Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871 – July 23, 1955) was an American politician and diplomat who served as the United States secretary of state for nearly twelve years under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, from 1933 to 1944. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the longest-serving secretary of state in United States history. Hull previously represented Tennessee in both houses of the United States Congress for 24 years, first as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1907 to 1921 and again from 1923 to 1931, and as a U.S. senator from 1931 to 1933. Hull also as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1893 to 1897.
Born in a log cabin in what is now Pickett County, Tennessee, Hull's early career included service as a lawyer, military officer in the Spanish–American War, state legislator, and judge before his election to the House of Representatives in 1906. He served in Congress for over two decades, interrupted only briefly by a term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In 1933, Roosevelt appointed Hull as Secretary of State, a position in which he became a principal architect of the Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America and a key figure in shaping U.S. foreign policy during the lead-up to and early years of World War II.
Hull's legacy is most closely associated with his efforts to promote international cooperation through trade and diplomacy. He was instrumental in the passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, which reduced U.S. tariffs and paved the way for more open global markets. He was also a driving force in the creation of the United Nations, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his “pivotal role” in the organization's founding.
Cordell Hull was born in a log cabin in Olympus, Tennessee, which is now part of Pickett County, Tennessee, but was then part of Overton County. He was the third of the five sons of William Paschal Hull (1840–1923) and Mary Elizabeth Hull (née Riley) (1841–1903). His brothers were named Orestes (1868), Sanadius (1870), Wyoming (1875), and Roy (1881).
According to John Gunther, Hull's father had tracked down and killed a man because of a blood feud. His mother was a descendant of Isaac Riley, who was granted 200 acres (0.81 km2) in near Byrdstown in Pickett County, for Revolutionary War service, as well as Samuel Wood who emigrated from Leicestershire, England, on the ship Hopewell and fought in the Virginia Militia. Hull's mother's family (Riley-Wood) had numerous ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. Hull devoted a section in his memoirs "Cabin on the Hill" to dispelling an old rumor that his father was part Cherokee Indian, and subsequent documented family history has confirmed his ancestry.
Hull recalled in his memoirs that growing up in rural Tennessee that "Each person stood solidly by his politics and religion. Father and all of his people were Democrats of the strictest sect from the Civil War on". Like almost all white Southerners of his generation, Hull was a committed Democrat as white Southerners of his era could not bring themselves to vote for the Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln. Growing up, Hull was deeply influenced by the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and he always defined himself as a "Jeffersonian Democrat". Hull wrote in his memoirs that: "I had become greatly interested in Jefferson's philosophy and preachments. I took the basic principles of Jefferson and molded them into my own tenets of political thought and action. I learned from memory large extracts from the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's first inaugural address, and the Bill of Rights in the Federal Constitution, modeled on the Virginia Bill of Rights. I believed that the final achievement of five hundred years' struggle for Anglo-Saxon liberty was written in these axioms and principles". In rural Tennessee in the 19th century, violence was extremely common and socially accepted, which greatly influenced Hull when he was growing up. He grew up in a world where the law was weak and a "might is right" philosophy prevailed as fraud and force rather than justice and fairness were the main criteria for social success. Hull accepted that most people were self-interested, dishonest and selfish, and that the only way to maintain order in a world that was nasty and brutish was the strict application of the law, which had to be upheld by force.
Hull attended college from 1889 until 1890. He gave his first speech at the age of 16. At the age of 19, Hull became the elected chairman of the Clay County Democratic Party. Hull studied at National Normal University (later merged with Wilmington College, Ohio) from 1889 until 1890. In 1891, he graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Cumberland University and was admitted to the bar.
Hull served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1893 until 1897. During the Spanish–American War, he served in Cuba as a captain in the Fourth Regiment of the Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. He did not see action, with the main danger to him and his men being malaria, which killed far more American soldiers in Cuba than did Spanish bullets. Hull's tour of duty in Cuba was his first time outside the United States.
Hull was elected to the United States House of Representatives where he served 11 terms (1907–1921 and 1923–1931) totaling 22 years. As a member of the powerful Ways and Means committee, he fought for low tariffs and "almost singlehandedly" wrote the federal income tax law of 1913. From the time of his first election to the House in 1906, Hull had been strongly opposed to tariffs, which he felt were an unfair burden on the poor farmers of Tennessee he represented. Hull argued that tariffs on foreign products increased the prices for everyone as well as decreasing competition. He argued that the best way to prosperity was to lower tariffs and to make up for the lost revenue caused by lowering tariff favored the introduction of an income tax. He felt that an graduated income with higher earners paying more taxes was a more fairer system of collecting revenue than tariffs which raised prices for everyone regardless of their income level. He also felt that lowering tariffs would lead to greater competition for the American consumers by allowing foreign firms to compete with American firms, which felt would lead to lower prices for consumers.
At the time, the United States had no income tax with the principle source of revenue being tariffs, and Hull's call to radically revise the collection of revenue was considered radical. He also served as a local judge from 1913 to 1917. As a judge, Hull was known as a strict "law and order" judge who liked to give "tough" sentences. For the rest of his life, Hull was usually addressed as "Judge". Hull was considered to be brave and tenacious, but also as extremely stubborn and obstinate as he rarely changed his views on any issue. One associate said of him: "Hull never starts anywhere unless he knows where he is going and he never turns back". In public, Hull maintained a "gently benign manner" alongside a stoical dignity, which masked a fierce determination to achieve what he wanted. Hull was not a trained economist, but he was considered a leading authority on the subject of taxes to such extent he wrote articles on tax reform for the Quarterly Journal of Economics published by Harvard University.
In 1912, the Democrats won the presidency and control of both houses of Congress. In April 1913, the Underwood tariff was introduced in the House. The Underwood tariff was passed by the House on 30 September 1913 and in the Senate on 3 October 1913 and was then signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. The Underwood tariff cut tariffs to their lowest rate in decades and caused a $110 million shortage in revenue collection. Hull, who by this point was regarded as the Democrats' leading expert on economic and financial matters wrote the bill for the income tax to make up the revenue shortage, which passed both houses of Congress on 31 October 1913.After the First World War began in 1914, Hull became convinced the root cause of the war in Europe was protectionism and argued that if Europe had more free trade the war would have been avoided. In February 1916, he introduced a resolution calling for Wilson to host a peace conference to end the war along with ending protectionism in general. In 1917, he voted for the declaration of war against Germany. In 1919, he supported Wilson's call for the United States to join the League of Nations.