Political and Diplomatic Career
In 1918, Alanson B. Houghton defeated incumbent Congressman Harry H. Pratt in the Republican primary. He went on to win the general election and joined the Sixty-sixth Congress, representing New York’s 37th Congressional District. In 1920, Houghton garnered 68% of the vote to win reelection over Democrat Charles R. Durham and Socialist Francis Toomey. Houghton took office on March 4, 1919. During his two terms in the House, Houghton served on the Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means committees.
On February 28, 1922, Houghton resigned his House seat to accept appointment from President Warren G. Harding as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany. Houghton was just the second U.S. representative to Germany after diplomatic relations were restored between the two countries in December 1921, following Germany’s defeat in World War I.
Houghton, having studied in prewar Germany during the fall of Otto von Bismarck, had a strong familiarity with both German culture and German politics. His appointment was approved by the U.S. Senate and well received by the Weimar Republic.
On February 24, 1925, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Houghton as the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. Houghton assumed the post on April 6, 1925 and served until April 27, 1929. Houghton’s service in both Germany and England gave him a unique ability to address the issue of the war reparations Germany owed to its World War I opponents, England being one of them. Houghton laid some of the groundwork for the Dawes Plan, named after then U.S. Vice President Charles G. Dawes, who would be Houghton’s successor as Ambassador to Great Britain.
In 1928, Houghton ran for the U.S. Senate from New York against first-term incumbent Royal S. Copeland. Although Houghton lost, the election was decided by just over one percentage point, making it the closest Copeland ever faced.
Read more about this topic: Alanson B. Houghton
Famous quotes containing the words political and, political, diplomatic and/or career:
“Currently, U.S. society has been encouraged by its political and subsidized mass-media intelligentsia to view U.S. life as a continual “morning in America” paradise, where the only social problems occur in the inner cities. Psychologists call this denial.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Regna regnis lupi, The State is a wolf unto the State. It is not a pessimistic lamentation like the old homo homini lupus [Man is a wolf to Man], but a positive creed and political ideal.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Rome, like Washington, is small enough, quiet enough, for strong personal intimacies; Rome, like Washington, has its democratic court and its entourage of diplomatic circle; Rome, like Washington, gives you plenty of time and plenty of sunlight. In New York we have annihilated both.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)