The Man Who Sold America

Chapter Eleven

Venturing into Politics

ALBERT LASKER called himself an “ardent Republican.”¹ But with the notable exception of his early involvement in Robert B. Hawley’s successful congressional race back in Galveston, Lasker was not particularly ardent about his Republicanism as a young man. In the more than two decades since Hawley had won his congressional race, he once asserted, he had “never given any thought to politics, not bothered.”²

This wasn’t exactly true. And larger trends—as well as Lasker’s fascination with power and Big Ideas—almost ...