WHITLOCK, BRAND American diplomat and writer, was born at Urbana (0.), March 4, 1869. As a political reporter on the Chicago Herald and as assistant in the office of the Illinois secretary of state, Mr. Whitlock came in contact with John P. Altgeld, governor of Illinois who, like "Golden-Rule" Jones, mayor of Toledo, did much to develop his political ideal ism. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1894, and to the bar of Ohio in 1897. From that year until 1905 he practised law in Toledo and then as an Independent became mayor for four terms, in 1911 refusing nomination a fifth time. The record of his labours for the "Free City" of which he dreamed is told in his autobiography Forty Years of It (1914, new edition In 1913 he was appointed U.S. minister (later ambassador) to Belgium. Before he had been in Belgium a year the Worid War broke out and the German invasion took place. Although the other diplomatic bodies followed the Belgian Court to Havre, Whitlock insisted on remaining in Brussels. It was largely due to his urgent advice that Brussels did not resist, and thus escaped devastation. In the early days of the war he gave protection to many German residents who had been unable to leave the country.
By his firm attitude toward the German military officials he saved many innocent Belgians from death; but his activities on behalf of Edith Cavell were unavailing as he was misled at the last mo ment through false promises by the Germans. After the forma
tion of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, its operations were placed wholly under his direction. His ceaseless work on their be half won the gratitude of all Belgians and was rewarded by many honours. Mr. Whitlock resigned Feb. 1, 1922. An account of his experiences is given in Belgium, a Personal Narrative (1919).
Whitlock himself spoke of vacillating "between an interest in letters and an interest in politics," and there is no doubt that his early literary work, at least, reflected this duality of tastes. The 13th District (1902) revealed the insidiously corrupting influence of certain phases of politics; and The Turn of the Balance (1907), a poignant exposure of social injustices, was written "out of the contemplation of the misery, the pathos, the hopelessness of the condition" of the victims during his police court experiences. A fruit of his administrative work is the monograph On the Enforce ment of Law in Cities (1913). His later novels, such as J. Hardin and Son (1923) and Uprooted (1926), are less concerned with ethical problems. His technique at all times; however, has revealed his admiration for the ideals and methods of William Dean How ells. In 1929 he published, La Fayette, a biography.