He was born in what is now the town of Belmont, California, on September 23, 1863, to a Spanish-born father and Italian-born mother.

He graduated in 1884 from the University of California, Berkeley in engineering and was a member of Chi Phi fraternity.

In 1917 he was appointed as director of the Inquiry, a think tank set up by Woodrow Wilson to study the diplomatic position that would follow a victorious end to World War I.

He was part of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

In 1896, he married Annie Olive Hunter, a sister-in-law of Edward M. House.