ROOT, ELIHU American lawyer and polit ical leader, was born at Clinton (N.Y.), on Feb. 15, 1845. He graduated at Hamilton college where his father was a professor in 1864, taught at the Rome (N.Y.) academy in 1865, and grad uated at the University Law school, New York city, in 1867. As a corporation lawyer he soon attained high rank and was counsel in many famous cases. Politically, he became identified with the reform element of the Republican Party. He was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (1883-85), and a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of 1894, acting as chair man of its judiciary committee. From Aug. 1899 until Feb. he was secretary of war in the cabinets of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, and in this position reorganized the army and cre ated a general staff, and in general administered his department with great ability during a period marked by the Boxer uprising in China, whither troops were sent under Gen. A. R. Chaffee, the insurrection of the Filipinos, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Cuba and the establishment of a government for the Philippines under a Philippine Commission, for which he drew up the "in structions," in reality comprising a constitution, a judicial code and a system of laws. In 1903 he was a member of the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal. In July 1905 he re-entered President Roose velt's cabinet as secretary of State, where he considerably im proved the consular service. In the summer of 1906, while at tending the Pan-American Conference at Rio de Janeiro, he was elected its honorary president, and during a tour through the Latin-American republics, brought about a better understanding between the United States and these republics. In general he did much to further the cause of international peace, and he concluded treaties of arbitration with Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and other countries. Upon his resignation from the cabinet he was elected, in Jan. 1909, as U.S. senator from New York. In 1910 he was chief counsel for the United States before The Hague Tribunal for the arbitration of the long-standing dis pute concerning fisheries between his country and Great Britain (see NEWFOUNDLAND). Upon his return, he was appointed by President Taft a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
In the same year he was elected president of the Carnegie En dowment for International Peace. Root thus took up again the work which he had initiated when secretary of State, and became the recognized leader of the peace movement in the United States. In 1912 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He strongly sup ported in the Senate the treaty of obligatory arbitration con cluded between the United States and Great Britain in 1912, but failed to prevent amendments to the treaty being inserted by the Senate which prevented an exchange of ratifications.
He took a leading part in the passage of the Federal Reserve bill of 1913, providing for a Federal Bank under Federal control, in order to stabilize the finance of the country. In matters of foreign policy also his opinion had great weight. In 1915 a treaty negotiated by Secretary of State Bryan with Colombia provided for payment by the United States of $25,000,000 to Colombia in settlement of all outstanding claims between the two countries arising out of the independence of Panama ; Mr. Root opposed ratification, principally because a statement of regret on the part of the United States had been inserted in the preamble, though he also considered the sum too much. His opinion prevailed, and later on, in 1922, when the Senate finally ratified the treaty, the clause in question was omitted.
On March 4, 1915, his term as senator expired and he declined to be a candidate for re-election. That summer he was president of the New York State Constitutional Convention, and advocated, among other measures, the short ballot, means for remedying the law's delays, the reduction of costs involved in the administration of justice and measures which would facilitate the impeachment of unworthy public officials. After the declaration of war by the United States, on April 6, 1917, he gave his whole support to the Government. He was asked by President Wilson to head the mission which was sent to Russia shortly thereafter with a view to encouraging the Revolutionary Government under Ker ensky to carry on the war with vigour. He accepted, but while in Russia the overthrow of the Moderates there by the Bolsheviks under Lenin frustrated the purposes of his mission.