Josephus Daniels

Josephus Daniels
10th United States Ambassador to Mexico
In office April 24, 1933 – November 9, 1941
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	J. Reuben Clark
Succeeded by	George S. Messersmith
41st United States Secretary of the Navy
In office March 5, 1913 – March 4, 1921
President	Woodrow Wilson
Deputy	Franklin D. Roosevelt Gordon Woodbury
Preceded by	George Meyer
Succeeded by	Edwin Denby
Personal details
Born	(1862-05-18)May 18, 1862 Washington, North Carolina, C.S.
Died	January 15, 1948(1948-01-15) (aged 85) Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Addie Worth Bagley
Education	Duke University (BA) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (LLB)

Josephus Daniels (May 18, 1862 – January 15, 1948) was a North Carolina newspaper editor and publisher from the 1880s until his death; he controlled the Raleigh News and Observer, at the time North Carolina's largest newspaper, for decades. Viewed as a progressive Democrat, he was appointed by United States President Woodrow Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Navy during World War I. He became a close friend and supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served as his Assistant Secretary of the Navy and later was elected as United States President. Roosevelt appointed Daniels as his Ambassador to Mexico, 1933–1941. Daniels was a vehement white supremacist and segregationist and, along with Charles Aycock and Furnifold Simmons, was a leading perpetrator of the 1898 Wilmington insurrection.

Daniels believed that "the greatest folly and crime" in U.S. history was giving Negros the vote. He and his newspaper "championed the white supremacy cause in frequent news reports, vigorously worded editorials, provocative letters, and vicious front page cartoons that called attention to what the newspaper called the horrors of 'negro rule.'" Daniels argued that as long as African Americans had any political power, they would block progressive reforms.

He was highly influential in the state legislature's passage in 1900 of a suffrage amendment that effectively disenfranchised most blacks in the state, excluding them from the political system for decades until the late 20th century. They were also excluded from juries and subject to legal racial segregation.

As Secretary of the Navy, Daniels handled policy and formalities in World War I while his top aide, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, handled the major wartime decisions. As ambassador to Mexico after its revolution, Daniels dealt with the anti-American government and its expropriation of American oil investments. In North Carolina in the early 20th century, he had been a leading progressive, supporting public schools and public works, and calling for more regulation of trusts and railroads. He supported prohibition and women's suffrage, and used his newspapers to support the regular Democratic Party ticket. He was a powerful supporter of the Ku Klux Klan although never a member.

Early life and career

Josephus Daniels was born in 1862 to a shipbuilder and his wife in Washington, North Carolina, located on the Pamlico River in Beaufort County. The state had seceded from the Union in 1861. Before the boy was 3, his father was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter, because of his well-known Union sympathies. The father was attempting to leave with Federal forces evacuating Washington, N.C. during the Civil War. Young Daniels moved with his widowed mother and two siblings to Wilson, North Carolina. He was educated at Wilson Collegiate Institute and at Trinity College (now Duke University).

Daniels edited and eventually purchased a local newspaper, the Wilson Advance. Within a few years, he became part owner of the Kinston Free Press and the Rocky Mount Reporter. He studied law at the Unuversity of North Carolina (today the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and was admitted to the bar in 1885, but did not practice law.

After becoming increasingly involved in the North Carolina Democratic Party and taking over the weekly paper Daily State Chronicle, Daniels served as North Carolina's state printer in 1887–1893. He was appointed as chief clerk of the Federal Department of the Interior under Grover Cleveland in 1893-95.

Marriage and family

In 1888, Daniels married Addie Worth Bagley. She was the granddaughter of former Governor Jonathan Worth. They had four sons: Josephus, Worth Bagley, Jonathan Worth, and Frank A. Daniels II. Jonathan followed his father into public service, serving as a special assistant and, briefly, White House Press Secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s.

Raleigh News and Observer

In 1894, with the financial assistance of industrialist Julian S. Carr, also a white supremacist, Daniels acquired a controlling interest in the Raleigh News & Observer, and left his federal position. Under his leadership, the paper was a strong advocate for the Democratic Party, which at the time was struggling to maintain its power in the state against a fusion of the Republicans and Populists.

According to Daniels in his autobiography, "The News and Observer was relied upon to carry the Democratic message and to be the militant voice of White Supremacy, and it did not fail in what was expected." In the Findings of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, Daniels is the only name mentioned as a cause of the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, According to historian Helen Edmonds, the paper "led in a campaign of prejudice, bitterness, vilification, misrepresentation, and exaggeration to influence the emotions of the whites against the Negro." The result was the only successful coup d'état in American history, the overthrow of an elected government by force.

The Democratic "white supremacy" campaign led to Democratic victories in 1898 and 1900. Having regained control of the state legislature, the Democrats passed a suffrage amendment raising barriers to voter registration, which affected most African Americans in the state. The political exclusion was maintained into the late 1960s.

Later in life, while discussing his success, "Daniels admitted that the paper was occasionally excessive in its bias toward Democrats and that stories were not fully researched before publication and probably could not be 'sustained in a court of justice.'" He supported a number of progressive causes, such as public education and anti-child-labor laws. As Secretary of the Navy, he banned the consumption of alcohol aboard U.S. naval vessels.

The News and Observer remained under Daniels' family control until 1995, when it was sold to The McClatchy Company.

Secretary of the Navy

Daniels supported southerner Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election. After Wilson's victory, he was appointed as Secretary of the Navy.

Letter from Daniels confirming that the Navy Cross was conferred on Ernesto Burzagli in the name of the President of the United States in 1919. Captain Burzagli was an officer in the Royal Italian Navy.

Secretary Daniels held the post from 1913 to 1921, throughout the Wilson administration, overseeing the Navy during World War I. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a future US president, served as his Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Daniels (right) shaking hands with his successor as Secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby.

Daniels believed in government ownership of armor-plate factories, and of telephones and telegraphs. At the end of the First World War, he made a serious attempt to have the Navy permanently control all radio transmitters in the United States. If he had succeeded amateur radio would have ended, and it is likely that radio broadcasting would have been substantially delayed.

Teetotaler Daniels banned alcohol from United States Navy ships in General Order 99 of 1 June 1914. As a result, sailors began referring to their coffee as "cups of joe". (After the end of Prohibition in 1933, ship commanders determined that alcohol continue to be banned on board ship but that limited access to beer be maintained for sailors with 45 days or more of service on their records. Limited access of harder alcoholic beverages to officers to be distributed at their discretion was subsequently maintained for use on shore during official leave from onboard duty.)

In 1917, Secretary Daniels determined that no prostitution would be permitted within a five-mile radius of naval installations. In New Orleans, this World War I directive resulted in the shutting down of brothels in Storyville. It had long-lasting consequences for servicemen and others during subsequent decades.

On March 15, 1919, Daniels issued General Order No. 456, prohibiting all forms of work on the Christian Sabbath (Sunday). He ordered,

In order to insure a proper observance of the Lord's Day in the Navy of the United States, and to provide the officers and men with rest and recreation so essential to efficiency, the following order will be carry out: Hereafter all commanding officers and others officially concerned will see to it that aboard ships and on shore stations to which they are attached, no work of any character whatsoever is performed except works of necessity. This order will be construed and embracing target practice, and drills of every character, inspection of ship and crew, clothing inspection, issuing of small stores, and all other ship activities that violate the letter and spirit of this order. No vessel of the Navy shall begin cruise on Sunday except in case of emergency ...

During World War I, Daniels created the Naval Consulting Board to encourage inventions that would be helpful to the Navy. Daniels asked Thomas Edison to chair the Board, as the Secretary was worried that the US was unprepared for the new conditions of warfare and needed new technology. Additionally, Daniels was the first Secretary of the Navy to sponsor naval aviation. He established the first naval air station at the Pensacola Navy Yard, claiming "aircraft must form a large part of our naval force for offensive and defensive operations".

The Newport Sex Scandal erupted due to a Navy sting operation which was overseen by Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt that was conducted in 1919. Begun as an attempt to clean up what was seen as "immoral conditions" at Naval Station Newport, it expanded to investigations of the civilian population in Newport. It resulted in the arrests for homosexual activity of some 17 sailors and a prominent Episcopal Navy chaplain, with imprisonment imposed for some. When the tactics used in the witch hunt became known, it attracted national news coverage. Congress undertook an investigation, resulting in both Secretary Daniels and Roosevelt being rebuked by a Congressional committee. The report called FDR's behavior "reprehensible," and said that the actions "violated the code of the American citizen and ignored the rights of every American boy who enlisted in the Navy to fight for his country."

Daniels published The Navy and the Nation (1919), which was primarily a collection of war addresses he had made as Secretary of the Navy.

Later life

After leaving government service in 1921, Daniels resumed the editorship of the Raleigh News and Observer. Daniels strongly supported Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt for president in 1932.

Ambassador to Mexico

President Roosevelt appointed Daniels as United States Ambassador to Mexico. He expected Daniels to help carry out his "Good Neighbor Policy" in Latin America. But Daniels' arrival in Mexico City was marred by a violent demonstration when a group of Mexicans stoned the American Embassy.

Roosevelt appointed Daniels in order to heal the rift caused by the US invasion of Mexico during its civil war. Daniel's speeches and policies while serving as Ambassador to Mexico are believed to have improved US-Mexican relations. He praised a proposed Mexican plan for universal popular education and, in a speech to US consular officials, advised them to refrain from interfering too much in the affairs of other nations. At a time when many young Americans traveled to Spain to fight for the Republicans, Daniels favored the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, believing that a collapse of the Spanish government would have dire effects on Mexico.

Anti-Catholicism

American Catholics bitterly attacked Daniels for failing to oppose the virulent attacks on the Catholic Church by the Mexican government during and after its revolution. Daniels was a staunch Methodist and worked with Catholics in the U.S. but had little sympathy for the Church in Mexico. He believed that it represented the landed aristocracy, which stood opposed to his version of liberalism. In Mexico, the main issue was the government's efforts to shut down Catholic schools; Daniels publicly approved these attacks and praised anti-Catholic Mexican politicians. In a July 1934 speech at the American Embassy, Daniels praised the anti-Catholic efforts which had been led by the former president, Plutarco Elías Calles:

General Calles sees, as Jefferson saw, that no people can be both free and ignorant. Therefore, he and President Rodriguez, President-elect Cardenas and all forward-looking leaders are placing public education as the paramount duty of the country. They all recognize that General Calles issued a challenge that goes to the very root of the settlement of all problems of tomorrow when he said: 'We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth.'

Daniels warned the Mexicans they should not be so harsh against the Church.

Return to North Carolina

In 1941, his son, Jonathan, was named a special assistant to Roosevelt. At that time, Daniels resigned his ambassadorial post in Mexico to return to North Carolina. There he resumed the editor's post at the News & Observer and continued his outspoken editorial style.

Daniels published several recollections of his years in public office. In addition to The Navy and the Nation, he wrote Our Navy at War (1922), The Life of Woodrow Wilson (1924), and The Wilson Era (1944).

Daniels, along with his son Jonathan, were passengers on Franklin Roosevelt's 1945 funeral train from Raleigh, North Carolina until the burial at Roosevelt's Hyde Park, New York burial at the president's home of Springwood. The two Daniels men rode the train back to the national capital in the company of widow Eleanor Roosevelt and the new President Harry S. Truman.

During the course of his life, Daniels operated several newspapers, culminating with the News & Observer, which is still in operation. He served in public office with a strong belief in improving conditions for labor and the working class. The story of Daniels' life closely mirrors that of North Carolina during the same time period. From the catastrophe of Civil War to national prominence, Daniels was a prime example of the strengths and weaknesses that marked the progress of his state. From the continuing presence of the News & Observer to the public middle school in Raleigh which bears his name (Josephus Daniels Middle School), the influence of Josephus Daniels continues to be felt. In 1941, he retired to Raleigh due to his wife's poor health; she died in 1943.

After completing a five-volume autobiography, in which he expressed regret over his vicious attacks (but not the overall righteousness) of the White Supremacy campaign of the late 19th century, Daniels died in Raleigh on January 15, 1948 at the age of eighty-five. He is buried in Historic Oakwood Cemetery of that city. Daniels divided his shares of the News and Observer among all his children and Jonathan became editor. The family retained control until it sold the paper in 1995.

Legacy and honors

• After his wife's death in 1943, in 1944 the S.S. Addie Daniels was commissioned in her honor.
• In 1956, the new Daniels Middle School in Raleigh was named after him. Daniels Hall on North Carolina State University's main campus is also named after him.
• USS Josephus Daniels DLG/CG-27

In fiction

In Harry Turtledove's "Southern Victory" series of alternate history, Daniels was US Secretary of the Navy during the timeline's analog of World War I, and the US Navy named a destroyer escort after him during the series's version of World War II.

Selected works

• 1919 — The Navy and the Nation. New York: George H. Doran Company. OCLC 1450710
• 1922 — Our Navy at War. Washington, D.C.: Pictorial Bureau. OCLC 1523367
• 1924 — The Life of Woodrow Wilson, 1856–1924. Philadelphia: Universal Book and Bible House. OCLC 4894794. reprint by Kessinger Publishing, 2004. ISBN 978-0-7661-8631-6; OCLC 81967751
• 1939 — Tar heel editor. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. OCLC 335116
• 1941 — Editor in Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. OCLC 339245
• 1944 — The Wilson Era: Years of Peace, 1910–1917. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. OCLC 750810 (1944 edition); OCLC 63786963 (1946 edition)
• 1946 -- The Wilson era: years of war and after, 1917–1923, Volume 4. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• 1947 — Shirt-sleeve Diplomat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. OCLC 422237

Further reading

• Kittredge, Tracy Barrett. (1921). Naval Lessons of the Great War: A Review of the Senate Naval Investigation of the Criticisms by Admiral Sims of the Policies and Methods of Josephus Daniels. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. OCLC 1900437
• Cronon, E. David. (1960). Josephus Daniels in Mexico. (University of Wisconsin Press). ISBN 978-0-299-02061-3
• Morrison, Joseph L. Josephus Daniels: The Small-d Democrat (1966), biography
• Thelander, Theodore A. "Josephus Daniels and the Publicity Campaign for Naval and Industrial Preparedness before World War I," North Carolina Historical Review (1966) 43#3 pp 316–332.
• Gerber, Larry G. The Limits of Liberalism: Josephus Daniels, Henry Stimson, Bernard Baruch, Donald Richberg, Felix Frankfurter and the Development of the Modern American Political Economy (1984)
• Prather, H. Leon (2006). We have taken a city : the Wilmington racial massacre and coup of 1898 (Updated with additional photos ed.). Southport, North Carolina: Dram Tree Books. ISBN 0972324089. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Williams, William J. "Josephus Daniels and the U.S. Navy's Shipbuilding Program during World War I," Journal of Military History (1996) 60#1 pp 7–38.
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• Covington, Howard E. and Marion A. Ellis. (2002). The North Carolina Century: Tar Heels who Made a Difference, 1900-2000. Charlotte, North Carolina: Levine Museum of the New South. ISBN 978-0-8078-2757-4; OCLC 50124471
• Craig, Lee A. (2013). Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469606958.
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Primary sources

• Daniels, Josephus (July–November 1916). The Significance of Naval Preparedness. Vol. 66–68. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
• Daniels, Josephus (1963). Cronon, Edmund David (ed.). The cabinet diaries of Josephus Daniels, 1913-1921. University of Nebraska Press. OCLC 467047.

External links

• Works by Josephus Daniels at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Josephus Daniels at Internet Archive
• Detailed 1916 Article on Daniels with photos
• "Josephus Daniels" from the North Carolina Encyclopedia, The State Library of North Carolina
• Life of Woodrow Wilson by Josephus Daniels
• North Carolina Election of 1898
• Josephus Daniels at Find a Grave
• 2006 Report of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission
• Daniel E. Worthington: Daniels, Josephus, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.