Robert Lansing

Robert Lansing (1864-1928), American lawyer and statesman, born in Watertown, New York, and educated at Amherst College. In 1889 he was admitted to the bar in New York State. Later Lansing specialized in international law and was engaged as counsel for the U.S. government in several arbitrations. In 1914 he was appointed counselor of the U.S. Department of State, and when William Jennings Bryan unexpectedly resigned as secretary of state in June 1915, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Lansing to the post. As a member of the U.S. commission to negotiate peace (1918-19) at the end of World War I, he accompanied Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference. There a serious difference of opinion between him and the president on points of the Versailles treaty, (see Versailles, Treaty of) and Lansing's opposition to combining the peace treaty with the covenant for the League of Nations, caused Wilson to cease consulting him. In 1920 he resigned his post at Wilson's request and returned to his law practice in Washington, D.C. His books include The Peace Negotiations (1921) and The Big Four and Others of the Peace Conference (1921).