HULL, CORDELL 1871-1955

Secretary of state (1933-1944)

A Popular Democrat

Cordell Hull was the longest-serving secretary of state in American history. For much of that time he was one of the most popular Democrats in the nation, and until President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his intention to seek an unprecedented third term, Hull was considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1940.

Background

Born in Tennessee, Hull graduated from Cumberland University Law School in 1891 and was elected to the Tennessee legislature two years later. After serving in the Spanish-American War and working as a lawyer, he was appointed a Tennessee circuit court judge in 1903. In 1907 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where as a progressive Democrat he was instrumental in sponsoring several important tax laws, including the Federal Income Tax Act of 1913. During the 1920s he actively promoted reciprocal trade agreements as a means to enhance U.S. foreign trade. In 1930 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until he became Roosevelt's secretary of state in March 1933. Under Hull's leadership the State Department successfully negotiated reciprocal trade agreements with Britain, France, and many Latin American countries. Hull spearheaded the administration's "Good Neighbor Policy" with Central and South America.

World War II

As tensions increased in Europe in the years prior to World War II, Roosevelt increasingly held the reins of American foreign policy, and Hull, ever loyal to the president, was to some degree pushed aside. To a large extent Hull was in charge of the unsuccessful negotiations with the Japanese until the month before Pearl Harbor was attacked. Roosevelt directed much of European foreign policy himself, relying on Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, sometimes to Hull's great vexation. (Instead of sending Hull as special emissary to Europe in 1940, Roosevelt sent Welles, who was a personal friend.) Roosevelt reportedly told W. Averell Harriman that he did not take Hull to his conferences with Churchill and Stalin because Hull was "difficult to handle.… [and] would be a nuisance." In private conversations Hull sometimes expressed his frustration with the president's "treatment of the [State] Department and encroachment in foreign affairs." During the war Hull reportedly told Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau jr., a The President runs foreign affairs. I don't know what's going on. , .. Since Pearl Harbor he does not let me help in connection with foreign affairs." In public, however, Hull supported Roosevelt with vigor.

Creating the United Nations

Hull succeeded in ousting Welles from the State Department in 1943 and thereafter enjoyed more involvement in and control over U.S. foreign policy and negotiations. In October 1943 Hull met with Anthony Eden of Great Britain and V. M. Molotov of the Soviet Union in Moscow to lay the groundwork for the creation of the United Nations. Addressing a joint session of Congress on his return from Moscow, Hull declared that in the postwar world "there will no longer be need for spheres of influence.…" In this judgment—as well as in his assessment of Stalin as "a remarkable personality, one of the great statesmen and leaders of his age"—Hull missed the mark. Hull contributed further to establishing the groundwork for the United Nations, playing prominent roles at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference (August-October 1944), where proposals for the charter were drawn up, and at the founding conference in San Francisco (April-June 1945). In 1945 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Retirement

Having resigned as secretary of state in December 1944, Hull spent the early years of his retirement writing his memoirs. After a lengthy illness, he died in 1955.

Sources;

Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932—1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979);

Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull 2 volumes (New York: Macmillan, 1948);

Julius W. Pratt, Cordell Hull, 1933-44 (New York: Cooper Square, 1964).

Hull, Cordell (1871–1955),US lawyer who was secretary of state in all Roosevelt's administrations.

Born in a rented log cabin in Tennessee, Hull studied law before being elected to the Tennessee state legislature at the age of 21. In 1906 he won a Democratic seat in the House of Representatives which he held, with the exception of two years, until he was elected to the Senate in 1930. He resigned from the Senate to become secretary of state in March 1933, a position in which he served for twelve years. Throughout this time, Hull was dominated by Roosevelt who often by-passed him in matters of wartime foreign policy. None the less they were basically in accord, particularly in their dislike of de Gaulle and of colonialism.

Hull was not interested in the organization of the state department, but he was a canny politician whose rigid morality made him a hardliner in international affairs. From 1939 Roosevelt's main interest lay in Europe and Hull had little influence on early decisions and policies connected with helping the UK in the war against Germany and Italy. Roosevelt, however, left to him the business of negotiating with Japan (see also USA, 1) and in the spring of 1941 Hull began a series of meetings with the Japanese ambassador, Admiral Nomura Kichisaburō, at which he took an uncompromising stance against Japanese aggression in China (see China incident) and French Indo-China. While these meetings were in progress Hull was being kept fully informed of Japan's attitudes and decisions through MAGIC intelligence and by early November 1941 he knew from decrypts that the Japanese government had imposed a deadline on the negotiations. On 7 November Hull warned the cabinet that Japan might attack at any moment and on 26 November he responded to Japanese offers of a modus vivendi with a ten-point plan which required the withdrawal of all Japanese armed forces from China and French Indo-China. The Japanese regarded this as an ultimatum and after further negotiations the attack on Pearl Harbor was launched on 7 December 1941.

Nomura's last meeting with Hull took place after Hull knew of the attack. Hull received Nomura and another diplomat, Kurusu Saburō, icily and after scanning the fourteen point message they had delivered remarked that in all his 50 years of public service, he had never seen such a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions. As the Japanese, who did not know of the attack, withdrew in confusion, Hull muttered: ‘scoundrels and piss-ants’.

Following Pearl Harbor, Hull and his staff drew up the United Nations Declaration which was signed on 1 January 1942 by the Washington representatives of those nations then at war with Axis forces. He was also closely involved in formulating the document which by 1943 had become known as the ‘Charter of the United Nations’. This charter was the basis of US proposals at the Dumbarton Oaks conference and led Roosevelt to call Hull ‘the father of the United Nations’.

Roosevelt did not want Hull at any of the major Allied conferences, although he did attend the Moscow conference in October 1943 and created a deep impression there by his friendly and dignified behaviour. But political feuding and overwork left him exhausted; in October 1944 he collapsed and spent seven months in hospital. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 and was appointed a delegate to the San Francisco conference of April 1945, at which the United Nations was officially founded, but was too ill to attend.

Bibliography

Hull, C. , The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, 2 vols. (New York, 1948).

Cordell Hull

Cordell Hull (1871-1955) was an American congressman, secretary of state, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

Cordell Hull was born on Oct. 2, 1871, in Pickett County, Tenn. He attended normal school at Bowling Green, Ky., and had a year at the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio. He then enrolled in the Cumberland Law School at Lebanon, Tenn., completing a 10-month course in 5 months.

Hull was elected to the Tennessee Legislature at the age of 21, and in 1903 he was appointed to fill an unexpired term as judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of the States. In 1906 he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served, with one interruption, until 1931. In 1930, elected to the U.S. Senate, he took special interest in the tariff, consistently advocating freer trade relations for the United States. He authored the income tax law of 1913 and several subsequent tax laws. He was a devoted supporter of Woodrow Wilson and of the League of Nations.

In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Hull secretary of state, and Hull served in this office longer than any other incumbent—until 1944. During Roosevelt's first two administrations, Hull's great contribution was his development of the good-neighbor policy, involving the establishment of more cordial relations with Latin America. In 1933, at the conference of Montevideo (Uruguay), he signed a protocol declaring intervention in the affairs of the independent states of the New World illegal; this was strengthened by a new declaration at the Conference of Buenos Aires in 1937. Hull fought vigorously and successfully for freer trade relationships, lower tariff duties, and reciprocal trade arrangements. The cooperation of the Latin American republics during World War II was largely due to his influence.

Hull conducted the negotiations in the developing crisis with Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He took a firm stand against Japanese imperialism, while seeking to avoid actual armed conflict. During World War II Hull's role was less significant, however, for Roosevelt leaned on other advisers. Hull did, however, visit Moscow in 1943, where he won Premier Stalin's assent to the projected United Nations. Hull worked vigorously for the realization of the United Nations, though he resigned from the State Department in late 1944, partly because of failing health. In 1945 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Hull died at Bethesda Naval Hospital on July 23, 1955.

Further Reading

Hull left The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 vols., 1948). For his career as secretary of state see Julius W. Pratt, Cordell Hull, 1933-44 (2 vols., 1964). He is discussed in Norman A. Graebner, ed., An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century (1961). □

Hull, Cordell (1871–1955), secretary of state, 1933–1944.A Tennessee Democrat, Cordell Hull was best known during his quarter century as a congressman (1907–1921, 1923–1931) and senator (1931–1933), as the author of the income tax law of 1913 and as a party leader who appealed both to northern‐urban‐wet and southern‐rural‐dry Democrats. In 1933, those were sufficient credentials for President‐elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt to appoint him secretary of state.

Having little interest in diplomacy but convinced that world peace depended on free trade, Hull saw the office as a platform for promoting his reciprocal trade agreements program. Although initially stalled by Roosevelt advisers who favored an economic nationalist policy, Hull eventually triumphed, moving the nation permanently away from the protective tariff. Diplomatically, Secretary Hull implemented the Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America and jealously guarded his control over American policy in East Asia, where he insisted upon a cautious response to Japanese expansion.

Hull's influence waned during World War II as Roosevelt took greater control of foreign policy and Hull's health failed. Nevertheless, Roosevelt insisted that Hull, still immensely popular, remain in office through November 1944. He seized the opportunity to gain support for the United Nations and foster his vision of a postwar liberal economic order. For his support of the United Nations, Hull received the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize. An even more fitting legacy is the liberal commercial world order the United States embraced at the end of World War II.
See also Democratic Party; Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of State; Foreign Relations; Foreign Trade, U.S.; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Internationalism; New Deal Era, The; Tariffs.

Bibliography

Cordell Hull , The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, 2 vols., 1948.
Julius W. Pratt , Cordell Hull, 1933–1944, 2 vols., 1964.

Jonathan G. Utley

Hull, Cordell (b. 2 Oct. 1871, d. 23 July 1955). US Secretary of State 1933–44 Born in Overton County, Tennessee, he studied at the National Normal University, Lebanon, Ohio, and Cumberland University Law School, and became a lawyer. He entered state politics as a Democrat in 1892. He was elected to Congress in 1906, lost his seat in 1920, but returned to the House in 1923 until he became a Senator in 1931. He resigned to become Secretary of State for F. D. Roosevelt. He established the Good Neighbor Policy with Latin America and sought to revive world trade by getting Congress to pass the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (March 1934), a forerunner of GATT. Because of his efforts, he created a climate favourable to the USA in Latin America when it entered World War II in 1941. He was a staunch supporter of China in its war against Japan. As soon as war was declared, he began work on creating a postwar peacekeeping body, initiating a Moscow Conference for Foreign Ministers in 1943 from which was to develop the plan for a United Nations. He was never actively involved in the day-to-day planning and decision-making of the war, President Roosevelt allegedly finding him ‘too cautious’. He retired in 1944 in ill health. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

Cordell Hull , 1871–1955, American statesman, b. Overton co. (now Pickett co.), Tenn. Admitted to the bar in 1891, he sat (1893–97) in the Tennessee legislature and, after service in the Spanish-American War, was appointed (1903) circuit court judge. He served (1907–21, 1923–31) in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was the author of important tax legislation. He was elected (1930) to the U.S. Senate, but resigned (1933) when Franklin Delano Roosevelt named him Secretary of State. Hull placed great emphasis on international economic relations. Through his efforts, pacts were signed with several nations under the Reciprocal Agreements Act (1934), and he fostered the "good neighbor" policy toward Latin American countries. After World War II broke out in Europe he pushed for aid to the Allies and recommended revision of the Neutrality Act. After U.S. entry into the war, he worked to improve cooperation among the Allies, visiting Moscow in 1943, and backed the establishment of a world organization to maintain peace. Ill health caused his resignation as Secretary of State in 1944. He was awarded the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize.

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1948); biography by J. W. Pratt (2 vol., 1964).

Hull, Cordell (1871–1955) secretary of state (1933–44) during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, born near Byrdstown, Tennessee. His continued push for freer trade resulted in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (1934). The legislation, which established the “most-favored nation” status with trading partners that still exists today, remains the foundation for modern American foreign trade policy. Hull constantly sought to lower trade barriers, believing that economic intercourse fostered peaceful relations. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, he negotiated with the Japanese in hopes of halting their expansionist plans and lobbied for solutions to Sino-Japanese problems. He strongly advocated a postwar global peace organization, but, though he had the honorary title of senior delegate to the United Nations conference in 1945, he was too ill to play a role in the founding of that organization. That same year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.