Cordell Hull was an American politician from Tennessee and the longest-serving US Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during most of World War II.
39 Facts About Cordell Hull
2.
Cordell Hull received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations, and was referred to by President Roosevelt as the "Father of the United Nations".
3.
Cordell Hull was born in a log cabin in Olympus, Tennessee, which is part of Pickett County, Tennessee, but was then part of Overton County.
4.
Cordell Hull was the third of the five sons of William Paschal Hull and Mary Elizabeth Hull.
5.
Cordell Hull's brothers were named Orestes, Sanadius, Wyoming, and Roy.
6.
Cordell Hull's mother was a descendant of Isaac Riley, who was granted 200 acres in near Byrdstown in Pickett County, for Revolutionary War service, as well as Samuel Wood who emigrated from Leicestershire, England on the ship Hopewell and fought in the Virginia Militia.
7.
Cordell Hull devoted a section in his memoirs "Cabin on the Hill" to dispelling an old rumor that his father was part Cherokee Indian, and subsequent documented family history has confirmed his ancestry.
8.
Cordell Hull gave his first speech at the age of 16.
9.
At the age of 19, Cordell Hull became the elected chairman of the Clay County Democratic Party.
10.
Cordell Hull studied at National Normal University from 1889 until 1890.
11.
Cordell Hull served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1893 until 1897.
12.
From 1903 to 1907, Cordell Hull served as a local judge; later he was elected to the United States House of Representatives where he served 11 terms totaling 22 years.
13.
Cordell Hull was one of several candidates for president at the 1928 Democratic National Convention, which ultimately chose Al Smith as nominee.
14.
Cordell Hull recorded twenty-five years of combined service in the House and the Senate.
15.
Cordell Hull won election to the Senate in 1930, but resigned from it in 1933 to become Secretary of State.
16.
Cordell Hull became one of Roosevelt's strongest Southern allies during the 1932 presidential campaign.
17.
In 1943, Cordell Hull served as United States delegate to the Moscow Conference.
18.
Cordell Hull did not attend the summit meetings that Roosevelt had with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.
19.
In 1943, Cordell Hull finally destroyed Welles's career by threatening to expose his homosexuality.
20.
In 1938, Cordell Hull engaged in a dialog with Mexican Foreign Minister Eduardo Hay concerning the failure of Mexico to compensate Americans who lost farmlands during agrarian reforms in the late 1920s.
21.
Cordell Hull insisted that compensation must be "prompt, adequate and effective".
22.
Cordell Hull pursued the "Good Neighbor Policy" with Latin American nations, which has been credited with preventing Nazi subterfuge in that region.
23.
The United States had broken Japanese encryption, and Cordell Hull knew the message contents.
24.
Cordell Hull chaired the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, which was created in February 1942.
25.
In 1939, Cordell Hull advised Roosevelt to reject the SS St Louis, a German ocean liner carrying 936 Jews seeking asylum from Germany.
26.
Cordell Hull's decision sent the Jews back to Europe on the eve of the Holocaust.
27.
Furthermore, Cordell Hull made it clear to Morgenthau that the issue at hand was between the Cuban government and the passengers.
28.
Cordell Hull responded by saying that he didn't see any reason why it could not.
29.
Cordell Hull then informed him that he did not think that Morgenthau would want the search for the ship to get into the newspapers.
30.
The results were fatal: Cordell Hull gave strict orders to every USA consulate worldwide forbidding the issuing of visas to Jews.
31.
Cordell Hull resigned on November 30,1944, due to failing health.
32.
In January 1948, Cordell Hull published his two-volume memoirs, an excerpt from which appeared in The New York Times.
33.
At the age of 45, in 1917, Cordell Hull married a widow, Rose Frances Whitney, of an Austrian Jewish family of Staunton, Virginia.
34.
Mrs Cordell Hull died at age 79, in Staunton, Virginia, in 1954.
35.
Cordell Hull is buried in Washington DC at Washington National Cathedral.
36.
Cordell Hull died on July 23,1955, at age 83, at his home in Washington, DC, after a lifelong struggle with familial remitting-relapsing sarcoidosis.
37.
Cordell Hull is buried in the vault of the Chapel of St Joseph of Arimathea in the Washington National Cathedral.
38.
The Cordell Hull Building, on Capital Hill in Nashville, Tennessee, is a secure 10-story building that contains the offices of the Tennessee Legislature.
39.
Cordell Hull is one of the presidential cabinet members who are characters in the musical Annie.