LANSING, ROBERT (1864-1928), American diplomatist, was born at Watertown, N.Y., on Oct. 17, 1864. He graduated at Amherst in 1886, was admitted to the bar in 5889, and for the next 18 years practised at Watertown. In 1892 he was associate counsel for the United States on the Bering Sea Commission, and later was American counsel before several important arbitral tribunals, including the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal (1903), and the Hague Tribunal for the arbitration of the North Atlantic fisheries (1910). In 1914 he was appointed counsellor of the Department of State. When W. J. Bryan resigned (June 8, 1915), Mr. Lansing was appointed secretary of State. In his attempts to uphold American rights he was called upon to direct notes to all the countries at war. In reply to a note addressed by Britain to neutrals, asking that all belligerent submarines be excluded from neutral waters, he said that the nature of each submarine must govern the decision. He thus drew an important distinction be tween the "Deutschland," which had peacefully brought a cargo to America, and the U53, which had raided several ships off the New England coast, Oct. 7, 1916. In 1917 he notified President
Carranza, of Mexico, that the United States would not adopt his proposed Pan-American plan of stopping the shipment of food and munitions to all the European belligerents. In Nov. 1917 he signed an agreement with Japan (The Lansing-Ishii agreement) which, while recognizing Japan's special interests in China, pro vided for a continuance of the "open door" policy for commerce.
Lansing was a member of the American commission to nego tiate peace at Paris, 1918-19. On Feb. 13, 1920, he resigned as secretary of State and soon after opened a law office in Washing ton. He was the author of The Peace Negotiations (1921) ; and The Big Four and Others (1921). He died at Washington on Oct. 3o, 1928.