Description:

Hay John

2pp ALS on watermarked likely formerly bifold stationery with “Department of State, Washington” letterhead inscribed overall and signed by 37th U.S. Secretary of State John Hay as “Your obedient Servant John Hay” at center right of second page. In very good condition, with overall toning. Pages have been sliced at center and partly adhered to brown paper verso. Two minor tears along bottom and pin marks in the upper left corner of the first page do not affect the text. Each page measures 4.375” x 6.875”.

Secretary of State Hay wrote this May 2, 1899 letter from Washington, DC to two Prussian representatives, “Baron Marschall von Bieberstein and Mr. von Knebel Boeberitz”. Hay’s ALS served as a letter of introduction. “Allow me to present to you Mr. John A. McCall President of the New York Life Insurance Company, a gentleman of the highest social and financial standing”, Hay began. He continued that McCall “desires to place himself at your service for the purpose of facilitating the objects which have been the occasion of your visit to America”. 

The Germans’ “occasion of your visit to America” alluded to their roles as Prussian life insurance commissioners. The two men were charged with “studying the methods of sundry American insurance companies which desire to do business with Germany”, as one American State Department document described it. Dependent on the commissioners’ feedback, American life insurance firms could be readmitted into Prussia. It was a delicate and multi-million-dollar economic mission.

The Prussian Empire and the state of New York had been at odds for at least three years preceding this letter. Prussia had banned American life insurance companies from policy holding around 1896, and New York had retaliated by expelling Prussian fire insurance companies from the state.  By late 1898, the wayward business partners approached each other about reopening trade relations. The December 1899 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States traces the courtship of the two countries. Between April and August 1899, von Beiberstein and von Knebel Boeberitz closely examined three major New York life insurance companies, including McCall’s New York Life Insurance Company. By October 1899, based on the gentlemen’s favorable report, New York life insurance companies were welcomed back to Prussia; the following month Prussian fire insurance companies were allowed back to New York. This deal was of such economic significance that 25th U.S. President William McKinley (1843-1901) mentioned it in his Third Annual Message to the Senate and House of Representatives on December 5, 1899.

John Hay (1838-1905) served as Secretary of State between 1898 and 1905, during both the McKinley and the Roosevelt administrations. His tenure was highlighted by coordinating the Treaty of Paris, which outlined American territorial gains following the Spanish-American War, and by implementing the so-called “Open Door Policy” with China.

John A. McCall (1849-1906) spent his whole life in insurance. Future 22nd and 24th U.S. President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) appointed him New York State Insurance Commissioner in 1889, and between 1892-1905, he served as the President of New York Life Insurance Company. McCall died in 1906 from liver cancer exacerbated by financial worries; his company had been reprimanded by an insurance industry probe.

Baron Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein (1842-1912) had many years of political and diplomatic experience. In the 1890s, he served as State Secretary of the Foreign Office and Foreign Minister of Prussia. He later served as Prussian ambassador to Constantinople and Great Britain.

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