MR F. B. KELLOGG DEAD

Southland Times, Issue 23390, 23 December 1937, Page 5

MR F. B. KELLOGG DEAD

AMERICAN DIPLOMAT

FORMER AMBASSADOR AND SECRETARY OF STATE

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright)

(Received December 22, 7.45 p.m.)

ST. PAUL (Minnesota), December 21. The death is announced of Mr Frank B. Kellogg, a former Secretary of State and Ambassador to London. He would have been 81 years old tomorrow. Mr Kellogg had been in a coma, caused by pneumonia, almost steadily since last Saturday, but he appeared to rally briefly earlier today. His doctor hoped he would survive his birthday, although he knew ultimate recovery was impossible. Members of Mr Kellogg’s family gave conflicting reports to the Press resulting in uncertainty about his death. It was explained that breathing was detected after the pronouncement of death, but it soon ceased.

Frank Billings Kellogg was born in December 1851 at Potsdam, New York state, but while he was still a lad his parents moved to the state of Minnesota. He specialized in law and became one of the most brilliant and successful lawyers in America. He had a very lucrative practice, but at the request of Mr Theodore Roosevelt he gave up £20,000 a year in order to act for the Government in important proceedings against the Paper and Standard Oil trusts, and in the investigation of the Harriman railways. He was a great cross-examiner, but although he had Mr J. D. Rockefeller m the witness box for hours, he could get very little change out of that astute individual. His activities earned him the popular title of “Teddy’s Trust-Buster.” Mr Kellogg was a member of the Republican Party. In 1916 he was elected to the Senate lor Minnesota in recognition of his anti-trust efforts. But in 1922 the fact that his firm had acted for the United States Steel Corporation led to his being accused of reactionary tendencies, with the result that he was defeated. Earlier in the year he had urged in the Senate that the United States should demand a seat on the Reparations Commission. , . . At the end of 1923 he was appointed United States Ambassador to London, where in July 1924, along with Mr Owen D. Young he played an important part in the conference on the Dawes Plan. In his attitude to the Treaty of Versailles he was a “mild reservatlonist.” After the resignation of Mr C. E. Hughes in January 1925 Mr Kellogg succeeded him as Secretary of State and was followed in London by Mr A. B. Houghton. His policy was one of non-intervention in the politics of Europe, but continued co-operation in its economic restoration. He had the important advantage to a Secretary of State of experience in the United States Senate which was friendly to him, but he was not a very forceful personality. In December 1925 he declared that the cancellation of war debts was out of the question. The United States Debts Commission, he said, had laid down the test of capacity to pay and America had gone as far as she could in recognizing the losses and burdens of the debtor nations. Mr Kellogg would have nothing to do with the conference of the signatories of the protocol establishing the Permanent Court of International Justice, from which the United States field aloof. Mr Kellogg’s xerm of office was largely taken up with disarmament questions, but he had also to deal with difficult situations in China, Mexico and Nicaragua. He issued a declaration in August 1927, that the United States was ready to negotiate with any government representing China for the release of extra-territorial rights and the imposition of the surtaxes of the Washington Treaty,' indirectly abolishing tariff control and restoring complete tariff autonomy in China. He added that the United States would expect most-favoured-nation' treatment and no discrimination against its citizens and that the open door for trade should be maintained, and warned China that, if she could not protect America citizens, the United States itself would have to do so. Early in 1928 he came to a separate agreement with the Nationalists over the Nanking outrages. Mr Kellogg stated in August 1926 that the best method of armaments limitation was by regional agreements, as a universal plan was in practice inapplicable. In February 1928 he took up a proposal for the abolition of submarines and laid it before the Powers, but France and certain smaller Powers would not entertain the idea. Meanwhile, as a sequel to the renewal of the arbitration treaty with France and M. Briand’s suggestion of a Franco-American pact outlawing war, Mr Kellogg put forward a proposal for a multilateral pact with that object to be signed by all the great Powers. M. Briand at first wished to confine it to wars of aggression and pointed out that it must not conflict with the obligations of countries under the League Covenant. He waived the former point, but made various reservations with the result that Mr Kellogg and M. Briand each sent out his own version of a draft pact to the Powers in April 1928. Mr Kellogg’s plan was that differences should be submitted to arbitration and that questions involving internal politics, a third Power, or the Monroe Doctrine should be excluded.

Mr Kellogg took a firm stand in defence of the rights of American citizens in Mexico when these were threatened by the new Mexican oil and land laws. Although Mr Kellogg had only one eye, he was a great reader and was fond of a game of golf.