Everything about Elihu Root totally explained
Elihu Root (
February 15,
1845 –
February 7,
1937) was an
American lawyer and statesman and the 1912 recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize. He was the prototype of the 20th century "
wise man", who shuttled between high-level government positions in Washington, D.C. and private-sector legal practice in New York City.
Early life and career
Root was born in
Clinton, New York, as the son of Oren Root and Nancy Whitney Buttrick. His father was professor of mathematics at
Hamilton College, where Elihu attended college; there he joined the
Sigma Phi Society, later becoming its national mentor and spiritual leader. After graduation, Root taught for one year at the
Rome Academy. In
1867, Root graduated from the Law School of
New York University. He went into private practice as a lawyer. While mainly practicing corporate law, Root was a junior defense counsel during the corruption trial of
William "Boss" Tweed. Root also had private clients including
Jay Gould,
Chester A. Arthur,
Charles Anderson Dana,
William C. Whitney,
Thomas Fortune Ryan, and
E. H. Harriman.
Root was appointed
United States Attorney for the
Southern District of New York by President
Chester A. Arthur.
Root married Clara Frances Wales (died in 1928), who was the daughter of Salem Wales, the managing editor of
Scientific American, in 1878. They had three children: Edith (married
Ulysses S. Grant III), Elihu, Jr. (who became a lawyer), and Edward Wales (who became Professor of Art at Hamilton College).
Root was a member of the
Union League Club of New York and twice served as its president, 1898-99, and again from 1915-16.
Political career
He served as the
United States Secretary of War 1899–
1904 under
William McKinley and
Theodore Roosevelt. He reformed the organization of the
United States Army. He was responsible for enlarging
West Point and establishing the
U.S. Army War College as well as the
General Staff. He changed the procedures for promotions and organized schools for the special branches of the service. He also devised the principle of rotating officers from staff to line. Root was concerned about the new territories acquired after the
Spanish-American War and worked out the methods of how Cuba would be turned over to the Cubans, wrote the charter of government for the Philippines, and eliminated tariffs on goods imported to the United States from Puerto Rico. Root left the cabinet in 1904 and returned to private practice as a lawyer.
In 1905, President Roosevelt named Root to be the
United States Secretary of State after the death of
John Hay. As secretary, Root placed the consular service under the
Civil Service. He maintained the
Open Door Policy in the Far East. On a tour to Latin America in 1906, Root persuaded those governments to participate in the Hague Peace Conference. He worked with Japan in emigration to the United States and in dealings with China and established the Root-Takahira Agreement, which limited Japanese and American naval fortifications in the Pacific. He worked with
Great Britain in resolving border disputes between the United States (Alaska) and Canada and also in the North Atlantic fisheries. He supported arbitration in resolving international disputes.
Root served a term in the
United States Senate as a
Republican from
New York from 1909 to 1915. He was an active member of the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He chose not to seek reelection in 1914. During and after his Senate service, Root served as President of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1910 to 1925. In that capacity, he helped create the
Hague Academy of International Law in the
Netherlands.
In a 1910 letter published by the New York Times, Root supported the proposed income tax amendment, which became the
Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution:
It is said that a very large part of any income tax under the amendment would be paid by citizens of New York....
The reason why the citizens of New York will pay so large a part of the tax is New York City is the chief financial and commercial centre of a great country with vast resources and industrial activity. For many years Americans engaged in developing the wealth of all parts of the country have been going to New York to secure capital and market their securities and to buy their supplies. Thousands of men who have amassed fortunes in all sorts of enterprises in other states have gone to New York to live because they like the life of the city or because their distant enterprises require representation at the financial centre. The incomes of New York are in a great measure derived from the country at large. A continual stream of wealth sets toward the great city from the mines and manufactories and railroads outside of New York.
In 1912, as a result of his work to bring nations together through arbitration and cooperation, Root received the
Nobel Peace Prize.
At the outbreak of
World War I, Root opposed President
Woodrow Wilson's policy of neutrality. He did support Wilson once the United States entered the war.
In June 1916, Root sought the Republican presidential nomination. However, at the
Republican National Convention, Root reached his peak strength of 103 votes on the first ballot. The Republican presidential nomination went to
Charles Evans Hughes, who lost the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
In June 1917, at age 72, he was sent to
Russia by President Wilson to arrange American co-operation with the new revolutionary government. A large party of well-known people accompanied the Senator, and they traveled from
Vladivostok across
Siberia in the
Czar's former train. Root remained in
Petrograd for close to a month, and wasn't much impressed by what he saw. The Russians, he said, "are sincerely, kindly, good people but confused and dazed." He summed up his attitude to the Provisional Government very trenchantly: "No fight, no loans," which referred to the current conflict with
Germany in
World War I.
After World War I, Root supported the
League of Nations and served on the commission of
jurists, which created the
Permanent Court of International Justice. In 1922, President
Warren G. Harding appointed him as a delegate to the International Conference on the Limitation of Armaments. He was the founding chairman of the
Council on Foreign Relations, established in 1921 in New York.
Root worked with
Andrew Carnegie in programs for international peace and the advancement of science. He was the first president of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He helped found the American Society of International Law in
1906. He was among the founders of the
American Law Institute in 1923. Root also served as vice president of the
American Peace Society, which publishes
World Affairs (journal), the oldest U.S. journal on international relations.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Root was awarded the Grand Cordon of the
Order of the Crown (Belgium) and the Grand Commander of the
Order of George I (Greece). He was the second cousin twice removed of
Henry Luce, through Elihu Root (1772-1843). Prior to his death, Root had been the last surviving member of the McKinley Cabinet.
Root died in 1937 in
New York City, with his family by his side. He is buried at the Hamilton College Cemetery
(External Link
). His home that he purchased in 1893, the
Elihu Root House, was declared a
National Historic Landmark in 1972.
Works by Elihu Root
- Citizen's Part in Government. Yale University Press, 1911.
- Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution. Princeton University Press, 1913.
- Addresses on International Subjects. Harvard University Press, 1916.
- Military and Colonial Policy of the United States. Harvard University Press, 1916.
- Miscellaneous Addresses. Harvard University Press, 1917.
- Men and Policies: Addresses by Elihu Root. Harvard University Press, 1925.
Further Information
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