Meanwhile, Henry Adams, his former teacher of history at Harvard, offered Lodge the assistant editorship of the North American Review and this opportunity was eagerly accepted (1873-76). All thought of following the active practice of law was forthwith cast aside, and for the next few years Lodge devoted himself with great zest to various literary pursuits. In addition to routine editorial work he wrote articles for various periodicals and at the same time completed his work for the first degree of Ph.D. (1876) ever obtained in political science at Harvard. His thesis was published as "The Anglo-Saxon Land-Law," in Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law (1876). In the following year appeared his Life and Letters of George Cabot, still the standard biography of his great-grandfather. Lectures given by Lodge at Harvard (1876-79) formed the substance of his book, A Short History of the English Colonies in America (1881). His most notable historical work is represented by his contributions to the American Statesman Series, edited by his cousin, John T. Morse, Jr.: Alexander Hamilton (1882), Daniel Webster (1882), and George Washington (2 vols., 1888). These readable biographies, however, are colored by his political predilections, and as time went on his writings were marred by increasing partisanship. Books of less consequence in the field of history are his Historical and Political Essays (1892), and The Story of the Revolution (2 vols., 1898). In the course of his career he published several collections of essays and speeches.

Lodge's interest in history inspired him to an initial participation in public affairs, and the thrust of his ancestry also impelled him to take some part in the politics of his own neighborhood. His first venture into the arena of partisanship was made in 1879 when he became a candidate for the Massachusetts House of Representatives from the district which included the town of Nahant, near Boston, where he maintained his legal residence. This district being strongly Republican, he was elected. In the following year, shortly after his thirtieth birthday, he went as a delegate to the Republican National Convention which nominated Garfield for the presidency. He was reëlected to the lower branch of the state legislature in the same autumn; but in 1881 he sought promotion to the state Senate and failed. Turning to national politics, he then tried to secure the Republican nomination for Congress from his district in 1882, but here again he was unsuccessful. Lodge was much discouraged by these two reverses, but a chance to regain self-confidence came in 1883 when he was chosen to manage the Republican campaign for governor against the redoubtable Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. In this fight Lodge displayed political generalship of a high order, and an adroitness which surprised even his own friends. His candidate won, and the prestige which came to the campaign manager from the victory enabled Lodge to get himself chosen as delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention which nominated Blaine in 1884. Along with Theodore Roosevelt at that convention he worked strenuously against the selection of Blaine, but unlike most of his own intimates Lodge did not desert the ranks of Republican regulars. He not only supported the national ticket in the campaign but put himself forward as the regular Republican candidate for Congress in his own district. By reason of the Mugwump defection he was badly defeated, but by staying regular he placed himself in line for another nomination in 1886, and was then elected to Congress by a narrow margin.

Although Lodge was not yet thirty-seven years of age when he entered Congress he soon became known to the entire membership because he took the floor often and effectively. The clarity with which he presented his arguments gained attention and made him one of the notable figures in the House, even before his first term was finished. The most conspicuous measure with which he closely associated himself during his career in the House was the so-called "Force Bill," which aimed to establish federal supervision over all polling places at national elections, and thus to prevent the exclusion of colored voters in the Southern states. The debates on this bill stirred up a vast amount of sectional bitterness, much of which recoiled on Lodge as the reputed author of the proposal. In his own district, however, his attitude proved to be a political asset of direct value, and he had no difficulty in securing reëlection by increased majorities in 1888 and 1890. He served six years in the House (1887-1893). Besides stirring up the South he ran foul of the practical politicians in all parts of the country by his championship of civil-service reform. His sturdy defense of the civil-service laws was of the utmost value to the cause at a critical juncture. Moreover, it was on his recommendation that Theodore Roosevelt became a member of the national Civil Service Commission and proceeded to make the system function.

From the time of his first venture into politics Lodge nurtured an ambition to become a senator from Massachusetts. In January 1893 the two chambers of the legislature agreed upon him as a successor to Senator Dawes, who declined to be a candidate for reëlection. To the end of his life, his hold on his seat in the Senate was never seriously in doubt save on one occasion: in January 1911, during the Progressive upheaval, he was reëlected by the Massachusetts legislature by a majority of only six votes. During his career of thirty-seven years in the House and Senate Lodge had to do with the framing of many important measures. He helped to draft the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890, the Pure Food and Drugs Law, and several tariff measures, especially the one of 1909. On tariff matters he proved himself a thorough-going protectionist at all times. He was in the forefront of the fight against free silver during the years 1894 to 1900. He was a consistent strong navy man, viewed all proposals for compulsory international arbitration or disarmament with suspicion, approved the Venezuela message of 1895, supported the acquisition of the Philippines, and abetted Roosevelt's successful intrigue in Panama. He voted against the proposal for direct election of senators, opposed woman suffrage, voted against the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment, and helped to pass the soldiers' bonus measure over President Coolidge's veto.

Lodge always regarded the field of international affairs as his sphere of special competence. He read widely on this subject and his speeches in the Senate disclosed a thorough familiarity with international law and precedents. He was restrained by no ingrowing conscience in dealing with the rights or claims of countries other than his own. Roosevelt set a high value on Lodge's judgment on international matters of every sort and during the years 1901-09 the latter became one of the President's closest advisers in this field of executive policy. He was selected as one of the American representatives on the Alaskan Boundary Commission of 1903, despite the fact that the commission was required to be made up of "impartial jurists." Lodge was neither impartial nor a jurist. His mind was thoroughly made up and closed before he started for London on this mission. Lodge soon found a place on the Foreign Relations Committee, and helped draft the resolutions which led to the war with Spain; he reported the Hay-Pauncefote treaty as well as the Alaskan Boundary agreement with Great Britain. But it was not until late in his senatorial career that the rule of seniority gave him the chairmanship. Almost immediately thereafter he was thrown into the thick of the most important controversy which the Senate had waged in more than a half century. His leadership of the fight against the ratification of the Peace Treaty and the Covenant made him in 1919 a national figure and the acknowledged leader of those who desired to keep the United States out of the League of Nations.

Before the peace conference began, Lodge had expressed himself as favorable to the imposition of harsh terms and a heavy indemnity on Germany, and as opposed to the coupling of the League of Nations, which in principle he approved, with the treaty of peace. Convinced that his own ideas rather than Wilson's represented American opinion, he even suggested that Henry White show to certain leaders of the Allies his (Lodge's) memorandum, and thus strengthen the hands of those opposed to Wilson. This White did not do. In the course of the negotiations, however, certain of Lodge's speeches, widely quoted in the European press, served to make his hostility to Wilson's plans well known. The differences between the two men were not composed by the White House dinner, after Wilson's first return, and in March 1919 Lodge submitted in the Senate a resolution signed by himself and thirty-six other Republican senators which set forth their objections to the combination of the Treaty and the Covenant in a single document. Under the rules of the Senate this resolution could not be formally received, but it served notice that more than one-third of the senators were not prepared to accept the Covenant in the form proposed. In July 1919 the Treaty and Covenant, now somewhat modified, were officially transmitted to the Senate in their final form. After prolonged deliberation the Foreign Relations Committee, through Lodge as its chairman, reported them with a series of reservations. After a lengthy debate these were adopted by a majority vote; but in the end the two documents (with the reservations added) were rejected, chiefly by the votes of Democratic senators at the behest of Wilson, to whom the reservations were objectionable. Much of the bitterness that was engendered might have been avoided if both sides to the controversy had disclosed a spirit of compromise at an earlier stage. Lodge's action gained for him at the time warm admiration and bitter resentment in about equal measure. His own account of the controversy may be seen in his posthumously published book, The Senate and the League of Nations (1925).

In the presidential election of 1920 the issue of the entry of the United States into the League of Nations became an outstanding one and the result was regarded by Lodge as a complete vindication of his course. He was one of those who had been chiefly responsible for the nomination of Harding, and with the latter's election Lodge's influence in the field of foreign relations became greater than it had been at any previous time, even in Roosevelt's day. With the inauguration of President Harding in 1921, negotiations for a separate treaty with Germany were begun and this treaty in due course received ratification. Lodge was now the senior member of the Senate, titular leader of the Republican majority there, and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He served as one of the four American representatives at the Washington Conference of 1921. His leadership was also demonstrated by the action of the Senate on the World Court reservations a little later. During the next year or two, however, failing health impaired his work. In the end it became necessary for him to undergo a severe surgical operation from which he never fully recovered. He died at the Charlesgate Hospital in Cambridge on Nov. 9, 1924. A son, George Cabot Lodge [q.v.], had died in 1909; his other children, a daughter and a son, survived him.

Lodge was unquestionably a man of acute intellect, a wide reader with a retentive memory, and was endowed with literary skill of a high order. A diligent worker, he was in addition an adept in the art of getting others to work for him. As a practical politician he was equal to the best, nor was he always scrupulous in his choice of the means, provided they served the end. Conservative in temperament, he revered the ancient landmarks in government, and was rarely receptive to reform proposals of any sort. His diction was distinguished and his eloquence persuasive, especially when he put himself forward as the valiant defender of American rights, claims, or aspirations, as he so often did. Lodge was loyal to his friends, but ruthlessly vindictive toward those whom he disliked or opposed. His breadth of view was frequently warped by personal grudges. He was not always frank and sometimes took refuge in sophistry. Hence even those who admired him greatly often did so with reservations.

text by William Bennett Munro, Dictionary of American Biography