BIO: Elihu Root; New York State
surname: Root, 

submitted by W. David Samuelsen (no relation)
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Copyright.  All rights reserved.
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An Illustrated Legislative Manual
The New York Red Book
Containing the Portraits and Biographies of the U.S. Senators, Governor, State
Officers and Members of the Legislature; also with the Portraits of Judges and
Court Reporters, the New Constitution of the State, Election and Population
Statistics, and General Facts of Interest.
By Edgar L. Murlin
New Constitution Compiled by R. C. Cumming, O. L. Potter and F. B. Gilbert
Published, Albany, J. B. Lyon Company, Publishers, 1909

Copyright by J. B. Lyon Company, 1909

     Elihu Root, junior United States Senator, was born in Clinton, New York
State, on February 15, 1845. and in 1 864 was graduated by Hamilton College,
his father, Oren Root, being at the time a professor of mathematics of the
institution. Mr. Root then assisted his brother Oren, who was principal of an
academy in Rome, N. Y., for a short period in 1865. He then studied law in the
University Law School of New York city and was graduated by it in 1867 and
admitted to the bar. He began the practice of the law in New York. first in
partnership with John H. Strahan and later with Willard Bartlett, now judge of
the Court of Appeals.

     Mr. Root soon attained prominence at the bar. He was a counsel for Judge
Hilton in the Stewart will case, in the Broadway Surface Railway case, in the
suits concerning the American Sugar Company, in the New York aqueduct cases,
and he was a counsel of Robert Ray Hamilton when suit was brought against him
through the influence of Emma Mann. In 1871 he took part in the investigation
of William M. Tweed by the Committee of Seventy. On January 8, 1878. he was
married to Clara Wales, a daughter of Salem H. Wales of New. York. They had
three children, two sons and a daughter.

     Early in his life in New York city Mr. Root became interested in
political affairs and for many years was one of the most conspicuous members
of the Union League Club. One of his admirers was Chester A. Arthur, who, when
he became President, appointed Mr. Root as United States  District Attorney
for the Southern district of New York. While acting in this position he
brought about the conviction of James D. Fish, then president of the Marine
bank, as guilty of criminal conspiracy in relation to the Grant-Ward frauds.
After holding the position of district attorney for two years Mr. Root.
resigned it and devoted himself to private practice. He became a member of the
Republican County Committee of New York county and was its chairman in 1886,
1887. In 1892 he delivered a forcible address on municipal corruption at the
Cooper Institute in New York, which called attention to many of the evils
later depicted by the famous Lexow Committee.

     In 1893 Mr. Root was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention
of 1894 and in that convention later became one of its most prominent members.
He was chairman of its Judiciary Committee and enjoyed an intimate friendship
with the Hon. Joseph H. Choate, the eminent lawyer, who was president of the
convention Mr. Root and Mr. Choate occupied the same house in Albany while the
convention was in session and undoubtedly were most influential in shaping its
decisions and framing the present Constitution of the State of New York In
1898 Mr. Root successfully established before the Republican State Convention
of New York State that Theodore Roosevelt was eligible for nomination for
Governor.

     Mr. Root began his national career in 1899. President McKinley in August
of that year appointed him Secretary of War as successor to Russel A. Alger.
The affairs of the War Department were in a some what disordered state, owing
to the Spanish-American war, and Mr. Root also had to solve the problem of
sending 70,000 men to the Philippine Islands to quell the rising there aga
inst the American Government. Moreover the Philippine war had to be conducted
in such a spirit that it  would be apparent that the United States Government
was desirous merely of bettering the government of the Philippine Islands. Mr.
Root reorganized the army and changed the staff system. There were legal
quest ions of great. moment concerning the relations of the United States with
Cuba, Porto Rite and the Philippine Islands that Mr. Root had to solve while
engaged in conducting the operations of the War Department. Soon after his
arrival in Washington, moreover, Mr. Root had to organize the little army of 
United States that marched to the relief of the American minister and the
members of the American legation in Pekin, China, put in peril by the Boxer
rebellion. Mr. Root also established a system of education for the army.

     On March 5. 1901, he was reappointed Secretary of War by President
McKinley and later was retained by President Roosevelt in that position. In
1902 he was appointed a member of the Executive Committee of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, D. C. He was a member of the Alaskan Boundary
Commission which met in London, England, in 1903, and determined the
boundary line of Canada and Alaska, On February 1, 1904, he resigned his
position as Secretary of War and returned to his New York home, where
he began again the practice of his legal profession as a lawyer. On March 29,
1904, it was announced that he had been appointed as associate counsel for the
receivers of D. J. Scully & Co., who had been interested in cotton pools. Upon
April 12, 1904, Mr. Root appeared before the United States Circuit Court in
St. Paul, Minn., as one of the counsel of the Northern Securities Company.

     In 1904 he was temporary chairman of the Republican National Committee
which nominated Theodore Roosevelt for President, and made a speech reviewing
the acts of the national administration.

     Upon July 1, 1905, he became Secretary of State. One of the most signal
services he rendered to his country as Secretary of State was his
strengthening the bonds of amity between the United States and its sister
republics in South America by making a tour of that continent, visiting its
chief seaboard cities and forming an acquaintance with the officials of the
country.

     When the election of 1905 showed that the Republican party would have a
majority in the Legislature of New York State there was demand for Mr. Root's
election as  United States Senator made by many prominent Republicans. Several
other Republicans were also suggested for the honor, among them being Timothy
L. Woodruff, Chairman of the  Republican State Committee. Congressman J. Shoat
Fassett of Elmira, Edward H. Butler, editor of The Buffalo News, and
ex-Governor Frank S. Black. The movement in Mr. Root's favor grew in volume
and intensity, and finally he said:

     "I am not seeking the office of Senator. I do not think that great
office ought to be given to any one because he wants it; but if the
Legislature of New York, representing the people of the State, feel than I can
render useful service to the State and to the country in the Senate and call
upon me to render that service I shall respond to their call and accept the
office."

     There were finally only two candidates, Mr. Root and Mr. Woodruff, and
the latter, after a conference with President-elect Taft at Hot Springs, Va.,
announced h is withdrawal in favor of Mr. Root, stating that he desired to
promote party harmony.

     Mr. Root on January 15, 1909, was put in nomination for United States
Senator in the joint caucus of the Republican members of the Legislature by
Senator Davenport of Oneida county, who said during his speech in eulogy of
Mr. Root:

     For nearly a decade he has been the most potent counsellor in the
executive branch of the national government, while the great moral purpose of
the federal administration has been worked out of securing under trial
equality of opportunity for all men under the flag. his own State policies
have been the clearest possible interpretation of the true spirit of
democracy, which is the spirit of not only national but of international
brotherhood. He has been a great constructive exponent of conciliation among
the nations. By his journey around a continent he allayed the suspicion of our
sister republics of the South and convinced them by his presence and his
spoken word that we wish for no victories but those of peace, for no territory
except our own, for no sovereignty but the sovereignty over ourselves." The
recent simple interchange of notes with the Japanese government and people has
in it greater promise than lies in armaments and battleships of amity in the
Pacific and the open door into the empire of China. Everywhere in the affairs
of State Ehihu Root has demonstrated his efficient and practical idealism to
the abundant satisfaction of his countrymen.

     He is a great constitutional lawyer, whose client is the American
people. He combines with the nationalist faith of Hamilton and Marshall the
twentieth century spirit of American internationalism. He was born for the
long look ahead, and his remaining strength and his talents are for the years
that lie before him dedicated to the service of his country.

     The secret of Ehihu Root's public career is not primarily to be
sought in political influence. It is the triumph of a brilliant intellect
sobered by earnest determination and guided by moral purpose. Here is
the real secret. He was invited to the portfolio of State. A friend wrote to
him and said: : "Why not wait three years and get the substance instead of
taking the shadow now? And Mr. Root replied: "I have always thought that the
opportunity to do something worth doing was the substance and the trying to
get something was the shadow."

     Mr. Root was the unanimous choice of the Republican Senators and
Assemblymen for Senator, and two days later, January 20th, was elected by the
Legislature as United States Senator.

     Mr. Root in 1904    elected president of the Bar Association of New York.
In 1906 he was elected president. of the American Society of  International
Law. He is a trustee of Hamilton College, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York. He was president of the Union League Club in 1898-1899.

     Mr. Root was made an LL. D. of Hamilton in 1896, of Yale in 1900, of
Columbia in 1904, of New York University in 1904, of Williams in 1905, of
Princeton in 1906, of the  University of Buenos Ayres in 1906, of the
University of San Marcos of Lima in 1906, and of Harvard in 1907.