Scope and Content Note
The papers of Henry Prather Fletcher (1873-1959) span the years 1898-1958. The collection includes include a diary, letterbook, special and general correspondence, speeches and articles, a scrapbook, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other printed matter. The collection is organized into eight series: Diary , Special Correspondence and Letterbook , General Correspondence , Speeches and Articles , Miscellany , Printed Matter , Additional Scrapbooks , and Declassified Documents.
General Correspondence constitutes the bulk of the collection and covers the span of Fletcher's career from the time of his enlistment in the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War through his service as a special adviser to the secretary of state on post-World War II problems and plans. The relatively small amount of correspondence after the war deals chiefly with the affairs of the Republican Party.
The period 1902-1929, when Fletcher served in the foreign service at such varied posts as Havana, Peking, Lisbon, Santiago, Mexico City, Brussels, and Rome, is amply represented by correspondence that is of interest not only because it treats with the foreign relations of the United States, but also for the manner in which it traces Fletcher's rise from second secretary of the American legation at Havana to the post of ambassador to Italy during the early years of Benito Mussolini. There is also correspondence relating to Fletcher's term as under secretary of state, 1921-1922, and his participation in the fifth and sixth International American Conferences.
The Special Correspondence and Letterbook series includes letters to his wife, Beatrice Bend Fletcher, and from Senator and then President Warren G. Harding. In the General Correspondence file are letters from William Jennings Bryan, Calvin Coolidge, Joseph C. Grew, Herbert Hoover, Edward Mandell House, Charles Evans Hughes, Frank B. Kellogg, Robert Lansing, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Bassett Moore, Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Willard Dickerman Straight, and William H. Taft. Frank Knox, Alfred M. Landon, and Robert A. Taft are among those represented in the period of Fletcher's active participation in Republican affairs after his foreign service.