Hay, John (1838–1905), secretary of state, advisor to three presidents, and architect of a major U.S. foreign‐policy doctrine.Born in Indiana and a graduate of Brown University, John Milton Hay served as one of President Abraham
Lincoln's wartime secretaries. Between 1865 and 1897 he held various diplomatic posts, wrote popular poetry, and remained close to the
Republican party leadership. The historian Henry
Adams was a close friend. Appointed ambassador to Great Britain in 1897, he became President William
McKinley's secretary of state in 1898. Hay addressed diplomatic issues arising from the
Spanish‐American War and U.S. acquisition of the
Philippines, the negotiations over a Central American canal, and the boundary and fishery controversies that troubled Anglo (Canadian)‐American relations. His most important achievement was the
Open Door policy toward China. In a series of diplomatic notes in 1899 and 1900, Hay asked the major powers to agree to the principles of equal trading and investment opportunities in China (the “open door”) and respect for China's territorial integrity. The doctrine remained central to U.S. foreign policy through the mid–twentieth century.
After McKinley's assassination in 1901, Hay continued as secretary of state under President Theodore
Roosevelt. He was much involved in the diplomatic maneuverings of 1903–1904 that ultimately enabled the United States to build the
Panama Canal. He negotiated the Hay‐Herrán Convention of 1903 (later repudiated by Colombia), by which the United States would have paid Colombia $10 million outright and $250,000 annually for a 90‐year lease on the proposed canal site in Panama. Hay remains one of the United States's most important and influential secretaries of state.
See also
Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of State;
Foreign Relations.
Bibliography
Tyler Dennett , John Hay: From Poetry to Politics, 1933.
Kenton Clymer , John Hay: The Gentleman as Diplomat, 1957.
Lewis L. Gould
