The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-16
HILANDER c. KNOX
BY SAVOYARD.

lawyer, though no doubt he is pro-
foundry learned In corporation law, as
is every other successful lawyer of this
era. The truth is that Mr.. Knox
made his way in the profession and
gained his reputation at the bar
through his learning and skill in the
conduct of cases for individuals against
corporations: The corporations of
Pennsylvania had Watson of Pitts
burg, and Johnson of Philadelphia, on
their staff and they didn't need Knox,
and IL was against these Knox con-
tended, frequently successfully con-
tended. and the dOckets of -Pennsyl-
vania courts, superior and inferior, evil
dence it, There is not hot-gospel ora
tor in American politics who has done
the corporations q 1.-THE of the injury
Philander c. Knox has melted out to
them.
Next to a capable and honest editor
of a newspaper. a capable and honest
lawyer is the most valuable citizen of
an American community. Mr.. Knox
was such lawyer. He made his way
at the bar by intellectual force, by in
dUstry, and by capacity. He became
the president of the Pennsylvania Bar
association, and that evidenced the es-
TEEN in which he was held by the
bar of the state of jeremiah s. Black,
William 3. Read and the great Judge
Gibson. He was actively engaged in
the practice when William Mckinley
sought him out and brought him into
the cabinet as attorney general of the
United States in 1901 He continued in
that Office under President Roosevelt
until Pennsylvania sent him to the
senate to fill the vacancy occasiOned
by the death of Matthew s. Quay.
And, as attorney general, Philander
c. Knox gained the greatest triumph
in the supreme court that ever came
to any American lawyer. He busted the
biggest trust ever organized to mo-
nOpolize the business of transportation
in the United States or elsewhere. He
Lmet and Overcame the strongest ar
ray of corporation lawyers ever brought
together 10 plead a single cause. The
issue was more mOmentous than that
involved in the Dartmouth case, and,
like that the judgment long wavered
in the balance. 1t WAS Il divided court.
and the judgment was for the govern
ment by a vote of five to four and
one of the majority. so report speak
eth. intimated that he could not be
pended on to do it again. The day
! that judgment was rendered in the su-
preme court dissolving the great mer-
ger. of the Northern Pacific and Great
Northern railroads, Phiiauder c. Knox
/ became presidential timber, and OBJ
serving men have never left him out
of the calculation when contemplating
! the presidential succession of 1908.
x 3 X
When John Sherman made the anti
trust law ne declared that it was all
the constitution would stand At that
| time most Democrats thought it was
more than the constitution could stand
A quarter of a century, ago a search
warrant would not have discovered
single Democrat who would have pro-
nounced the thing constitutional Mr.
| Cleveland did not believe it constitu-
| tiOnal. The three Democratic judges
on the supreme bench decided against
the contention of Knox when the judg-
ment was made. 1t is the most radi-
! cal sort of government by cOnStruc
tiOn,' and if persisted in and carried
! to its logical conclusion it is but d QUeS-
tion of time when the reserved SOW
ereignty of the states will be utterly
annihilated. But it is the only wear
now. and the leaders of the two par
| ties-Roosevelt and BTyan-are con-
WINGED that it is not at all drastic
enough.
Be that as it may, history records
/ that John Sherman and Phiiander c.
/ Knox are our greatest trust busters
Sherman made the gun, Knox loaded
and fired it and put j. PierpOnt Nor
| gan and James J. Hill in his game bag.
Look at this partial list of Mr.. KnOx's
! predecessors as the head of the law
| department of the Union: Edmund
Randolph Theophilus Parsons, John
| Breckenridge, William Pinkney, Will
/ lam Writ, Roger y. fancy. Felix Grun-
| dy. John j. Crittendcn, Nathan Cliff
| ford, Beverly Johnson, Caleb Gushing,
jeremiah S. Black. Edward Bates,
! Henry Stanberry, William NJ. Evarts,
| Ebenezer r. Hoar. Alphonso Taft,
/ Wayne MacVeagh, Richard Olney and
| Judson Harmon. Not one of these ever
| conducted so important a case as die
Knox, and not one ever achieved so
great a legal triumph
! X X X
The decision IN the merger case vi
/ talized the antitrust law and aug
mented the power of the federal estab-
! lishment. Mr.. Knox put the machin-
cry in motion in numerous circuits, and
| the octopus was chased from Dan to
! Beersheba. Every conviction since the
merger decision is to the credit of
Knox, who made the thing possible by
/ his splendid management of the Great
| Northern Securities case. When Matt
Quay died, Pennsylvania hunted round
for a real statesman to represent her
| in the senate, and she chose Knox, who
/ IbSiSHeu ITOin the Gauntlet III 1SU4 10
accept the senatorship. He took his
seat December of that year, and his
/ term will expire in 1911.
| When congress assembled in Deem
Der, 1905, the president insisted on a
| chase of the railroad octopus, and the
rate bill was fetched into the house of
representatives, and damned through
that body without anybody knowing or
| caring what it WAS. The senate tOOn
it up and the country was in hot water
for weeks. Then il was that the Re-
pUblicans separated into progressives
and mOllycOddles. The Democrats, IN
der the lead of Bailey and Tillman,
went to the rescue of the president. In
deed. Tillman was in charge of the
| chase. There was a great debate, the
| greatest the senate had heard in years.
| Perhaps Bailey's speech has not been
! equaled as constitutional argument
! since Calhoun and Webster. Spooner
was a foeman worthy his steel and For
aker put the country in mind of the
| senates of our golden age of foren-
! sic eloquence, and Daniel did as well.
After months of debate it became APP
/ parent that no bill could pass that Sen
ator Aldrich found fault with. Now it
| 4