I have just spent
the last half hour scouring the internet trying to see if there is a way to get a copy of
Dotson, David Wendell. “Henry Cabot Lodge: A Political Biography, 1887-1901.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1980.
but have thus far been thwarted. There are a few paper and microform copies in universities in Massachusetts, South Africa, but only the University of Oklahoma has an electronic copy. And they want a secret password before they’ll unsheath this rarely valuable information.
And yet this is clearly the perfect resource if I’m going to put together a political narrative about Theodore Roosevelt during this precise time period - provided that Lodge was to figure prominently in the story. I guess he doesn’t have to, just like George Marshall isn’t essential to the telling of European reconstruction. Just because he’s there doesn’t mean we have to understand the why. After all, Lodge only has the minor role of having been Roosevelt’s political peer and ally during the time period covered by the dissertation. Why would I need to know anything about him? I found two biographies, but both had been written before 1950.
I crave a more modern treatment.
I’m going to be in communication with my Oklahoma connection to see if we have any way of gaining access to this document and having it emailed to me.
