The radical remedial intervention proposed by the Dawes Plan at Hughes' behest was not meant to be a permanent fixture but a temporary solution for a nation in a particular economic crisis. Yet its significance should not be minimized. An innovative precedent, the Dawes Plan became the precursor of the more comprehensive foreign aid programs that were adopted after World War II, including the Marshall Plan. But these, in contrast, were funded with taxpayer dollars and run by bureaucrats with big hearts as opposed to bankers with sharp pencils. The Dawes model still has much to recommend it, particularly as the problems of providing effective foreign aid are becoming ever more readily apparent.

The Immigration Act of 1924

HUGHES' success at circumventing Congress in the creation and implementation of the Dawes Plan came at a price. Hughes suffered a major defeat in April 1924 when Congress, against the vociferous opposition of the State Department, enacted a harsh immigration law by a huge majority in both houses. This legislation soon had a disastrous effect on U.S.-Japanese relations.

The Immigration Act of 1924 was deliberately aimed at blocking the entry of Japanese workers into the United States. The restrictive legislation, which had been brewing for some time in Congress, was in response to the agitation rising in several western states for legal restraints on Japanese migration. A series of informal exchanges between the State Department and the Japanese government (the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreements") had previously limited the numbers allowed to enter the United States each year, but all acknowledged this mechanism to be imprecise and inadequate as a longer-term solution. To allay Senate criticism over the State Department 's management of the problem, Hughes pursued a strategy that badly misfired. Instead of confronting the legislators directly, Hughes asked the Japanese Ambassador, Masanao Hanihara, to prepare a background statement on the question in the hope that such a detailed explanation would calm the Senate's furor. Hanihara's memorandum, however, had the opposite effe ct: Congress expressed annoyance at Japan's intrusion into a domestic matter and was angry at Hanihara's insinuation that the intended discriminatory law would have "grave consequences." Underlying the criticism in the Senate was a noticeable resentment toward the towering eminence of Hughes which, by comparison, seemed to dwarf the image of Congress.

As Hughes had predicted, the inclusion of the discriminatory clause severely damaged Japanese-American relations, which Hughes had assiduously cultivated at the Washington arms conference, and which had been aided by generous American humanitarian assistance to Japan after the disastrous 1923 earthquake. It also dealt a serious blow to the Coolidge presidency's reputation for justice and fair play. Cordiality gave way to cries of injustice and prejudice as Japanese militants exploited the incident to strengthen their political position. Hughes thought of resigning, but Coolidge assured him that he had acted correctly.

TO COOLIDGE'S regret, Hughes did tender his resignation on January 5, 1925. Though asked by Coolidge to remain in office, Hughes thought the time was right for him to return to private practice. The country faced no pressing questions that required his presence; then, too, there were financial issues. The costs of maintaining his position in Washington greatly exceeded his yearly salary of $12,000. A laudatory editorial in The Times of London on January 13, 1925 summed up Hughes' achievements:

He knew his America and he knew the world. He also understood, as perhaps no one else did during a very difficult period, the nature of the relations between a changing America and a world that was changing still more swiftly. He knew, moreover-and this is his chief title to fame-how to interpret these unstable and uncertain relations in a policy that was at once coherent and convincing to people at home and people abroad.

If anything, The Times understated the matter. Despite setbacks, Hughes' four years in office redefined America's position in world politics. He prevailed in the face of an ambivalent public, an often obstructive Congress, a Republican Party largely tone-deaf to foreign policy, and, especially at first, without the resources at the State Department that he required. He understood the importance of management, of shaping images and especially of boldness: above all else, Hughes understood as if by instinct that only new ideas and new methods of operation could work at the cusp of an age yet to be defined. Certainly, he was by far the most influential and innovative Republican internationalist of the post-World War I era.

In the common canon of knowledge about U.S. foreign policy, it is the Truman Administration-especially Dean Acheson, George Marshall and the President himself-that is given credit for recognizing the need for change and for stepping up to the historic tasks before it. Taking nothing away from their great accomplishments, it is perhaps not too much to say that Hughes as Secretary of State was nearly their match. Future secretaries could do worse than to study his extraordinary record in office.

Margot Louria is the author of Triumph and Downfall: America's Pursuit of Peace and Prosperity, 1921-1933 (2001).