John Hay - Author And Statesman
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PREFACE IT is singular but not entirely exceptional that John Hay and his career should have received no extended treatment within a decade after his death. Doubtless the subject is difficult by reason of rare qualities and of farreaching diplomacy, but these need not have prevented a plain narrative of his personal, literary, and political life. In the lack of such an account thousands pass the John Hay Memorial Library or read in its rooms without understanding its full significance, and thousands more all over the land are equally uninformed as to the position this scholar and statesman occupied. Many know that his name is the most distinguished on the graduate roll of Brown University a goodly number will recall the authorship of the Pike County Ballads and other Poems also the partnership with John Nicolay in Abraham Lincoln, a History. Fewer will remember the Castilian Days, the anony Preface mous ccBreadwinners, J or the occasional addresses which complete and crown the output of John Hay as a man of letters. WitH regard to the statesman, some will recollect that he was Secretary of Legation in three European cities, an Ambassador at the Court of St. James, and Secretary of State of the United States but not many will recall the capitals and kingdoms to which he was sent, the administrations during which he served, and above all what he accomplished for his country 4 and the world by his masterly diplomacy. It is not strange that acquaintance with the man and his labours is limited. He took no pains to leave a personal record of himself and his work he appointed no literary executor his official history is in the archives of governments at home and abroad. What has been said of him is scattered mainly in serial publications which repose on the shelves of public libraries awaiting the visits of the curious. From these and more remote sources, with letters from those who remember him or one Preface w u o t a t t r a h e intricacies of - statecr- but who may bc glad to know the main features of a life whose value to the nation and the world should be more widely understood and whose example in private and in public deserves study and imitation. Besides the authors sources of information in publications contemporary with the life and upon the death of Mr. Hay, he is particularly indebted for letters to Mrs. Alice Hay Wadsworth of Mount Morris, N. Y., Dr. A. W. King of Redlands, California E. W. Menaugh, Esq., Salem, Indiana Charles E. Hay, Esq., Springfield, Illinois Hon. Elihu Root, Washington, D. C. Samuel Mather, Esq., Cleveland, Ohio C. C. Buel, Esq., New York City Rev. Edward M. Gushee, D. D., Cambridge, Mass., and Hon. Solon W. Stevens of Winchester, the last two being classmates of Mr. Hay in Brown Universi ty.