Norman Hezekiah Davis was an American banker and diplomat.
Background
Norman Hezekiah Davis, who received his name from his birthplace, Normandy, a small town in middle Tennessee was born on August 9, 1878. He was one of seven children and the second of five sons of Maclin Hezekiah and Christina Lee (Shofner) Davis. His paternal ancestors had emigrated from Wales to Virginia and North Carolina in the 1740's. Davis spent most of his boyhood in Tullahoma, Tenn. , where his father, previously the manager of a general store in Normandy, settled about 1884 and bought a sawmill, a distillery, and a farm.
Education
Davis attended local schools and the preparatory school of William R. Webb at nearby Bell Buckle, and in 1897 entered Vanderbilt University. The death of his father the following year forced him to leave college and help support the family, but after a severe attack of asthma, he spent a year in California as a student at Stanford (1899 - 1900).
Career
In Tennessee in 1900, Davis managed a farm and bought an interest in a local factory. He moved two years later to Cuba, both to improve his health and to take advantage of the island's expanding economy. In 1905, having learned Spanish and banking, he organized the Trust Company of Cuba, of which he soon became president. In this and other enterprises, over the next decade, he amassed a considerable fortune. He was convicted of fraud during this period for failing to disclose to a stockholder the profits of one of the companies of which he was an officer, but Davis always felt that he was morally innocent.
After America's entry into World War I in 1917, he severed most of his business connections in Cuba, moved to New York City, and volunteered his services to the federal government. A lifelong Democrat, Davis soon found a niche in the Treasury Department, and in mid-1918 he successfully negotiated a loan from neutral Spain. His Cuban experience had convinced him of the importance of international finance and made him confident that most international problems could be settled by a "business approach. " Late in 1918 he was sent again to Europe as a Treasury assistant to Herbert Hoover in his negotiations on postwar relief policies, and in January 1919 Davis became financial adviser to the American commission at the Paris Peace Conference.
Although the new Republican Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, asked him to remain in the department, Davis was too committed a Democrat and too bitter over the defeat of the Versailles Treaty to accept. A strong internationalist, Davis consistently urged American support of the League of Nations and the World Court and advocated the reduction of tariffs. In 1921 he helped organize the Council on Foreign Relations and became a frequent contributor to its publication, Foreign Affairs. He led a League commission in 1924 which settled a dispute over the Baltic port of Memel, and in the same year he became president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He was chosen by President Coolidge as a delegate to the Geneva Economic Conference of 1927, and he served in a private capacity on the League's Financial Committee in 1931.
Davis's chief concern of the 1930's was the issue of disarmament. He had little hope that the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 by itself would prevent war, and believed that arms reduction could be achieved only through mutual securityagreements.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, he made Davis chairman of the delegation, with the rank of ambassador. At Davis's urging, Roosevelt authorized him to commit the United States, should a general plan of disarmament be adopted, to "consult" with other governments in case of a threat to the peace and possibly to refrain from interfering with League of Nations sanctions against an aggressor; but the conference never came close to agreement and lapsed in 1934. Davis led the American delegation to the second London Naval Conference (1935 - 36), which sought to achieve an agreement on naval limitation among the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan; but Japan withdrew and the other powers reached only a minor accord.
Davis also headed the delegation to the Nine-Power Treaty Conference of 1937 at Brussels, called to deal with a new Japanese attack on China. He is credited with drafting much of President Roosevelt's speech that October urging a "quarantine" of aggressor nations, an address that stirred strong isolationist reactions. In 1938 Roosevelt appointed Davis as head of the American Red Cross. He held this post, along with the presidency of the International Red Cross, until his death.
He continued to advise the President on foreign policy, and beginning in 1941 he became increasingly involved in postwar planning.
Although little known to the general public, Davis was respected in government circles both as an executive agent who carried out American foreign policy and as a planner who helped shape it.
Achievements
Politics
He fought to prevent the imposition of an unrealistic war settlement upon Germany.
An ardent Wilsonian and supporter of the League of Nations, Davis was made Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of the Foreign Loan Bureau in October 1919. There he strongly opposed the cancellation of Allied war debts.
Wilson appointed him Under Secretary of State in June 1920. In this post, he helped establish the American policy of nonrecognition of the Soviet government, advocated a new Pan-Americanism to replace Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America, and worked to strengthen Anglo-American relations.
Membership
He was one of the three American members of the Reparations Commission.
President Hoover appointed Davis a member of the American delegation to the General Disarmament Conference which convened in Geneva in 1932.
Personality
A quiet, deliberate man, patient and persuasive, Davis possessed a quick intellect and a lively sense of humor. His unaffected directness won him the confidence of the many public officials with whom he dealt, both in the United States and in Europe.
Quotes from others about the person
Wilson described Davis as "too fine a man to let go from the public service".
Connections
In October 1898, Davis had married Mackie Paschall, a childhood friend. They had eight children.