East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1921-09-29
A MAKER AND BREAKER
Of CONSTITUTIONS IS
!. Disarmament DELEGATE
No Man in Washington Today
Has Had so Distinguished
Public Career as Elihu Root.
BY GEORGE II. HOLMES
international News Service Staff
Correspondent,)

CorreSpQnuent)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29.--No man
in the United States today has had
so distinguished public career, nor
been so much in the public eye during
the last epochal half century as Ellhu
Root, whom President Harding has Sc
lected as the second member of the
American big Four to negotiate an
armament understanding with the
great powers of the world.
Few men have been so praised and
so castigated, few men have so many
warm friends and admirers and few
men have more bitter enemies. Yet,
friend or foe, it is universally recog-
nized that there is no man in Ameri-
ca today more qualified by experience
or training to represent the United
States at this conference than Elihu
Root.
Theodore Roosevelt once said of
him: "I would walk on my hands and
knees from Washington to Oyster Bay
to make him President" And later
this same positive T. r. said: "He
stands as the representative of the
men and the policies of reaction; he is
the representative of the bosses and
of special privilege"
And, curiously enough. 1t Is quite
probable that II. r. was sincere in
, both utterances. His first statement
referred to Elihu Roots amazing abil-
| ity as a thinker. an executive and a
lawyer his second referred to Elihu
| Root as the master legal mind for
Boss Tweed, as counsel forthe Steel
Trust, for the Sugar Trust, Standard
| OIL. for the Gould Railroads and for
scores of other big interests and cor
porations.
A man of curious paradoxes Is Elihu
Root, now nearing his seventy-sev-
enth year and about to engage on an
| other great public duty with all the
enthusiasm of boy Of twenty-one for
his work.
4 He is a maker and breakerof consti-
tutions. He Is quoted as having once
said that he could drive horse and
wagon through every article and
amendment of the Constitution" 1t is
perhaps doubtful IL he ever said it, be-
cause Root Is modest man, but
whether he did or did not the quota
ton gives an insight into the mans
marvellously agile mind and his mag
nificent legal attainments.
Throughout his long legal career he
has figuratively driven a horse and
wagon through many OF the Federal
laws on the other and more construc-
tive hand, he wrote a Constitution foI
the state of New York which students
of government point to as model,
He has been attacked as militarist
by soap-box orators from Maine TO
California because he was Secretary of
War in McKinley's Cabinet during the
trying days after the Spanish -Ameri-
can War because he directed the pa
cification OF Cuba and the Philippines
because he is the father of the Ameri-
can General Staff and because ht
threw war-like bluff in the face OF
the whole world by sending the Ameri-
can fleet around the world when a war
was threatening with Japan, stunt
for which Roosevelt is generally
credited.
He has been attacked as a ''war
maker" and the representative of in
ternational bankers and yet there Is
no man in America today who car
show public record so replete with
labors in behalf of international peace
The world recognized these lnbors IL
1912 by awarding him the Noble Peace
Prize.
II Between 1904 and 1908, while Secre-
tary of State in Roosevelt's Cabinet
he toured all of South and Central
America, speaking in the capitals OF
these countries and urging the cessa.
ton of the little wars which have for
decades retarded the progress and
prosperity of the countries of the
Western Hemisphere. He was the in
stigator and adviser Of the Central
American Peace Federation held in
Washington in December, 1907.
He is president of the Carnegie En-
downment for International Peace.
His latest work has been the organiza
tion Of the Permanent Court of Inter
national Justice under the League Of
I Nations, on which he refused seat
as Justice only a few weeks ago.
Few men in the world today can
show a peace record that surpasses
Elihu Roots.
His support of the League of Ma
tions brought down on his head the ire
! of many of his fellow Republicans,
| particularly of the 'irreconcllables."
Root was in favor of the League of
Nations. When he saw that the Re-
publicans never would accept it as
brought back from Paris by President
Wilson he labored to doctor" 1t up
with amendments so as to make 1t
palatable to his party. In this he
failed. But while the league became
the principal issue in the last cam
paign and was being attacked from
every stump in the United States,
Elihu Root. was busy in Europe or
ganizing the Court of Justice, formed
under the league.
Elihu Root was born in Clinton, N.
Y, February IS, 1s45. His father was
Orren Root, for many years professor
of mathematics at Hamilton College,
and Elihu was reared in the best of
educational surroundings.
He was graduated from Hamilton in
1864 at the age of nineteen, and three
years later he was graduated from the
law school of the University of New
York.
He started practice in New York and
met with instant and astonishing sue
cess. He soon became known as one
Of the keenest legal minds of the New
York bar, but 1t was not until he be-
came counsel for William NJ. Tweed
that his reputation became national.
After that he received the cream Of
the legal business of New York heinp