The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-07-02
John Hay.


By the death OF the Secretary Of State
we have lost a public servant who for
some seven years conducted our exterior
relations with tact and skill that gained
for him the sincere respect OF European
diplomatists and the thorough conf
dence Of bis fellow countrymen. At a
somewhat critical conjuncture OF our
history when many question not only
urgent but of large prospective import
called for expert and farsighted treat
ment, he shaped his course with caution
and de1terity, and planted In the popu-
lar mind the just belief that in the hands
Of JOHN HAY the nations foreign inter-
ests were safe.
The Mckinley and Roosevelt Admins
trations may be said to have witnessed
our definite and formal entrance into the
circle of great Powers. The war with
Spain revealed to ourselves as well as
to foreign nations the magnitude Of the
part which geographical position and
une1ampled growth in wealth and popu-
lation had imposed on the United States.
At the hour Of our emergence from ira
ditional isolation and our assumption Of
enlarged responsibilities it was fortunate
that our Secretary OF State not only
possessed sound and high qualities OF
mind and character, but was also intense
ly patriotic, imbued to an exceptional
extent with the American spirit. The
early poems which first gave JOHN HAY
distinction were racy Of the soil, and no
better training for an American states
man could be conceived than the work
required Of private secretary to ABRA-
HAM LINCOLN amid the storm and
stress OF the Rebellion" The years OF
research and study needed for the COM
position of the Life of Lincoln, which
is less biography than a comprehen-
sive history Of an epoch, left the author
saturated with all that was most distinct
i've in his subject; with the proposes
sions, sympathies, viewpoints OF the most
American of our Presidents.
II Mr.. HAY showed himself attracted
to any country outside of his own, it was
naturally that with which he had been
brought in intimate contact as Ambas-
sador to the Court of st. James's. As
sojourner in London in 1903 he must have
felt acutely the contrast between the
wishes expressed by Britons for Ameri-
can success and the i'll disguised desire
evinced in most parts Of the European
continent for our discontinue at the
hands of Spain He would not have been
human had he shown no gratitude. His
pronounced disposition, however, to
bring about a close and cordial under
standing between the two sections of the
English speaking world was no mere
outcome OF sentiment, but the fruit Of
mature deliberation and profound con-
vction. There is no reason, indeed, to
think that he ever contemplated con-
ventional alliance, much less political
fusion, but he recognized that lngual
identity, similarity of institutions and
an approach to community of interests
in Asia would tend more and more, as
time went on, to bring England and
the United States into ready coopera-
ton. He facilitated the conveyance to
the utmost of his abilities and oppor-
tunities; nor will any observer of events
incline to belittle the significance of such
events as the substitution of the Hay
Pauncefote for the Clayton-Bulwer
treaty, or Of the reassurng adjustment
OF the Alaska boundary dispute.
From one point Of view JOHN HAY was
a unique figure among American public
men, though he has had many a counter
part in England. He never held an elect
i've Office. He was stranger to the
bench, the bar, the Senate, the House.
Outside of the sterling work done by him
in literature and journalism, the whole of
his active life was passed in diplomacy.
1t was his services in minor diplomatic
posts, and in the important place of First
Assistant Secretary Of State in the Hayes
Administration which were accepted as
qualifying him for the Embassy to Great
Britain, whence he was appropriately
transferred to the headship of the State
Department Here his remarkable tai
ents for statecraft found an adequate
sphere. How well the office suited the
man is evident from the fact that not
since WILLIAM H. SEWARD has any
American Secretary of State stood forth
80 prominently in the nations eye.
Another Reciprocity Convention.