Great way to learn history, by reading the bio of a man who was at the forefront of almost everything that happened in US history from 1860-1905. ( )

There's a famous photo of Abraham Lincoln with his two private secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, that almost every Lincoln fan will be aware of. In it John Hay, age 24, stands with his hand on the back of Lincoln's armchair in easy intimacy, his right knee relaxed, his left arm akimbo and holding his hat. His clothes are notably more stylish than Nicolay's office attire and Lincoln's formal suit. He's the picture of confidence, and you want to learn more about him, especially after you find out that he ended his career as the greatest Secretary of State to that point (under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt) and that he was also close by during the assassinations of James Garfield and McKinley.

John Hay had style, and this biography does not. It is complete as can be, yet dry and unspeculative. Too little attention is paid to the times in which Hay moved; too little effort is made to consider what historical documents leave out. This is nowhere more apparent than in the treatment of Hay's marriage to a strikingly plain heiress, and his nearly lifelong love affair with a beautiful politician's wife. The biographer does not venture a word about the inferences that might be drawn from the engagement of a talented, somewhat famous young man with relatively little money to the—let's say it—ugly daughter of one of the country's richest men, and his subsequent employment by his new father-in-law. In a more vivid biography, one whose boldness lies elsewhere, this reticence might represent admirable restraint, but in a book that lacks boldness altogether, it only reads as timidity and lack of imagination.

It doesn't help that John Hay led a largely charmed life and was rarely faced with a challenge he didn't overcome. But such a subject means that the biographer has to spend particular effort describing the drama of the times in which his subject played an important part. Instead, Hay's time with Lincoln is discussed not in terms of his position as a resident of the White House during the most dramatic times it's ever seen, but more as if its importance lies mainly in the fact that it was Hay's first job. Did he do a good job? Yes, he was very good. He might have even authored the Bixby letter signed with Lincoln's name. But Lincoln died, and that put Hay out of work. On to Hay's trip to Paris....

There's a passage near the beginning of Mark Twain's autobiography that tells a funny and sad story about Hay, who had been a pal of Twain's when they both worked on Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. I'm tempted to copy out the whole thing here—it's more lifelike and telling in two pages than anything in the 600-page biography. ( )

An in-depth look at historical political figure John Hay, detailing his illustrious and fascinating career, from secretary to Abraham Lincoln to secretary of state for Theodore Roosevelt.

5051. All the Great Prizes The Life of John Hay from Lincoln to Roosevelt, by John Taliaferro (read 12 Aug 2013) On 26 Jan 1999 I read the biography of John Hay which won the Pulitzer prize for biography in 1934, and enjoyed it. So I really did not think I needed to read another biography of John Hay. But this looked so competent and I decided to give myself the pleasure of reading it. It is a fine work, and fun to read. Hay is an interesting person and one wonders what he would think of the people running the Republican Party today. They would probably call him a RINO. But he was an admirable person and his biography is composed almost perfectly. If I had any complaint, I would say the author overdid the quoting of Hay's mushy letters to Lizzie Cameron, even though it was interesting that he spent so much time mooning over Lizzie while married to a wife of his own. And Hay no doubt did the country a service in restraining TR a bit, since TR would have liked to have a war if he could find one. There is one amazing error in the book. At two places it is indicated that Albert Beveridge was TR's Vice President! The Vice President serving with Teddy Roosevelt was Charles Fairbanks. Beveridge was never Vice President. ( )