Exploring John Hay – 37th US Secretary of State – leads to a list of the Ten Best Secretaries of State!
The subject of this morning’s featured article at Wikipedia was John Hay an American statesman and official whose career
in government stretched over almost half a century. His service in government stretched from the Lincoln administration through that of Theodore Roosevelt, yet I doubt that many Americans recognize his name or know of his accomplishments.
Hay’s career in politics began in 1858 when he was reading for the law in an office in Springfield, Illinois next to the office of Abraham Lincoln. Hay went on work on Lincoln’s presidential campaign and then he became Lincoln’s personal secretary. After Lincoln’s assassination Hay spent several years in Europe in several diplomatic posts after which he returned home and went to work under Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune. From 1879 to 1881 Hay served as Assistant Secretary of State under Rutherford B Hayes.