Philander Chase Knox (May 6, 1853October 12, 1921) was an American

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

, bank director, statesman and Republican Party

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

. He represented

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

from 1904 to 1909 and 1917 to 1921. He was the 44th

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal government of the United States, federal government. The attorney general acts as the princi ...

in the cabinet of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt from 1901 to 1904 and the 40th

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state (SecState) is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The secretary of state serves as the principal advisor to the ...

in the cabinet of William Howard Taft from 1909 to 1913. Born in

Brownsville, Pennsylvania Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, first settled in 1785 as the site of a trading post a few years after the defeat of the Iroquois enabled a resumption of westward migration after the American Revolutionary ...

, Knox became a prominent attorney in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, forming the law firm of Knox and Reed. With the industrialists

Henry Clay Frick Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major ...

and

Andrew Mellon Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), known also as A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. The son of Mellon family patriarch Thomas Mellon ...

, Knox also served as a director of the Pittsburgh National Bank of Commerce. In early 1901, he accepted appointment as

. Knox served under President

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until Assassination of William McKinley, his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...

until McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, and Knox continued to serve under President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

until 1904, when he resigned to accept appointment to the Senate. Knox won re-election to the Senate in 1905 and unsuccessfully sought the 1908 Republican presidential nomination. In 1909, President

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person to have held both offices. ...

appointed Knox to the position of

. From that post, Knox reorganized the State Department and pursued dollar diplomacy, which focused on encouraging and protecting U.S. investments abroad. Knox returned to private practice in 1913 after Taft lost re-election. He won election to the Senate in 1916 and played a role in the Senate's rejection of the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...

. Knox was widely seen as a potential compromise candidate at the

1920 Republican National Convention The 1920 Republican National Convention nominated Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding for president and Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge for vice president. The convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, at the Chicago Coliseum from June 8 ...

, but the party's presidential nomination instead went to

Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was one of the most ...

. While still serving in the Senate, Knox died in October 1921.

Early life, education, and marriage

Philander Chase Knox was born in

, one of nine children of Rebecca (née Page) and David S. Knox, a banker. He was named after the Episcopal Bishop

Philander Chase Philander Chase (December 14, 1775 – September 20, 1852) was an Episcopal Church bishop, educator, and pioneer of the United States western frontier, especially in Ohio and Illinois. Early life and family Born in Cornish, New Hampshire, t ...

. He attended public school in Brownsville, graduating at the age of 15. He attended

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

for a time, and then Mount Union College, where he graduated in 1872 with a bachelor of arts degree. While there, he formed a lifelong friendship with

, the future U.S. president, who at the time was a local district attorney. Knox then returned to Brownsville, and was occupied for a short while as a printer at the local newspaper, then as a clerk at the bank where his recently deceased father had worked. Soon he left for Pittsburgh, and studied law while working at the law offices of H. R. Swope & David Reed in Pittsburgh.

Marriage and family

In 1880, Knox married Lillian "Lillie" Smith, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Darsie Smith. Her father was a partner in a steel company known as Smith, Sutton and Co. The company eventually became a part of Crucible Steel. Knox and his wife had several children, including Hugh Knox. His extended relatives include a nephew, "Billy" Knox.

Legal career

Knox was admitted to the bar in 1875 and practiced in Pittsburgh. From 1876 to 1877, he was Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Knox became a leading Pittsburgh attorney in partnership with James Hay Reed, their firm being Knox and Reed (now Reed Smith LLP). In 1897 Knox became President of the

Pennsylvania Bar Association The Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in Pennsylvania, United States. The association offers membership benefits, including publications, practice support, networking, and continuing ...

. Along with Jesse H. Lippencott, a fellow member of an elite hunting club (see South Fork below), Knox served as a director of the Fifth National Bank of Pittsburgh. With

and

, he was a director of the Pittsburgh National Bank of Commerce. As counsel for the

Carnegie Steel Company Carnegie Steel Company was a steel-producing company primarily created by Andrew Carnegie and several close associates to manage businesses at steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century. The company was formed in ...

, Knox took a prominent part in organizing the

United States Steel Corporation The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe. The company produces and sells steel products, ...

in 1901.

Johnstown Flood

Knox was a member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which had a clubhouse upriver of

Johnstown, Pennsylvania Johnstown is the largest city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,411 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located east of Pittsburgh, it is the principal city of the Metropolitan statistical area ...

. It maintained an earthen dam for a lake by the club, which was stocked for fishing. The dam failed in May 1889, causing the

Johnstown Flood The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally as the Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, 31 May 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, upstream of th ...

and severe losses of life and property downriver. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims. As its attorneys; Knox and his law partner Reed were able to fend off four lawsuits against the club; Colonel Unger, its president; and against 50 named members. The cases were "either settled or discontinued and, as far as is known, no one bringing action profited thereby." The club was never held legally responsible for the disaster. Knox and Reed successfully argued that the dam's failure was a natural disaster which was an

Act of God In legal usage in the English-speaking world, an act of God, act of nature, or damnum fatale ("loss arising from inevitable accident") is an event caused by no direct human action (e.g. Severe weather, severe or extreme weather and other natur ...

, and no legal compensation was paid to the survivors of the flood. The perceived injustice aided the acceptance of “

strict In mathematical writing, the term strict refers to the property of excluding equality and equivalence and often occurs in the context of inequality and monotonic functions. It is often attached to a technical term to indicate that the exclusiv ...

, joint, and several liability,” so that a “non-negligent defendant could be held liable for damage caused by the unnatural use of land.

Political career

U.S. Attorney General

In 1901, Knox was appointed as US Attorney General by President

and was re-appointed by President

. He served until 1904. While serving President Roosevelt, Knox worked hard to implement the concept of Dollar Diplomacy. He told President Roosevelt: "I think, it would be better to keep your action free from any taint of legality," made in regard to the construction of the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

U.S. Senator

In June 1904, Knox was appointed by

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Samuel W. Pennypacker of

to fill the unexpired term of the late Matthew S. Quay in the

. In 1905, he was elected by the state legislature to fill the remainder of the full term for the US Senate seat (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-elect

nominated Senator Knox to be Secretary of State. He was at first found to be constitutionally ineligible, because Congress had increased the salary for the post during his Senate term, thus violating the

Ineligibility Clause The Ineligibility Clause (sometimes also called the Emoluments Clause, or the Incompatibility Clause, or the Sinecure Clause) is a provision in Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution that makes each incumbent member of C ...

. In particular, Knox had been elected to serve the term from March 4, 1905 to March 3, 1911. During debate on legislation approved on February 26, 1907, as well as debate beginning on March 4, 1908, he had consistently supported pay raises for the Cabinet, which were eventually instituted for the 1908 fiscal calendar. The discovery of the constitutional complication came as a surprise after President-elect Taft had announced his intention to nominate Knox. The

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally known as the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a Standing committee (United States Congress), standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the United States Departm ...

proposed the remedy of resetting the salary to its pre-service level, and the Senate passed it unanimously on February 11, 1909. Members of the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

mounted more opposition to the relief measure and defeated it once. After a special procedural rule was applied, the measure was passed by a 173–115 vote. 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. Later known as the " Saxbe fix", such legislation has been passed in a number of similar circumstances. Knox served as Secretary of State in Taft's cabinet until March 5, 1913. As Secretary of State, he reorganized the Department on a divisional basis, extended the

merit system The merit system is the process of promoting and hiring government employees based on their ability to perform a job, rather than on their political connections. It is the opposite of the spoils system. History The earliest known example of a ...

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 controversies related to activities in the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea ( , ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre, p=ˈbʲerʲɪnɡəvə ˈmorʲe) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasse ...

and the North Atlantic

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farm ...

. Under Taft the focus of foreign policy was the encouragement and protection of U.S. investments abroad called Dollar diplomacy. This was first applied in 1909, in a failed attempt to help China assume ownership of the Manchurian railways. Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities, but also to use private capital to further U.S. interests overseas. When the Zionist Literary Society sought endorsement from the Taft administration, Knox recommended against approval, noting in his assessment that "problems of Zionism involve certain matters primarily related to the interests of countries other than our own." In spite of successes, "dollar diplomacy" failed to counteract economic instability and the tide of revolution in places like Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and China.

Return to the Senate

Following his term of office, Knox resumed the practice of law in Pittsburgh. In 1916, Knox was elected by popular vote to the Senate from Pennsylvania for the first time, after passage of the Seventeenth Amendment providing for such popular elections. He served from 1917 until his death in 1921. While a Senator, he was highly critical of the

ending World War I, saying "this Treaty does not spell peace but war — war more woeful and devastating than the one we have but now closed". At the

, Knox was considered a potential compromise candidate who could unite the progressive and conservative factions of the party. Many thought that California Senator

Hiram Johnson Hiram Warren Johnson (September 2, 1866August 6, 1945) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 23rd governor of California from 1911 to 1917 and represented California in the U.S. Senate for five terms from 1917 to 1945. Johns ...

would release his delegates to back his friend Knox, but Johnson never did.

instead emerged as the compromise candidate, and Harding went on to win the 1920 election. After the election, Knox urged President Harding to consider Andrew Mellon for the position of Secretary of the Treasury, and Mellon ultimately took the position. In April 1921, he introduced a Senate resolution to bring a formal end to American involvement in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. It was combined with a similar House resolution to create the Knox–Porter Resolution, signed by President

on July 2.

Personal life

Knox's nickname was "Sleepy Phil," as he was said to have dozed off during board meetings, or because he was cross-eyed. Knox was a member of the elite

Duquesne Club The Duquesne Club is a private social club in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded in 1873. History The Duquesne Club was founded in 1873. Its first president was John H. Ricketson. The club's present home, a Romanesque structure designed by Lo ...

in Pittsburgh. File:Exterior of home of Senator Philander Knox, 1527 K Street, NW, Washington, D.C. LCCN90710376.jpg, Exterior of home of Senator Philander Knox, 1527 K Street, NW, Washington, DC File:Office in Senator Philander Knox house, Washington, D.C. LCCN2001704536.jpg, Office in Senator Philander Knox house in Washington, DC File:Staircase in home of Senator Philander Knox, Washington, D.C. LCCN90710377.jpg, Staircase in home of Senator Philander Knox File:Dining hall in home of Senator Philander Knox, Washington, D.C. LCCN90710378.jpg, Dining hall in home of Senator Philander Knox

Death

Knox died in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, on October 12, 1921, aged 68.

References

External links

Letters from and to Secretary of State Knox
Ursinus College Archives , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Knox, Philander Chase 1853 births 1921 deaths People from Brownsville, Pennsylvania Candidates in the 1908 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1920 United States presidential election United States secretaries of state Attorneys general of the United States Politicians from Pittsburgh University of Mount Union alumni Pennsylvania Republicans Republican Party United States senators from Pennsylvania West Virginia University College of Law alumni Taft administration cabinet members Theodore Roosevelt administration cabinet members McKinley administration cabinet members 19th-century American politicians 20th-century United States senators