115 Facts About John Hay

1.

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century.

2.

John Hay served as United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

3.

John Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign and became one of his private secretaries in the White House.

4.

John Hay remained active in politics, and from 1879 to 1881 served as Assistant Secretary of State.

5.

John Hay served for nearly seven years as Secretary of State under President McKinley and, after McKinley's assassination, under Theodore Roosevelt.

6.

John Hay was responsible for negotiating the Open Door Policy, which kept China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, with international powers.

7.

John Milton Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, on October 8,1838.

8.

John Hay was the third son of Dr Charles Hay and the former Helen Leonard.

9.

Charles John Hay, born in Lexington, Kentucky, hated slavery and moved to the North in the early 1830s.

10.

In Pittsfield, John Hay first met John Hay Nicolay, who was at the time a 20-year-old newspaperman.

11.

Once John Hay completed his studies there, the 13-year-old was sent to live with his grandfather in Springfield and attend school there.

12.

John Hay gained a reputation as a star student and became a part of Providence's literary circle that included Sarah Helen Whitman and Nora Perry.

13.

John Hay received his Master of Arts degree in 1858, and was, like his grandfather before him, Class Poet.

14.

Milton Hay had moved his practice to Springfield, and John became a clerk in his firm, where he could study law.

15.

Milton John Hay's firm was one of the most prestigious in Illinois.

16.

John Hay came into the law office where I was reading.

17.

John Hay puts the moral element out of this question.

18.

John Hay was not a supporter of Lincoln for president until after his nomination in 1860.

19.

John Hay then made speeches and wrote newspaper articles boosting Lincoln's candidacy.

20.

When Nicolay, who had been made Lincoln's private secretary for the campaign, found he needed help with the huge amounts of correspondence, John Hay worked full-time for Lincoln for six months.

21.

Hay biographer John Taliaferro suggests that Lincoln engaged Nicolay and Hay to assist him, rather than more seasoned men, both "out of loyalty and surely because of the competence and compatibility that his two young aides had demonstrated".

22.

Milton Hay desired that his nephew go to Washington as a qualified attorney, and John Hay was admitted to the bar in Illinois on February 4,1861.

23.

Similarly, John Hay served as what Taliaferro deemed a "White House propagandist," in his columns explaining away losses such as that at First Bull Run in July 1861.

24.

John Hay returned to Florida in January 1864, after Lincoln had announced his Ten Percent Plan, that if ten percent of the 1860 electorate in a state took oaths of loyalty and to support emancipation, they could form a government with federal protection.

25.

John Hay spent a month in the state during February and March 1864, but Union defeats there reduced the area under federal control.

26.

Hay wrote to his brother Charles that the appointment was "entirely unsolicited and unexpected", a statement that Kushner and Sherrill found unconvincing given that Hay had spent hundreds of hours during the war with Secretary of State William H Seward, who had often discussed personal and political matters with him, and the close relationship between the two men was so well known that office-seekers cultivated Hay as a means of getting to Seward.

27.

John Hay did not accompany the Lincolns to Ford's Theatre on the night of April 14,1865, but remained at the White House, drinking whiskey with Robert Lincoln.

28.

John Hay remained by Lincoln's deathbed through the night and was present when he died.

29.

At the moment of Lincoln's death, John Hay observed "a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features".

30.

Lincoln's assassination erased any remaining doubts John Hay had about Lincoln's greatness.

31.

The workload was not heavy, and John Hay found time to enjoy the pleasures of Paris.

32.

When Bigelow resigned in mid-1866, John Hay, as was customary, submitted his resignation, though he was asked to remain until Bigelow's successor was in place, and stayed until January 1867.

33.

John Hay consulted with Secretary of State Seward, asking him for "anything worth having".

34.

John Hay sailed for Europe the same month, and while in England visited the House of Commons, where he was greatly impressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli.

35.

John Hay resigned, spent the remainder of the summer in Europe, then went home to Warsaw.

36.

John Hay hoped to assist Sickles in gaining US control over Cuba, then a Spanish colony.

37.

Sickles was unsuccessful and John Hay resigned in May 1870, citing the low salary, but remaining in his post until September.

38.

John Hay wrote editorials for the Tribune, and Greeley soon proclaimed him the most brilliant writer of "breviers" that he had ever had.

39.

John Hay was unenthusiastic about the editor-turned-candidate, and in his editorials mostly took aim at Grant, who, despite the scandals, remained untarred, and who won a landslide victory in the election.

40.

Amasa Stone needed someone to watch over his investments, and wanted John Hay to move to Cleveland to fill the post.

41.

John Hay blamed foreign agitators for the dispute, and vented his anger over the strike in his only novel, The Bread-Winners.

42.

John Hay remained disaffected from the Republican Party in the mid-1870s.

43.

John Hay spent time working with Nicolay on their Lincoln biography, and traveling in Europe.

44.

Secretary of State William M Evarts indicated that Hay "had not been active enough in political efforts", to Hay's regret, who told Reid that he "would like a second-class mission uncommonly well".

45.

From May to October 1879, John Hay set out to reconfirm his credentials as a loyal Republican, giving speeches in support of candidates and attacking the Democrats.

46.

In Washington, John Hay oversaw a staff of eighty employees, renewed his acquaintance with his friend Henry Adams, and substituted for Evarts at Cabinet meetings when the Secretary was out of town.

47.

John Hay felt that Garfield did not have enough backbone, and hoped that Reid and others would "inoculate him with the gall which I fear he lacks".

48.

John Hay resigned as assistant secretary effective March 31,1881, and spent the next seven months as acting editor of the Tribune during Reid's extended absence in Europe.

49.

John Hay would spend the next fifteen years in that position.

50.

John Hay budgeted the construction cost at $50,000; his ornate, 12,000 square feet mansion eventually cost over twice that.

51.

John Hay continued to devote much of his energy to Republican politics.

52.

In 1890, John Hay spoke for Republican congressional candidates, addressing a rally of 10,000 people in New York City, but the party was defeated, losing control of Congress.

53.

John Hay contributed funds to Harrison's unsuccessful re-election effort, in part because Reid had been made Harrison's 1892 running mate.

54.

John Hay was an early supporter of Ohio's William McKinley and worked closely with McKinley's political manager, Cleveland industrialist Mark Hanna.

55.

In 1889, John Hay supported McKinley in his unsuccessful effort to become Speaker of the House.

56.

John Hay was among those Hanna called upon to contribute, buying up $3,000 of the debt of over $100,000.

57.

John Hay spent part of the spring and early summer of 1896 in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in Europe.

58.

John Hay told British politicians that McKinley, if elected, would be unlikely to change course.

59.

John Hay knew that with only eight cabinet positions, only one could go to an Ohioan, and so he had no chance for a cabinet post.

60.

Accordingly, John Hay encouraged Reid to seek the State position, while firmly ruling himself out as a possible candidate for that post, and quietly seeking the inside track to be ambassador in London.

61.

John Hay gained his object, and shifted his focus to appeasing Reid.

62.

Reaction in Britain to John Hay's appointment was generally positive, with George Smalley of The Times writing to him, "we want a man who is a true American yet not anti-English".

63.

John Hay secured a Georgian house on Carlton House Terrace, overlooking Horse Guards Parade, with 11 servants.

64.

John Hay brought with him Clara, their own silver, two carriages, and five horses.

65.

John Hay met with Lord Salisbury in October 1897 and gained assurances Britain would not intervene if the US found it necessary to go to war against Spain.

66.

John Hay's role was "to make friends and to pass along the English point of view to Washington".

67.

John Hay spent much of early 1898 on an extended trip to the Middle East, and did not return to London until the last week of March, by which time the USS Maine had exploded in Havana harbor.

68.

John Hay succeeded in making sure that the British were kept "in the loop" with regards to the US invasion of Cuba, and in both reassuring the British that none of their interests in Cuba would be harmed by the invasion, while simultaneously communicating those interests to the McKinley administration.

69.

John Hay was sworn in as Secretary of State on September 30,1898.

70.

John Hay needed little introduction to Cabinet meetings, and sat at the President's right hand.

71.

John Hay believed that America's most valuable foreign relationship "by far" was its relationship with Great Britain.

72.

John Hay formed a habit of confiding in the British, and sharing sensitive intelligence with them, while at the same time shutting out the governments of Spain, France, Germany and Russia.

73.

John Hay had been concerned about the Far East since the 1870s.

74.

In March 1898, John Hay warned that Russia, Germany, and France were seeking to exclude Britain and America from the China trade, but he was disregarded by Sherman, who accepted assurances to the contrary from Russia and Germany.

75.

McKinley was of the view that equality of opportunity for American trade in China was key to success there, rather than colonial acquisitions; that John Hay shared these views was one reason for his appointment as Secretary of State.

76.

John Hay was advised by William Rockhill, an old China hand.

77.

John Hay was in agreement, but feared Senate and popular opposition, and wanted to avoid Senate ratification of a treaty.

78.

John Hay formally issued his Open Door note on September 6,1899.

79.

On March 20,1900, John Hay announced that all powers had agreed, and he was not contradicted.

80.

Former secretary Day wrote to John Hay, congratulating him, "moving at the right time and in the right manner, you have secured a diplomatic triumph in the 'open door' in China of the first importance to your country".

81.

John Hay issued this on July 3,1900, suspecting that the powers were quietly making private arrangements to divide up China.

82.

Communication between the foreign legations and the outside world had been cut off, and the personnel there were falsely presumed slaughtered, but John Hay realized that Minister Wu could get a message in, and John Hay was able to establish communication.

83.

John Hay suggested to the Chinese government that it now cooperate for its own good.

84.

John Hay allowed the convention to make its own choice of running mate, and it selected Roosevelt, by then governor of New York.

85.

John Hay accompanied McKinley on his nationwide train tour in mid-1901, during which both men visited California and saw the Pacific Ocean for the only times in their lives.

86.

John Hay was more cheerful after visiting McKinley, giving a statement to the press, and went to Washington, as Roosevelt and other officials dispersed.

87.

John Hay was about to return to New Hampshire on the 13th, when word came that McKinley was dying.

88.

John Hay remained at his office and the next morning, on the way to Buffalo, the former Rough Rider received from John Hay his first communication as head of state, officially informing President Roosevelt of McKinley's death.

89.

When John Hay met the funeral train in Washington, Roosevelt greeted him at the station and immediately told him he must stay on as secretary.

90.

Shortly before John Hay took office, Britain and the US agreed to establish a Joint High Commission to adjudicate unsettled matters, which met in late 1898 but made slow progress, especially on the Canada-Alaska boundary.

91.

Later that year, John Hay began talks with Colombia's acting minister in Washington, Tomas Herran.

92.

John Hay wrote to Secretary of War Elihu Root, praising "the perfectly regular course which the President did follow" as much preferable to armed occupation of the isthmus.

93.

John Hay felt Roosevelt too impulsive, and privately opposed his inclusion on the ticket in 1900, though he quickly wrote a congratulatory note after the convention.

94.

Privately, and in correspondence with others, they were less generous: John Hay grumbled that while McKinley would give him his full attention, Roosevelt was always busy with others, and it would be "an hour's wait for a minute's talk".

95.

John Hay did not think this appropriate, as Venezuela owed the US money, and quickly arranged for the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague to step in.

96.

Roosevelt declined it, but the incident confirmed him in his belief that John Hay was too much of an Anglophile to be trusted where Britain was concerned.

97.

One incident involving John Hay that benefitted Roosevelt politically was the kidnapping of Greek-American playboy Ion Perdicaris in Morocco by chieftain Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, an opponent of Sultan Abdelaziz.

98.

John Hay asked for time to consider, but the President did not allow it, announcing to the press two days later that John Hay would stay at his post.

99.

Presidential doctor Presley Rixey issued a statement that John Hay was suffering from overwork, but in letters the secretary hinted his conviction that he did not have long to live.

100.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was among the monarchs who wrote to John Hay asking him to visit, though he declined; Belgian King Leopold II succeeded in seeing him by showing up at his hotel, unannounced.

101.

Adams suggested that John Hay retire while there was still enough life left in him to do so, and that Roosevelt would be delighted to act as his own Secretary of State.

102.

John Hay was pleased to learn that Roosevelt was well on his way to settling the Russo-Japanese War, an action for which the President would win the Nobel Peace Prize.

103.

John Hay left Washington for the last time on June 23,1905, arriving in New Hampshire the following day.

104.

John Hay was interred in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, near the grave of Garfield, in the presence of Roosevelt and many dignitaries, including Robert Lincoln.

105.

John Hay wrote some poetry while at Brown University, and more during the Civil War.

106.

In 1865, early in his Paris stay, John Hay penned "Sunrise in the Place de la Concorde", a poem attacking Napoleon III for his reinstitution of the monarchy, depicting the Emperor as having been entrusted with the child Democracy by Liberty, and strangling it with his own hands.

107.

In writing it, John Hay was influenced by the labor unrest of the 1870s, that affected him personally, as corporations belonging to Stone, his father-in-law, were among those struck, at a time when John Hay had been left in charge in Stone's absence.

108.

John Hay memorialized his friend in the final pages of his autobiographical The Education of Henry Adams: with Hay's death, his own education had ended.

109.

John Hay brought about more than 50 treaties, including the Canal-related treaties, and settlement of the Samoan dispute, as a result of which the United States secured what became known as American Samoa.

110.

In 1900, John Hay negotiated a treaty with Denmark for the cession of the Danish West Indies.

111.

Brown University's John Hay Library is named for him as well.

112.

Camp John Hay a United States military base established in 1903 in Baguio, Philippines, was named for John Hay, and the base name was maintained by the Philippine government even after its 1991 turnover to Philippine authorities.

113.

One of the most entertaining and interesting letter writers who ever ran the State Department, the witty, dapper, and bearded John Hay left behind an abundance of documentary evidence on his public career.

114.

John Hay's name is indelibly linked with that verity of the nation's Asian policy, the Open Door, and he contributed much to the resolution of the longstanding problems with the British.

115.

Patient, discreet, and judicious, John Hay deserves to stand in the front rank of secretaries of state.