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Unread and unopened! (Hard to say new when it's 53 years old) Pristine! LAWRENCE DENNIS is one of the few Americans who has done any original political thinking since the time of John Calhoun. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 25, 1893, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard, graduating from the latter in 1920. His academic career was interrupted by the First World War, during which he attended the Plattsburg officer training camp in 1915 and 1917. He was commissioned an infantry lieutenant and volunteered for duty overseas, serving with the First Army. In September, 1920, he entered the diplomatic service, and represented the United States as charge d'affaires in Rumania, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua. In the latter country he disapproved of American policy and publicly criticized it in June, 1927, following which he resigned. Shortly after this dramatic incident he joined the international banking firm of J. and W. Seligman and Company, and represented them in Peru until 1930, as well as serving in an advisory capacity to other banking houses which also floated loans to several Latin American lands. While testifying before a committee of the U. S. Senate in 1932 he asserted that he had cautioned against making these loans, which had gone swiftly into default. In the 1930s Mr. Dennis was occupied in research, writing and consultative services as an economist, publishing three provocative and arresting books and numerous periodical articles. He vigorously opposed the course of political affairs which led to American involvement in World War Two, and became a spectacular and controversial public figure while doing so. He was the most prominent defendant in the so-called "Sedition" Trial of 1944, and contributed substantially to bringing it down to defeat, an event which he described in detail in a subsequent book, A TRIAL ON TRIAL (1946). An astringent and hardhitting newsletter which he founded, THE WEEKLY FOREIGN LETTER, was discontinued in mid-1942, but resumed in the spring of 1946. Under the new title, THE APPEAL TO REASON, it has been published continuously to the present day. Many ideas in this book were first elaborated in these periodicals. Mr. Dennis is at present a resident of New York City, and is still very actively engaged in writing and research related to political and economic theory and practice. His observations have recently been transcribed and incorporated into the Columbia University Oral History Collection.
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