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The Ordeal of Cordell Hull

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Julius W. Pratt
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Extract

A. M. SCHLESINGER, JR., in the second volume of The Age of Roosevelt, contends that what was generally considered a vice in New Deal administration was actually a virtue. Speaking of the many new federal agencies created at that time, he remarks that while each one “had its own distinct mission,” nevertheless,

in many cases jurisdictions overlapped each other and even spilled into cabinet departments. This was sloppy and caused much trouble. Yet this very looseness around the joints, this sense of give and possibility which Henry Stimson once called the “inherently disorderly nature” of Roosevelt's administration, made public service attractive to men of a certain boldness and imagination. It also spurred them on to better achievement. Roosevelt liked the competitive approach to administration, not just because it reserved the big decisions for the President, but perhaps even more because it enabled him to test and develop the abilities of his subordinates. How to tell which man, which approach was better? One answer was to let them fight it out. This solution might cause waste but would guarantee against stagnation …

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 1966 , pp. 76 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1966

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References

1 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, The Coming of the New Deal, The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. II. (Boston, 1959), 535–6Google Scholar.

2 The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 volumes, New York, 1948), I, 191, 200Google Scholar; II, 923. (Hereinafter cited as Hull, Memoirs. If Jim Farley's account is to be trusted, Hull spoke much more bitterly to him of presidential bypassing of the Secretary of State. Farley, James A., Jim Farley's Story: The Roosevelt Years (New York, 1948), p. 233Google Scholar.

3 Hull, , Memoirs, I, 202Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., I, 202–209; Farley, , op. cit., 340–341Google Scholar.

5 Blum, John M., From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Crisis, 1928–1938 (Boston, 1959), pp. 452–453Google Scholar.

6 Ickes, Harold L., The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon (New York, 1943), p. 338Google Scholar.

7 Ickes, Harold L., The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (3 vols., New York, 1953–1954), II, 93Google Scholar. (The three volumes are subtitled, respectively, The First Thousand Days, 1933–1936; The Inside Struggle, 1936–1939; The Lowering Clouds, 1939–1941. They will be cited here as Ickes, Diary, with volume.) The State Department soon yielded to pressure and relaxed its ban on medical and sanitary aid to the Loyalists.

8 Ibid., II, 377–378; Taylor, F. Jay, The United States and the Spanish Civil War (New York, 1956), pp. 57–59Google Scholar; Blum, , op. cit., pp. 506–508Google Scholar.

9 Ickes, , Diary, II, 211, 348Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., III, 232.

11 Ibid., III, 218–219.

12 Ibid., III, 228.

13 Ibid., II, 348.

14 “Hassett, William D., Off the Record with F.D.R., 1942–1945 (New Brunswick, 1958), p. 107Google Scholar.

15 There are numerous accounts of the London Conference; among others:Hull, , Memoirs, I, chaps, xviii, xixGoogle Scholar; Ickes, , Diary, I, 75–77Google Scholar; Blum, , op. cit., p. 65Google Scholar; Tugwell, Rexford G., The Democratic Roosevelt: A Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Garden City, 1957), pp. 314–318Google Scholar; Moley, Raymond, After Seven Years (New York, 1939), chap, viiGoogle Scholar; Pratt, Julius W., Cordell Hull (2 volumes, New York, 1964), Vols. XII and XIIIGoogle Scholar of Ferrell, R. H. and Bemis, S. F., eds., The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, I, chap. iiiGoogle Scholar.

16 Ickes, , Diary, II, 686Google Scholar.

17 Blum, , op. cit., pp. 54–57Google Scholar; Morgenthau, Henry, “The Morgenthau Diaries,” III, Collier's, 10. 11, 1947Google Scholar; Hull, , Memoirs, I, 292–302Google Scholar. Hull, in his Memoirs, professed to have been in favor of recognizing the Soviet Union. State Department tradition held otherwise.

18 Blum, , op. cit., p. 171Google Scholar; see also pp. 132–134, 138–149, 155–182.

19 Hull, , Memoirs, I, 471–473Google Scholar.

20 Blum, , op. cit., pp. 149–155Google Scholar; Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1936, II (Washington, 1954), 254–256Google Scholar. Morgenthau's later use of countervailing duties as “gestures” against the aggression of Germany and Italy in the spring of 1939 was similarly delayed by State Department caution but in the end approved by the President. Blum, John M., From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Urgency, 1938–1941 (Boston, 1965), pp. 78–86Google Scholar.

21 Blum, , From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Crisis, pp. 204–228Google Scholar.

22 Ickes, , Diary, II, 398, 414, et passimGoogle Scholar; Hull, , Memoirs, I, 597–598Google Scholar.

23 Ickes, , Diary, III, 273–274, 298–299, 322Google Scholar; Blum, , From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Urgency, p. 361Google Scholar.

24 Ickes, , Diary, III, 339, 640, 473Google Scholar; Blum, , From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Urgency, p. 351Google Scholar.

25 Ickes, , Diary, III, 340–341, 436, 568–569Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., III, 498.

27 Ibid., III, 510. Hull's favorite recreation was croquet. He often played in the afternoon on the court at Woodley, Secretary Stimson's twenty-acre estate adjoining Rock Greek Park in Washington. Cf. Morison, Elting E., Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson (Boston, 1960), pp. 309–310Google Scholar.

28 Ickes, , Diary, III, 511Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., III, 512–513.

30 Ibid., III, 526.

31 Ibid., III, 654–655; Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Urgency, 389–391. It may be mentioned that at the Cabinet meeting on the night of December 7 — Pearl Harbor night — Ickes found Hull looking “more than ever like a Christian martyr.”

32 Hull, , Memoirs, I, 313, 509–510Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., I, 315; II, 959–960, 1143–1150.

34 Ickes, , Diary, III, 401Google Scholar.

35 Hull, , Memoirs, II, 1383–1384Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., I, 546–549. Welles, has written two accounts: The Time for Decision (New York, 1944), pp. 64–69Google Scholar; Seven Decisions That Shaped History (New York, 1950), pp. 16–30Google Scholar. See also Langer, W. L. and Gleason, S. E., The Challenge to Isolation, 1937–1940 (New York, 1952), pp. 15–32Google Scholar. Roosevelt sounded out the British on the Welles plan in January, 1938. Foreign Secretary Eden thought it worth trying, but Prime Minister Chamberlain so little enthusiasm that the President dropped the subject. Eden, Anthony, The Memoirs of Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon: Facing the Dictators (Boston, 1962), chap. xiiGoogle Scholar.

37 Hull, , Memoirs, I, 737–740Google Scholar; Ickes, , Diary, III, 138Google Scholar; Welles, The Time for Decision, chap, iii; Farley, , Jim Farley's Story, p. 233Google Scholar.

38 Hull, , Memoirs, II, 1227–1230, 1253–1256Google Scholar; Tugwell, , The Democratic Roosevelt, pp. 622–623Google Scholar; Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York, 1948), pp. 756, 835Google Scholar. Cf.Pratt, , Cordell Hull, II, 615–616, 802–803Google Scholar.

39 Hull, , Memoirs, II, 1154–1157Google Scholar.

40 Ibid., II, 1585–1586.

41 Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1942, China, pp. 162–165; Standley, W. H., and Ageton, A. A., Admiral Ambassador to Russia (Chicago, 1955), chap, xviiGoogle Scholar; Dillon, Mary E., Wendell Willkie, 1892–1944 (Philadelphia, 1952), chap. xvGoogle Scholar.

42 Hull, , Memoirs, II, 1599 1697Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., II, 1511–1527.

44 Ibid., II, 1602–1622; Churchill, Winston S., Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War, Vol. VI. Boston, 1953), 156–157Google Scholar; Stimson, H. L. and Bundy, McGeorge, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York, 1948), pp. 568–583Google Scholar; Tugwell, , op. cit., pp. 656–657Google Scholar; Morgenthau, Henry Jr, Germany Is Our Problem (New York, 1945)Google Scholar; Roosevelt, Eleanor, This I Remember (New York, 1949), pp. 330–335Google Scholar. Mrs. Roosevelt defends Morgenthau and, contrary to most authorities, questions whether the President really abandoned the Plan.

45 Hull, , Memoirs, II, 1614–1616.Google Scholar