Philander C. Knox
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Philander Chase Knox (May 6, 1853 — October 12, 1921) was United States Secretary of State from 1909-1913. He was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, graduated from Mount Union College in 1872; was admitted to the bar in 1875 and practiced in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 1876-1877 and President of the Pennsylvania Bar Association in 1897. As counsel for the Carnegie Steel Company, took a prominent part in organizing the United States Steel Corporation in 1901; Attorney General in the Cabinets of Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1904; Senator from Pennsylvania, 1904-1909; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1908; Secretary of State in President Taft's Cabinet from March 6, 1909 until March 5, 1913. As Secretary of State, reorganized the Department on a divisional basis; extended the merit system to the Diplomatic Service up to the grade of chief of mission; pursued a policy of encouraging and protecting American investments abroad; and accomplished the settlement of the Bering Sea controversy and the North Atlantic fisheries controversy. He resumed the practice of law in Pittsburgh; was again a Senator from Pennsylvania 1917-1921; and died in Washington, D.C. in 1921.
