Cordell Hull

Cordell Hull (1871-1955), American statesman, United Nations adviser, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was born in Overton (now Pickett) County, Tennessee, and educated in law at Cumberland University. He was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1893 to 1897, and, after serving in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War, was district judge in Tennessee from 1903 to 1907. Hull served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1907 to 1921 and from 1923 until 1931. He was the author of the federal income tax law of 1913, and in 1916 he wrote a revision of that law and sponsored federal estate tax legislation. For 18 years he was a member of the Democratic Steering Committee. In 1930 Hull was elected to the U.S. Senate; he resigned in 1933 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him secretary of state. In that office Hull did much to bring about reciprocal trade, financial, and defense treaties between the U.S. and other nations, particularly of Latin America. During World War II he represented the U.S. at meetings with the foreign ministers of the USSR and Britain and strongly supported the establishment of the United Nations. In 1944 he resigned from the cabinet because of failing health. The following year he was appointed senior adviser to the U.S. delegation of the UN Conference on International Organization, and was awarded the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize. He wrote The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (1948).