He wants to repeat the thrills of his youth in the
market, in the thrills of a second youth in Washington. He is
incurably romantic.
To sum him all up in a sentence--he has an extraordinary sense of
wonder and an unequalled sense of reality, the sense of wonder
directed toward himself, the sense of reality directed largely but
not exclusively elsewhere.
ELIHU ROOT
Elihu Root might have been so much publicly and has been so little
that a moral must hang somewhere upon his public career.
He might have been many things. He might have been President of the
United States if his party ever could have been persuaded to
nominate him. He might have been one of the great Chief Justices of
the Supreme Court if a President could have been persuaded to
appoint him. He might have given to the United States Senate that
weight and influence which have disappeared from it, if he had had
a passion for public service. He might have been Secretary of State
in the most momentous period of American foreign relations if a
certain homely instinct in Mr. Harding had not led him to prefer
the less brilliant Mr. Hughes. He might have made history. But he
has not. Out of his eight years in the Cabinet and six years in the
Senate nothing constructive came that will give his name a larger
place in history than that of Rufus Choate, another remarkable
advocate who was once Attorney General.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143