Philander Chase KNOX, Congress, PA (1853-1921)

KNOX, Philander Chase, a Senator from Pennsylvania; born in Brownsville, Fayette County, Pa., May 6, 1853; attended the University of West Virginia at Morgantown, and graduated from Mount Union College, Alliance, Ohio, in 1872; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1875 and commenced practice in Pittsburgh, Pa.; assistant United States district attorney for the western district of Pennsylvania in 1876; president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association in 1897; appointed Attorney General of the United States in the Cabinet of President William McKinley in 1901; reappointed by President Theodore Roosevelt and served until June 1904, when he resigned, having been appointed as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Matthew S. Quay; subsequently elected to fill the unexpired term and for the full term in 1905 and served from June 10, 1904, until March 4, 1909, when he resigned to enter the Cabinet; chairman, Committee on Coast Defenses (Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Congresses, Committee on Rules (Sixtieth Congress); appointed Secretary of State by President William Taft 1909-1913; again elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1917, until his death in Washington, D.C., October 12, 1921; chairman, Committee on Rules (Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Congresses); interment in Washington Memorial Cemetery, Valley Forge, Pa.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Dodds, Archibald. ‘The Public Services of Philander Chase Knox.’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1950; U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses. 67th Cong., 4th sess., 1924. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1924.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present