Roland S. Morris

Roland Sletor Morris. [Born] 1874. Lawyer.

Ambassador to Japan during the first World War, Professor of International Law in the University of Pennsylvania, President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, life trustee of Princeton University, Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Delegate to three Democratic National Conventions, State Chairman of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, and what he probably appreciated most, thrice President of the American Philosophical Society. A student of Woodrow Wilson’s at Princeton, he took to heart his professor’s admonition to learn the intricate machinery of politics from the ground up. He punched doorbells getting out the vote, he learned about padded voting lists, excessive expenditures, and the other evils of ward politics. Later he framed the Pennsylvania Corrupt Practices Act and was one of the stalwart crew at the Democratic Convention of 1912 in Baltimore who for ten sweaty days fought through to victory the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for the Presidency of the United States.

Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia

Henry Allen MoeMember profile currently not available; contact Archivist for information on this Centurion
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1945 Memorials