Scope and Content Note
The papers of John Callan O'Laughlin (1873-1949) span the years 1895-1964 and consist mainly of correspondence supplemented by printed matter, reports, memoranda, and Army-Navy Journal material. The later years of the collection, 1933-1949, are covered in greater detail than the earlier years. The correspondence accounts for about two-thirds of the material in the collection. The papers are organized into four series: General Correspondence, Printed Matter, Miscellany, and Army-Navy Journal.
O'Laughlin's career covered a variety of fields and interests, most of them well documented in the collection. Certain areas of his life, such as his newspaper reporting, his newspaper management, and his interest in military policy and in foreign affairs, are dealt with in great detail. Although active on the national scene for over fifty years, O'Laughlin often remained in the background, but his influence extended to the highest levels of the Republican Party.
The early years of his working life were spent as a newspaper correspondent in the United States, Europe, and South America. During this period, 1895-1912, he became closely associated with Theodore Roosevelt and often acted as an unofficial agent for the president. In 1909 he was rewarded for his services by being appointed first assistant under secretary of state for the last three months of the Roosevelt administration. The collection is weakest for this period of O'Laughlin's life, yet there is a sizable correspondence with such figures as Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, George W. Goethals, Frank B. Kellogg, William Loeb, Francis B. Loomis, Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, Edward R. Stettinius, Freiherr Hermann Speck von Sternburg, William H. Taft, Baron Kogoro Takahira, Joseph P. Tumulty, and Leonard Wood.
In 1914 O'Laughlin directed the Chicago Tribune's Christmas ship that sent gifts to the children of European countries. When the United States entered the war, he enlisted, was appointed a major, and played an active part in the war and the negotiations that followed. While in Europe he corresponded regularly with his wife, and this almost daily correspondence provides a detailed account of his overseas activity. In this brief military career he became acquainted with military figures such as Generals George W. Goethals and John J. Pershing.
In 1925, following a stint as vice president of the Lord and Thomas advertising agency in Chicago, O'Laughlin purchased the Army-Navy Journal. Correspondence in the collection treats the advertising aspects of O'Laughlin's life as well as his involvement in the 1920s with Ira Copley. Copley was associated with large power industries engaged at the time in enlarging and consolidating their holdings. Copley was accused of using his newspaper interests, of which O'Laughlin was a manager, to further his financial interests. Progressives such as Senators Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925) and George W. Norris attacked the power trusts, and the correspondence between O'Laughlin, Copley, and their business associates illustrates the intensity of this attack.
Correspondents from the 1920s include Bainbridge Colby, Calvin Coolidge, Ira Copley, Charles Gates Dawes, Fred Morris Dearing, Hugh Gibson, Otis Allan Glazebrook, James G. Harbord, Will H. Hays, Charles Dewey Hilles, Herbert Hoover, Patrick J. Hurley, Hiram Johnson, Arthur Bliss Lane, Albert Davis Lasker, Henry Cabot Lodge, Dwight W. Morrow, Douglas MacArthur, James Clark McReynolds, Harry S. New, John J. Pershing, David Sarnoff, Reed Smoot, and Charles Pelot Summerall.
When the Democrats took office in 1933, O'Laughlin devoted less time to politics and more time to the Army-Navy Journal. He turned the Army-Navy Journal into a sounding board for Republican opinion and criticism of President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The editorials in the Journal reflect conservative opinion toward the New Deal. The drafts of many of these editorials are contained in the collection. Correspondence concerning the Democratic administration of the 1930s and the 1940s, especially in relation to military affairs, is voluminous.
In 1933 O'Laughlin began the practice of sending a weekly newsletter to Hoover, Pershing, and Sarnoff. The newsletter was sent to inform them of inside developments in the Washington political scene and reflect his conservative philosophy and criticism of the New Deal. Copies of the newsletter are in the correspondence files of the recipients, with a nearly complete set in the Hoover letters. Others received it occasionally, usually on request, including military figures connected with the Republican Party such as Douglas MacArthur, George Van Horn Moseley, and Thomas Charles Hart.
O'Laughlin corresponded in the 1930s and the 1940s with individuals such as Camile Chautemps, Josephus Daniels, Thomas E. Dewey, Thomas Charles Hart, Theodore G. Joslin, Julius Klien, James G. Mitchell, George Van Horn Moseley, Kichisaburþ Nomura, Gifford Pinchot, Lawrence Richey, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Edith Kermit Carow, Roosevelt, Eleanor Butler Alexander Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Oscar S. Straus, Lawrence Sullivan, Harry S. Truman, David I. Walsh, William Allen White, Robert C. Wood, and Harry Hines Woodring.
Other topics covered in the correspondence include personal affairs, the growth of advertising in the United States, lobbying activities in Congress, the Venezuelean blockade of 1902, legislation affecting military matters, military policy during wartime, patronage, the Billy Mitchell court-martial trial, Washington social life, and Norwich University in Vermont.