With the current high drama in our national life, commenced on
September 11, 2001, it may seem odd to suggest an interest in the
life and diplomacy of Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State from
1921 to 1925 under Presidents Harding and Coolidge. At first glance,
his times seem much less daunting than ours: a period of peace,
burgeoning prosperity and, flappers and Prohibition aside, what
President Harding called "normalcy." But, in truth, Hughes became
Secretary of State at a critical juncture. The United States had been
tested by a horrific world war and had emerged divided over its
proper international role. The awesome mortality rate of that war
(more than 50,000 American soldiers were killed in action), and the
use of poison gas as a method in it, alarmed many Americans. Just
beneath the surface, too, many feared exposure to the historic
vulnerabilities of the Old World, as if America's exceptional
circumstance in history--having enjoyed sanctuary from attack by two
surrounding oceans and two unthreatening neighbors--was melting away
before a prospective devastation so frightening as to virtually
paralyze imagination and response. And with Woodrow Wilson
incapacitated by a stroke and Theodore Roosevelt deceased, America
was without prominent statesmen to guide it.

In other ways, too, Hughes encountered a turbulent international
scene for which few precedents existed to guide him. As the major
creditor nation after the Great War and a leading world power, the
United States was destined to assume a major role in international
affairs. The war, however, had left the nation so mired in dissension
and disillusionment that most Americans rejected any overseas
political or military commitments. Hughes was keenly aware of the
dangerous gap between what America was required to do in its own
interest and what American public opinion would tolerate.

Despite such obstacles, Hughes revealed himself to be a determined
activist once in office. He frequently offended those who differed
from him, as well as those who resented his blunt and overbearing
manner. He broke with the conventional diplomatic etiquette of the
times in which patience and decorum were central; he opted instead
for boldness and results, and so managed to guide an ambivalent
nation away from "rank isolationism." As we shall see, Hughes was not
without his character flaws, and he made mistakes; but he met
unprecedented times with unprecedented creativity and energy.

A Judge's Journey

Charles Evans Hughes was born on April 11, 1862, the son of a Baptist
minister from Wales. He was raised in upstate New York State in
strict observance of the classic virtues of frugality, honesty and
hard work. Graduating with honors at 19 from Brown University, he
then received a law degree from Columbia while simultaneously
attaining a Master of Arts from Brown. His brilliance in law was
aptly demonstrated in his first public assignment, when he was chosen
by the New York State legislature in 1905 to investigate corrupt gas
and insurance companies. Hughes went from success to success in his
public career, serving as the governor of New York State (1907-10),
an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court (1910-16) and
Republican candidate for the presidency in 1916. (Despite lingering
divisions in the Republican Party from Theodore Roosevelt's 1912
"Bull Moose" adventure and Hughes' own ineptness as a campaigner, he
lost to the incumbent Wilson by only 23 electoral votes.)

In 1921, Warren Harding named Hughes his Secretary of State. As a
condition of accepting the post, Hughes insisted on "free rein" to
run the State Department and to set the nation's foreign policy
agenda. Harding and his successor Coolidge, who both admitted their
meager knowledge of foreign matters and were primarily concerned with
domestic problems, granted Hughes' request. (Both men also knew that,
had Hughes not withdrawn from the 1920 presidential contest over the
death of his daughter, Helen, he would most likely have been elected
the 29th president.) At a February 19, 1921 press conference, President-elect Harding reiterated that his administration's style of operation in foreign policy would be more open than that of the outgoing
Wilson Administration. Declining to comment on foreign policy issues
himself, Harding stressed that Hughes was to be the State
Department's only spokesman: "You must ask Mr. Hughes that", he told
the assembled reporters.

Dignified in appearance and nationally known, Hughes carried an aura
of respectability and authority that no other statesman of his day
could match--or that a president could deny. Whereas Wilson had
overshadowed his secretaries of state--William Jennings Bryan with
some difficulty and then Robert Lansing with greater ease--Hughes
overshadowed his presidents.

He faced an entirely different situation with regard to the Senate,
however. Accustomed to asserting their right to intervene at will in
foreign policy matters, many Senators viewed the Hughes nomination as
a threat to their prerogatives. Others feared the resumption of
debate over the League of Nations; indeed, the irreconcilables and
isolationists in the Senate bristled at the thought of "a whiskered
Wilson" in an influential position. This was an inaccurate
characterization. Like Wilson, Hughes was imbued with strong moral
principles that he believed committed a society to the rule of law.
Like Wilson, too, Hughes held that international society would do
well to abide by the law to the extent possible, and that
international institutions could play a constructive role in ensuring
peace, progress and prosperity. But Hughes was not an idealist. He
recognized the irreplaceable role of power standing behind principle
and the more than occasionally base proclivities of human nature.
Hughes was a moralist as befitted the temper of his times, but he
loathed the kind of moralism that sacrificed consequences to
high-sounding intentions. Wilson, after all, was a college president,
but Hughes was a judge.

Whatever its sources, the Senate's attitude warned Hughes to proceed
with care if his foreign policy program was to win congressional
approval. He avoided controversial issues such as relations with the
League of Nations that might antagonize those Senators who possessed
the power to block other important initiatives. Thanks to his adroit
planning, more treaties and agreements won congressional approval on
Hughes' watch than in any previous administration.

An astute politician in many but not all respects, Hughes not only
managed to influence the Senate, but the Fourth Estate as well. He
recognized the immense power of the media to sway public opinion and
utilized fully the services of the press to present his case. To
dispel misconceptions and plain ignorance about current events, as
well as to satisfy the country's demands for prompt disclosure,
Hughes briefed journalists daily, circumstances permitting. Unlike
Wilson's hamstrung secretaries of state, Hughes provided detailed
answers to questions and often gave comprehensive reviews of current
issues. Far from some initial portrayals depicting him as austere and
cold, the press corps soon found Hughes witty and forthright.
Innumerable anecdotes were reported regarding Hughes' amazing
intellectual talents. At a glance Hughes could run down a printed
page and remember it verbatim. One instance concerned a three-page
typewritten memo prepared for public announcement. It arrived late;
nevertheless, Hughes quickly read it, put it in his pocket, and then
delivered the contents from memory. When reporters' transcripts were
later compared with the original version, only one minor discrepancy
was discovered.

Setting Up Shop

When Hughes arrived at the State Department in March 1921, a
demanding agenda inherited from the Wilson Administration awaited
him. Hughes lamented that "a worse tangle" of unattended issues on
multiple fronts had yet to be found. The United States was
technically still at war with the Central Powers. Bitter arguments
among the Allies over Germany's reparations delayed a return to
stability and prosperity in Europe. Relations with Mexico were in chaos, and American interventions in Santo Domingo, Nicaragua and Haiti w
ere accompanied by full-throated cries of Yankee imperialism. In the
Far East, instability in China and a restless Japan threatened the
"Open Door" policy designed to protect China's territorial integrity
and guarantee equal trading opportunities. Japan, though an ally
during the recent war, distrusted American intentions in the Pacific
and had embarked on a costly naval armament program that was
attracting anxious attention.

Establishing order out of chaos was Hughes' strongest suit. Upon
becoming Secretary of State, he exercised his talents in concentric
circles, first tending to his own office, then to the department,
then to the Foreign Service, and finally to Congress and the world at
large. He knew that before he could launch his foreign policies, he
had to address a sobering reality: his personal office was short of
competent staff and the State Department as a whole was a mess.

Hughes started with his own staff, quickly assembling a talented
group of career diplomats, many of whom were brought in from overseas
positions. The staff was restructured into regional bureaus, allowing
members to specialize in a particular field. Within easy reach of his
senior officers, Hughes would call on them at a moment's notice,
making requests and expecting instant responses. William Phillips,
his undersecretary in 1922, recalled:

"At odd and often inconvenient moments during the day, my buzzer
would resound with devastating insistence, commanding my immediate
attendance on the Secretary. If I delayed a moment, I would detect a
certain impatience on the Secretary's part, so eager was he to get on
with the day's agenda."

Hughes then turned his attention to the department itself. In 1921,
the State Department had only 13 embassies and 35 legations abroad,
along with some 400 consulates varying in size and importance. Its
staff was divided into two branches, the Diplomatic and the Consular,
that performed independently of each other. The Washington office of
about 100 political appointees and civil service professionals had
been allowed to function informally with little attention to
specialized expertise or regional knowledge. It was clearly too small
and poorly resourced to handle the tough tasks ahead. The overseas
and Washington staffs were dispirited as well; after the war, work
loads had increased while low wages and poor working conditions went
unredressed. Hughes recognized the singular importance of management
as a function of departmental leadership and urged reform. The Rogers
Act of 1924 was a personal victory for Hughes. It fundamentally
restructured the Foreign Service by merging the Diplomatic and
Consular branches, creating a merit-based recruitment and promotion
system, and improving salaries and benefits.

The Treaty of Berlin

In assessing the numerous foreign policy problems in need of prompt
solution, Hughes believed that peace treaties with Germany, Hungary
and Austria were paramount. Two years and four months had elapsed
since the signing of the Armistice, yet, since the Senate had not
ratified the Treaty of Versailles, the United States remained
technically in a state of war with its former enemies. Without prior
consultation with the State Department, Congress passed a broad
measure, the Knox-Porter joint resolution of July 2, 1921,
unilaterally declaring an end to the war and reserving to the United
States "all rights, privileges, indemnities, reparations, or
advantages" as stipulated in the Versailles Treaty (to which the
United States was entitled as one of the five Allied and Associated
Powers). Although the United States was not a party to the Versailles
Treaty, Congress nevertheless wanted the country to benefit from its
provisions. However, the joint resolution was only a unilateral
declaration; it could not become a binding legal document until a
treaty was negotiated with the defeated nations and ratified by all
parties.

Hughes was furious at Congress for meddling in his domain and
significantly limiting his future options without informing him. He
also wished to preserve certain rights guaranteed in the Versailles
Treaty: a voice in the allocation of Germany's overseas possessions;
reimbursement for the costs of maintaining American troops stationed
in Germany; and especially the settlement of claims against Germany
by American citizens. But Congress had not helped. The Senate had
rejected the Versailles Treaty--meaning that Germany was technically
free to negotiate new terms with the United States--but the
Knox-Porter joint resolution mandated Hughes to secure a settlement
that would not diverge from the provisions laid out at Versailles.

Scrupulous and exact, Hughes therefore carefully crafted a document
that included almost all the parts of the Versailles Treaty, with the
significant exception of the League Covenant, and attached it to the
July 2 Senate resolution. This strategy obviated the need to start
from scratch in negotiations with the German government, and a
treaty--called the Treaty of Berlin--was approved by the Senate on
October 18, 1921. For those who believe that the United States was
not a party in any manner to the Versailles Treaty, the final text of
the Treaty of Berlin is proof to the contrary; it committed the
United States to uphold virtually all the terms of that treaty except
the League Covenant. Treaties with Germany's allies were quickly
concluded based on the same format.

Hughes' inventive strategy, however, drew fire from the League
faithful who chastised him for betraying their trust and abandoning
the Geneva-based institution. Like many internationally-minded
Americans, Hughes had supported the creation of a league of nations,
and had suggested several amendments to the 1919 draft of the
covenant to render it acceptable to the Senate. He had also advocated
America's entry into the Permanent Court of International Justice
(the World Court), which was authorized under Article 14 of the
League Covenant but created by a separate protocol. Hughes saw the
World Court as a major advance because it provided a permanent
mechanism for the settlement of disputes through adjudication--a
mechanism that was, in his view, fully consistent with America's
tradition of promoting the rule of law worldwide.

Meanwhile, several irate Senators accused him of demeaning the
authority of Congress. Suspicious of Hughes' resourcefulness, they
deliberately sought to limit his freedom of action by adding a
reservation to the Berlin Treaty forbidding American participation in
any meetings linked with the Versailles Treaty and the League of
Nations without explicit Congressional authorization. Hughes managed
to evade the restriction by sending "unofficial" observers to
international meetings, but this caused some confusion about their
precise role. Joseph Grew, Minister to Switzerland, described his
discomfort on being an unofficial observer at the Temporary Mixed
Commission sessions on traffic in arms held in Geneva in February
1924: "The Department's instructions are often open to various
interpretations: one may guess right, but one may also guess wrong,
and a wrong guess may be very serious indeed, particularly when
publicity is involved."

The Washington Naval Conference

With the United States a non-participant in the League of Nations,
Hughes sought, through the sponsorship of the 1921-22 Washington
Conference on the Limitation of Armaments, to establish a means for
the United States to initiate proposals to ensure international
security and peace, and thus to display world leadership. From
conception to conclusion, the much heralded multinational meeting was
a Hughesian production down to its most minute detail. It was also a
star-studded media event attended by world statesmen and covered
fully by the press, upon whom Hughes depended to publicize America's
willingness to be an active player on the international scene.
Originally conceived as a meeting on Far Eastern and Pacific issues
because of the pending renewal of the Anglo-Japanese military pact,
the agenda was expanded under public and Congressional pressure to
include the reduction of armaments. While remembered chiefly for
introducing the celebrated 5-5-3 ratios for capital ships, the
conference produced a network of agreements that provided a framework
for resolving political disputes in the Far East and Pacific.

The background to the Washington Naval Conference is quite complex.
There was, first and foremost, a widespread belief among the public,
both in the United States and abroad, that armaments races had
abetted the Great War. A costly naval race in the Pacific appeared
imminent in 1919-20, prompting Senator William Borah, chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to propose a disarmament
conference involving Japan, Britain and the United States to limit
their naval construction programs. President Harding had initially
favored a major naval buildup to gain a competitive edge before the
convening of such a conference, but Hughes understood that this would
further incite naval building and lead to a potentially disastrous
rivalry among the former Allies of the Great War. It was clear in any
case that Japan, having acquired former German territories in the
Pacific--the Marianas, the Caroline Islands and the Marshall
Islands--would gain the geopolitical advantage in Northeast Asia if a
major naval race were to ensue. The agreements reached in 1921-22,
however, made it harder for Japan to leverage that advantage. Under
multilateral diplomatic pressure, Japan withdrew from Russian
Siberia, from the northern half of Sakhalin Island and from Shantung
province--the former German concession--in China. Tokyo also
supported a greatly diluted four-power pact (United States, Great
Britain, France and Japan) based solely on consultation to replace
the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

While the arrangements made in 1921-22 were criticized after December
7, 1941 as having given unfair advantage to Japan--not least by Dean
Acheson in his memoirs4--Hughes' strategy was no utopian disarmament
fantasy, but one based on realist calculations. (Whether those
calculations were made wisely remains a topic of debate among
historians.) Hughes aimed at a great power concert that addressed the
interests of every power, and that gave each something of value that
could not be had unilaterally.

In his opening address to the Conference on November 12, 1921, Hughes
stunned the audience with his consummate presentation calling for a
ten-year ban on capital ship construction and citing the particulars
of naval limits based on relative equivalencies for Great Britain,
United States, Japan, France and Italy. Hughes thus took an enormous
risk, for he had not invited any prior consultation with the affected
states, violating traditional diplomatic practice to the extreme. But
he never wavered from the 5-5-3 ratio principle as the best option
for implementing a naval reduction plan. In stressing that all other
methods lacked credibility, Hughes put to the conferees a stark
choice: accept the Hughes formula or face a costly and accelerating
naval race. Since the United States bore the brunt of the naval
sacrifices by forfeiting the greater part of its 1916 capital ship
construction program, Hughes was able to reach an accord by making
only marginal additional concessions to the other four parties.

The five-power naval treaty was a major achievement: For the first
time in history, nations were committed to a common standard of
measurement for naval armaments and legally bound to limiting the
total tonnage of their capital ships. As important, Hughes believed
that he had broken the inexorable momentum of an arms race that could
lead to a Pacific war in which America would be at an inherent
disadvantage, not least because of its exposed position in the
Philippines. At the same time, Hughes understood the need for the
United States to maintain its relative naval strength in the interest
of peace and security.

Hughes' dictatorial manner did not sit well with those adversely
affected by his actions. In determining the appropriate tonnage and
ratios, Hughes resorted to a stringent formula that overrode the
recommendations of the General Board, the policy arm of the U.S. Navy
Department, which had counted on the completion of the 1916 naval
construction plan. He enraged the admirals who believed that such
drastic cuts jeopardized national security and naval defense. They
also protested treaty prohibitions against fortifying American
islands in the Pacific. The British admiralty was equally furious at
Hughes for forcing it to revise its naval blueprints to conform with
the weight restrictions. The French delegates were irate over the
secret rendezvous of the spokesmen of the Big Three (the United
States, Great Britain and Japan) who were empowered by their
governments to make decisions on the spot. The French hissed,
accusing Hughes of engaging in an Anglo-American conspiracy to assign
their nation a parity with Italy, a country they considered to be of
lesser nobility. (Some things never change.)

While progress in naval disarmament captured worldwide attention,
redressing the imbalance in the power structure in the Far East and
Pacific, where many vested commercial interests were directly
affected, required a more subtle diplomacy. Hughes identified a
debilitated China as the main source of turbulence in the region. The
primary task of the follow-on negotiations was to render "the
greatest help possible to the Chinese people in developing a stable
and effective government really representative of the people of
China." Hughes justified American intrusion into Chinese affairs on
the basis of the Open Door policy, which had acquired a strategic
import well beyond its initial aim of creating equal opportunity for
trade. Hughes saw the Open Door doctrine, broadened in 1900 to
include the recognition of the territorial integrity of China, as
consistent with both a strong American role in the Far East and its
anti-imperialist code of conduct.

These broader Open Door principles were fully embodied in a
nine-power treaty drafted by former Secretary of State Elihu Root, a
delegate to the conference. Its declaration of intent, acclaimed as
the "Magna Carta for China", reflected a moral pledge to guarantee
its territorial integrity, but it relied only on the good faith of
the signatories to honor their legal commitments. Other more concrete
achievements are worth noting, however. Through the good offices of
Hughes and the chief British delegate, Lord Balfour, Japan returned
Shantung to China--as noted above--which it had taken from Germany
during the Great War, while Great Britain and France relinquished
some of their holdings on China's coastline. Additional specific
steps were taken to strengthen China's political and economic
structures.

The 1921-22 Washington Conference changed the course of U.S. foreign
policy in the Far East. Britain wisely conceded the inevitability of
sharing power with the United States in East Asia and came to
strongly support American positions. Japan, then governed by a
liberal regime, was also amenable to moderating its policies and
looked forward to improving trade relations with China. While the
agreements and resolutions lacked provisions for enforcement, relying
on consultation if disputes in the area should arise, they did manage
to quell the roiling waters of the Far East and Pacific for a decade.
To Secretary of State Henry Stimson's later dismay, the measures
assiduously put in place at the conference fell apart in September
1931 when Japan disregarded its treaty commitments and invaded
Manchuria. After the Japanese attack on Shanghai in January 1932,
Stimson wrote a letter to Senator Borah that released the United
States, and by implication the other signatories of the Washington
Conference as well, from their pledges to uphold the 1921-22
covenants. Japan's flagrant violation of Chinese sovereignty, and the
unwillingness of the United States to stand against it, represented
the final unraveling of Hughes' efforts to provide stability and
security in the region. Hughes, by then Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, felt obliged to abjure public comment on the matter.

The Dawes Plan

A prime illustration of Hughes' special talents for developing
pragmatic solutions to problems was his adroit management of
intergovernmental indebtedness following the Great War. A unique
initiative, the Dawes Plan, rescued Germany from an economic crisis
that threatened to disrupt the flow of reparations to the victors
and, in turn, Allied loan repayments to the United States. The task
was not a simple one: Hughes had to balance the need for the
cooperation of the affected parties, the repayment of the war debts,
the Allies' right to restitution as set forth in the Versailles
Treaty, and the immediacy of Germany's financial crisis.

Hughes singled out as the root cause of Europe's economic decline the
huge reparations indemnity that the victors of the Great War were
exacting from Germany. Reparations starved the German economy of
capital and fueled inflation. The devaluation of the mark and the
contraction of the German economy, in turn, affected trade with the
rest of Europe, augmenting economic woes elsewhere on the continent.
In late March 1921, a distraught German government, unable to meet
the terms of a rigid payment schedule, beseeched the U.S. government
to intervene on its behalf. Not one to rush into a delicate situation
without forethought, Hughes declined to act; but did not rule out an
American role at some future date. In the meantime, he commenced to
think and plan.

In Hughes' view, the situation could never be rectified if left in
the hands of biased politicians who, by their instincts and
predilections, were incapable of reaching a realistic settlement
based on what Germany could pay. Their persistent haggling was much
in evidence at a series of meetings of the Reparation Commission
established under the Versailles Treaty to assess Germany's
obligation. On December 29, 1922, an exasperated Hughes finally
determined that the issue should be turned over to "men of highest
authority in finance in their respective countries" who could best
judge the state of Germany's economy and its capacity to manage the
indemnity. But neither France nor Belgium were amenable. In
retaliation for Germany's default on its reparations, their troops
seized the Ruhr in early January 1923. Amid a general strike and
panic in German markets, the country's credit collapsed and the
German mark was rendered virtually worthless.

Hughes now saw the urgency of the problem and, luckily, American
intervention was aided by a change of heart in the office of the
French Prime Minister, Raymond Poincaré. Once France softened its
position, Hughes created an American presence in new negotiations of
the Reparation Commission by urging the creation of two independent
committees with no connection to the Versailles Treaty. Hughes then
selected three prominent financiers as unofficial advisers to these
committees--Charles B. Dawes, Owen D. Young and Harry P.
Robinson--with the understanding that they were to serve as private
citizens and to make recommendations only. Judicious and correct,
Hughes had the invitations mailed to their homes, lest some
Congressmen contend that the U.S. government was slighting the
Senate's direction to keep a distance from Versailles.

Dawes, a Chicago banker and former head of the Bureau of the Budget,
chaired the more prominent of the two committees. He identified as
central to the restoration of Germany's credit the twin tasks of
budget balancing and currency stabilization. That judgment served as
the basis from which all measures of reform evolved. His final
report, which extended far beyond the original mandate, was a
comprehensive examination of the structural problems in the German
economy. It prescribed the steps required to restore the government's
solvency and allow the country to meet its financial
responsibilities. The thickly-documented economic blueprint was
welcomed by American and European businessmen, who saw the need to
base Germany's economy on sound fiscal principles.

Hughes' perception of Europe's worsening economic condition and his
faith in the Dawes Plan obliged him to campaign for its acceptance
during a visitto Europe in the summer of 1924. In France, he told
Premier Edouard Herriott that his cabinet "must endorse" the plan. In
Germany, he warned Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann that, if the
Dawes recommendations were not accepted, America "was finished" with
trying to mediate the problem. Hughes was a brinksman extraordinaire
(when Richard Nixon was only eleven years old). To Hughes, the Dawes
Plan was the best way to ensure the peace and prosperity of the
continent, which ultimately would benefit the United States in trade
and war debt repayments. While the plan was clearly an American
initiative, it was unofficial and did not require approval by the
Congress. (Nor, therefore, could it be derailed by the Congress.)

The Dawes Plan did not require any Congressional appropriations. The
financial transfusion that began in October 1924 relied primarily on
the American private sector as the source of funding. Wartime
animosities were set aside as individual investors rushed to take
advantage of the higher yields offered on German government bonds
backed by gold when they were floated on the New York Stock Exchange.
In total, Germany received an estimated $2.5 billion, which was
deposited into reparations accounts, and $2.6 billion returned in
time to the United States from 15 debtor nations. For the next five
years the German reichsmark fluctuated less on the foreign exchanges
than did other European currencies, and American businesses profited.

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).