John Hay

John Milton Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. He served as United States Secretary of State from 1898 to 1905 under presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Life

Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, and raised in Warsaw, Illinois, and educated at Brown University (1858). He began his public career as a secretary to Abraham Lincoln at age 22, while technically a clerk in the Interior Department. At at time when most of Lincoln's cabinet were hostile to him and vying for position and influence, Hay served also as a friend, confidant and companion, as well as a performer of odd jobs. He lived in the northeast corner bedroom on the second floor of the White House. He shared that room with his fellow secretary John G. Nicolay, who was six years older.

Hay's diary and writings during the Civil War are basic historical sources. Some have credited Hay with being the real author of President Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby, consoling her for the loss of her sons in the war.

Hay was present when President Lincoln died after being shot at Ford's Theatre. Hay and John G. Nicolay wrote a formal 10-volume biography of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: A History, 1890) and prepared an edition of his collected works.

Portions of Hay's diaries and letters from 1861-1870, published in the book "Lincoln and the Civil War," show the President in a far more intimate light. The portrait of Abraham Lincoln is affectionate, certainly biased in Lincoln's favor, but also contains insights and anecdotes of the homely and humorous sort that Lincoln enjoyed.

Hay was named U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1897 when his friend William McKinley became President. Some of the recognition of the longstanding community of interests between that country and the United States came as a result of Hay's stay there.^{[citation needed]} In August 1898, Hay was named Secretary of State and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1898).

His contributions included the adoption of an Open Door Policy in China (announced on January 2, 1900) and the preparations for the Panama Canal. He negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901), the Hay-Herran Treaty (1903), and the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty (1903), all of which were instrumental clearing the way for the construction and usage of the Canal.

In 1904, Hay was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He is buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Legacy

Hay is also renowned for his comment, written in a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt, describing the Spanish-American War as a "splendid little war."

Hay appears as a character in Gore Vidal's historical novels Lincoln and Empire. He appears, portrayed by John Huston, in the 1975 film The Wind and the Lion, a fictionalization of the Perdicaris Affair in Morocco in 1904. He is portrayed in the 1997 miniseries Rough Riders by actor and legendary United States Marine R. Lee Ermey.

Hay was a dear friend to Henry Adams, American historian and author. Hay and Adams built homes next to one another on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, designed by H.H. Richardson. That structure was demolished and the site is now occupied by the Hay-Adams Hotel, named in their honor.

Brown University's John Hay Library housed the entire library collection from its construction in 1910 until the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library was built in 1964. In 1971, when physical science materials were transferred to the new Sciences Library, the John Hay Library became exclusively a repository for the Library's Special Collections.

For more information regarding John Hay, read The Five of Hearts.

Books by Hay

• Abraham Lincoln: a History (with John G. Nicolay)
• The Bread-winners
• A Social Study
• Castilian Days
• Not Pretty, but Precious (he did not write this book, but he did... I'm not quite sure.)
• Pike County Ballads and Other Poems
• Poems
• Andre Sabatini's Thoughts on God

References

• Lorenzo Sears, John Hay, Author and Statesman (New York, 1914)
• Warren Zimmerman, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (New York, 2002)

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