Friction with cabinet
The American historian David Kennedy described Hull as "a plodding bureaucrat", a hard-working and efficient Secretary of State who worked six days a week (Hull usually took Sundays off) as well as being very dull, dour, unimaginative and a poor public speaker. Hull's nickname in Washington D.C was "Parsons Hull", a reference to his Protestant faith along with his dour image. Roosevelt excluded Hull from relations with nations such as the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and Germany that he considered important and often humiliated him by undercutting him as he did at the London Economic Conference in 1933. From 1937 onwards, the man who dominated the State Department was Hull's nominal deputy, the Undersecretary Sumner Welles, who had Roosevelt's trust and confidence in a way that Hull did not. Hull found this situation to be very humiliating and he came to hate Welles, who he felt had usurped his functions as Secretary of State.
The American historian Irwin Gellman wrote of the three men who dominated American foreign policy in the late 1930s-early 1940s all had secrets they sought to hide from the public. That Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist downwards as a result of the polio he contracted during a visit to Canada in 1921 was a very closely guarded secret and the vast majority of Americans had no idea that Roosevelt was confined to a wheelchair. Likewise, Welles was a closeted gay man with a fetish for sex with black men, an aspect of his life that he sought very hard to keep secret as revelations of his sexuality would have destroyed his career. Finally, Hull knew he was dying slowly of sarcoidosis and stayed at the State Department despite the way Roosevelt treated him out of the hope that he could make an important difference in the affairs of the world before his death. Hull also carefully guarded the secret that his wife was Jewish, which he felt would have damaged his reputation in Tennessee, a state where the majority of the people were fundamentalist Protestants of one sort or another and where the Ku Klux Klan had many chapters. Paradoxically, being married to a Jewish woman made Hull unwilling to do anything that might being seen as championing Jewish causes, which he believed would have destroyed his career as his opponents would accuse him of serving Jewish interests at the expense of American interests.
Hull denounced some of his cabinet colleagues, namely the Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, and the Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace as "the extreme left-wing fringe people" and the "social welfarers", whom he believed were pushing Roosevelt in a left-wing direction that was damaging to America. The cabinet secretary whom Hull clashed with the most was Morgenthau, whose role as Treasury Secretary covered international finance. In addition, the Jewish Morgenthau was easily the member of Roosevelt's cabinet most hostile towards Nazi Germany, and Hull often claimed that Morgenthau was too "emotional" when it came to the subject of the Third Reich and acted in ways that served Jewish interests instead of American interests. Morgenthau for his part claimed that the State Department under Hull's leadership was too "timorous" and "conventional" when came to dealing with the fascist states as he accused Hull of being too influenced by the professional diplomats of the State Department. Morgenthau wrote that the career diplomats of the State Department had "a 'foreign office mentality'-the notion you can get things done by being a generous host at diplomatic banquets" and that most of them did not see any danger from the fascist states. Morgenthau believed that the fascist states, especially Nazi Germany, represented a form of radical evil that had to be combatted and he accused Hull with his obsession with trade agreements of being myopic on this manner for far too long. Significantly, Welles was the one State Department official whom Morgenthau respected as he believed Welles shared his views on fascism.
Hull was concerned about what he called the approach of the "Niagara of war", which he believed could be stopped by ending the global trade war. In particular, he wanted a free trade agreement with Great Britain, which he saw as the "central point or spearhead" for a "world program" that "would emanate from many centers." He believed that an Anglo-American economic bloc would be so powerful that it would bring into its embrace nations such as Germany that had imposed steep tariffs in an attempt to achieve autarky. Hull argued that once Adolf Hitler was persuaded of the folly of protectionism and autarky as a way to achieve prosperity for the Reich, he would no other choice but to adhere to the Anglo-American economic bloc and in this way that danger of an world war would be averted. Reflecting his long-standing beliefs, Hull saw his principle duty as Secretary of State as the "maintenance and promotion of peace throughout the world, both political and economical" and that "the truth is universally recognized that trade between nations is the greatest peace-maker and civilizer within human experience".
Hull took at face value the claims of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini that Germany and Italy were "have not nations" those potential for economic growth was being hampered by not having an empire in the case of Germany or having not much of an empire in the case of Italy. Hull wrote in 1936 that fascism was "the characteristic expressions of great peoples in revolt against the limitations placed upon their national prosperity by their poverty in natural resources." Both Hitler and Mussolini argued that their nations needed imperialism as the only way to grow their economies, claims that Hull accepted at face value, but he argued that if protectionism was ended, then Germany and Italy would not have to attack their neighbors to grow their economies. Hull cast Britain as the principle villain, arguing that the system of imperial preference tariffs established by the Ottawa Agreements in 1932 were the main source of global economic and political instability. In In January 1936, Hull told Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British ambassador in Washington, that it was the imperial preference system that caused the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, saying that Mussolini had been forced to invade Ethiopia in October 1935 because the Italian economy was being squeezed by the protectionist policies of other nations, and predicted that Germany would soon invade its neighbors if the global trade war continued.
Hull came into conflict with Morgenthau over his plans for a fund to hold Chinese silver in American banks to stabilize the value of the yuan. Hull argued that the State Department was responsible for relations with China and warned that Morgenthau's proposal to strengthen the yuan and hence China's economy would provoke Japan which regarded China as being within its sphere of influence. Both men appealed to Roosevelt who sided with Morgenthau and it was the Treasury Department rather than the State Department that conducted the talks that led to the Sino-American economic agreement of May 1936. The American historian John Blum wrote as a result of the Sino-American agreement that for the next year that China was able to "enjoy a period of unprecedented stability in both the internal and external value of her money."
It was only with the Japanese invasion in July 1937 that the value of the yuan started to slide again. In June 1936, Morgenthau argued that the policies of the Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht of manipulating the value of the Reichmark was a form of subsidy to German exports and used the provision of the American law that allowed tariffs to be raised on nations engaged in "dumping" (i.e. state subsided exports) to raise tariffs on Germany. Hull protested vehemently against Morgenthau's actions, arguing that the manipulation of the Reichmark was not a subsidy and that the United States should be trying to lower tariffs with Germany instead of raising them. Hull argued that Germany had the world's second largest economy and as the Nazi regime had extremely strong protectionist tendencies that Morgenthau's action would only encourage more protectionism on the part of the Reich, which would hinder Hull's plans to end the global trade war. Hull thought that, as a Jew, Morgenthau was too offended by Hitler's "vile treatment of the Jews, had already declared his personal war on Germany...He rushed blindly ahead with a project to throw a crowbar into the machinery of our foreign relations." Once again, both Hull and Morgenthau appealed to Roosevelt, who again sided with Morgenthau.
During the Spanish Civil War, Hull clashed with both Morgenthau and Ickes over the correct policy to follow. Hull favored a policy of strict neutrality, an arms embargo on both the Republicans and the Nationalists, and the end of the Comintern's policy of recruiting Americans to fight in the International Brigades of the Spanish Republican Army. Ickes wanted Roosevelt to lift the arms embargo on the Spanish Republic while Morgenthau wanted to make loans to the Spanish Republic. Ickes wrote in his diary that felt he much shame as an American when Hull announced he would not grant passports to Americans wanting to serve in the International Brigades, even to the extent of refusing passports to a group of women who wanted to serve as nurses in Spain. Much to the disgust of both Ickes and Morgenthau, Roosevelt chose the course advocated by Hull of strict neutrality, which they felt was in effect siding with the Spanish Nationalists who were supported with both troops and arms from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
In a speech in 1937, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia said that brown-shirted Nazis ought to be featured as the "climax" of a chamber of horrors in the upcoming World's Fair. The Nazi government organ, Der Angriff, called the mayor a "Jewish Ruffian" who had been bribed by Jewish and Communistic agents and was a criminal disguised as an officeholder. In the ensuing exchanges, Hull sent a letter of regret to Berlin for intemperate comments on both sides, but he also explained the principle of freedom of speech. As the response of Nazi propaganda organs rose in pitch to include characterizing American women as "prostitutes," Hull sent a letter of protest to Berlin, which elicited an "explanation" but no apology.
