d the White House seemed to beckon. He
was not unaware of the opportunity nor was there anyone more eager
to grasp it. But he discovered that he could not stir the
enthusiasm that begets political power. The secret, which enabled
many other men, many of whom he despised, to succeed, was not his.

A temperamental dislike of the methods of politicians was followed
by a strong animosity towards those who crossed his political path
and some of those who went along beside it. He became hypercritical
of those with whom he associated and allowed a natural germ of
cynicism to develop and flourish within him. Little by little he
has withdrawn from the active combat, a philosopher in politics
enamored of public life but unwilling to suffer the inconveniences
it involves.

It is no wonder then that his colleagues in the Senate, especially
the younger members, are somewhat in fear of the incisive tongue,
for he wields it frequently and contemptuously. When after his
election, Mr. Harding went South with Senator Frelinghuysen,
Senator Davis Elkins, and Senator Hale, the older Senators, not,
perhaps, without a tinge of disappointment at having been left out,
marveled at the entourage the President had selected for himself,
but Knox was cynically undisturbed.

"It is quite simple," he said, "I see nothing mysterious about it
at all. The President wants relaxation--complete mental
relaxation."

No less biting was his comment on Robert Lansing when that
gentleman started on the high road of public service as Counselor
of the State Department. The bandy-legged messenger who guards the
door of the Secretary of State is the negro, Eddie Savoy. Eddie, in
his way, is a personage. For forty years he has ushered
diplomatists in and out of the Secretary's office; his short bent
figure gives the only air of permanence to an institution which
seems to be in a constant state of flux. When the Lansing
appointment was announced Mr. Knox observed: "I would as soon ask
Eddie Savoy an opinion on foreign affairs as Robert Lansing."

The roots of Mr. Knox's superciliousness dip down deep into the
relationships begun a score of years ago. To understand him as he
is it is necessary to understand him as he was when his career was
before him. William McKinley asked him to become Attorney General
in his Cabinet. He was then forty-two years old, a political
nobody. What reputation he had was confined to Pittsburg and a
selected few of the steel million