Biography written in 1945 upon the awarding of Hull’s Nobel Peace Prize

Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871-July 23, 1955) was born in a log cabin in Pickett County, Tennessee, the third of the five sons of William and Elizabeth (Riley) Hull. His father was a farmer and subsequently a lumber merchant. The only one of the five boys who showed an interest in learning, Cordell wanted to be a lawyer. He obtained his elementary school training in a one-room school that his father himself had built in nearby Willow Grove; then for a period of about three years he attended in succession the Montvale Academy at Celina, Tennessee, the Normal School at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio. He received a law degree in 1891 after completing a one-year course at Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee.

Not yet twenty, Hull began the practice of law in Celina, but having participated in political campaigning even while a student, decided to run for the state legislature as soon as he came of age. From 1893 to 1897 he was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, abandoning politics temporarily to serve as captain of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment in the Spanish-American War. Hull returned to the practice of law, this time in Gainsboro, Tennessee, but in 1903 was appointed judge of the Fifth Judicial District. He held this position until 1907, earning the nickname “Judge,” used even by his wife, Rose Frances Whitney, whom he married in 1917.

Elected to Congress from the Fourth Tennessee District in 1907, Hull served as a U.S. representative until 1931, interrupted only by two years as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In his distinguished career in Congress, Hull was a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee for eighteen years, the leader of the movement for low tariffs, the author of the first Federal Income Tax Bill (1913), the Revised Act (1916), and the Federal and State Inheritance Tax Law (1916), as well as the drafter of a resolution providing for the convening of a world trade agreement congress at the end of World War I. He became, in short, a recognized expert in commercial and fiscal policies.

Hull was elected U.S. senator for the 1931-1937 term but resigned upon his appointment as secretary of state by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 4, 1933. He was sixty-two. In 1944 when he resigned because of ill health, he had occupied this important post for almost twelve years, the longest tenure in American history.

His debut in this office was not auspicious. He headed the American delegation to the Monetary and Economic Conference in London in July, 1933, a conference which ended in failure despite the parlous state of world prosperity. On the heels of disaster came triumph. In November of that year he headed the American delegation to the seventh Pan-American Conference, held in Montevideo, and there won the trust of the Latin American diplomats, laying the foundation for the «good neighbor» policy among the twenty-one American nations so successfully followed up in the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace held in Buenos Aires (1936), the eighth Pan-American Conference in Lima (1938), the second consecutive Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics in Havana (1940).

Meanwhile, given authority through the Trade Agreements Act of 1934, he negotiated reciprocal trade agreements with numerous countries, lowering tariffs and stimulating trade.

Hull was responsive, also, to the problems arising in other parts of the globe. From 1936 on, foreseeing danger to peace in the rise of the dictators, he advocated rearmament, pled for the implementation of a system of collective security, supported aid short of war to the Western democracies, condemned Japanese encroachment into Indo-China, warned all branches of the U.S. military well in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor to prepare to resist simultaneous, surprise attacks at various points. Although Hull participated in some of the policy making conferences of the Allies, his major effort during the later stages of World War II was that of preparing a blueprint for an international organization dedicated to the maintenance of peace and endowed with sufficient legislative, economic, and military power to achieve it. Although obliged because of the precarious state of his health to resign as secretary of state in late November, 1944, Hull nonetheless served as a member of and senior adviser to the American delegation to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco in 1945.

Hull did not possess the oratorical talent, the stylistic finesse, the brilliant charm, or the impressive personality so frequently characteristic of the politician who makes his way to the front benches. Tall and lean in figure, almost shy in manner, earnest and sincere in thought and deed, Hull had the power that comes to one who is thoroughly convinced of the rightness of his political and economic policies for peace and justice, is capable of defending them against all comers, and unwearying in his efforts to give them practical form.

Selected Bibliography

Buell, Raymond Leslie, The Hull Trade Program and the American System. New York, Foreign Policy Association, 1938.

Hinton, Harold B., Cordell Hull: A Biography, with a Foreword by Sumner Welles. London and New York, Hurst & Blackett, 1942.

Hull, Cordell. The Hull papers are in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.

Hull, Cordell, Addresses and Statements by the Hon. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State of the United States of America, in Connection with His Trip to South America to Attend the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, Held at Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 1-23, 1936. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937.

Hull, Cordell, Economic Barriers to Peace: Addresses on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Woodrow Wilson Medal to the Hon. Cordell Hull, N.Y., April 5, 1937. New York, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 1937.

Hull, Cordell, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. 2 vols. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1948.

Hull, Cordell, The Moscow Conference: Addresses by Cordell Hull before a Joint Meeting of Both Houses of Congress, Nov. l8, 1943. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943.

Hull, Cordell, The War and Human Freedom: Address by the Hon. Cordell Hull over AII National Radio Networks, Thurs., July 23, 1942. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942.

Pratt, Julius W., Cordell Hull. 2 vols. Vols. XII and XIII of the American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. New York, Cooper Square Publishers, 1964.

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown here: From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1926-1950, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972.

Source: The Nobel Peace Prize 1945 Cordell Hull – Biographical <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1945/hull/biographical/>

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Congressional Activity

Cordell Hull, a Representative and a Senator from Tennessee; born in Olympus, Overton (now Pickett) County, Tenn., October 2, 1871; attended normal school and graduated from the law department of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn., in 1891; admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Celina, Tenn.; member, State house of representatives 1893-1897; during the Spanish-American War served with the rank of captain; judge of the fifth judicial circuit of Tennessee 1903-1906; elected as a Democrat to the Sixtieth and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1907-March 3, 1921); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1920 to the Sixty-seventh Congress; chairman of the Democratic National Executive Committee 1921-1924; again elected to the Sixty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1923-March 3, 1931); was not a candidate for renomination in 1930, having become a candidate for Senator; elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat in 1930 and served from March 4, 1931, to March 3, 1933, when he resigned to become Secretary of State; appointed Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt March 4, 1933, serving until his resignation December 1, 1944; known as ‘the Father of the United Nations’; awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945; retired and resided in Washington, D.C., until his death there, July 23, 1955; interment in the Central Burial Vault of the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea in the Washington Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

US Congresses Served

• 60th – 66th (1907 – 1921)
• 68th – 72nd (1923 – 1933)

House Years of Service

• 1907 – 1921
• 1923 – 1931

Senate Years of Service

• 1931 – 1933

Party: Democrat

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress <https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/h000940>

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Introduction

Cordell Hull was appointed the 47th Secretary of State by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, and served until November 20, 1944. Hull holds the distinction of being the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State.

Rise to Prominence

Hull was born on October 2, 1871, near Byrdstown, Tennessee. Although Hull gained admission to the Tennessee bar in 1892 and was appointed a circuit judge in 1903, his great passion was politics.

Following service on his county’s Democratic Party Executive Committee and in the Tennessee State legislature, Hull was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1906. Hull’s career was nearly derailed when he lost his congressional seat during the Republican Party landslide of 1920. Nevertheless, Hull remained at the center of national politics by becoming Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1921 and returned to Congress after a two-year absence.

In 1928, Hull sought the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential nomination. Although his bid was unsuccessful, he did secure the support of the Democratic nominee for the governorship of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Four years later, as a U.S. Senator, Hull repaid the favor when Roosevelt sought the Presidential nomination. In return for his backing and in order to firm up his support amongst Southern Democrats, President Roosevelt appointed Hull as his Secretary of State.

Influence on American Diplomacy

As Secretary of State, Hull’s role in U.S. foreign policy-making was greatly circumscribed by President Roosevelt. Hull nonetheless achieved prominence as an advocate of trade liberalization, closer relations with Latin America, and a postwar multinational institution to promote peace and security.

Although President Roosevelt typically represented the United States at the major conferences with Allied leaders during the Second World War, Hull took the lead in attempting to delay war with Japan following its invasion of China. He was also a strong supporter of President Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy and became the first sitting Secretary of State to attend the International Conference of American States (precursor to the Organization of American States). At the December 1933 meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, he announced that the U.S. Government would henceforth observe a policy of “non-intervention” in the affairs of its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.

His greatest contribution to the postwar world came within the realm of international trade. As a firm believer in Woodrow Wilson’s vision of liberal internationalism, Hull believed that free trade promoted international peace and prosperity. He considered high tariff barriers a pressing issue that had contributed to the economic decline leading to the Great Depression and the rise of fascism.

In 1934, Hull helped secure the passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA), which gave the President the authority to personally negotiate bilateral tariff reductions.

Hull also championed the creation of the United Nations. For his efforts in creating the United Nations, Hull was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

Cordell Hull resigned as Secretary for health reasons on November 30, 1944, but served as a delegate to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco in 1945. He died in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 1955. [The Nobel Foundation lists his death location as Bethesda, MD.]

Source: U. S. State Department, Office of the Historian <https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/hull-cordell>

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Cordell Hull was awarded the Nobel Peace prize individually “for his indefatigable work for international understanding and his pivotal role in establishing the United Nations.” 

The Nobel Institute’s biography of Cordell Hull states the following:

In 1945, the year of Norway’s liberation from Nazi-German occupation, the Nobel Committee wished to show its support for the establishment of the new world organization, the United Nations. This was done by awarding the Peace Prize to Cordell Hull, the man known as the “father of the United Nations”. The decision has a parallel in 1920, when President Woodrow Wilson received the same distinction as the chief architect behind the League of Nations.

The lawyer and Democrat from Tennessee was US Secretary of State from 1933 to 1944. Hull was nominated for the Peace Prize several times in the second half of the 1930s for having conducted a policy of fraternization with Latin America and for having negotiated free trade agreements with a number of states. During World War II he played a prominent part in the planning of the United Nations, which replaced the League of Nations in 1945.

Cordell Hull received 31 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize between 1936 and 1945.  Click here to view details of those nominations.  Hull was unable to attend the ceremony in Oslo, Norway, where his award was presented on December 10, 1945.  Click here to read Hull’s acceptance speech, presented by the U. S. Ambassador to Norway.

Source: The Nobel Prize <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1945/hull/facts/>