i64
THE GREEN BAG
was brought into contact with him in various ways, and a youthful attraction ripened to close friendship. Later in the midst of McKinley's political career and before and after he became President, he sought counsel and aid from Knox and the relations between the two men became intimate and cordial. Upon his appointment Mr. Knox retired from the firm of Knox & Reed and separated himself entirely and scrupulously from all private business. Immediately upon assum ing office it became evident to his assistants and associates that his sole motive was to perform his public duties energetically and conscientiously and that he regarded them from the highest point of view as a trust and an honor. He revealed qualities of leadership without self-assertion, and displayed initiative and industry with a marked executive gift for the administration of the Department. His influence upon the personnel and system of the Depart ment was immediate and beneficial. He invited frankness and co-operation from his subordinates; he inspired confidence and a high sense of esprit de corps. The result was an admirable co-ordination and correla tion of Department work, producing effec tive results and a personal devotion to a chief who stimulated pride in the work and recognized generously the services of those associated with him. Mr. Knox possessed the gift of discovering the particular aptitudes and capacities of his different assistants and availing of these to .the utmost, so that he called forth efficient service everywhere, and the dili gence which he pursued himself and evoked in others resulted in an unusual volume of public work during his incumbency being dispatched with effectiveness and celerity. His firm grasp of himself, his mastery of his duties, his accurate analysis of the various legal problems confronting him, his power of swift decision joined to sound judgment, his resoluteness in administra
tion, his civic and moral courage as a cabinet counselor, the wisdom and moderation of his temperament associated, however, with promptness of action and boldness of ex ecution whenever fighting qualities were demanded, his natural penetration of mind, reinforced by years of study and experience of life and books, his natural aptitude for the logic and philosophy underlying the law, — this combination of gifts and abili ties made Mr. Knox an unusually able and successful Attorney General. There was in his administration a quality of steadfastness, without rashness or any hesitation or weak; ness which was altogether admirable; it sug gested the steady operation and progression of a natural law like Goethe's "Without haste, without rest." His official work on the legal side especi ally as counsel and advocate is a record spread before the country. While the anti trust discussion was still largely academic, before it had crystallized into a programme and campaign under the vigorous impulses communicated to it by President Roosevelt, Mr. Knox expressed his belief in the meaning and effectiveness of the law and the sound of the policy which would enforce it unhes itatingly, and so he became a most effective lieutenant to the President when that cam paign was actively inaugurated. On Presi dent Roosevelt's accession he immediately recommissioned Mr. Knox, who continued in the cabinet as Attorney General, and an Attorney General in particularly close, trusted and cordial relations with his chief, until he resigned his office to become United States Senator on July i, 1904. Mr. Knox's speech at Pittsburgh in the fall of 1902 sounded the keynote of the movement against the trusts and against corrupt corporate practices in transporta tion and generally within the field of inter state commerce. It was based on the view that the meaning of the anti-trust law and the interstate commerce laws had not been thoroughly explored or the effective power thereunder exhausted; that existing laws
