John Hay

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under John Hay (disambiguation) .

John Hay

John Milton Hay (* 8. October 1838 in Salem , Washington County , Indiana ; †  1. July 1905 in Newbury , New Hampshire ) was an American politician of the Republican Party . He began his career in 1861 as Abraham Lincoln's private secretary , whose biography he later wrote. He was Secretary of State of the United States from 1898 until his death . He is considered one of the most influential American politicians at the turn of the 20th century and set the course for the USA, which continues to have an impact today.

Life

Hay studied from 1855 to 1858 law at Brown University in Providence and then completed this training until 1861 in a law firm in Springfield . He began his political career as one of the private secretaries to US President Abraham Lincoln . As such he worked from 1861 to 1865. His diary and records during the Civil War are important historical sources today. Hay is also considered by some historians to be the author of the famous letter to Mrs. Bixby in which President Lincoln expressed his condolences to the widowed mother who allegedly lost five sons in the war. Hay was present at Ford's Theater when Lincoln was attacked there and wrote a biography of the President with his colleague John George Nicolay . In the following years he was employed in the diplomatic service in Paris (1865 to 1867), Vienna (1867 to 1868) and Madrid (1869 to 1870). Hays acted as legation secretary and managing director. In the first half of the following decade, he worked as a journalist at the New York Tribune . From 1879 to 1881 he was the 12th Assistant Secretary of State in the time of Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield, representing Secretary of State William M. Evarts and James G. Blaine . After his friend William McKinley was elected president, Hay came to Great Britain as US ambassador in 1897 . At that time, his efforts prepared the basis for the close relationship between the United States and Great Britain that still exists today.

In August 1898 Hay became the foreign minister (Secretary of State) in the Cabinet McKinley appointed and took in the same year in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (Treaty of Paris) in part, of the war American Spanish- ended. Hay also promoted China's independence ( Open Door Policy ) , which at the time was threatened by the imperialist aspirations of the European colonial powers . Therefore he started a circular to the European countries, in which he asked each of them to guarantee freedom of trade in the region. In fact, all of the Hays signed letters, and America's position of power in Asia was secured.

During the kidnapping of Ion Perdicaris in Tangier by the Berber insurgent Raisuli and the ensuing crisis between the United States and Morocco , Hay said, “This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” ( “This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” “ ) This gained great popularity in the election campaign and probably influenced the election result in favor of Theodore Roosevelt . These incidents were retold , albeit with ample historical liberties, in John Milius ' 1975 film The Wind and the Lion ; Hay was portrayed by John Huston .

As Foreign Minister, Hay was primarily responsible for the construction of the Panama Canal . He negotiated a number of treaties that allowed both the construction of the canal and the control of the same by the US. Hay died in the office of Foreign Minister in 1905.

In 1898 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Publications (excerpt)

• together with John George Nicolay : Lincoln, a history . 10 volumes, (1890)
• The Breadwinners (1883)

See also

• Hay Pauncefote Treaty
• Hay-Bunau-Varilla contract

literature

• Inge Kircheisen: Biographies on World History , Lexicon, VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1989, p. 228
• Philip McFarland: John Hay, Friend of Giants: The Man and Life Connecting Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Theodore Roosevelt. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2017, ISBN 978-1-4422-2281-6 .
• Gustavo A. Mellander: The United States in Panamanian politics. The intriguing formative years . The Interstate Printers & Publishers, Danville Ill. 1971, (Also: Washington, DC, George Washington Univ., Phil., Diss., 1966), OCLC 138568 .
• Gustavo A. Mellander, Nelly Maldonado Mellander: Charles Edward Magoon. The Panama years . Ed. Plaza Mayor, San Juan, Puerto Rico 1999, ISBN 1-56328-155-4 , ( Colección Dédalo. Ensayo ). (From a historical perspective).
• John Taliaferro: All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt . Simon and Schuster, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-4165-9730-8 (American English).
• David Engel : Hay Note. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 2: Co-Ha. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02502-9 , pp. 558-559.

Web links

Commons : John Hay  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• John Hay in the nndb (English)
• John Hay in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: John Hay. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 25, 2018 . 
2. ^ Members: John Hay. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 2, 2019 .