Synopses & Reviews
J O H N H A Y From Poetry to Politics By TYLKR DKNNKTT . Ft I ATU NA Till PKfAltTMEXr OF STATE DODD, MEAD COMPANY York 1934 COPYRIGHT, 1933 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. ALL EIGHTS RESERVED NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER Published October, 1933 Second printing November, 1933 Third printing December, 1933 Fourth printing March, 1934 Fifth, printing May, 1934 Sixth printing November, 1934 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA EY THE VAIL-B ALLO U PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. hn l, n ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For many manuscripts and most of the illustrations, to Mrs. Alice Hay Wadsworth, Mrs. Helen Hay Whitney, and to Mr. Clarence L. Hay but most of all for their fine tolerance which left the author under no obligation except to discover and interpret as best he could. This is in no sense a family biography, but it is a pleasure to know that the publication will not make unhappy those who best knew and most loved the subject. To certain princes in the house of scholarship, for gifts of counsel, erudition, and criticism J. Franklin Jameson, Charles A. Beard, M. A. DeWolfe Howe, and Allan Nevins. To former colleagues in the Department of State whose pleasure it would have been to do as much for any other student, but whose assistance in this book is but one other of many happy memories Hunter Miller, Edward Cyril Wynne, and Mrs. Natalia Summers. To the blessed librarians Miss L. A. Eastman, Miss Ruth Savord, H. L. Koopman, William A. Slade, Curtis W. Garrison, and Miss Martha L. Gericke and especially to that great democratic institution of letters, the Library of Congress. For permission to use other material, chieflymanuscripts, privately owned or controlled to Harry A. and James R. Garfield, Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, Robert A. Taft, Elihu Root, Worthington C. Ford, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Charles S. Hamlin, William E. Louttit, Jr., and to Miss Helen Nicolay who, in letters from John Hay to her distinguished father, first appeared as the Blessed Babe and then as Miss Butterfly. For help so varied as only biographers know to Paul M. Angle, Poultney Bigelow, James P. Baxter, 3rd., Christopher B. Coleman, Dixon Ryan Fox, David Gray, Joseph C. Green, Frederick A. Gutheim, Logan Hay, Philip C. Jessup, John Bassett Moore, Henry F. Pringle, Roger L. Rice, Mrs. Jackson H. Ralston, Mrs. Ward Thoron, Charles Franklin Thwing, Alfred Vagts, A. T. Volwiler, James W. Wadsworth, Jr., and B. S. Warner. To Raymond Dennett, who has thus been deprived of other interesting diversions to assist in proof-reading and checking. The list of the published writings of John Hay, perhaps not definitive but sufficiently complete to exhibit the development of his literary genius, published as Appendix I, is the contribution of William E. Louttit, Jr. It is due the reader to make one further acknowledgment. The following pages are not all biography a little history crowded in. No one will be offended if the less historically minded reader skips the history. After all, man is more interesting, and instructive, than men. TYLER DENNETT June 13, 1933 NOTE In thr following there are frequent references to Letters anil Diaries. Although Mr. Hay destroyed a large mass of his letters, he preserved copies of many in letter-press copy-books, and in rough drafts, He also kept journals or diaries intermittently, between 1861 am lHf 0. ami.ajgain. from January 1, 1904 to the end of his life. In 1908, Airs. Hay privately printed and distributed to friends a small edition of filter volumes which curry the title-page Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary While the compilation in process, Mrs. Hay asked fur tin return of many letters of her husbands. In some instances the originals were returned and are still in the Hay Papers, Other cor respondents . supplied only copies of originals, and, In one notable in stance, important letters were entirely withheld...