 He was chief of the State Department Division of Far Eastern Affairs (1928–1937), a special adviser to Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1937–1944), and ambassador to the Netherlands (1944–1947).Hornbeck was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, the son of a Methodist minister, and studied at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver.He also attended Oxford as the first Rhodes Scholar from Colorado from 1904 to 1907, before receiving his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in 1911, where his dissertation discussed most favored nation clauses in economic treaties.