"I like Knox and I admire him tremendously, but I will not ask him
to be my Secretary of State. He is too indifferent."
This characterization of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania,
attributed to his late colleague President Harding, summarizes very
aptly his strength and his weakness. One can very easily admire him
and, when he drops the mask of dignity, which seems almost pompous
in so diminutive a figure, one cannot help liking him. But in spite
of his successes,--which his enemies attribute to luck, and he
probably attributes to intellectual superiority,--he has never
quite achieved greatness and will probably go down in history as
one of the lesser luminaries in the political heavens.
Knox IS indifferent, especially to those who do not know him
intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the
contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings
of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a
feeble and futile fluttering.
I doubt if any man in public life has had so many honors thrust
upon him. He has held three great offices of the Republic without
so much as raising a hand for any of them. Unlike most men he did
not travel the mucky road of politics to reach Washington nor
compromise with circumstance to gain distinction. Three Presidents
invited him to sit at their cabinet tables. Three times the
Republican machine in Pennsylvania invited him to sit in the
Senate. With graceful dignity he accepted all of these invitations
not, indeed, unconscious of the fact that the selection in each
case was a very happy one.
I do not mean by this that he is conceited. He is merely conscious
of the fact that intellectually he is somewhat superior to his
colleagues, most of whom, strangely enough, quite agree with him.
They consult him and accept his counsel with almost childlike
faith. To the mediocre politicians and provincial lawyers who
constitute the bulk of the Senate and House of Representatives, he
is a figure apart, who looks upon their antics with a kindly, but
never amused, tolerance.
"I know nothing of politics," he said to me a short time ago. "I
have never been interested in politics as such."
This remark is rather enigmatical to the average member, who would,
ordinarily, look upon the author as a dolt or pretender. They do
not dare to do either in the case of Mr. Knox; therefore, the
conclusion that he is indifferent. Never have the men associated
with Mr. Knox questioned his capacity.
Robert Lansing, when he was Secretary of State, said of him;
"Senator Lodge will not understand the treaty but he will fight for
it for political reasons. Senator Knox will understand it
thoroughly."
The observation seems almost prophetic in the light of what has
since been disclosed. Mr. Lansing's faith in Mr. Knox's judgment
seems to have been fully justified. I know of no one who has held
more steadfastly the respect of colleagues in the Senate or at the
Cabinet table, nor who has been more easily successful up to a
certain point or so singularly unsuccessful beyond it. He has done
valiant service for his country but he has failed lamentably to
reach the heights from which he could look upon broader horizons.
In the early days of his career no one strove more whole heartedly.
Destiny smiled upon him and the White House seemed to beckon. He
was not unaware of the opportunity nor was there anyone more eager
to grasp it. But he discovered that he could not stir the
enthusiasm that begets political power. The secret, which enabled
many other men, many of whom he despised, to succeed, was not his.
A temperamental dislike of the methods of politicians was followed
by a strong animosity towards those who crossed his political path
and some of those who went along beside it. He became hypercritical
of those with whom he associated and allowed a natural germ of
cynicism to develop and flourish within him. Little by little he
has withdrawn from the active combat, a philosopher in politics
enamored of public life but unwilling to suffer the inconveniences
it involves.
It is no wonder then that his colleagues in the Senate, especially
the younger members, are somewhat in fear of the incisive tongue,
for he wields it frequently and contemptuously. When after his
election, Mr. Harding went South with Senator Frelinghuysen,
Senator Davis Elkins, and Senator Hale, the older Senators, not,
perhaps, without a tinge of disappointment at having been left out,
marveled at the entourage the President had selected for himself,
but Knox was cynically undisturbed.
"It is quite simple," he said, "I see nothing mysterious about it
at all. The President wants relaxation--complete mental
relaxation."
No less biting was his comment on Robert Lansing when that
gentleman started on the high road of public service as Counselor
of the State Department. The bandy-legged messenger who guards the
door of the Secretary of State is the negro, Eddie Savoy. Eddie, in
his way, is a personage. For forty years he has ushered
diplomatists in and out of the Secretary's office; his short bent
figure gives the only air of permanence to an institution which
seems to be in a constant state of flux. When the Lansing
appointment was announced Mr. Knox observed: "I would as soon ask
Eddie Savoy an opinion on foreign affairs as Robert Lansing."
The roots of Mr. Knox's superciliousness dip down deep into the
relationships begun a score of years ago. To understand him as he
is it is necessary to understand him as he was when his career was
before him. William McKinley asked him to become Attorney General
in his Cabinet. He was then forty-two years old, a political
nobody. What reputation he had was confined to Pittsburg and a
selected few of the steel millionaires in Wall Street, but among
the selected few were names to be conjured with, such as Andrew
Carnegie and Henry C. Frick. Whether President McKinley's interest
in Knox was spontaneous or prompted by Mr. Frick I do not know. Mr.
Knox likes to believe that Mr. Frick did not enter into the
equation. Mr. Knox declined, saying that he could not sacrifice his
lucrative practice but that in four years he would accept the
invitation if the President cared to renew it.
It was renewed. At the age of forty-six, Mr. Knox quit the bar for
politics, or, as he would say, statecraft. His appointment evoked a
storm of protest from such immaculate journals as the New York
World. They dubbed him, "Frick's man," and predicted that the
Department of Justice would be turned into a Wall Street anteroom
for the convenience of the capitalistic combinations then flouting
the Sherman anti-trust law. The charges, of course, were as wide of
the mark as most of the ebullitions of the yellow journals.
Mr. Knox began his public career by attacking the Northern
Securities merger, against the judgment of some of the highest-paid
lawyers of the country. The Supreme Court sustained him. It was the
greatest victory the government ever won under the Sherman law.
Thereafter Mr. Knox, who had been labeled a corporation lawyer, was
proclaimed a trust buster. By the time he was fifty he had become
the greatest Attorney General in a half century. Certainly the mark
he set has never been reached by any of his successors.
When Mr. Roosevelt came into the White House Mr. Knox was at the
pinnacle of his career and was as much admired by his new chief as
by his martyred predecessor. In ability Mr. Roosevelt considered
him next to Elihu Root, for which Mr. Root was never quite
forgiven. It is generally known that President Roosevelt believed
that Mr. Root was the best qualified man in the country to succeed
him, but at the same time, being an astute politician, he knew that
he could not be elected. His attitude to his Secretary of State was
the same as Senator Lodge's toward himself, when he said in 1920:
"I know that I would make an excellent President, but I realize
that I would make a poor candidate."
Root being out of it because of this obvious defect, President
Roosevelt proceeded to groom Mr. Knox for the nomination. Mr. Knox
at the President's suggestion, prepared and delivered several
speeches in the hope that he would awaken popular enthusiasm. The
attempt failed dismally.
There was not a responsive throb, not even a vague echo. Mr. Knox
knew that he possessed not the merest shred of the leadership
necessary to a presidential candidate.
He went back to the Senate, where he had succeeded Matthew Quay
upon his resignation from the Cabinet, sadder if wiser, while
William H. Taft draped upon his broad shoulders the mantle of
Roosevelt.
Mr. Knox has never quite recovered from that disappointment, but he
did not altogether abandon hope. He accepted a place in the Taft
Cabinet as Secretary of State, more for the opportunities it
offered than for the pleasure of the associations, for Mr. Knox's
attitude toward President Taft was never more than passive
tolerance tinged with contempt. This new venture was no more
successful than the old. He made it quite evident that a new regime
was to be established in the State Department. The policies
originated by John Hay and developed with singular brilliancy by
Mr. Root were shunted into the background and a new era was
proclaimed. It is unnecessary to comment on the dismal essay at
"dollar diplomacy" and the Mexican policy of that period. The
simple fact is that Mr. Knox's name is not associated with a single
successful foreign policy. Some might have succeeded but
unfortunately the energy displayed at the outset of his career in
this new field was soon dissipated. Mr. Knox disliked the methods
of diplomacy. He lacked both the patience and the finesse. He went
to the Department, over which he was supposed to preside, but
rarely. For weeks at a time Washington saw nothing of him. The
administration of the Department was left largely to Huntington
Wilson, whose ineptitude was colossal.
Fortunately for Mr. Knox the extent of his failure was somewhat
screened from public view by the dust and clatter of the collapse
of the Taft Administration, but it left its mark on him. He had
failed dismally to eclipse his predecessor, Elihu Root. He had
eliminated himself from all consideration as one of the very great
statesmen of his period. He was a bitterly disappointed man. Not
only his associates but the members of the diplomatic corps were
made to feel the sting of his resentment against overwhelming
circumstances. Such references as that directed at the French
Ambassador, M. Jules Jusserand, now dean of the diplomatic corps,
whom he called "the magpie," cost him many friends.
Upon the inauguration of President Wilson Mr. Knox slipped quietly
away to Valley Forge. Public life, however, still had for him its
attractions, and when Senator Oliver retired, he returned to the
Senate. During the war his great talents were dormant. He merely
came and went, a curious little detached figure apparently quite
unresponsive to the emotions which swept the country during that
eventful period.
With the signing of the armistice he aroused himself from his
apparent torpor. Although he was quite without feeling during the
stress and storm, the situation created by the presentation of the
Treaty of Versailles with its interwoven League of Nations stirred
his intellectual interest. He became the leader of the little band
of "irreconcilables" who girded their armor to prevent what they
regarded as a catastrophic sacrifice of American interests. At the
same time Mr. Knox narrowly missed another opportunity to lift
himself conspicuously above the heads of stump speakers who, for
the most part, to-day comprise the Senate.
During that memorable fight Senator Lodge incurred the enmity at
one time or another of every faction in the Senate. He could not be
trusted to maintain the same position over night, shifting as
expediency demanded until most of his colleagues, particularly the
irreconcilables, were exasperated beyond endurance. At one of the
most critical periods Senator Borah appealed to Senator Knox to
wrest the leadership from the Massachusetts Senator, with
intimations that he would have the support of the "bitter enders"
at the forthcoming convention at Chicago. Mr. Knox does not love
Mr. Lodge but he refused to consider the proposal. He was
indifferent. His last great political opportunity went glimmering.
As I have said Mr. Knox can be very charming but I doubt that he
sincerely admires any of the public men with whom he has been
associated, or can call any of them, from the purely personal
viewpoint, his friends, with the possible exception of Andrew
Mellon, whom he caused to be appointed Secretary of the Treasury.
Of course, he likes many of his colleagues, after a fashion,
especially those who admire him, but that is another matter. The
intimacy usually implied in the term friendship does not enter into
such relations.
For some of the more important men he has known, he has shown a
very distinct dislike. It is said of him that he thought President
Harding overlooked a real opportunity when he failed to invite him
to become Secretary of State, but his disappointment was somewhat
mollified by the fact that Mr. Root was not asked to take the post.
Mr. Knox prefers to look upon Mr. Root as a lucky lawyer who has
taken to himself much of the credit of John Hay's great work. He
shows an even less regard for Mr. Lodge's talents. And he is
doubtful of Mr. Hughes.
His attitude towards the Secretary of State dates back to the
insurance scandals. At that time Mr. Frick asked Mr. Knox to make
an investigation and suggest a course of action to avert a national
disaster. This Mr. Knox did in his thorough and painstaking way. A
little later, when Mr. Hughes was appointed to make a public
inquiry, the Knox report was laid before him, and according to the
author of it, he followed precisely the lines therein indicated
creating for himself a national reputation and laying the
foundation of a public career. Credit was not given Mr. Knox. It
has been suggested that the incident might have been an
illustration of two great minds seeking the same channel. Mr. Knox
does not think so.
In spite of his disappointments and failures, the dignified little
Senator from Pennsylvania who has been so many times on the verge
of greatness, seems to think that he could have done just a little
better than any of those who have achieved it, had circumstance
given him the opportunity. Perhaps he might. It is a compliment
that few men merit to be called merely indifferent.