The New International Encyclopædia/Hay, John
HAY,  (1838—). An American statesman,
author, and journalist. He was born in
Salem, Ind., of Scotch ancestry, October 8, 1838;
graduated at Brown University in 1858; and then
studied law at Springfield, Ill., where he became
acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, then the
acknowledged leader of his profession and of the
Republican Party in the State. He was taken
into the latter's law office, and in 1861 was
admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Illinois.
He accompanied President-elect Lincoln on
his memorable journey to Washington, and served
as his assistant private secretary until his
(Lincoln's) death, with the exception of a brief interval,
during which he served as adjutant and
aide-de-camp to the President, and of a few months
when he served in the army under Generals
Hunter and Gillmore. In the latter capacity he
rose to the rank of major, and was subsequently
brevetted lieutenant-colonel and colonel. After
Mr. Lincoln's death, he went to Paris as secretary
of legation, which position he held for three

years; he then served for more than a year as
secretary of legation and chargé d'affaires at
Vienna, and after a short interval went in the
same capacity to Madrid, where he remained for
another year. From 1870 to 1875 he was an
editorial writer on the New York Tribune, and for
a short time acted as editor-in-chief of that journal.
In the meantime he had married the daughter
of Amasa Stone, of Cleveland, Ohio. From
1879 to 1881 he served under President Hayes as
First Assistant Secretary of State. He then was
again engaged in literary pursuits until March
19, 1897, when he was appointed by President
McKinley Ambassador to Great Britain, to
succeed Thomas F. Bayard. His service in this
capacity was marked by thoroughness, skill, and
tactfulness. His public addresses were models
of their kind and examples of diplomatic
propriety. With excellent social gifts, he made a
favorable impression on English society, and did
much to promote friendliness between the two
nations. On September 20, 1898, he was appointed
Secretary of State, to succeed William R. Day,
who had just resigned. His conduct of the
foreign affairs of the nation was, from the first,
characterized by unusual vigor, tact, and
sagacious foresight. Perhaps his greatest diplomatic
achievement was the maintenance of the ‘open-door’
policy in China, and the consequent
postponement of the threatened dismemberment of
that nation. Not content with verbal assurances
from the European nations, Secretary Hay
demanded and secured written guarantees that the
‘open door’ should be maintained in China. During
the British war in South Africa he used his
good offices to secure the neutrality of the
Continental European powers. Other notable diplomatic
achievements of Secretary Hay were the
settlement of the Samoan dispute, as a result of
which the United States secured Tutuila. with
an excellent harbor in the Pacific; the settlement
of the dispute with Great Britain over the Alaska
boundary, temporarily by the conclusion of a
modus vivendi in 1898, and by treaty in 1903;
the negotiation of reciprocity treaties with
Argentina, France, Germany, Cuba, and the British
West Indies; the negotiation of a treaty with
Great Britain relative to the construction of
an interoceanic canal (see
);
the negotiation of new treaties with
Spain; and the negotiation of a treaty with
Denmark for the cession of the Danish West India
Islands.

Colonel Hay won literary distinction by Pike
County Ballads (1871) and Castilian Days
(1891). With John G. Nicolay he wrote an
authoritative life of Lincoln, entitled Abraham
Lincoln: A History (10 vols., 1890). A once
popular anonymous novel. The Bread-Winners
(1883), is generally attributed to him, but thus
far without sufficient evidence.