determined after his working life is done and men are far enough
withdrawn from the events of his life to get a sensible proportion.
As a rule, the result of such a view is to show that there is nothing
in a particular life to make the world care to read about it or to
carry any such useful impression as to make it worth while to
insist upon the world's reading about it. There are mighty few
men who belong in a genuine American Statesmen's series and I
am not going to assume that I am one of them.

He never took much interest in this biography, never saw or asked
to see a line that I had written, never tried to dictate what I should
say nor how I should say it. He gave me full access to all of his papers
and withheld nothing. He expressed one or two tentative doubts about
the desirability of making public some letters written to him, but
only on the basis of the feelings of the family of the letter-writer or
of other persons mentioned in them.

He had rather a scorn for contemporaneous biography or history
written too soon after the event to obtain a full perspective. He ex-
pressed that view to me a number of times, quite impersonally, as
when he commented on the excellence of Thayer Cavour and the
relative inadequacy of his John Hay. Such opinions made it seem the
part of great temerity to undertake this work. It has been carried out
on the principle of making available as much data as possible regard-
ing his life, venturing personal judgments for what they are worth,
without any feeling of assurance that they will stand the test of future
historical analysis.

These personal references are made with hesitation and because
they appear to be a necessary prelude to a book of this kind. They are
necessary to explain the insertion of many of his private remarks
which I wrote down, either while he talked in his slow, deliberate way,
or immediately after I left him. Many others were similarly recorded by
his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Edward W. Root, without whose constant
help my task would have been many times more difficult to do and
less completely done. Other members of Mr. Root's family have also
given me great assistance. I have acknowledged my indebtedness to
many other persons in the Appendix where the sources of the ma-
terials used have also been indicated.

PHILIP C. JESSUP

July 1, 1938

-vi-