Josephus Daniels | |
|---|---|
 Danielsc. 1920 | |
| 10thUnited States Ambassador to Mexico | |
| In office April 24, 1933 – November 9, 1941 | |
| President | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | J. Reuben Clark |
| Succeeded by | George S. Messersmith |
| 41stUnited States Secretary of the Navy | |
| In office March 5, 1913 – March 4, 1921 | |
| President | Woodrow Wilson |
| Deputy | Franklin D. Roosevelt Gordon Woodbury |
| Preceded by | George Meyer |
| Succeeded by | Edwin Denby |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1862-05-18)May 18, 1862 |
| Died | January 15, 1948(1948-01-15) (aged 85) Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, includingJonathan |
| Education | Duke University (BA) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (LLB) |
Josephus Daniels (May 18, 1862 – January 15, 1948) was a newspaper editor,Secretary of the Navy under PresidentWoodrow Wilson, andU.S. Ambassador to Mexico under PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt.
He managedThe News & Observer inRaleigh, at the timeNorth Carolina's largest circulation newspaper, from the 1890s until his death. Daniels was a vehementwhite supremacist andsegregationist; he and his newspaper "championed the white supremacy cause in frequent news reports, vigorously worded editorials, provocative letters, and vicious front page cartoons that called attention to what the newspaper called the horrors of 'negro rule.'"[1]
Along withCharles Brantley Aycock andFurnifold McLendel Simmons, he was a leading perpetrator of theWilmington insurrection of 1898, in which white mobs overthrew the legitimately elected biracial government in Wilmington, expelled black and white political leaders from the city, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the American Civil War, and killed between 60 and 300 black people. He was highly influential in the state legislature's passage in 1900 of a suffrage amendment that effectivelydisenfranchised most blacks in the state, excluding them from the political system for decades until the late 20th century.
ADemocrat,[2] he had been a leadingprogressive in the early 20th century, supporting public schools and public works, and calling for more regulation of trusts and railroads. He supportedprohibition andwomen's suffrage, and used his newspapers to support the regular Democratic Party ticket.
He was appointed by PresidentWoodrow Wilson to serve asSecretary of the Navy duringWorld War I. He became a close friend and supporter ofFranklin D. Roosevelt, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. As Secretary of the Navy, Daniels handled policy and formalities in World War I while his top aide, Roosevelt, handled the major wartime decisions.
After Roosevelt was elected President of the United States, he appointed Daniels as hisU.S. Ambassador to Mexico, serving from 1933 to 1941. Daniels worked to repair relations with the government that had been damaged during theMexican Revolution as part of Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy". In accordance with that policy Daniels and the Roosevelt Administration took a less adversarial position toward the government's 1938 expropriation of American and other foreign oil holdings than other foreign governments had.
His son,Jonathan, was named a special assistant to Roosevelt in 1941. At that time, Daniels resigned his ambassadorial post in Mexico to return to North Carolina, where he resumed the editor's post atThe News & Observer, and continued his outspoken editorial style.
He died in 1948 after completing his memoirs.
Josephus Daniels was born in 1862 to Josephus Daniels, a shipbuilder and his wife Mary Seabrook Daniels inWashington, North Carolina, located on thePamlico River in Beaufort County. The state had seceded from the Union in 1861. Before the boy was 3, his father was killed because of his well-known Union sympathies by a Confederate sharpshooter as he was attempting to leave with Federal forces evacuating Washington, N.C. during theCivil War. Young Daniels moved with his widowed mother and two siblings toWilson, North Carolina where she supported the family as a postal worker. He was educated at Wilson Collegiate Institute and at Trinity College (nowDuke University).
Daniels edited and eventually purchased a local newspaper, theWilson Advance. Within a few years, he became part owner, along with his brother Charles, of theKinston Free Press and theRocky Mount Reporter.[3] He studied law at the University of North Carolina (today theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and was admitted to the bar in 1885, but did not practice law.
After becoming increasingly involved in theNorth Carolina Democratic Party and taking over the weekly paperDaily State Chronicle, Daniels served as North Carolina's state printer from 1887 to 1893. He was appointed as chief clerk of theU.S. Department of the Interior underGrover Cleveland in 1893–95.[4]
In 1894, with the financial assistance of industrialistJulian S. Carr, also a white supremacist, Daniels acquired a controlling interest inRaleigh'sNews & Observer, and left his federal position. Under his leadership, the paper was a strong advocate for the Democratic Party, which at the time was struggling to maintain its power in the state against a fusion of theRepublicans andPopulists.[5]
According to Daniels in his autobiography, "TheNews & Observer was relied upon to carry the Democratic message and to be the militant voice of White Supremacy, and it did not fail in what was expected."[1] Daniels printed numerous articles intended to stoke fears of black men as rapists of white women. A lone white woman noticing a black man in her vicinity would be written up in the paper as a narrowly avoided rape. Daniels also argued that achieving political office emboldened black men to commit more outrages against white women.
He hired cartoonist Norman E. Jennett to spread his message among the 25% of white voters who were illiterate. Daniels admitted later that actual assaults committed by black men on white women were very few in number. However his newspaper coverage had the desired effect of winning Populists over to the Democratic Party. Newspapers were sold at cost to the Democratic Party, which distributed them to white voters.[6]
According to historianHelen Edmonds, the paper "led in a campaign of prejudice, bitterness, vilification, misrepresentation, and exaggeration to influence the emotions of the whites against the Negro."[7] The result was the only successfulcoup d'état in American history, the overthrow of an elected government by force in theWilmington insurrection of 1898. In the findings of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, Daniels is the only name mentioned as a cause of the insurrection.[7] Later in life, while discussing his success, "Daniels admitted that the paper was occasionally excessive in its bias toward Democrats and that stories were not fully researched before publication and probably could not be 'sustained in a court of justice.'"[7]
Daniels never apologized for using the newspaper to encourage white supremacist violence in 1898. In his memoir, he spoke positively about the actions ofRed Shirts and how his white supremacy campaign had crushed "Negro domination".The News & Observer remained under the control of Daniels's family until 1995, when it was sold toThe McClatchy Company. In 2006 the newspaper published an editorial apologizing for its role in theWilmington insurrection of 1898 and consequent massacre.[8]
Thewhite supremacy campaign led to Democratic victories in 1898 and 1900. Having regained control of the state legislature, the Democrats passed a suffrage amendment raising barriers to voter registration, whichdisenfranchised most African Americans in the state. The political exclusion was maintained into the late 1960s.
Daniels also supported a number of progressive causes, such as public education and anti-child-labor laws.[9][failed verification]
Daniels supported native SouthernerWoodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election. After Wilson's victory, he was appointed asSecretary of the Navy.[2]
Secretary Daniels held the post from 1913 to 1921, throughout the Wilson administration, overseeing the Navy duringWorld War I.Franklin D. Roosevelt, a future U.S. president, served as hisAssistant Secretary of the Navy.[10]
AsSecretary of the Navy, he banned the consumption of alcohol aboard U.S. naval vessels[11] inGeneral Order 99 of June 1, 1914. After the end ofProhibition in 1933, the Navy continued to ban alcohol on board ship but allowed limited access tobeer for sailors with 45 days or more of service on their records. Limited access to harder alcoholic beverages by officers to be distributed at their discretion was subsequently maintained for use on shore during official leave from onboard duty.[12]
In 1917, Secretary Daniels determined that no prostitution would be permitted within a five-mile radius of naval installations. InNew Orleans this World War I directive resulted in the shutting down of brothels inStoryville. It had long-lasting consequences for servicemen and others during subsequent decades.[13]
During World War I, Daniels created theNaval Consulting Board to encourage inventions that would be helpful to the Navy. Daniels askedThomas Edison to chair the board, as the Secretary was worried that the US was unprepared for the new conditions of warfare and needed new technology.[14] Additionally, Daniels was the first Secretary of the Navy to sponsor naval aviation. He established the firstnaval air station at the Pensacola Navy Yard, claiming "aircraft must form a large part of our naval force for offensive and defensive operations".[15]
Daniels believed in government ownership of armor-plate factories, and of telephones and telegraphs. At the end of the First World War, he made a serious attempt to have the Navy permanently control all radio transmitters in the United States. If he had succeededamateur radio would have ended, and it is likely thatradio broadcasting would have been substantially delayed.[16][17]
TheNewport Sex Scandal erupted due to a Navy sting operation, overseen by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, that was conducted in 1919. Begun as an attempt to clean up what was seen as "immoral conditions" atNaval Station Newport, it expanded to investigations of the civilian population in Newport. It resulted in the arrests forhomosexual activity of some 17 sailors and a prominentEpiscopal Navy chaplain, with imprisonment imposed for some. When the tactics used in the sting operation became known, it attracted national news coverage. Congress undertook an investigation, resulting in both Secretary Daniels and Roosevelt being rebuked by a Congressional committee. The report called FDR's behavior "reprehensible," and said that the actions "violated the code of the American citizen and ignored the rights of every American boy who enlisted in the Navy to fight for his country."[18][19]
Daniels publishedThe Navy and the Nation (1919), which was primarily a collection of war addresses he had made as Secretary of the Navy.
After leaving government service in 1921, Daniels resumed the editorship ofThe News & Observer. He strongly supported DemocratFranklin D. Roosevelt for president in 1932.
President Roosevelt appointed Daniels asUnited States Ambassador to Mexico, a post he held from 1933 to 1941. Roosevelt expected Daniels to help carry out his "Good Neighbor Policy" in Latin America and, more particularly, to repair the damage to relations between the U.S. and Mexico caused by the U.S. invasion of Mexico during its civil war.
It was a remarkable choice as Daniels was not only an outspoken white supremacist, but had overseen an invasion of the port ofVeracruz attempting to sabotageVictoriano Huerta during his time as head of the Navy. A group of Mexicans who saw this invasion asYankee imperial intervention[20] stoned the U.S. Embassy in protest of his appointment.[21]
Daniels's speeches and policies while serving as Ambassador to Mexico are believed to have improved U.S.-Mexican relations. He praised a proposed Mexican plan for universal popular education and, in a speech to U.S. consular officials, advised them to refrain from interfering too much in the affairs of other nations.[22]
Daniels also saw the reforms of PresidentLázaro Cárdenas as analogous to Roosevelt's New Deal. He particularly supported Cardenas's expropriation of large landowners, over the objections of the State Department. Historian Tore Olsson has argued that Daniels's support of Cardenas's agrarian reform "contributed most significantly to the success" of the program and that Daniels wielded "astounding power over the future of agrarian reform".[20] This support also translated into support for theFarm Security Administration back home.[23] Daniels, along with John A. Ferrell, was also instrumental in obtaining support for the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agriculture Program, which influenced the laterGreen Revolution.[24]
Daniels also encouraged the Roosevelt Administration to take a more conciliatory attitude toward the Cárdenas administration's expropriation of foreign oil holdings, which he believed could not be reversed, and to resist the pressure from U.S. oil companies seeking the imposition of sanctions on Mexico by the U.S. government.
American Catholics criticized Daniels for failing to oppose the continuing attacks on the Catholic Church by the Mexican government following theCristero War. Daniels was a staunch Methodist, and worked with Catholics in the U.S., but had little sympathy for theChurch in Mexico.[citation needed] He believed that it represented the landed aristocracy, which stood opposed to his version of liberalism.
In Mexico, the main issue was the government's efforts to shut down Catholic schools;[citation needed] Daniels publicly approved these attacks and praised anti-Catholic Mexican politicians. In a July 1934 speech at the U.S. Embassy, Daniels praised the anti-Catholic efforts that had been led by former presidentPlutarco Elías Calles:
General Calles sees, as Jefferson saw, that no people can be both free and ignorant. Therefore, he and President Rodriguez, President-elect Cardenas and all forward-looking leaders are placing public education as the paramount duty of the country. They all recognize that General Calles issued a challenge that goes to the very root of the settlement of all problems of tomorrow when he said: 'We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth.'[25]
However Daniels also warned Mexicans that they should not be so harsh towards the Church.[26] The issue became less salient as relations between the Mexican government and the Church improved under President Cárdenas, who took office in 1934 and drove Calles into exile.[27]
In 1941, his son, Jonathan, was named a special assistant to Roosevelt. At that time, Daniels resigned his ambassadorial post in Mexico to return to North Carolina due to his wife's poor health; she died in 1943. Upon returning he resumed the editor's post atThe News & Observer.
Daniels and his son Jonathan were passengers on Franklin Roosevelt's 1945 funeral train from Raleigh until Roosevelt's burial at his home ofSpringwood inHyde Park, New York. The father and son rode the train back toWashington, D.C. in the company of widowEleanor Roosevelt and the new president,Harry S. Truman.[28]
Daniels published several recollections of his years in public office. In addition toThe Navy and the Nation, he wroteOur Navy at War (1922),The Life of Woodrow Wilson (1924), andThe Wilson Era (1944). After completing a five-volume autobiography, in which he expressed regret over his race-baiting support for the white-supremacist campaign of the late 19th century (but not for white supremacy itself), Daniels died in Raleigh on January 15, 1948, at the age of eighty-five. He is buried inHistoric Oakwood Cemetery of that city.[29]
Daniels divided his shares of theNews & Observer among all his children and Jonathan became editor. The family retained control until it sold the paper in 1995.[30]
In 1888, Daniels marriedAddie Worth Bagley, the granddaughter of former GovernorJonathan Worth and later an Americansuffragist leader and writer. They had four sons: Josephus, Worth Bagley,Jonathan Worth, and Frank A. Daniels II. Jonathan followed his father into public service, serving as a special assistant and, briefly,White House Press Secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s.
Josephus Daniels had a cousin, younger by 11 years,John T. Daniels, the Coast Guard member assigned to the Kill Devil Life-Saving Station in 1903, who took the famous photo of theWright brothers in humanity's first ever successful piloted airplane flight, with Orville at the controls of theWright Flyer.[31]
Josephus Daniels epitomized, often simultaneously, much of the best and worst in the post-Civil War South. Lifelong sympathy for the poor and underprivileged led him to champion the causes of public education, organized labor, women's rights, freedom of the press, religious liberty, and democratic government ... Yet at the same time he fully shared, even capitalized upon, the prejudices of his fellow Southern whites ... Despite frequent clashes with party conservatives, Daniels never wavered in his Southern Democratic loyalty, and though his early Negrophobia mellowed decidedly in later years, he declined to question white supremacy ... Daniels broke with[William Jennings] Bryan in the 1920s over the antievolution crusade and the Ku Klux Klan. Similarly in spite of a common attachment to peace, the two men split during World War I. In personality and as a public figure, Daniels combined two sets of contrasting qualities: gentle amiability and combative controversiality; unaffected simplicity of character and outlook and shrewd, skillful management of men and affairs ... On balance, his contributions to the South fell heavily on the side of humanitarianism and progress, and both his newspaper and his sons continued Daniels's example of enlightened, responsible journalism and public service.
A statue of Daniels formerly stood in Nash Square in Raleigh. It was removed on June 16, 2020, after themurder of George Floyd and subsequent widespread civil unrest. Members of the Daniels family approved of the removal.[36]
InHarry Turtledove's "Southern Victory" series ofalternate history novels, Daniels was US Secretary of the Navy during the timeline's analog of World War I, and the US Navy named a destroyer escort after him during the series's version of World War II.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of the Navy March 5, 1913 – March 4, 1921 | Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Ambassador to Mexico March 17, 1933 – November 9, 1941 | Succeeded by |
| Vice President |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Secretary of State |
| |
| Secretary of the Treasury |
| |
| Secretary of War |
| |
| Attorney General |
| |
| Postmaster General |
| |
| Secretary of the Navy |
| |
| Secretary of the Interior |
| |
| Secretary of Agriculture |
| |
| Secretary of Commerce |
| |
| Secretary of Labor |
| |
| Minister |
|
|---|---|
| Ambassador | |
