Background
Newton Diehl Baker was born on the 3rd of December, 1871, in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States, the son of Newton Diehl Baker, Sr. and Mary Ann (Dukehart) Baker.
Newton Diehl Baker was born on the 3rd of December, 1871, in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States, the son of Newton Diehl Baker, Sr. and Mary Ann (Dukehart) Baker.
Newton received a Bachelor of arts degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1892 and graduated from Washington and Lee University's law school two years later.
In 1897 Baker began to practice law in his hometown, moving later to Cleveland, where he served two terms (1912–16) as mayor. Baker, who had played an important role in Woodrow Wilson’s nomination in the Democratic National Convention of 1912, was appointed secretary of war by President Wilson and remained in the Cabinet to the end of Wilson’s term of office. Although he was, as he himself said, so much of a pacifist that “he would fight for peace,” he soon submitted to Congress a plan for universal military conscription, and he efficiently presided over the mobilization of more than four million men during World War I. In 1928 he was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and in 1929 President Herbert Hoover named him to the Law Enforcement Commission. His book, Why We Went to War, appeared in 1936.
Baker was small and thin. He was rejected for military service in the Spanish–American War because of poor eyesight. He was a powerful orator.
He was widely regarded as one of the most kindly and charming public men of his time.