Charles Richard Crane

Internationalist and philanthropist, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Heir to the Crane Company (plumbing supplies) fortune, he travelled at an early age and met the British adventurer, Richard Burton, in Damascus. In 1912 he sold his interest in the family company to a brother, and was the largest single contributor to Woodrow Wilson's campaign that year. At the end of World War 1, he co-wrote (with Henry Churchill King) the Crane–King report on what best to do with the various lands belonging to the defeated Turkish Ottoman Empire. Although ignored at the time, their warning that Palestine was largely an Arab land would in later years be drawn into the controversy over the establishment of Israel on this territory. He served as ambassador to China (1920–1), and as a philanthropist gave generously to the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA and to the American Colleges in Istanbul. He created the Institute of Current World Affairs (1925), and had many international friends and connections.

His heavy contributions to President Wilson's 1912 campaign led to being named to the 1917 Special Diplomatic Commission, or Root Commission to Russia, service as a member of the American Section of the Paris Peace Conference, and the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey in 1919 that now bears his name (King-Crane Commission). Crane later helped finance the first explorations for oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and was instrumental in gaining the American oil concession there. In China, Crane financed the T'ung Meng Hui, Together-Sworn Association, a secret society founded in 1905 by Sun Yat-Sen, striving to overthrow the Qing dynasty. In 1909, President Taft appointed Crane as the ambassador to China. In 1911, the Qing dynasty was overthrown by the coup d'état lead by Sun Yat-Sen.

Among Crane's Slavonic friends were Nijinsky, Pavlova, Stravinsky and Masaryk. Shortly after the beginning of World War I, Crane sponsored a series of Slavonic lectures at the University of Chicago and invited Professor Thomas Masaryk to teach this series.

Toward the end of the World War I Crane introduced Masaryk to President Wilson. At the time Masaryk met Wilson the American public did not favor the partitioning of the Austrian Empire. As late into the war as January 8, 1918, in a message to Congress, President Wilson declared that dismembering the Austrian Empire was not one of the war aims. However, Masaryk managed to change President Wilson's views on this point. Masaryk (convicted meanwhile in Austria for treason in absentia) worked hard to curry favor with President Wilson. Masaryk did not miss any opportunity to cite, verbatim, these passages to President Wilson, stressing how much he esteemed his views. Professor Masaryk became the President of the new state, the older son of Charles R. Crane, Richard, became the first United States ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Crane’s younger son became the secretary to President Masaryk. Crane, Frances, in 1925 married Masaryk’s son, Jan, appointed as Czechoslovakia’s ambassador to Great Britain.