It was a rare pleasure to spend a week
in the company of a man of such grace, charm, intelligence, and
accomplishment as John Hay in this fine biography by John Taliaferro,
All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay from Lincoln to
Roosevelt (Simon &
Schuster, 2013, 622 pages, $35.00). In a life of service stretching
from his youthful assignment as Lincoln's private secretary to
Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of State, no man in U.S. history who
has not held elective office has had such an impact on creating and
maintaining our country. The present biography, the first of Hay
since 1934, is a full, balanced, and admiring portrait of this great
American. While not hesitating to show Hay's warts and weaknesses
(few), it nevertheless presents the sort of man who can serve as a
model for American's seeking to understand us at our best.
John Hay as a Young Man
Hay
was born in Salem, Indiana in 1838 but soon moved to Warsaw, Illinois
with his parents. His father was a physician, and Hay grew up in an
environment of comfort, but not wealth, that emphasized reading and
intellectual achievement. Early formative experiences of his youth
included the Mormon riots in nearby Nauvoo, IL leading to the
assassination of Joseph Smith, and his brief encounter with a runaway
slave in the basement of his own home. Hay left home at the age of
sixteen to attend Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with
his uncle Milton Hay defraying the tuition of $100 per year. After
taking the entrance exams, he was admitted as a junior, but requested
being placed in the sophomore class in order to have greater time to
study and grow while there. He was chosen by his peers to give the
class poem on graduation. He returned to Springfield, IL to read law
in his Uncle Milton's office, which was next door to Lincoln's. On
Lincoln's nomination for president, he began writing pro-Lincoln
material under a pen name and joined John George Nicolay in Lincoln's
office writing letters for him. As time passed Lincoln gave him
assignments requiring increasing discretion and delicacy, signaling
his growing trust for the young man. When Lincoln was elected
President, Hay and Nicolay moved to Washington to serve as his
secretaries, a title of greater import than that we now ascribe to
it.
John Singer Sargent Portrait of Hay
By
looking at history through the lens of a man of great talent who
seldom held official office, who read widely, wrote elegant and
thoughtful letters almost without end, published fiction, poetry, and
newspaper articles and editorials, and who knew almost everyone of
consequence from the mid-nineteenth century into the early twentieth,
Taliaferro makes clear a period often seemingly less important than
others, but incorporating the expansion of America and the formation
of many American traits persisting to this day, the are only
overlooked to our peril. Hay was also co-author, with John George
Nicolay, of a ten volume biography of Lincoln still considered to be
one of the three most important Lincoln biographies. Because Hay's
life functions as part of a larger picture, many important elements
of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the accession of Cuba, the
Phillipines, and other U.S. Territories, the Spanish-American War,
the Russo-Japanese War, the formation of the Open Door Policy in
China, the building of the Panama Canal and much more are discussed
in a clear, concise manner that highlights their importance without
drowning the reader in detail. Hay was often at the center of these
dramas, and always at least peripherally involved providing American
presidents from Grant to Roosevelt with his best advice and dedicated
service when asked. He was, apparently, like and admired by all who
knew him in public and private life, and he knew almost every
American of consequence during this period.
Clara Stone Hay
Early
in his career Hay pursued and married Clara Stone, the daughter of
railroad magnate Amasa Stone, thus assuring his comfort and position
in society for life. Clara was, apparently, an ideal mate for a man
of such broad and varied interests as Hay, providing a loving home
life, three active children, and enduring support throughout the rest
of his life. Meanwhile, he became besotted with Elizabeth (Lizzie)
Cameron, the beautiful and flirtatious wife of Pennsylvania
Republican Senator Don Cameron, to whom Hay would write passionate,
longing, newsy letters for the rest of his life. There is no knowing
whether their “romance” was ever consummated. Lizzie was also
amorously pursued by Henry Adams (grandson and great grandson of
presidents, and a mordant observer of the Washington political scene)
during most of the same time. Adams' and Hay's homes on Lafayette
Square were next door to each other, and the two were often seen
taking a daily walk together around town, deep in conversation. There
is also an enormous archive of correspondence between the two. The
extensive quotations between Hay and Lizzie Cameron over a period of
decades with their Victorian combination of discretion and passion
became tedious over time, but strongly suggest the tone of the
period.
Lizzie Cameron
During
periods when Jay did not hold official office in Republican
administrations, he and Clara traveled extensively in Europe, often
staying abroad for months at a time. He served in diplomatic
legations in Paris, Madrid, and Vienna, and as Ambassador to the
United Kingdom during the McKinley administration. He was a friend of
politicians, aristocrats, and royalty wherever he went, while
formally and informally advising presidents and the State Department.
While abroad he was an inveterate collector of fine art. It speaks to
the high art of Talafierro's writing that this jam packed life of a
man of huge accomplishment maintains the readers attention and earns
more than respect for his subject.
John Taliaferro
John Taliaferro is the author of four books, most recently In a Far Country: The True Story of a Mission, A Marriage, A Murder, and the Remarkable Reindeer Rescue of 1898. He is a former senior editor at Newsweek and a graduate of Harvard University. He lives in Austin, Texas, and Pray, Montana.
From
his service in the Lincoln administration through to the Roosevelt
presidency, John Hay was a dedicated and thoughtful Republican. His
balanced approach to American expansion, his gentle yet persistent
negotiations, and his consistent respect for humanity provide a model
for Republicans today as people in public life of all political
persuasions. John Taliaferro's lengthy biography of John Hay, All
the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay from Lincoln to Roosevelt
(Simon & Schuster, 2013, 622 pages, $35.00), combines high
quality scholarship with the kind of readability that will lead it to
rank among the finest of biographies in an age when biography has
reached a new level of accuracy and readability. I read the book as
an electronic galley on my Kindle. It was provided to me by the
publisher through Edelweiss.
John Hay Bust by August Saint-Gaudens
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