Elihu
Root (February 15, 1845-February 7, 1937), who became one of
the most brilliant administrators in American history, was born
in Clinton, New York, son of a professor of mathematics at
Hamilton
College. Perhaps it was inevitable that the father and
Elihu's elder brother, who was also a mathematician, should be
nicknamed «Cube» and «Square». At Hamilton
College, Elihu was graduated first in his class in 1864 at the
age of nineteen. He taught school for one year, was graduated
from the Law School of New York University in 1867, founded a law firm
after one year of practice, and by the age of thirty had
established himself as a prominent lawyer specializing in
corporate affairs. He became a wealthy man in the thirty or so
years which he devoted to legal practice, acting as counsel to
banks, railroads, and some of the great financiers of the day.
His comprehensive grasp of legal principles, his formidable power
of analysis, his creative genius in discovering solutions to
problems, his disciplined attention to detail, and his skill in
expression, whether written or oral, earned him recognition from
his colleagues as the leader of the American bar.
Although he had participated in local Republican politics in New
York, he was little known as a political figure when, in 1899,
President McKinley invited him to become his
secretary of war. Since the nation was just emerging from the
Spanish-American War, it seemed an unlikely appointment. But
President McKinley, with remarkable insight, said that he needed
a lawyer in the post, not a military man, and Root accepted the
call of what he called «the greatest of all our clients, the
government of our country»1.
As secretary of war from 1899 to 1904, Root performed the
services that moved Henry L. Stimson, himself a later secretary of war,
to say that «no such intelligent, constructive, and vital
force» had occupied that post in American history2. He reorganized the administrative
system of the War Department, established new procedures for
promotion, founded the War College, enlarged West Point, opened
schools for special branches of the service, created a general
staff, strengthened control over the National Guard, restored
discipline within the department. He was most concerned, however,
about the three dependencies acquired as a result of the war. He
devised a plan for returning Cuba to the Cubans; wrote a
democratic charter for the governance of the Philippines,
designing it to insure free government, to protect local customs,
and to bring eventual self-determination; and eliminated tariffs
on Puerto Rican goods imported into the United States.
He returned to his private legal practice in 1904, but in 1905 at
President Theodore Roosevelt's
invitation, accepted the post of secretary of state. His record
is impressive. He brought the consular service under Civil
Service, thus removing it from the «spoils system»;
maintained the «open door» policy in the Far East, a
policy he had helped to formulate as secretary of war; negotiated
the so-called «Gentlemen's Agreement» with Japan which
dealt with emigration of Japanese to America; strengthened
amicable relations with South America in 1906 during an
unprecedented diplomatic tour; sponsored the Central American
Peace Conference held in Washington in 1907 which resulted in the
creation of the Central American Court of Justice, an
international tribunal for the judicial settlement of disputes;
negotiated some forty reciprocal arbitration treaties; along with
Lord Bryce, resolved current American-Canadian problems and
instituted the Permanent American-Canadian Joint High Commission
for the settlement of future problems.
A United States senator from 1909 to 1915, Elihu Root took an
active role in settling the North Atlantic fisheries dispute, in
opposing a bill which would have exempted U.S. shipping from
paying tolls to use the Panama Canal while levying charges
against other nations' shipping, and in pressing for
international arbitration.
In 1915 he declined candidacy for reelection to the Senate and
even declined, at least publicly, nomination by the Republican
Party for the presidency of the United States. Although seventy
years of age, he continued to be active as an elder statesman. He
opposed Woodrow Wilson's
neutrality policy but supported him during the war; he accepted
Wilson's appointment as ambassador extraordinary to head a
special diplomatic mission to Russia in 1917; on the 1919 Treaty
of Versailles and the League of Nations he took a middle stance
between Wilson on the one hand and the
«irreconcilables» on the other; as a delegate to the
Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922, he took a leading role
in drafting the Five-Power Treaty limiting naval armament.
Root dedicated a large portion of his life to the cause of
international arbitration. He, more than any other, formulated
the plan to create the Central American Court of Justice. In 1907
he instructed the American delegates to the Hague Conference to
support the founding of a World Court; in 1920, at the request of
the Council of the League of Nations, he served on a committee to
devise plans for the Permanent Court of International Justice
which was set up in 1921; in 1929 after intermittent discussion
between the League and the United States concerning certain
reservations the Senate had insisted upon in its 1926
ratification of the Protocol for U. S. participation in the
court, Root, on his eighty-fourth birthday, left for Geneva where
he convinced the delegates from fifty-five nations to accept a
revised Protocol; he later appeared before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee to urge ratification, but the Senate failed
to act at that time and eventually declined to ratify at
all.
Root was the first president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
and helped to found its European counterpart. He believed that
international law, along with its accompanying machinery,
represented mankind's best chance to achieve world peace, but
like the hardheaded realist he was, he also believed that it
would take much time, wisdom, patience, and toil to implement it
effectively.
| Selected Bibliography |
| Addresses Made in Honor of Elihu Root. New York, The Century Association, 1937. The introductory address by Royal Cortissoz deals mainly with Root's relations to the arts; that by Henry L. Stimson with an assessment of Root's career as secretary of war and secretary of state; that by Nicholas Murray Butler with the story of the 1916 Republican convention in Chicago. |
| Jessup, Philip C., Elihu Root. Vol. I, 1845-1909; Vol. II, 1905-1937. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1938. |
| Leopold, Richard W., Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition. Boston, Little, Brown, 1954. |
| Root, Elihu. The papers of Elihu Root are held by the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. |
|
Root, Elihu. The eight volumes of Root's addresses and writings collected and edited by Robert Bacon and James B. Scott and published by the Harvard University Press between 1916 and 1925 are titled as follows:
|
| Scott, James B., «Elihu Root», in American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, ed. by S.F. Bemis. Vol. IX, pp. 193-282. New York, Knopf, 1929. |
1. Quoted by
Henry L. Stimson in Addresses Made in Honor of Elihu Root,
p. 25.
2. Ibid., p. 29.
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1912
Elihu Root
