The subject of this morning’s featured article at Wikipedia was John Hay an American statesman and official whose career
in government stretched over almost half a century. His service in government stretched from the Lincoln administration through that of Theodore Roosevelt, yet I doubt that many Americans recognize his name or know of his accomplishments.
Hay’s career in politics began in 1858 when he was reading for the law in an office in Springfield, Illinois next to the office of Abraham Lincoln. Hay went on work on Lincoln’s presidential campaign and then he became Lincoln’s personal secretary. After Lincoln’s assassination Hay spent several years in Europe in several diplomatic posts after which he returned home and went to work under Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune. From 1879 to 1881 Hay served as Assistant Secretary of State under Rutherford B Hayes.
In 1897 President William McKinley made Hay, who had been a major contributor to the McKinley campaign, Ambassador to the United Kingdom a year later McKinley made Hay Secretary of State a position he would hold for the next seven years. First under McKinley, until his assassination, and then under Theodore Roosevelt.
While he was Secretary of State, Hay was responsible for negotiating the Open Door Policy, as well as negotiating several treaties that cleared the way for the creation of the Panama Canal These treaties included: the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty with the United Kingdom, the (ultimately unratified) Hay–Herrán Treaty with Colombia, and finally the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the newly-independent Republic of Panama From Wikipedia:
Hay brought about more than 50 treaties, including the Canal-related treaties,[234] and settlement of the Samoan dispute, as a result of which the United States secured Tutuila, with its harbor at Pago Pago.[166] In 1900, Hay negotiated of a treaty with Denmark for the cession of the Danish West Indies. That treaty failed in the Danish parliament on a tied vote
After reading this above about Hay, I was interested in seeing where historians ranked Hay among the rest of our Secretaries of State. After all, it would seem that based upon his accomplishments he would rank pretty high. At American Heritage I found a list of the Ten Best Secretaries of State based upon the responses to a questionnaire in 1981 given to fifty of the nation’s leading diplomatic historians. Here’s their top ten.
1. John Quincy Adams, who served (1817-25) under President James Monroe, was the first choice of over 80 per cent of the respondents. Stern, cerebral, conscientious, and articulate, he negotiated the acquisition of Florida from Spain in 1819 and collaborated with the President in formulating the Monroe Doctrine.
2. William H. Seward served (1861-69) Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
3. Hamilton Fish served (1869-77) President Ulysses S. Grant.
4. Charles Evans Hughes served (1921-25) Presidents Harding and Coolidge.
5. George C. Marshall served (1947-49) President Harry Truman.
6. Dean Acheson, Marshall’s successor, also served (1949-53) President Truman.
7. Henry Kissinger, our only foreign-born Secretary of State, served (1973-77) under Presidents Nixon and Ford.
8. Daniel Webster, one of only two Secretaries of State to hold non-consecutive terms, served under three Presidents: William Henry Harrison and John Tyler (1841-43) and Millard Fillmore (1850-52).
9. Thomas Jefferson served (1790-93) President George Washington. As our first Secretary of State he established a host of diplomatic and administrative precedents and, when war broke out between France and Britain in 1793, subsumed his own sympathy for the French Revolution to successfully administer a policy of strict neutrality.
10. John Hay served (1898-1905) Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. An expansionist, he urged annexation of the Philippines, called for an Open Door policy toward China, helped prevent partition of that country after the Boxer Rebellion, and negotiated the 1903 treaty with Panama granting the Canal Zone to the United States.
Since 1981 the Secretaries of State have been:
Alexander Haig
George Schultz
James Baker
Warren Christopher
Madeline Albright
Colin Powell
Condeleeza Rice
Hilary Clinton
John Kerry
In my opinion I don’t think that any of these Secretaries would make it in to the top ten of all-time, even though they probably faced a far different world, than any of their predecessors. But anyway you cut it, John Hay was a great American Secretary of State!!
Links
Wikipedia – John Hay
Wikipedia – List of Secretaries of State of the United States
American Heritage – The Ten Best Secretaries Of State… (1981)
