HULL, CORDELL

Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871–July 23, 1955) was the longest serving secretary of state in U.S. history. Hull was born in a rented log cabin in Overton County, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. He was the third of five sons born to William and Elizabeth Riley Hull. Of humble background, Hull was educated by his mother and by an itinerate tutor who would spend two to three months during the winter teaching Hull and other neighborhood children. At fourteen, Hull enrolled at the Montvale Institute in Celina, Tennessee. This was followed by a stint in university and eventually law school, which Hull finished in 1891.

Hull's association with politics began at the age of nineteen when he was elected chairman of the Democratic Party for his county. At twenty-one, Hull entered the state legislature. He then served for a time as a judge, and in 1906 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Hull kept this seat until 1920, when, along with many of his fellow Democrats, he fell victim to the anti-Wilsonian sentiment that followed World War I and Wilson's drive to involve the United States in the League of Nations. Without a place in Congress, Hull took up the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, a post that he kept until 1924. This gave Hull his first real national exposure, which he used to regain his congressional seat in the 1922 election. For a time, Hull entertained the hope that he might become his party's nominee for president in the 1928 election, but he eventually dropped the idea, resolving instead to run successfully for the Senate two years later.

Hull enjoyed a good reputation among his congressional colleagues, and was widely regarded as a moderate, cautious, and hardworking Democrat who had a knack for bringing antagonists together in a spirit of cooperation. With the exception of his persistent advocacy of free trade, Hull rarely took a stand on controversial issues and in general sought to avoid confrontation. Hull's critics have argued that these characteristics meant that Hull left no real mark as a legislator, and much the same charge was laid against him as secretary of state. But Hull's moderation (particularly his moderate internationalism) and the broad public and party support he enjoyed made him a political asset. Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized this, and when he decided to run for president in 1932, he sought Hull's support. Hull campaigned vigorously for Roosevelt, and was rewarded for his loyalty with a seat in the cabinet as secretary of state, a post he would retain until November 1944.

Hull's memoirs, published in 1948, are littered with references to his frustration over Roosevelt's tendency to act as his own secretary of state, and there is no question that on a wide range of issues, Roosevelt often chose to ignore or bypass Hull. This tendency became even more pronounced during World War II. Hull played little role, for example, in the intimate and almost continuous communication between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Roosevelt. Hull also remained largely outside the summit diplomacy that became the hallmark of the Grand Alliance led by Churchill, Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. But in other areas, Hull did have an impact. During the 1930s, for example, Hull played a significant role in the development of the Good Neighbor Policy, and he is largely responsible for the passage of the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, which led to a significant expansion of U.S. trade in the mid to late 1930s. During the war, Hull also became intimately involved in the negotiation of the 1942 Lend-Lease Consideration Agreement, which was designed to obtain trade and other economic concessions from the British as a quid pro quo for Lend-Lease aide, and later he was involved in postwar planning and preparation. With Roosevelt's encouragement, Hull helped engineer U.S. commitment to postwar internationalism and the establishment of the United Nations through his effective involvement in the 1943 Foreign Ministers Conference in Moscow, the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, and the 1945 San Francisco Conference, where the United Nations was officially born. In recognition of his key role in the establishment of the UN, Hull was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace in 1945.

See Also: GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY; ISOLATIONISM.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. 1979.

Dobson, Alan. U.S. Wartime Aide to Britain, 1940–1946. 1986.

Gellman, Irwin F. Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles. 1995.

Grabner, Norman A. American Values Projected Abroad. 1985.

Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. 1955.

Kimball, Warren F. The Most Unsordid Act: Lend Lease 1939–1941. 1969.

Kimball, Warren F., ed. America Unbound: World War II and the Making of a Superpower. 1992.

Langer, William L., and S. Everett Gleason. The Challenge to Isolation, 1937–1940. 1952.

Pratt, Julius W. Cordell Hull, 1933–44. 1964.

Reynolds, David. The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–41: A Study in Competitive Co-operation. 1981.

David B. Woolner