Willard Dickerman Straight (January 31, 1880 – December 1, 1918) was an American investment banker, publisher, reporter, diplomat and by marriage, a member of the Whitney family.

He attended Bordentown Military Institute in New Jersey, and in 1897 he enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and graduated in 1901 with a degree in architecture.

[1] In 1906, after briefly working in Havana, Cuba, he returned to China as American Consul-General at Mukden, Manchuria.

[5] In 1914, Willard and Dorothy, together with Herbert Croly, began publication of The New Republic, a weekly political magazine that quickly became the voice of American liberalism.

[8] In that same year, Straight became involved with the Preparedness Movement and attended the July 1915 Citizens' Military Training Camp in Plattsburgh, New York.

[11] According to Eric Rauchway, Straight favored an American version of imperialism that was a liberal effort to take political control in Asia away from Britain, Russia, Japan, and other colonial powers and to put it in the hands of those more enlightened.

[14] The Straights moved first to Beijing, then, having adjudged China too unsafe after the Chinese Revolution, back to the United States in 1912.