Evening star. [volume], April 08, 1937, Page A-8, Image 8

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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ROOSEVELT RIFT
PAINFULTO ROOT
Former Friend’s Attacks in
1912 Failed to Call
Forth Reply.
The story of Elihu Root—the
lawyer "whose lifelong client was
the United States.” who, for more
than 40 years before his recent
death at the of 92, was the man
behind. American history—is told
here in a series of articles, of
which this is the third. The wrier,
eminent as editor and author and
professor of international law at
Columbia University, had many
close contacts with Mr. Root.
BY PHILIP C. JESSUP.
Walking past Dorchester House in
London on the 2d of September, 1920,
Elihu Root looked up at It and said:
It is there I had an interesting inter
view with Roosevelt. And if he had
done as he promised me—kept out of
things political—we should have been
spared much of our past trouble.
The interview had been in May,
19i0, when Roosevelt was just winding
up his African trek and his triumphal
tour of Europe, and Root, then Senator
from New York, was on his way to
argue the North Atlantic coast fish
eries case at The Hague. There were
already tremors which a political seis
mograph would have recorded as
dishes between Roosevelt and Taft,
but there was as yet no breach.
•Boot and Lodge used to chuckle over
Roosevelt's articles in Scribner’s on
the progress of his African hunt. “Of
course,” Root said as they discussed
one account, “Theodore shot three
lions with one bullet and Kermit shot
ode lion with three bullets.” To which
Theodore replied, when the story was
relayed to him by Lodge:
‘‘Tell Root that I don't at all like
his hardened skepticism about the
lions. If this kind of thing goes on, I
shall have to head an insurrection to
put Tom Platt in Root’s seat” in the
Senate.
“Cabot and I,” wrote Roosevelt,
“have been much pleased by your re
cent statement in Scribner’6 that Ker
mit (speaking of warthogs) shot a
■noteworthy sow.’ We have elected
the noteworthy sow to the Society of
the Milkfaced Grub, the Angleworm
and the Wild Ass of the Desert.”
Roosevelt Praised Root.
It was the same old bantering
friendship. In February, 1910, Roose
velt was exhausting his ample store
of superlatives in writing to Andrew
Carnegie about Root—“the man of my
cabinet, the man on whom I most
relied, to whom I owed most, the
greatest Secretary of State we ever
had, as great a cabinet officer as we
have ever had, save Alexander Hamil
ton alone.”
In September of 1910 Roosevelt pre
sided as temporary chairman of the
New York Republican convention at
Saratoga, and Root followed him as
permanent chairman. They worked
together in complete harmony and
won the nomination of Henry L.
Stimson, just as two years before
they had co-operated in getting the
nomination of Hughes. Yet a month
before the 1910 convention Roose
velt had been touring the West,
preaching his new nationalism, one
of the ancestors of the New Deal.
Root wrote to Taft that the only
objection he had to it was calling it
“new.” But he thought “Theodore”
said more about the courts than he
really meant. “I don’t care so much
about his grumbling at the decisions
of the court. We all do that. • • *
The question as to how and when and
In what words a man expressed such
an opinion about a decision of the
court depends very much on tempera
men and training. I shall be curious
to know whether he really meant
that he would, if he could, deprive the
courts of the power to pass upon the
constitutionality of laws. Of course, I
have always considered that the most
valuable contribution of America to
political science.”
When, on February 5, 1937, a later
Rooseveltian attack was made upon
this principle. Mr. Root was in his
last illness; two days later he died.
Interval of Enmity.
In 1910, although there was no
breach between him and Theodore,
the latter had slipped out of his old
habit of submitting all his speeches
to Root for comment before they were
delivered. It was to be some eight
years before that practice was re
sumed, and meanwhile all the vials of
Roosevelt’s wrath were to be poured
on Root’s unresisting head.
In October, 1910, Root was again
in a campaign speech defending T. R.
against the attacks of Wall Street, but
this was incidental to a general de
fense of the party, support for Taft
and for Stimson’s gubernatorial can
didacy. Through 1911 the breach be
tween Taft and Roosevelt continued
to widen. As late as February, 1912,
Root was writing a long friendly letter
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of advice to Roosevelt, but It was too
late; Roosevelt had already decided
to be a candidate, and nine days later
he announced that his hat was in the
ring. Root was already committed to
Taft, as were Cabot Lodge and Nicho
las Longworth, Roosevelt’s son-in-law.
Roosevelt understood that situation
and had no bitter feeling about it, but
Root was greatly saddened.
To their mutual friend, Bob Baoon,
he wrote that “Theodore has gone off
upon a perfectly wild program, most
of which he does not really believe in,
although, of course, at this moment
he thinks he does. * • * I shall be
glad to get up on the farm at Clinton
under the protection of a force of
accomplished liars who will say that
I am not at home. In the meantime,
however, I wish to fall upon your
neck and weep. I wish to walk up and
down in your congenial and unre
stralning presence and curse and
swear and say things which I would
not have repeated for the world.”
Never Denounced Roosevelt.
And one of the things which he
surely would have said was that he
wished he could be on the other side.
He campaigned against the Roosevelt
program, but he never said a public
word against Roosevelt himself. When
the Republican National Committee
wanted to use in publicity material an
old statement of Roosevelt’s that Root
vm the ablest man he had ever
known, Root refused to permit it.
Sad and sick at heart. Root went
to Chicago to keep his promise that
he would serve as permanent chair
man of the 1912 convention. The
Roosevelt group fought his election
to that post and lost. Root set his
teeth and ran the steam roller over
one of the stormiest of American po
litical conventions. There probably
was not a man in the country who
could have done the job as well;
there could hardly have been many
who wanted to do it less. Root con
trolled the convention with an Iran
hand and made rulings which, as a
lawyer and parliamentarian, he be
lieved sound, but which Roosevelt, as
a defeated candidate, denounced as
theft and outrage.
Roosevelt denounced Root in no
uncertain terms. Root refused to re
ply and Taft thought he was afraid;
In fact, he was merely sad and not
a little hurt. Not all his philosopsy
and power of detachment could stave
off that feeling, although he wrote
to a friend: "Of course, what Roose
velt said about me in 1902 and* what
he is now saying are quite incon
sistent. In each case his words ex
pressed a state of feeling rather than
a sober judgment. When I was with
him he felt superlatively one way;
now that I am against him he feels
superlatively the other way. I think
; he has been about equally wrong In
both his utterances."
The “lfs” of history are aangerous
playthings, but Root could h^ve pre
vented those trying times of 1912 If
he had been willing earlier to shape
his life along a more political course.
In the early days of his practice he
took into partnership an able young
lawyer who proceeded to run for the
Assembly and later the State Senate.
"It ruined him as a lawyer,” Root
thought. "He became a politician
Instead of a lawyer. He got In the
habit ploiticians have of sitting
around and talking Instead of work
ing. That Is as valueless as horse
shed conversation—farmers with their
teams jawing away in the shed trying
to get advice from one another with
out paying for it.” Root thought a
lot about his partner's experience and
made a decision once for all not to
go into politics.
In 1879 Chester A. Arthur did pre
suade him to run for judge of the
Court of Common Pleas. Root went
West on a law case Instead of cam
paigning and was defeated, although
he ran ahead of his ticket. He never
again ran for elective political office.
In 1883 President Arthur appointed
him United States attorney for the
southern district of New York. In
>1899 he accepted McKinley’s in vita
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tlon to act as Secretary of War only
because the President said he wanted
a lawyer to plan the government of
the Islands taken over from Spain.
Very shortly thereafter he turned
down his first chance to be President,
although he could not have known
what was In store. A little while
before the Republican National Con
vention of 1900, Mark Hanna, Tom
Platt, Senator Aldrich and Henry C.
Paine came to see him and formally
offered him the vice presidential nom
ination. Roosevelt was in favor of it,
perhaps partly because he had rather
a yearning to be Secretary of War
himself. Lodge reported to Roose
velt that Root’s selection had been
decided upon. But Root talked to the
President and they agreed it was more
important for him to carry on with
his work in the War Department.
After much wavering, Roosevelt ac
cepted the second place on the ticket
and thus he instead of Root suc
ceeded to the presidency when Mc
Kinley was assassinated.
“X never heard Mark Hanna say
but one mean thing," Root remarked
years later. "A few days after Mc
Kinley was shot at Buffalo he said
to me, ‘Now don't you wish you had
taken that vice presidency?' ”
Of course, like many men prom
inent In Government positions, Root
was constantly being boomed by his
friends and friendly newspapers for
various offices. Root discouraged every
such attempt. His next real opportu
nity came in 1904, after he resigned
from the War Department and before
he returned to the cabinet as John
Hay's successor in the State Depart
ment. Senator Beveridge pleaded with
him to take Mark Hanna’s place as
chairman of the Republican National
Psychic Message Council
lift* Twelfth St N.W.
Caron of tsth ui *1"
Circles Daily, 2:30 * 7:30 P.M.
Grass Grar DeLear header
Perrons! interviews for spiritual aslp
ana guidance mar be arranged br a
visit ta the Council House or Telephone
taeiivvolitan 6234 Consultation Si
Committee end President Roosevelt
wanted him to do it, but Root flatly
refused.
In June, 1904, Root made the key
note speech at the dull Chicago con
vention which nominated Roosevelt
for the presidency. It was one of the
many occasions when his rather small
voice, bht dominating personality,
combined with the clarity and force
fulness of his thought, held spell
(Continued on Page A-8.)
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