Elihu Root

Elihu Root 1845-1937, American cabinet member and diplomat, b. Clinton, N.Y. Admitted to the bar in 1867, he practiced law in New York City, became prominent in Republican politics, and was appointed (1883) U.S. attorney of the southern district of New York. He soon returned (1885) to his private practice, in which he gained distinction as a corporation lawyer. As U.S. Secretary of War (1899-1904) under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, Root improved the efficiency of the War Dept., made drastic reforms in the organization of the army, introduced the principle of the general staff, and established the Army War College. He helped direct U.S. policy in the areas acquired as a result of the Spanish-American War and was largely responsible for the Platt Amendment (see under Platt, Orville Hitchcock ) regarding Cuba. He also fostered the establishment of civilian governments in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Root became Secretary of State under Roosevelt in 1905, serving until 1909. He improved relations with Latin America somewhat, after much criticism had been leveled at U.S. activities in Panama, and he concluded (1908) the Root-Takahira agreement with Japan, by which both nations agreed to maintain the status quo in the Pacific and to uphold the Open Door Policy in China. He also negotiated a series of arbitration treaties. Although reluctant to run for public office—partly because his opponents made much of his having been defense attorney for William M. Tweed in 1873—he accepted appointment in 1909 as U.S. Senator from New York and served until 1915. In 1912 he was chairman of the Republican national convention, and in the break between Roosevelt and William Howard Taft he adhered to the conservative Taft faction. He was a member of the Hague Tribunal (Permanent Court of Arbitration) and was prominent (1910) in the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitration. Root received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912 in recognition of his efforts toward international peace. He advocated U.S. entry into the League of Nations and helped to bring the World Court (Permanent Court of International Justice) into existence.

Bibliography: See biographies by P. C. Jessup (1938) and R. W. Leopold (1954).

Root, Elihu (1845–1937), Wall Street lawyer, secretary of war, secretary of state, U.S. senator.Root was a Wall Street lawyer, familiar with corporate reorganization and international law, when President William McKinley appointed him secretary of war in 1899. In the wake of the Spanish‐American War, McKinley wanted a secretary who could handle the complexities of administering the new overseas possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific and also reorganize and modernize the War Department following the chaotic mobilization of 1898.

This conservative Republican proved to be not only a competent administrator of Colonial policy in the Philippines and Cuba, but also a reformer who propelled the U.S. Army into the twentieth century. The “Root Reforms,” accomplished while he was secretary of war (1899–1904) under Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, mark him as one of the most important secretaries of war in United States history. Responding to modernizers in the officer corps, Root expanded the army's postgraduate schools, organized them into a coherent system, and established the Army War College in 1900. He also enlarged the peacetime army to meet overseas responsibilities; rotated officers assigned to the War Department's staff bureaus to freshen departmental administration; and helped modernize the National Guard according to federal standards. Finally, he led the legislative campaign for the General Staff Act to provide for central army direction and planning, which Congress approved in 1903.

He later served as Theodore Roosevelt's secretary of state (1905–09), as Republican senator for New York (1909–15), and as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1910–25), winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912. He was a delegate (1921–22) to the conference that led to the Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty and an advocate of the World Court.

Bibliography

Phillip C. Jessup , Elihu Root, 2 vols., 1938.
Richard W. Leopold , Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition, 1954.

Matthew Oyos

Root, Elihu (1845–1937) secretary of state, secretary of war and Nobel Prize winner, born in New York. Root was a successful trial lawyer who served the financial and social elite of his time. He befriended Theodore Roosevelt in 1886 during Roosevelt's unsuccessful run for the New York mayoralty. In 1899 President William McKinley named him secretary of war, largely to support the economic development of America's colonial possessions. He resigned in 1904 but returned to Washington as Roosevelt's secretary of state in 1905. In that post he improved U.S. relations with the nations of Latin America but had more difficulty in stabilizing U.S. relations with Japan. He received the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to improve colonial administration and to achieve world peace. From 1909 to 1915 Root served in the Senate, where he sided with old-guard Republicans against Roosevelt, for which Roosevelt never forgave him, and opposed President Woodrow Wilson's attempts to maintain U.S. neutrality in World War I. He supported the concept of a League of Nations but advocated preserving America's right to decide when to support the territorial and political independence of other nations.