The Green Bag

Vot. XX.

No. 4

BOSTON

APRIL, 1908

THE LEGAL CAREER OF SENATOR KNOX BY HENRY M. HOYT PHILANDER CHASE KNOX brought to the practice of his profession, and thus ulti mately to the public career which was to be the evolution of the professional career, a remarkable combination of qualities. His inheritances were of the best, — plain, strong American; that is to say. Scotch and Scotch-Irish, filtered through the generations who were yeomen and pioneers in the Cum berland Valley and along the southern tier of Pennsylvania, gradually moving on to her western counties on the Monongahela. His father was an officer of a small country bank, of modest means and large family, faithful to all his trusts in business and at home, one of that type of country banker whose immovable integrity and fairness make him the trustee and arbitrator of an entire community. Such superior men, en gaged in moderate transactions and perform ing their work deliberately and calmly, in contrast with the volume and hurry of pre sent affairs, recalls Saint Gregory's fine say ing, — "A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a very great thing." Like his father, Senator Knox is composed and deliberate, orderly, keen, just and sen sible. His mother was the beloved guide and friend of her many children, a real helpmate in a family where thrift and economy had to be learned and practiced. From her he de rives his generosity and tolerance, a certain wise moderation, a lively sense of humor, with companionability and strong affections. From both parents he drew high intelligence the power of industry and the courage both to do and to endure. He was named after the devoted missionary bishop, Philander

Chase, whose labors for his church in early days extended throughout Ohio and the ter ritory to the west. Such God-fearing and self-denying lives going on generation after generation store up virtue as a sort of reserve fund for the later generations to draw upon, — that com posite virtue which includes many things of strength and beauty in mind and char acter. Senator Knox's boyhood, at Brownville, on the Monongahela river, was the normal active life of American youth in such con ditions; school and play, the country town, the hills and fields lying around, the river in winter and summer. The ceaseless ener gies and vital activities of such a boy always learning something out of books and outside books, always testing and developing his mental and moral and physical fibre, are the source from which later achievements are drawn and store up the strength on which the structure of char acter is founded. Young Knox entered Mount Union College, Ohio, when he was sixteen years old, and graduated in 1872 when he was nineteen, taking the four years' course in three years, and absenting himself during one or two winter terms, as was the custom then, to earn enough to carry on his education. After graduation he was employed in a bank at home, accumulating enough to undertake his law studies, and then having entered the Albany Law School and leaving almost im mediately because of an attack of typhoid fever, which nearly ended his life and from which he recovered slowly, he began the study of law in the office of United States