Cordell Hull's vision of a new era of human progress, as
primary architect of the structure of the United Nations, will continue to evolve.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who dubbed the Secretary "Father
of the United Nations," nominated him for the Nobel Prize for Peace
award in 1945, Cordell Hull's major achievement, culminating long years
of effort and struggle to establish a neutral venue providing common ground where countries may convene and engage in peaceful dialogue over
disputes. During his long tenure as Secretary of State in U.S.
History - serving for 12 years, a distinction no other U.S. statesman
has ever attained - he was unable to prevent World War II and strove for
the remainder of his term to create solutions to the horrors of war and
the devastating after-effects of the Depression done to his beloved
country. After Franklin Roosevelt left office, Presidential terms
were limited to eight years, and since then no other President - or
Secretary of State - has held office for more than two 4-year terms:
eight years. Some parting words of Cordell Hull:
"I am firmly convinced that in the world of today all nations
will be forced to the conclusion that cooperation for law, justice, and
peace is the only alternative to a constant race in armaments--including
atomic armaments--and to other disruptive practices that will bring the
nations participating in them on either side to a common ruin, the
equivalent of universal suicide."
I conclude these Memoirs with the abiding faith that our
destiny as a nation is still before us, not behind us. We have reached
maturity, but at the same time we are a youthful nation in vigor and
resource, and one of the oldest of the nations in the unbroken span of
our form of government. The skill, the energy, the strength of purpose,
and the natural wealth that made the United States great are still with
us, augmented and heightened. If we are willing from time to time to
stop and appreciate our past, appraise our present and prepare for our
future, I am convinced that the horizons of achievement still stretch
before us like the unending Plains. And no achievement can be higher
than that of working in harmony with other nations so that the lash of
war may be lifted from our backs and a peace of lasting friendship
descend upon us.”
The United Nations has provided a vessel to achieve the
Secretary's noble goals.
THE SEEDS OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Secretary Hull proposed the
formation of a new world organization in which the United States would
participate after the war. To accomplish this aim, in 1941 Hull formed
the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy. It was composed of
both Republicans and Democrats. Mindful of President Wilson's failure
with the League of Nations, Hull took pains to keep all discussion of
the organization nonpartisan. As various plans were considered, Hull
argued for an international structure rather than a system of regional
groups, a plan that eventually prevailed. By August, 1943, the State
Department drafted a document titled
Charter of the United Nations, which became the basis for
proposals submitted by the United States at the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks
Conference. Ill health forced Hull to resign from office on 27 November,
before final ratification of the United Nations Charter occurred in San
Francisco the following year. Sec. Hull served as a member of the
United States' delegation to the San Francisco Conference, and ever the
diplomat, acceded to a senator who would be important to the
ratification of the Charter. President Roosevelt praised Hull as "the
one person in all the world who has done the most to make this great
plan for peace an effective fact."
By the time he resigned in 1944 due to ill health, he had occupied the
important post of Secretary of State for almost twelve years, the
longest tenure in American History. Prior to Secretary Hull's
resignation, Roosevelt offered to him the Vice Presidency in the
President's last bid for re-election. Because of ill health, Hull
declined and Harry Truman became Vice President.
Most historians believe that, had Roosevelt not run for a third and
fourth term, Hull could likely have been elected President of the United States.
THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
Following nomination by Roosevelt, the Norwegian Nobel Committee
presented the 1945 Nobel Prize for Peace to Cordell Hull in recognition
of his work in the Western Hemisphere, international trade agreements,
and efforts toward establishment of the United Nations. Too ill to
personally receive the award, Hull sent a brief acceptance speech
delivered by Lithgow Osborne, the United States ambassador to Norway.
Hull wrote:
"Under the ominous shadow which the Second World War and its
attendant circumstances have cast on the world, peace has become as
essential to civilized existence as the air we breathe is to life
itself. There is no greater responsibility resting upon peoples and
governments everywhere, than to make sure that enduring peace will this
time ... at long last ... be established and maintained ... The
searing lessons of this latest war and the promise of the United Nations Organization will be the cornerstones of a new edifice of enduring peace and the guideposts of a new era of human progress."
HULL'S SECRETARY OF STATE YEARS
In 1906 Cordell Hull was elected to the United States House of
Representatives, where he served (with the exception of two terms) until 1931. He was defeated in the election of 1922 in the McKinley landslide.
While out of office for four years, he continued as Chairman of the
Democratic National Committee from 1921 to 1924, being one of the most
powerful voices for the southern wing of the Democratic party.
Instrumental in enacting fiscal reform during a progressive era, he
aligned himself with Woodrow Wilson's bloc of Southern supporters.
During Wilson's first term as president, Hull helped draft the 1913 Underwood-Simmons Tariff
Act and the 1916 inheritance law. After the United States entered
World War I, he contributed to financial legislation enabling U.S.
participation in the war. In 1919 he took part in drafting the victory
loan law which helped liquidate the national debt.
Hull strongly shared President Wilson's idealistic international
outlook, becoming one of the first and most vigorous supporters of the
League of Nations. With economic ideas rooted in nineteenth-century
liberalism, he believed that economic nationalism was a major cause of
war. He opposed Herbert Hoover's high tariff policy. During his
distinguished career in Congress, Hull served as a member of the
powerful House Ways and Means Committee for eighteen years, the leader
of the movement for low tariffs, as well as the drafter of a
resolution providing for the convening of a world trade agreement
congress at the end of World War I. He became a recognized expert in commercial and fiscal policies.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 for the 1931-37 term, Hull was an
important figure at the 1932 Democratic Convention, authoring major
portions of the Democratic platform, including a low-tariff plank. In
1933 he relinquished his Senate seat at the age of 62 to become
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of State, an appointment
which surprised many but kept with President Roosevelt's placing of
powerful party allies in his cabinet rather than resorting to
bureaucratic technicians. As the acknowledged and powerful leader of the
critical Southern wing of the Democratic party with strong support in
Congress, Hull proved to be a logical choice.
According to Raymond Moley, an FDR
Brain Truster who became Under-Secretary of State, a
coalition of five powerful senators of the time voiced concern over
Hull's appointment as Secretary of State. Hull, it was said, knew little
of foreign affairs and was adamant on the issue of tariff reduction. The
anti-Hull coalition protested that he was unlikely to acquire a
sufficiently broad view to communicate with the Senate. Further, it
was widely known that Hull did not work smoothly with others. When this
fact was conveyed to President Roosevelt, the legend has it that he
listened in silence. The President then answered, "So...well, you tell
the senators I'll be glad to have some fine idealism in the State
Department." As it occurred, Hull came to be regarded as the most
respected and popular figure among the officers of all of President
Roosevelt's cabinets. Indeed inexperienced in diplomatic affairs, Hull (with his white hair, dignified bearing, and habit of speaking in
absolutes) inspired trust. Nevertheless, "Today nearly all the nations of the world, including our own, have no fundamentals, either political, moral or economic," he thundered in his first speech as Secretary of
State. Adhering to Wilsonian principles, Hull assumed that the correct
ideals held the key to world peace and mutual cooperation.
Hull's accomplishments as a member of Roosevelt's cabinet revived
several themes of Wilson's administration: Friendly relations with Latin America and the establishment of an
international organization under world law. He was involved
in passing the reciprocal trade program in June 1934
under the
Trade Agreements Act. Hull believed that
expansion of trade would reduce international tensions and negotiated
reciprocal trade agreements with twenty-two nations. This
was part of his strategy to establish communication, dialogue and
cooperation with other countries of the world. Though some
organizations stress the importance of Hull's trade policy, the Cordell
Hull Foundation does not include it in his top two most important
accomplishments: Secretary of State for 12 years under FDR (no
other Secretary of State served more than 2 terms ... 8 years) and Nobel
Prize for Peace in 1945 as "Father of the United Nations."
Cordell Hull enjoyed diplomatic success by implementing the President's
Good Neighbor Policy, which sought to improve ties with Latin America.
He convened the seventh Pan-American Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay,
in December 1933. Hull led the delegation and paid goodwill visits to
several Latin American countries. Agreeing to Article Eight of the
convention on the Rights and Duties
of States, he committed the United States to a policy of
nonintervention in the domestic affairs of Latin America. To implement
the pledge, United States Marines were removed from Haiti in 1934, and
Congress signed a treaty with Cuba nullifying the 1903 Platt Amendment
which authorized the United States occupation. At the Conference for the
Maintenance of Peace, held in Buenos Aires in 1936, the nations of the
Americas agreed that any threat to the security of the hemisphere
trigger mutual consultation. Two years later at the eighth Pan-American
Conference in Lima, Peru, Hull became concerned over Germany's
annexation of Austria. He obtained a resolution reasserting that a
threat to any American republic would be regarded as a threat to all
countries on that continent.
With the outbreak of World War II, President Roosevelt dominated United
States' policy-making for Europe but left Hull with a great deal of
authority for the Americas and the Pacific. From 1939 to 1941, Hull
patiently (but unsuccessfully) continued peace negotiations to effect
peace between Japan and China. Hull also attempted to prevent further
Japanese incursions into Indochina. During this time, the Secretary
tried to strengthen the position of the moderates and weaken the
militarists within the Japanese government. Ambassador Kichisaburo
Nomura of Japan and Cordell Hull came to respect one another during the
course of these negotiations, which were broken off only with the
sending of Kirasu to serve alongside Nomura several weeks prior to the
attack on Pearl Harbor. In effect, Nomura was relieved of his
ambassadorial role with the arrival in Washington of Kirasu.
THE EARLY YEARS
According to his Memoirs, Cordell Hull was born October 2, 1871, in a log cabin in Pickett County,
Tennessee. His father, William Hull, was a founder of the logging
industry in upper middle Tennessee. William Hull was a farmer and subsequently
a lumber merchant. Secretary Hull was privately educated by
tutors hired by his father. The only one of the five boys who showed an interest
in learning, Cordell wanted to be a lawyer. He completed his
undergraduate education at National Normal University in Lebanon, Ohio,
later merged into Wilmington College. Sec. Hull was apprenticed to
attorneys in Nashville and Celin. Subsequently he entered Cumberland
Law School. Not yet twenty, Hull received a law degree in 1891 after
less than one year's study. He was admitted to the bar a few months
later and practiced law in Celina.
Cordell Hull became active in politics, a topic which had fascinated him
since childhood. Taught by a brother of Governor McMillen at Montvale
who awakened an early interest in public affairs, the young Cordell
campaigned for Governor McMillen who greatly influenced his philosophy
of public governance. Hull was elected Chairman of the Clay County
Democratic Party at the age of nineteen. It was to be his first
position in public life. The election occurred in the courtroom of the
present Clay County courthouse. In 1892 Hull won a special election to
the Tennessee House of Representatives. He was only twenty. He assumed
office in January, 1893, at age twenty-one, thus becoming the youngest
member ever to reach the House. He resigned as a member of the
Legislature to serve in the Spanish-American War as a captain of
volunteers stationed in Cuba (1897-1899). Although he saw no combat,
this was his first exposure to Hispanic culture, which was to be an
important influence throughout his career. Hull returned to Tennessee
and briefly practiced law in Gainesboro before appointment to a circuit
judgeship in the Fifth Judicial District. He rode a ten-county circuit
by horseback and buggy from 1903 to 1907.
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