Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Elihu Root

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Elihu Root

Overview

Elihu Root (February 15, 1845 – February 7, 1937) was a Hamilton College alumnus (Class of 1864) who became one of the most distinguished figures in American public life. He served as U.S. Secretary of War (1899–1904) and 38th U.S. Secretary of State (1905–1909) under Theodore Roosevelt, and as U.S. Senator from New York (1909–1915). He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912 for his international arbitration work and headed organizations including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the American Society of International Law. He maintained a deep connection to Hamilton throughout his life: he delivered the Historical Address at the college’s Centenary celebration in 1912 and the Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of Alexander Hamilton on campus; he counseled the editors of the 1922 Documentary History of Hamilton College in their selection of papers; and his family’s Root Glen property was eventually donated to the college. He is referenced in the Spectator corpus as an exemplar of Hamilton’s alumni achievement.

Relevance to Research

Root is referenced in the October 14, 1949 Spectator issue, when former president Frederick Carlos Ferry — visiting campus for the first time since a later president’s inauguration — praised Root as “an outstanding trustee” and expressed his confidence in the current administration. Root’s son Omar Pound ‘51 was enrolled at Hamilton during the late 1940s. The Root Glen wooded garden property, associated with the Root family, was donated to Hamilton and is documented in the corpus as a campus landmark. Root’s 1912 Centenary Address is one of the most important interpretive framings of Hamilton’s early institutional history in the existing archival record.

Notes

Dates: February 15, 1845 – February 7, 1937 (aged 91)
Born: Clinton, New York (the town where Hamilton College is located)
Spouse: Clara Frances Wales (m. 1878)
Education: Hamilton College (BA, MA); New York University School of Law (LLB, 1867)
Role: Hamilton College alumnus (Class of 1864); U.S. Secretary of State; Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1912); trustee; orator at Hamilton’s Centenary (1912)
Key events: - Born in Clinton, NY; grew up at Hamilton: his father Oren Root Sr. held the mathematics chair for many years; Root was a child on campus in the early 1860s and graduated in 1864 - Joined Sigma Phi Society and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Hamilton - After graduation, briefly taught physical education at Williston Seminary and at Rome Free Academy before studying law - Admitted to the New York bar on June 18, 1867 - Appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Chester A. Arthur (March 1883 – July 1885) - Appointed U.S. Secretary of War by President McKinley (August 1, 1899 – January 31, 1904); modernized the Army, established the Army War College and a General Staff, and administered post-Spanish-American War colonial territories - Appointed U.S. Secretary of State by President Theodore Roosevelt (July 19, 1905 – January 27, 1909); established the Root-Takahira Agreement, promoted international arbitration - Served as U.S. Senator from New York (March 4, 1909 – March 3, 1915) - Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1912) for his work spreading international arbitration - Elected 38th president of the American Bar Association - Headed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Sent to Russia by President Wilson in 1917 in an unsuccessful effort to keep the new revolutionary government allied with the United States - Delivered the Historical Address at Hamilton’s Centenary celebration, June 17, 1912 - Delivered the Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of Alexander Hamilton on campus - Counseled editors Ibbotson and North in the selection of papers to be included in the 1922 Documentary History of Hamilton College - Praised by former President Ferry as “an outstanding trustee” (October 1949 Spectator) - Root family associated with the Root Glen garden property, donated to Hamilton in 1971 - Son Omar Pound ‘51 enrolled at Hamilton in the late 1940s

Family connection to Hamilton: Root was born in Clinton, NY, where Hamilton College is located. His father, Oren Root Sr., held the mathematics chair for a substantial portion of his career; his son Oren Root Jr. continued in the same chair. Their combined tenure in the mathematics chair was 58 years — one of the longest faculty dynasty records at any American college.

Root’s portrait of Hamilton’s long-serving faculty: In his 1912 Centenary Address, Root named five professors of exceptional tenure as the embodiment of Hamilton’s intellectual character: - Oren Root (mathematics — Root’s own father; combined tenure with son Oren Root Jr.: 58 years) - Edward North (Greek, 48 years) - Charles Avery (chemistry, 25 years) - Christian Henry Frederick Peters (astronomer, Litchfield Observatory, 32 years) - Anson Judd Upson (rhetoric, 21 years)

Root’s educational philosophy: In his Centenary Address, Root articulated Hamilton’s core identity as a formative rather than vocational institution: “She has never sought to be a vocational institution. She does not teach men to be lawyers or doctors or clergymen or bankers or farmers. She is an educational institution. She seeks to develop, to train, to form, to educate, youths to be men competent to fit themselves for any vocation.”