1920s
After World War I, Root supported the League of Nations and served on the commission of jurists, which created the Permanent Court of International Justice. In 1922, and at the age of 77, President Warren G. Harding appointed him as a delegate, headed by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, to the Washington Naval Conference (International Conference on the Limitation of Armaments). The delegation also included Henry Cabot Lodge and Oscar Underwood. He was the founding chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, established in 1918 in New York.
Root worked with Andrew Carnegie in programs for international peace and the advancement of science. He was the first president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He helped found the American Society of International Law in 1906, and served as its President from 1907 to 1924. He was among the founders of the American Law Institute in 1923. Furthermore, he also helped create the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands.
Root also served as vice president of the American Peace Society, which publishes World Affairs, the oldest U.S. journal on international relations.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Root was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown (from Belgium) and the Grand Commander of the Order of George I (from Greece). He was the second cousin twice removed of Henry Luce, through Elihu Root (1772–1843). Before his death, Root had been the last surviving member of the McKinley Cabinet.
Root died in 1937 in New York City, with his family by his side. He was survived by at least one son, Elihu Root, Jr., a graduate of Hamilton College and an attorney like his father. He is buried at the Hamilton College Cemetery. The home in Clinton, New York, that he purchased in 1893, known as the Elihu Root House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1972.
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