Fifty Years of Public Service / Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

by Shelby M. Cullom

Secretary Hay's measures respecting China were of the greatest importance and significance, because they not only tended to the peace of the world, but they have preserved the extensive territory and enormous population of that empire to the free and untrammelled trade and commerce of all countries.

In addition to securing from Great Britain, through the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, thereby making it possible for the United States to construct the Isthmian Canal, Secretary Hay succeeded in settling the controversy over the Alaskan boundary, which had been a subject of dispute between the United States and Great Britain for half a century. The treaty of 1868, between the United States and Russia, by which we acquired Alaska, in describing the boundary of Alaska, adopted the description contained in the treaty of 1825, between Great Britain and Russia. Years ago it was discovered that the boundary described in the treaty of 1825 was incorrect as a geographical fact.

While the country remained unsettled the definite boundary was not so material, but since the first Cleveland Administration the Alaskan boundary had been an important subject of dispute. The feeling among our people in Alaska and among the Canadians became very bitter. This was one of the principal reasons for the creation of the Joint High Commission in 1899, whose purpose it was to settle all outstanding questions between the United States and Canada, the principal one being the Alaskan boundary. The Joint High Commission made considerable progress in adjusting these questions, but failing to reach an agreement as to the Alaskan boundary, the commission adjourned without disposing of any of the subjects in controversy. President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, in view of our long and undisputed occupation of the territory in question, declined to allow the reference of the Alaskan boundary to a regular arbitration at the Hague, but instead, Secretary Hay proposed the creation of a judicial tribunal composed of an equal number of members from each country, feeling confident that our claim would be successfully established by such a body. There was very great opposition, and there were many predictions of failure, but on January 24, 1903, a treaty between the United States and Great Britain was signed, providing for such a tribunal.

The treaty was duly ratified, and the tribunal appointed, and on October 20, 1903, reached a conclusion which was a complete victory for the United States, sustaining as it did every material contention of our Government.

The settlement of the Alaskan boundary was a very notable diplomatic triumph, and Secretary Hay is entitled to much credit for it.

I cannot go into the many important matters which Mr. Hay disposed of as Secretary of State. He left a splendid record. I made it a point to keep in constant touch with him by visiting at his office frequently, and he always talked with me frankly and freely concerning the important negotiations in which he was engaged. The only criticism I have to make of him as Secretary of State is, that he was disposed, wherever he could possibly do so, to make international agreements and settle differences without consulting the Senate. And, in addition, I never could induce him to come before the Committee on Foreign Relations and explain to the committee personally various treaties and important matters in which the State Department was interested. Why he would not do so I do not know. He was an exceedingly modest man and shrank from all controversy. It is seldom, however, that the State Department has had at its head so brilliant and scholarly a man as John Hay. He will go down in history as among the greatest of our Secretaries of State.

I will make some further references to the important results of the Roosevelt Administration in what I shall say in a later chapter concerning the work of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

William Howard Taft, now President of the United States, was President Roosevelt's Secretary of War, and a very able Secretary he was. I first knew him in Washington when, as a young man but thirty-three years of age, he was serving as Solicitor General under President Harrison. I followed his career very closely from the time that I first became acquainted with him.

As a United States Circuit Judge, to which position he was appointed by President Harrison, he was regarded as one of the ablest in the country. The Circuit Court of Appeals on which he served was a notable one. It was composed of three men who have since occupied the highest positions in the United States. William R. Day was first Assistant Secretary of State, then Secretary of State, one of the negotiators of the Paris Peace Treaty, Circuit Judge, and later a Supreme Court Justice. Judge Taft was first civil Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War, and then President; and he has only recently appointed his old colleague, Judge Lurton, the third member of the Court of Appeals, to the position of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Taft has occupied many high positions, all of which he has filled with great honor and distinction. I doubt whether he has enjoyed the high office of President of the United States. I myself have always thought that he would have made one of our greatest Chief Justices had he been appointed to that position.