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Foreign Policy Association recognizes The Cordell Hull Foundation in Educators Corner
english
français español
(haga click aqui para la versión español)
Foreign Policy Association
recognizes The Cordell Hull Foundation in
Educators Corner
|
|
Cordell Hull Biography Cordell
Hull, 1945
Nobel Peace
Prize winner, was best known as "Father
of the United Nations."
A renowned American statesman, he was the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State (12 years) under President Franklin Roosevelt, who bestowed
upon him the title "Father of the United Nations" for his unstinting and ultimately successful efforts to create an international forum for nations to meet and solve problems. Though the Secretary shunned the
limelight, his work remains a shining example of how much progress can
evolve from the vision of one man.
1945 |
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. He also used tariff policy as an instrument of coercion, placing an extra duty on German goods after Adolf Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia and in 1939, repudiated the United States-Japanese trade agreement of 1911 in retaliation for Japan's attack on China.
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.
PERSONAL LIFE OF CORDELL HULL
Cordell Hull was a quiet and dedicated man whose entire life was immersed in the politics he loved. So devoted was he to a lifetime of work that he did not get around to getting married until 1917. He chose Rose Frances Witz Whitney. Little is written concerning his personal or married life other than anecdotes. His niece does recall that Rose moved into the Washington Hotel where Cordell Hull lived and successfully carried out her plan to marry him. They had no children. Rose came from a prominent family of Staunton, Virginia and was a close friend of the widow of Woodrow Wilson.
Hull hated the social life of Washington, preferring the simplicity of his private pursuits and work. Other than a mild interest in golf and croquet, he spent little time on anything but work. Until a physician ordered him to stop, Hull met regularly with key personnel in his apartment on Sunday mornings.
Cordell Hull's nearly twelve-year tenure as Secretary of State is the longest in U.S. history. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Secretaries in the history of the United States. A contemporary of Hull's, British diplomat Lord Halifax, praised Hull as "a great public servant to his country and a great example to statesmen of any country ... universally respected, known, and trusted." President Roosevelt proclaimed to Hull's niece when introduced on the White House Lawn, "Miss Ethridge, I wish that Cordell thought as much of me as I think of him."
CORDELL HULL'S LEGACY
The Cordell Hull Foundation is honored to bear the legacy of this fine statesman and leader. His vision of world peace and international understanding remains the bedrock of the philosophy and goals for CHF. We are indebted to Cordell Hull's influence toward instilling democratic principles into the formation of the United Nations, and the world. We are committed to the perpetuation of his dream of one world, working and living in peace. Hull dreamed of the world as a peaceful global village. The Foundation will continue to provide a vehicle toward greater mutual understanding among countries of the world through educational programs.
Cordell Hull devoted his life to the efforts of peace and international
understanding. The Secretary died July 23, 1955, in Betheseda Naval
Hospital. He is interred in the National Cathedral in Washington.
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Contact: Marianne MasonExecutive Director cordellhull@aol.com Tel: (212) 300-2138 |
The Cordell Hull Foundation for International Education 501 Fifth Avenue, Third Floor New York, NY 10017 |
