Elihu Root
Elihu Root
Elihu Rootwas an American lawyer and statesman who served as the Secretary of Warunder two presidents, including President Theodore Roosevelt. He moved frequently between high-level appointed government positions in Washington, D.C. and private-sector legal practice in New York City. For that reason, he is sometimes considered to be the prototype of the 20th century political "wise man," advising presidents on a range of foreign and domestic issues. He was elected by the state legislature as a U.S. Senator from New...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth14 February 1845
CountryUnited States of America
Elihu Root quotes about
It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.
Moral disarmament is to safeguard the future; material disarmament is to save for the present, that there may be a future to safeguard.
Honest people, mistakenly believing in the justice of their cause, are led to support injustice.
Human life is held in much higher esteem, and the taking of it, whether in private quarrel or by judicial procedure, is looked upon much more seriously than it was formerly.
Prejudice and passion and suspicion are more dangerous than the incitement of self-interest or the most stubborn adherence to real differences of opinion regarding rights.
There is so much of good in human nature that men grow to like each other upon better acquaintance, and this points to another way in which we may strive to promote the peace of the world.
Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice.
No nation now sets forth to despoil another upon the avowed ground that it desires the spoils.
Nobody knows through how many thousands of years fighting men have made a place for themselves while the weak and peaceable have gone to the wall.
War was forced upon mankind in his original civil and social condition.
Claims of right and insistence upon obligations may depend upon treaty stipulations, or upon the rules of international law, or upon the sense of natural justice applied to the circumstances of a particular case, or upon disputed facts.
When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue; not by wire pulling and demagoguery; not by the arts of popularity; not by skill and shiftiness in following expediency; but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country; by being a man without guile and without fear, without selfishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country.
Gradually, everything that happens in the world is coming to be of interest everywhere in the world, and, gradually, thoughtful men and women everywhere are sitting in judgment upon the conduct of all nations.
The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion.