Under Four Administrations, from Cleveland to Taft / Recollections of Oscar S. Straus ...

The memoir recounts a life from immigrant ancestry and a Southern childhood through professional formation in law and business to a long career in diplomacy and public service. It chronicles multiple missions to the Ottoman Empire, a cabinet post as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and episodes of industrial diplomacy. The author describes personal relations with presidents, diplomats, labor leaders, and foreign rulers, and includes anecdotal vignettes illuminating character and conduct. Later sections examine the approach of global war, involvement in wartime and postwar negotiations including the Paris peace deliberations, and reflections on opportunity, effort, and democratic principles.