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John Hay
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| Biography: John Hay |
John Hay (1838-1905) was important for shaping America's open-door policy toward the Far East. He set guidelines for much of America's diplomacy in the 20th century, involving the United States in maintaining China's territorial integrity.
Rapid change characterized the United States during the years of John Hay's public service. Retarded briefly by the Civil War, dynamic forces of urbanization and industrialization began to transform both the landscape and the mood of America. Though the railroad tie and the sweatshop were as foreign to the aristocratic world of John Hay as the reaper and the grain elevator, they combined to support a new economic system that knew few boundaries, wrenching America out of its quiet isolation and into the highly competitive arena of international politics, where Hay's contribution would be made.
Hay was born on Oct. 8, 1838, in Salem, Ind. He attended Brown University (1855-1858), where he reluctantly prepared for a career in law. In 1859 he entered a Springfield, Ill., law firm, next door to the office of Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was elected U.S. president, Hay became his assistant private secretary. After Lincoln's death, Hay took minor diplomatic posts in Paris, Vienna, and Madrid. Socially successful, he had no serious influence on foreign policy. In 1870 he returned to the United States. Between 1870 and 1896 he moved in and out of Republican politics, journalism, and business, surrounding himself with a patrician set of friends, including Boston aristocrats, intellectuals, and prominent politicians. His widely acclaimed poems and novels were overshadowed in 1890 by his Abraham Lincoln: A History, a ten volume work completed with John Nicolay.
Hay became close to presidential candidate William McKinley during his 1896 campaign. As president, McKinley appointed Hay ambassador to Great Britain, where Hay smoothed out issues concerning the Spanish-American War and subsequent annexations. He returned to become McKinley's secretary of state in 1898.
Secretary of State
As secretary of state, Hay was concerned with policy in four major areas: conducting peace negotiations after the Spanish-American War, setting policy toward the Far East, improving the United States position in Latin America, and settling the dispute with Great Britain over the Alaskan boundary.
Whereas McKinley had shaped the Spanish-American War settlement (and, later, President Theodore Roosevelt was the force behind policies in Latin America), Hay exerted considerable influence in making American policy toward the Far East and in the Canadian boundary dispute. Regarding England, Hay was considered a good friend to Britain by both the English and the Americans. Though committed to United States interests, he sought solutions in the Canadian dispute that would not endanger Anglo-American understanding.
Regarding the Far East, America watched the establishment of spheres of influence in China by European powers, Russia, and Japan with apprehension, fearing that United States trade rights might be limited by new political arrangements. In 1899 Hay asked the six governments directly involved to approve a formula guaranteeing that in their spheres of influence the rights and privileges of other nations would be respected and discriminatory port dues and railroad rates would not be levied and that Chinese officials would continue to collect tariffs. Although the six nations responded coolly, Hay announced that the open-door principle had been accepted, and the American press described the policy as a tremendous success. When an antiforeign uprising broke out in China in 1900, Hay sent a second set of notes, urging the open-door policy for all of the Chinese Empire and maintenance of the territorial integrity of China. Traditional protection of American economic interests thus was tied to the overly ambitious task of preserving the territory of China; under the guise of America's historic mission to support the cause of freedom, this would lead the United States to ever stronger commitments in the Far East.
When the assassination of McKinley made Roosevelt president, Hay increasingly gave way to presidential leadership in foreign policy. Following Roosevelt's lead concerning the building of an Isthmian canal, Hay obtained British consent to a United States canal under the Hay-Pauncefote treaties of 1900 and 1901. Though he supported Roosevelt's policy toward the new Panamanian Republic and the acquisition of the Canal Zone in 1903, Hay did little to actually shape Latin American policy.
The 1903 Alaskan-Canadian boundary dispute with Great Britain was settled amiably by commissioners, as Hay had suggested. Soon after, serious illness forced Hay to assume a virtually inactive role as secretary of state. He retained the office until his death on July 1, 1905, in Newbury, N. H.
Further Reading
Hay's correspondence is gathered in William R. Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay (2 vols., 1915). Tyler Dennett's biography, John Hay: From Poetry to Politics (1933), treats Hay's career colorfully and sympathetically. Scholars have generally focused their attention on Hay's role as secretary of state. An able assessment by Foster R. Dulles is in Norman A. Graebner, ed., An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century (1961), and a general description of the diplomacy of the period is in Thomas McCormick, A Fair Field and No Favor (1967). For contrasting interpretations of the origins of the open-door policy see George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950 (1951), and William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959; rev. ed. 1962).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: John (Milton) Hay |
Hay, John (Milton), 1838-1905, American author and statesman, b. Salem, Ind. He practiced law at Springfield, Ill., where he met Abraham Lincoln. Hay accompanied Lincoln to Washington and was the President's assistant private secretary until Lincoln's death. The next five years were spent in minor posts in the U.S. legations at Paris, Vienna, and Madrid. Then followed four years of journalism in New York City, in which period he published his famous Pike County Ballads (1871). Marriage to the daughter of a wealthy Cleveland banker enabled him to pursue the profession of man of letters, to travel, and to fill political posts of distinction. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of State in 1878 and moved to Washington, D.C., where he became the intimate of Henry Adams and Clarence King. In this period he published with John G. Nicolay, the monumental Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 vol., 1890), a work for which the young secretaries, while serving under Lincoln, had gathered material with his knowledge and permission. In Mar., 1897, McKinley appointed Hay ambassador to Great Britain, and there he served his country well during the trying time of the Spanish-American War. From Sept. 20, 1898, until his death, July 1, 1905, he was Secretary of State under Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. In the McKinley administration he was a maker of policies; in the Roosevelt administration he was, in his chief's own words, a "fine figurehead." Hay was responsible for the Open Door policy (1899) with regard to China, which stressed freedom of commercial enterprise for American merchants; for U.S. involvement in the Boxer Uprising; and for the Hay-Pauncefote Treaties.
Bibliography
See W. R. Thayer, Life and Letters of John Hay (1915, repr. 1972); T. Dennett, John Hay (1933, repr. 1961).
| Works: Works by John Hay |
(1838-1905)
| 1871 | Pike County Ballads. A collection of poems containing the writer's highly successful ballads on Illinois frontier themes, written in dialect. Originally published in the New York Tribune, the poems, along with Bret Harte's East and West Poems (1871), start a vogue for regional dialect verse. The two most popular of the ballads are "Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle," about a steamboat operator who sacrifices his life to save passengers during a fire, and "Little Breeches," which tells of the rescue of a young boy from a wagon accident. Hay also publishes a travel book, Castilian Days. |
| 1884 | The Bread-Winners. Responding to the 1877 labor strikes, this anti-union novel depicts members of trade unions as ignorant and lazy and labor leaders as scoundrels. Anonymously published in the Century and in book form later in 1884, the novel prompts numerous responses, most notably The Money-Makers (1885) by Henry Francis Keenan. The authorship of The Bread-Winners would remain unknown until after Hay's death. |
| 1890 | Abraham Lincoln: A History. Lincoln's private secretaries had labored for fifteen years to produce this massive ten-volume political and administrative history of the Lincoln presidency. It covers public acts but reveals little about the president's private life. It had been serialized by the Century magazine from 1886 to 1890; the pair were paid an unprecedented $50,000 for serial rights. |
| Quotes By: John Hay |
Quotes:
"Friends are the sunshine of life."
"All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world."
| Wikipedia: John Hay |
For other persons named John Hay, see John Hay (disambiguation).
| John Milton Hay | |
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| In office September 30, 1898 – July 1, 1905 |
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| Preceded by | William R. Day |
| Succeeded by | Elihu Root |
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| In office November 1, 1879 – May 3, 1881 |
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| Preceded by | Frederick W. Seward |
| Succeeded by | Robert R. Hitt |
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| Born | October 8, 1838 Salem, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | July 1, 1905 (aged 66) Newbury, New Hampshire, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Clara Louise Stone (1849-1914) |
| Children | Adelbert Barnes Alice Evelyn (Wadsworth) Helen Julia (Whitney) Clarence |
| Alma mater | Brown University |
| Profession | Author, Journalist, Statesman, Politician, Secretary |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States of America Union |
| Service/branch | United States Army Union Army |
| Rank | major (brevet Colonel) |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
John Milton Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln.
Contents |
Early life
Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, of Scottish ancestry, the third son of Dr. Charles Hay and Helen Leonard from Middleboro, Massachusetts, who had come to Salem to live with her sister. He was raised in Warsaw, Illinois, and educated first at the private school of the Reverend Stephen Childs, an Episcopal clergyman. In 1851 John went to an academy at Pittsfield in Pike County, where he met an older student, John G. Nicolay, with whom he would later work as private secretary to Abrham Lincoln. In 1852 John Hay went to the college at Springfield, and in 1855 was sent to Brown University, where he joined Theta Delta Chi. At Brown, he developed an interest in poetry, and Hay became a part of Providence's literary circle which included Sarah Helen Whitman and Nora Perry. When he graduated, he was named Class Poet. He left Brown in 1858 before receiving his diploma and went home to Warsaw to study law with his uncle, Milton Hay. [1]
Lincoln's secretary
Abraham Lincoln's law office was next door to the law office of Milton Hay, John's uncle, and thus became acquainted with John Hay. When Lincoln won election as president, his secretary, John G. Nicolay, recommended John Hay to Lincoln as assistant private secretary. Thus, at age 22 he began a lifelong career in government except for a brief period from 1870-78. Though technically a clerk in the Interior Department, he served as Lincoln's secretary until 1864. He lived in the northeast corner bedroom on the second floor of the White House, which he shared with his fellow secretary and Pittsfield Academy schoolmate, Nicolay.
For a few months, he served in the Union army under Generals David Hunter and Quincy Adams Gillmore. He rose to the rank of major and was later brevetted lieutenant colonel and colonel. Hay's diary and writings during the Civil War are basic historical sources. Some have credited Hay with being the real author of Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby, consoling her for the loss of her sons in the war.[2]
Hay was present when Lincoln died after being shot at Ford's Theatre. Hay and Nicolay wrote a formal 10-volume biography of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: A History, 1890) and prepared an edition of his collected works.
Portions of Hay's diaries and letters from 1861–1870, published in the book Lincoln and the Civil War, show Lincoln in a far more intimate light.
Legal career
In 1861, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Illinois.
Diplomatic Career
Between 1865 and 1870, he was secretary of legation at Paris (1865-7) and Madrid (1867-8), and chargé d'affaires at Vienna (1868-70). In 1878 he became assistant secretary of state in the Hayes administration. Hay was named U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1897 when William McKinley became President. Some of the recognition of the longstanding community of interests between that country and the United States was the result of Hay's stay there.[3]
Journalism Career
In 1870 left government and worked for 6 years as an editor for the New York Tribune under Whitelaw Reid .[4]
Secretary of State
In August 1898, Hay was named by President McKinley as Secretary of State and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1898, which ended the Spanish–American War. Hay continued serving as Secretary of State after Theodore Roosevelt succeeded McKinley, serving until his own death in 1905.
Legacy
His contributions included the adoption of an Open Door Policy in China (announced on January 2, 1900) which may have been a contributing factor in the Boxer Rebellion, and the preparations for the Panama Canal. He negotiated the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (1901), the Hay–Herran Treaty (1903), and the Hay–Bunau Varilla Treaty (1903), all of which were instrumental in clearing the way for the construction and use of the Canal. In all, he brought about more than 50 treaties, including the settlement of the Samoan dispute, as a result of which the United States secured Tutuila, with a harbor in the Pacific; a definitive Alaskan boundary treaty in 1903; the negotiation of reciprocity treaties with Argentina, France, Germany, Cuba, and the British West Indies; the negotiation of new treaties with Spain; and the negotiation of a treaty with Denmark for the cession of the Danish West India Islands. [5]
In 1904, Hay was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Hay is also renowned for his comment, written in a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt, describing the Spanish–American War as a "splendid little war." Regarding a misunderstanding between Roosevelt and Mark Hanna, Hay had commented, "This wordy city poisons men, who might be friends, against each other" (from Theodore Roosevelt by Henery F. Pringle, page 349).
Hay appears as a prominent character in Gore Vidal's historical novels Lincoln and Empire. He appears, portrayed by John Huston, in the 1975 film The Wind and the Lion, a fictionalization of the Perdicaris Affair in Morocco in 1904. He is portrayed in the 1997 miniseries Rough Riders by actor and legendary United States Marine R. Lee Ermey.
After Roosevelt signed an executive order setting aside land in the Benguet region of the Philippines for a military reservation under the United States Army, Camp John Hay of Baguio City was established on October 25, 1903 and named in his honor. It was re-designated John Hay Air Base in 1955. The base was used for rest and recreation for U.S. military personnel and the dependents of U.S. military personnel in the Philippines as well as Department of Defense employees and their dependents. The 690-hectare property was finally turned over to the Philippines 1991 upon the expiration of the R.P.-U.S. Bases Agreement. Since 1997 it has been in the hands of a private developer, on a long term lease, which has transformed the property into a world class resort.
Hay was a close friend of Henry Brooks Adams, American historian and author. In 1884, architect Henry Hobson Richardson designed adjoining townhouses for Hay and Adams on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.. The houses were demolished in 1927 and the site is now occupied by the Hay–Adams Hotel.
Brown University's John Hay Library housed the entire library collection from its construction in 1910 until the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library was built in 1964. In 1971, when physical science materials were transferred to the new Sciences Library, the John Hay Library became exclusively a repository for the library's Special Collections.
Hay's New Hampshire estate has been conserved as part of the John Hay National Wildlife Refuge, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests' John Hay Land Studies Center, and the Garden Conservancy's Fells Reservation. The Fells, a local nonprofit organization that has maintained and managed the John Hay Estate on Lake Sunapee for over a decade, acquired the northern half of the property from the US Fish and Wildlife Service on March 25, 2008.
Hay and Abraham Lincoln are depicted in a larger-than-life bronze sculpture by Mark Martino, entitled A Learning Moment, in the Sesquicentennial Plaza at Carthage College. Hay was an alumnus of the Illinois State University in Springfield (previously Hillsboro College), which later became Carthage College when it moved to Carthage, IL in 1870.
Personal life
Hay married Clara Louise Stone, with whom he had four children. They are buried together in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. [6] [7] Their daughter Alice Evelyn Hay married New York politician James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. Their daughter Helen Julia Hay, a writer and poet, married Payne Whitney of the influential Whitney family; their children were U.S. ambassador John Hay Whitney and Joan Whitney Payson.
Books by Hay
- Abraham Lincoln: A History (with John G. Nicolay, 1890)
- The Bread-winners (1883)
- Castilian Days (1875)
- Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871)
- Poems (1890)
See also
References
- ^ Encyclopedia Brunoniana | Hay, John
- ^ American Heritage Magazine
- ^ Thayer, William Roscoe (1915). "chapter XXIII". The Life and Letters of John Hay, Vol. II. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.. pp. 448 pp.
- ^ Alexander K. McClure, ed (1902). Famous American Statesmen & Orators. VI. New York: F. F. Lovell Publishing Company. pp. 193.
- ^ New International Encyclopedia.
- ^ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=460
- ^ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Hay&GSfn=Clara&GSby=1849&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=19455548&
- Lorenzo Sears, John Hay, Author and Statesman (New York, 1914)
- Warren Zimmermann, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (New York, 2002)
- Robert L. Gale, John Hay (Boston, 1978)
- Mellander, Gustavo A.(1971) The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Daville,Ill.:Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568.
- Mellander, Gustavo A.; Nelly Maldonado Mellander (1999). Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1563281554. OCLC 42970390.
- William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay (Boston: 1915)
- John Hay Land Studies Center
- John Hay National Wildlife Refuge
- The Fells Reservation
External links
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Hay |
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Hay |
- Works by John Hay at Project Gutenberg
- John Hay Biography
- John Hay, Abraham Lincoln's Friend
- Camp John Hay Resort
- Mile Hi Inn, Baguio City, Philippines
- John Hay at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-11-01
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Frederick W. Seward |
United States Assistant Secretary of State 1879 – 1881 |
Succeeded by Robert R. Hitt |
| Preceded by William R. Day |
United States Secretary of State Served under: William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt 1898 – 1905 |
Succeeded by Elihu Root |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by Thomas F. Bayard |
United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1897 – 1898 |
Succeeded by Joseph H. Choate |
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