KNOX, PHILANDER CHASE American lawyer and cabinet officer, was born at Brownsville, Pa., on May 6, 1853. He graduated at Mount Union college, Ohio, in 1872, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1875. The following year he was appointed assistant U.S. attorney for the western district of Pennsylvania. In 1877 he opened an office in Pitts burgh where he practised law continuously until in 19o1 he was appointed attorney-general by President McKinley and was re tained by President Roosevelt. While in this office he instituted many important suits, notably those against the "beef trust" and the Northern Securities Company, which marked a new !policy on the part of the Government with regard to regulation of business. These prosecutions, together with his reports upon the regulation of trusts, mark him as one of the most capable of those who have held the office. He resigned in 1904, to fill the unexpired term of Matthew S. Quay, as senator for Pennsylvania,
and was re-elected to serve in 1905-11.
His service in the Senate was interrupted by President Taft summoning him in 1909 to become secretary of State, which position he filled until the end of the Taft Administration in March 1913. Knox's attempt to use the influence of the State Department to encourage and extend American financial and commercial interests, especially in Latin-America, the Near-East and the Far-East, was criticized as "dollar diplomacy." In 1912 he made a tour of Central and South American countries to allay the suspicion aroused in these countries by the financial and industrial policy of the United States and by its Panama canal policy. In 1917 he was again returned to the Senate. There he became one of the foremost opponents of the League of Nations. He died in Washington (D.C.), Oct. 12, 1921.