died when he was eleven years old.

After attending the Hopkinson School in Boston, Bacon was enrolled at Harvard College in 1876, shortly after his sixteenth birthday. At Harvard, he was a star athlete and popular classmate, captaining the football team and freshman baseball team, rowing seven in the crew, winning a heavyweight boxing championship, and winning both the quarter-mile and hundred-yard dash. He was also president of the glee club, chief marshal of his class day celebration, and a member of the A.D. Club and Delta Kappa Epsilon. He graduated as the youngest member of the class of 1880, which included future President Theodore Roosevelt and was called "Bacon's class." Roosevelt and Bacon were close friends and sparring partners during their time at Harvard. Following graduation, he completed a tour of the world, traveling west through Japan, China, India, and the Mediterranean.

Finance career

He worked in the steel world, including partnership with J.P. Morgan & Co. for many years starting in 1894. He acted as J.P. Morgan's chief lieutenant and participated in the formation of the U.S. Steel Corporation and the Northern Securities Company. The pressure of the job shot his nerves, and he left the company in 1903.

Portrait by Joaquín Sorolla, 1909.

After Theodore Roosevelt (with whom he was friends at Harvard) had been reelected, Bacon was named Assistant Secretary of State in 1905, a position which he held until 1909; he was acting secretary while Elihu Root was in South America in 1906. For the last 38 days of Roosevelt's term, he became full secretary from January 27 to March 5, 1909, because of Root's election to the Senate. Bacon obtained the advice and consent of the Senate for the Panama Canal treaties with Colombia and Panama. He served as United States Ambassador to France from 1909 until 1912. He was supposed to return home on the RMS Titanic with his wife and daughter, but delays kept them in Paris.

In August 1914, after the outbreak of World War I in Europe, Bacon went to France to help with the work of the American Field Service – which provided ambulances and drivers to support French and British forces. He was also attached to the British Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and assisted with the establishment of a typhoid hospital near Ypres. His book For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbors was published in 1915.

General Tasker H. Bliss, formerly the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, is greeted by Major Robert Bacon upon the latter's arrival in France, July 19, 1918.

He was a staunch advocate of the United States' entry into World War I and spoke in favor of increased military preparedness via universal military service as the president of the National Security League in 1916. He criticized President Woodrow Wilson for inaction at the German invasion of Belgium and sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against William M. Calder. Bacon continued to push for a stronger national defense as well as a protective tariff that could be used for the mobilization of industry in case of war. Although he had support from former president Theodore Roosevelt and Elihu Root, Bacon lost the race by about 9,000 votes and pledged to support Calder. He was named as the candidate of the American Party but withdrew on account of his pledge to Calder.

Colonel Robert Bacon and Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig on the St.-Quentin Bridge, viewing the first break in the Hindenburg Line which was made by the 30th and 27th Divisions of the U.S. Army serving with the BEF.

He was then commissioned as a major in the United States Army in May 1917, one month after the American entry into World War I, before sailing to France as a member of the staff of Major General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing, who was made commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Bacon was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1918 and served as chief of the American military mission at British General Headquarters working with the British commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commanding the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front. He returned to the United States in April 1919, five months after the war ended due to the Armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918.

Bacon died at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary on May 29, 1919, from blood poisoning after undergoing surgery on his mastoiditis.

Personal life

Bacon married Martha Waldron Cowdin on October 10, 1883. They had four children:

• Robert Low Bacon, a United States Representative from New York
• Gaspar Griswold Bacon, President of the Massachusetts Senate (1929–32) and Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (1933–35)
• Elliot Cowdin Bacon, and
• Martha Beatrix Bacon (1890–1967) who married George Whitney (1885–1963)

Memorial

Malvina Hoffman, The Sacrifice, caen marble sculpture, 1922, Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, Harvard University

A sculpture entitled The Sacrifice was made by Malvina Hoffman as a memorial to the late Ambassador of France, Robert Bacon, and alumni of Harvard University who lost their lives during the World War I. In it, the head of a 13th-century crusader lay on the lap of a draped woman. The sculpture was dedicated in 1923 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. After the War Memorial Chapel at Harvard University was completed in 1932, it was installed there.

Further reading

• Davis, Calvin D. "Bacon, Robert (05 July 1860–29 May 1919)" American National Biography (1999) https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0600017
• Jessup, Phillip C. (1938). Elihu Root. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
• McCullough, David (1982). Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. Simon & Schuster.
• Scott, James Brown (1923). Robert Bacon: Life and Letters. Doubleday, Page & Co.
• Scott, James Brown (1928). "Robert Bacon". In Bemis, Samuel Flagg (ed.). The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. Vol. IX. New York: A. A. Knopf.
• Scott, James Brown (1928). "Elihu Root". In Bemis, Samuel Flagg (ed.). The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. Vol. IX. New York: A. A. Knopf.
• "Robert Bacon." Dictionary of American Biography (1936) online

External links

• Robert Bacon at Find a Grave
• Works by Robert Bacon at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Robert Bacon at Internet Archive