The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-09-27
Pen Picture of Elihu Root Appointed By President Harding to Represent United
 States At Disarmament Conference

structive hand, he wrote a Constitu- tion for the state of New York which | students of government point to as | a model. He has been attacked as a milf | | tarist by soap-box orators from Maine to California because he was Secre- | | tary of War in McKinley's cabinet | ish-American war. because he direct | ed the pacification of Cuba and the | Philippines, because he is the father | of the American General Staff and | | the face of the whole world by send | ing the American fleet around the ifh wH51d aDan Mhsn war nas for @hos 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 can | show a public record so rep1ete with 1abors in behalf of tteruational peace. The world recognized these labors in Peace Prize.
 Between 1904 and 1908, while Sec retary of State in Roosevelts cab met, he toured all of South and Gen. tals of these countries and urging. the | cessation of the little wars which have for decades retarded the pro gress and prosperity of the countries of the Western Hemisphere. He was | the instigator and adviser of the Central American Peace Federation 1907.
 He Is president of the Carnegie En- | dowment for International Peace. His | latest work has been the organization of the Pernaanet Court of Interna- | ttonal Justice under the League of Nations, on which he refused a seat as justice only Q few weeks ago.
 Few men in the world today can | show peace record that surpasses Eiihu Roots.
 Ills support of the League of Ma tions brought down on his head the ire of many of his fellow Republi- cans particularly of the 'irreconcil- League of Natios When he saw that | the Republicans never would accept 1t as brought back from Paris by tor' 1t up with amendments so as to make 1t palatable to his partyN In this he failed. But while the league became tho principal issue in the last campaign and was being attacked from every stump in the United States, Elihu Root was busy in Flu | rope organizing the Court of Justice, formed under the league.
 Elihu Root was born in Clinton. N. r., February IS. 1S45. His father was Orren Root, for many years pro- lessor 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 19 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 one of the keenest legal minds of the New York bar, but it was not until he became counsel for William M. Tweed that his reputation became ma ho% hn Tn6 he cream of the legal business of New York, being counsel for the Sugar Trust, the Standard Oil and other great interests.
 New York, winnig many noted cases. He held the post four years and then resumed private practice.
 In 1899 Elihu Root left practice netting him S200,000 a year to take the Secretaryship of War under Mo 1 Kin1ey. The War Department was in | a sad state at the time, and public option was aroused as a result of the | weaknesses disclosed during the war | with Spain.
 lN One of his first acts was to put Leonard Wood In charge of pacifying | Cuba. He then organized volunteer after which he personally drew up | system of government to take the l place of the military autocracy which | had prevailed since the cesslon from Spain. The system of government | which Root drew up was complete in every particular. even to the estab- hshment of a school system.
 These things accomplished, he turned his attention to affairs at | home, reorganized the War Depart ment and created a General Staff.
 While he was thus engaged John Hay. Secretary of State. fell i'll. So | great was McKinleys confidence in his | War Secretary that he entrusted to Root much of Hays work so that for a time Root was, practically. speak | ing, both Secretary of War and State.
 The Boxer uprising in China came | along during Hays illness. and Root | handled it in the same efficient man. ner that he did anything else.
 When Roosevelt succeeded Mch1n- ley after the assassination at Buffalo, Root handed in his resignation, de- | siring to retire, he said, in order to sources" He and Roosevelt were close personal friends, and when, a year later, Roosevelt asked him to accept the SecretaryshiP of State left vacant by Hays death, he did so.
 | He cleaned house in the State De- | partment in much the same manner he had in the War Department, com pletely reorganizing, among other things, the consular service.
 Elihu Root is generality credited with inaugurating Pan American more friendly understanding between the Americas, North and South. He labored necessarily toward this goal during his long service in two cab inetS.
 Perhaps the best remembered act | of Root as Secretary of State was his negotiation of the "gentleman's agree rnent" with Japan. by which Japan | agreed to restrict her flow of coolies | into the United States
 It was at Roots instigation that President Roosevelt sent the fleet 1round the world on it's memorable triDs Admiral Bob" Evans expressed
 himself on that famous journey as
 ready for a fight or a frolic," and the | result was g. substantial betterment In | Americas foreign relations.
 | Root retired from the State Depart ] ment a few weeks before Roosevelt
 was succeeded by Taft and took his
 -eat in the United States senate. | There his great abilities were i'm h. I,n-