Philander C. Knox

For more information on Philander Chase Knox, visit Britannica.com.

The American statesman Philander Chase Knox (1853-1921) served as U.S. attorney general, senator, and secretary of state.

Philander Knox was born on May 6, 1853, at Brownsville, Pa. He graduated from Mount Union College in Ohio in 1872, and in 1878 he formed a successful law practice in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1901 Knox drew up the papers transferring the Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan, thus creating America's first billion-dollar corporation, the United States Steel Company.

Knox joined President William McKinley's cabinet as attorney general in 1901, and he continued to serve under President Theodore Roosevelt after McKinley's assassination. Despite his close ties to business interests, Knox vigorously prosecuted trusts under the almost-forgotten Sherman Antitrust Law and took actions against railroads to prevent rate discrimination and rebates. His most notable victory was against the Northern Securities Company, formed by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill to merge the competing Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads. Knox personally argued the case before the Supreme Court, which sustained the government's position. Knox also influenced new antitrust legislation, helped draft the laws that created the Department of Commerce and Labor, and gave the Interstate Commerce Commission effective control of railroad rates.

In June 1904 Knox was appointed to the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania and served with distinction until President William Howard Taft appointed him secretary of state in 1909. As secretary, Knox reorganized and strengthened the State Department and the Foreign Service. He encouraged American overseas investments (his policy of "dollar diplomacy") to promote the objectives of American political diplomacy, although he was not too successful.

In 1913 Knox resumed his law practice in Pittsburgh. In 1916 he was elected to the Senate, where he fought against United States participation in the League of Nations and ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Instead, Knox favored a congressional resolution repealing the declarations of war against Germany and Austria. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed this, but President Warren Harding signed it in 1921. On Oct. 12, 1921, Knox died.

Further Reading

Useful general accounts are Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft (2 vols., 1939), and George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900-1912 (1958). See also the autobiography of Knox's chief aide in the State Department, F. M. Huntington Wilson, Memoirs of an Ex-diplomat (1945). Balthasar Henry Meyer, A History of the Northern Securities Case (1906), contains a detailed account of Knox's role. Graham H. Stuart, The Department of State: A History of Its Organization, Procedure and Personnel (1949), describes Knox's reorganization. Walter Scholes is critical of Knox as secretary of state in An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century, edited by Norman A. Graebner (1961). More favorable is the account in Samuel Flagg Bemis, ed., American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, vol. 9 (1929).

Philander Chase Knox was a corporate attorney, industrialist, and two-time U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. He served as U.S. attorney general under President William McKinley from 1901 to 1904, and as U.S. secretary of state under President William Howard Taft from 1909 to 1913.

Knox was born to privilege on May 6, 1853, in Brownsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. His banker father, David S. Knox, financed commercial activities in the region around Pittsburgh. His mother, Rebekah Page Knox, was involved in numerous philanthropic and social organizations, and she encouraged her children in community service pursuits.

Knox's early education was in local private schools with the children of other prominent Pennsylvania families. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Mount Union College, in Alliance, Ohio, in 1872. While in college Knox began a lifelong friendship with future president McKinley, who was then district attorney of Stark County, Ohio. McKinley encouraged the young man's interest in the law, and arranged for him to read law in the office of Attorney H.B. Swope, of Pittsburgh.

After spending three years with Swope, Knox was admitted to Pennsylvania's Allegheny County bar in 1875. Shortly thereafter he was appointed assistant U.S. district attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Two years later he formed a law partnership with James H. Reed, of Pittsburgh, that would last more than twenty years. In 1880 he formed an equally lasting marital partnership with Lillie Smith, daughter of Pittsburgh businessman Andrew D. Smith.

Knox's professional skills and personal style were well suited to the business climate of his day. He was intimately involved in the industrial development of the Pittsburgh region as well as the organization and direction of the companies forging that development. His efforts made him one of the wealthiest men in Pennsylvania.

Knox, along with many of his business and social peers, was a charter member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, on Lake Conemaugh, near Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The club erected a dam to create its private lake retreat. When the dam failed on May 31, 1889, an ensuing flood killed more than two thousand people and destroyed countless homes and businesses in its path. Author David McCullough noted in his history The Johnstown Flood that no money was ever collected from the club or its members through damage suits. But Knox's family contributed to the relief efforts, and Knox and other businessmen used their resources to help rebuild many of the companies and restore many of the jobs lost in the cataclysm.

By 1897 Knox had sufficiently redeemed himself to be elected president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In 1899 his longtime friend President McKinley offered him the position of attorney general of the United States. Knox declined McKinley's initial offer because he was heavily involved in the formation and organization of the Carnegie Steel Company, so the position went to John W. Griggs.

When Griggs resigned in 1901, McKinley again offered the position to Knox. This time Knox accepted. He began his term on April 9, 1901. Within the year he brought an antitrust action against the Northern Securities Company, through which James J. Hill, John Pierpont Morgan, and others had attempted to merge the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroads. Knox guided the litigation through several appeals and made the winning argument before the U.S. Supreme Court (Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 24 S. Ct. 436, 48 L. Ed. 679 [1904]).

Later in 1901 he ruled against executive authority—and his own preferences—when he advised that game refuges in the national forests could be established only through legislation. He told President McKinley that he regretted having to make that decision: "I would be glad to find authority for the intervention by the Secretary [of Interior] for the preservation of what is left of the game … but it would seem that whatever is done in that direction must be done by Congress, which alone has the power" (Baker 1992, 405).

Knox stayed on as attorney general under President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1902 he traveled to Paris to examine the title to a canal concession across the Isthmus of Panama. Knox validated a French company's questionable title (in a three hundred-page opinion) and opened the way for the United States to purchase the company's interests. The incident is often cited as an example of the law being manipulated by presidential prerogative. Knox reportedly said afterward that Roosevelt's plan to acquire the canal concession was not marred by the slightest taint of legality.

His service as attorney general ended June 10, 1904, when Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, of Pennsylvania, appointed him to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Matthew S. Quay. Knox took Quay's seat in the U.S. Senate July 1, 1904, and was subsequently elected to a full six-year term. During his term he was active and influential, especially in railroad rate legislation. He served on the Judiciary Committee, took a prominent part in a debate over tolls for the Panama Canal, and for a time was chairman of the Senate committee on rules.

He resigned his Senate seat March 4, 1909, to accept President Taft's appointment as secretary of state. Under Taft the focus of foreign policy was the encouragement and protection of U.S. investments abroad. Taft's approach, often called dollar diplomacy, was first applied in 1909, in a failed attempt to help China assume ownership of the Manchurian railways. Tangible proof of Knox's efforts in this attempt can be seen today in Washington, D.C.: the Chinese government gave him two thousand cherry trees that still blossom each spring. More successful attempts at dollar diplomacy were eventually made in Nicaragua and the Caribbean.

In March 1913 Knox returned to the practice of law. He did not last long. Just three years later, he announced his intention to seek a second term in the U.S. Senate. He was elected November 6, 1916. He was an outspoken opponent of the League of Nations, and he took a leading role in the successful fight against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles at the close of World War I because, he said, it imposed "obligations upon the United States which under our Constitution cannot be imposed by the treaty-making power."

On October 12, 1921, Knox collapsed and died outside his Senate chamber in Washington, D.C. He was sixty-eight years old. He was buried near his home at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Philander Chase Knox
United States Senator from Pennsylvania
In office 1917 – 1921
Preceded by	George T. Oliver
Succeeded by	William E. Crow
40th United States Secretary of State
In office March 6, 1909 – March 5, 1913
President	William Howard Taft
Preceded by	Robert Bacon
Succeeded by	William Jennings Bryan
United States Senator from Pennsylvania
In office June 1904 – 1909
Preceded by	Matthew Quay
Succeeded by	George T. Oliver
45th United States Attorney General
In office April 5, 1901 – June 30, 1904
President	William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt
Preceded by	John W. Griggs
Succeeded by	William H. Moody
Born	May 6, 1853(1853-05-06) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	October 12, 1921 (aged 68) Washington, DC, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Alma mater	West Virginia University Mount Union College
Profession	Lawyer, Politician
Signature

Philander Chase Knox (May 6, 1853–October 12, 1921) was an American lawyer and politician who served as Attorney General and U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and was Secretary of State from 1909-1913.

Contents 1 Early life, education, and marriage 2 Legal career 3 U.S. Attorney General 4 U.S. Senator 5 U.S. Secretary of State 6 Return to the Senate 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

Early life, education, and marriage

Knox was born in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania suburb of Brownsville, Pennsylvania. His father was a banker and his mother was active in philanthropic and social organizations. He went to private primary and secondary schools attended by the affluent.

Knox went to and graduated from Mount Union College in 1872 with a bachelor of arts degree. Whilst there, he formed a lifelong friendship with future U.S. President William McKinley, who was at the time a local district attorney.

Knox married Lillie Smith, the daughter of Andrew Smith of the firm Smith, Sutton and Co., in 1880.

Legal career

He was admitted to the bar in 1875 and practiced in Pittsburgh. From 1876-1877 he was Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and became President of the Pennsylvania Bar Association in 1897.

Knox was a leading Pittsburgh attorney in partnership with James Hay Reed, their firm being Knox and Reed (now Reed Smith LLP). Knox was also a member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, whose earthen dam failed in May 1889, causing the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for tangible assistance to the flood victims as well as determining to never speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the Club’s members.

Knox was a member of the Duquesne Club. Along with fellow South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club member Jesse H. Lippencott, Knox served as a director of the Fifth National Bank of Pittsburgh. Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon and Philander Knox were directors of the Pittsburgh National Bank of Commerce.

Knox's nickname was “Sleepy Phil” which is said to have been because he dozed off during board meetings or because he was cross-eyed, making it difficult for his two eyes to track together.

As counsel for the Carnegie Steel Company, he took a prominent part in organizing the United States Steel Corporation in 1901.

U.S. Attorney General

He served as Attorney General in the cabinets of Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt from 1901 to 1904.

While serving Roosevelt, Knox worked hard with the concept of Dollar Diplomacy.

He is well-known for famous quote to Roosevelt: "Mister President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality," made in regards to the construction of the Panama Canal. (A slightly rephrased version of this quote wwas spoken by Brian Keith as Roosevelt in the 1975 film The Wind and the Lion.)

U.S. Senator

In June 1904, he was appointed by Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker of Pennsylvania to fill the unexpired term of Matthew S. Quay in the United States Senate.

In 1905, he was re-elected to the Senate for the full term (to 1909).

Knox made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican Party nomination in the [[1908 U.S. presidential election.

U.S. Secretary of State

In February 1909, President William Howard Taft nominated Senator Knox to be Secretary of State.^[1] However, Knox was originally found to be constitutionally ineligible because the salary for the post had been increased during his Senate term, thus violating the Ineligibility Clause.^[2] In particular, Knox had been elected to serve the term from March 4, 1905 to March 3, 1911 and during legislation approved on February 26, 1907 as well as debate beginning on March 4, 1908 he consistently supported pay raises eventually instituted for the 1908 fiscal calendar.^[2][3] The discovery of the constitutional complication came as a surprise, after President-elect Taft had announced his intention to nominate Knox.^[2] The Senate Judiciary Committee proposed the remedy of resetting the salary to its pre-service level, and the Senate passed it unanimously on February 11, 1909.^[3] There was much more opposition in the U.S. House of Representatives, where the same measure was defeated once, and then after a special procedural rule was applied, was passed by a 173–115 vote.^[4] On March 4, 1909, the salary of the Secretary of State position was reverted from $12,000 to $8,000, and Knox took office on March 6.^[2][3] This legislative mechanism later became known as the "Saxbe fix" and has been applied in a number of similar circumstances.

Knox served as Secretary of State in Taft's cabinet until March 5, 1913. As Secretary of State, Knox reorganized the Department on a divisional basis, extended the merit system to the Diplomatic Service up to the grade of chief of mission, pursued a policy of encouraging and protecting American investments abroad, declared the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, and accomplished the settlement of the Bering Sea controversy and the North Atlantic fisheries controversy.

Return to the Senate

Following his term of office, Knox resumed the practice of law in Pittsburgh.

Knox was again elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania and served from 1917 to 1921.

Knox was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1920 U.S. Presidential election but was handily defeated at the convention.

In April 1921 he introduced a Senate resolution to bring a formal end to American involvement in World War I. It was combined with a similar House resolution to create the Knox-Porter Resolution, signed by President Warren G. Harding on July 21.

Knox died in Washington, D.C. later that year.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Philander C. Knox

References

1. ^ 43 Congressional Record 2390-403 (1909).
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "Knox Seems Barred From the Cabinet". The New York Times. 1909-02-10. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9903E2D91031E733A25753C1A9649C946897D6CF. Retrieved 2009-01-25. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} "Knox Relief Bill Passes in Senate". The New York Times. 1909-02-12. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=9A0CE6DC153EE733A25751C1A9649C946897D6CF. Retrieved 2009-01-25. 
4. ^ "Way Clear For Knox to Enter Cabinet". The New York Times. 1909-02-16. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9901E5D81031E733A25755C1A9649C946897D6CF. Retrieved 2009-01-25. 

External links

• Philander C. Knox at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Legal offices
Preceded by John W. Griggs	United States Attorney General 1901–1904	Succeeded by William H. Moody
United States Senate
Preceded by Matthew S. Quay	United States Senator (Class 3) from Pennsylvania 1904–1909 Served alongside: Boies Penrose	Succeeded by George T. Oliver
Preceded by George T. Oliver	U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania 1917–1921	Succeeded by William E. Crow
Political offices
Preceded by Robert Bacon	United States Secretary of State Served under: William Howard Taft 1909–1913	Succeeded by William Jennings Bryan

v • d • e United States Secretaries of State Jefferson • Randolph • Pickering • J Marshall • Madison • Smith • Monroe • Adams • Clay • Van Buren • Livingston • McLane • Forsyth • Webster • Upshur • Calhoun • Buchanan • Clayton • Webster • Everett • Marcy • Cass • Black • Seward • Washburne • Fish • Evarts • Blaine • Frelinghuysen • Bayard • Blaine • Foster • Gresham • Olney • Sherman • Day • Hay • Root • Bacon • Knox • Bryan • Lansing • Colby • Hughes • Kellogg • Stimson • Hull • Stettinius • Byrnes • G Marshall • Acheson • Dulles • Herter • Rusk • Rogers • Kissinger • Vance • Muskie • Haig • Shultz • Baker • Eagleburger • Christopher • Albright • Powell • Rice • Clinton

v • d • e United States Attorneys General Randolph • Bradford • Lee • Lincoln • Breckinridge • Rodney • Pinkney • Rush • Wirt • Berrien • Taney • Butler • Grundy • Gilpin • Crittenden • Legaré • Nelson • Mason • Clifford • Toucey • Johnson • Crittenden • Cushing • Black • Stanton • Bates • Speed • Stanberry • Evarts • Hoar • Akerman • Williams • Pierrepont • Taft • Devens • MacVeagh • Brewster • Garland • Miller • Olney • Harmon • McKenna • Griggs • Knox • Moody • Bonaparte • Wickersham • McReynolds • Gregory • Palmer • Daugherty • Stone • Sargent • W D Mitchell • Cummings • Murphy • Jackson • Biddle • T C Clark • McGrath • McGranery • Brownell • Rogers • Kennedy • Katzenbach • W R Clark • J N Mitchell • Kleindienst • Richardson • Saxbe • Levi • Bell • Civiletti • Smith • Meese • Thornburgh • Barr • Reno • Ashcroft • Gonzales • Mukasey • Holder

v • d • e United States Senators from Pennsylvania Class 1 W. Maclay • Gallatin • Ross • S. Maclay • Leib • Roberts • Findlay • Barnard • Dallas • McKean • Sturgeon • Brodhead • S. Cameron • Wilmot • Buckalew • J. Scott • Wallace • Mitchell • Quay • Knox • Oliver • Knox • Crow • Reed • Guffey • Martin • H. Scott • Heinz • Wofford • Santorum • Casey Class 3 Morris • Bingham • Muhlenberg • Logan • Gregg • Lacock • Lowrie • Marks • Wilkins • Buchanan • S. Cameron • Cooper • Bigler • Cowan • S. Cameron • J. Cameron • Penrose • Pepper • Vare • Grundy • Davis • Myers • Duff • Clark • Schweiker • Specter

v • d • e Cabinet of President William McKinley (1897-1901) Vice President Garret A. Hobart (1897-1899) • None (1899-1901) • Theodore Roosevelt (1901) Secretary of State John Sherman (1897-1898) • William R. Day (1898) • John Hay (1898-1901) Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage (1897-1901) Secretary of War Russell A. Alger (1897-1899) • Elihu Root (1899-1901) Attorney General Joseph McKenna (1897-1898) • John W. Griggs (1898-1901) • Philander C. Knox (1901) Postmaster General James A. Gary (1897-1898) • Charles E. Smith (1898-1901) Secretary of the Navy John D. Long (1897-1901) Secretary of the Interior Cornelius N. Bliss (1897-1899) • Ethan A. Hitchcock (1899-1901) Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson (1897-1901)

v • d • e Cabinet of President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) Vice President None (1901-1905) • Charles W. Fairbanks (1905-1909) Secretary of State John M. Hay (1901-1905) • Elihu Root (1905-1909) • Robert Bacon (1909) Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage (1901-1902) • Leslie M. Shaw (1902-1907) • George B. Cortelyou (1907-1909) Secretary of War Elihu Root (1901-1904) • William H. Taft (1904-1908) • Luke E. Wright (1908-1909) Attorney General Philander C. Knox (1901-1904) • William H. Moody (1904-1906) • Charles J. Bonaparte (1906-1909) Postmaster General Charles E. Smith (1901-1902) • Henry C. Payne (1902-1904) • Robert J. Wynne (1904-1905) • George B. Cortelyou (1905-1907) • George von L. Meyer (1907-1909) Secretary of the Navy John D. Long (1901-1902) • William H. Moody (1902-1904) • Paul Morton (1904-1905) • Charles J. Bonaparte (1905-1906) • Victor H. Metcalf (1906-1908) • Truman H. Newberry (1908-1909) Secretary of the Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock (1901-1907) • James R. Garfield (1907-1909) Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson (1901-1909) Secretary of Commerce and Labor George B. Cortelyou (1903-1904) • Victor H. Metcalf (1904-1906) • Oscar S. Straus (1906-1909)

v • d • e Cabinet of President William Howard Taft (1909–1913) Vice President James S. Sherman (1909–1912) · None (1912–1913) Secretary of State Philander C. Knox (1909–1913) Secretary of the Treasury Franklin MacVeagh (1909–1913) Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickinson (1909–1911) · Henry L. Stimson (1911–1913) Attorney General George W. Wickersham (1909–1913) Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock (1909–1913) Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer (1909–1913) Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger (1909–1911) · Walter L. Fisher (1911–1913) Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson (1909–1913) Secretary of Commerce and Labor Charles Nagel (1909–1913)

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)