Philander Knox was more a pawn than a rook or a bishop. His ability to move across the political chessboard seemed limited to only one space at a time. His success came from doing what others wanted. He personally wanted to be president, but was never able to make that a reality. Several questions remain unanswered about him.
First, assuming there may have been problems with the ratification process in 1913, why would Knox ignore those concerns and declare the 16th Amendment “in effect”? Knox was a Republican. His boss, Taft, was a Republican president, and the amendment itself had been proposed by Taft and approved by a Republican Congress. Remember, the entire idea in 1909 had been for the amendment to fail, either in Congress or during the ratification process. But Congress overwhelmingly approved the language and the states, one by one, started to ratify.
By 1913 the country had swung decisively toward the left. Progressivism became popular, and supporting the rich elite would be political suicide. All three candidates for president in 1912, Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, supported ratification. The Democrat Wilson won that election, handing the Republicans a decisive defeat. By February 1913, when Knox acted on the ratification (as one of his final chores as Secretary of State), the last thing the nation wanted to hear was that there might be problems. That type of “eleventh hour” revelation might even have been construed as a Republican dirty trick. Even if Knox had declared the amendment invalid, the Democrats who were, by 1913, in power would have just re-proposed and re-submitted it for ratification, taking all of the credit. So nothing politically productive would have come to the Republicans by challenging ratification.
Biographers note that Knox was proud of being the center of all that attention. Legally, he was the sole decider of the 16th Amendment’s future and he chose to let it stand. But some semblance of conscience may have shown through. Instead of declaring the amendment “ratified,” as had been done with all previous and subsequent constitutional amendments, he chose the curious language of certifying it merely “in effect.” Was that a message? A hint at the truth? We’ll never know. All we do know is that during his short campaign to secure the 1920 Republican presidential nomination, Knox several times commented that he “saved the Party back in ’13.” Nowhere, though, is that assertion ever explained.
The second remaining inquiry is a corollary of the first. If any of this is true, why would Knox ultimately reveal what he’d done? The answer to that comes from Harding’s snub of Knox. By March 1921 when Harding was inaugurated, Knox, though still a sitting United States Senator from Pennsylvania, had become a bitter man. It seems reasonable that, at some point, he may have told his close friend Andrew Mellon about what happened in 1913. As the incoming Secretary of Treasury, perhaps Knox thought Mellon should know that there may be problems with the income tax? Or perhaps he just thought Mellon a sympathetic ear? Or maybe he was simply expounding on his seeming importance? Regardless, Philander Knox died on October 21, 1921, and with him went any chance of further explanations.
Of course, she knew things that Howell did not. Information that filled in the gaps and turned some of his speculation into fact.
She definitely agreed with Danny.
The Treasury secretary was hiding something.
But what? How bad could it be?
She paged to the end of Howell’s book and read the final paragraph.
My legal case is not atypical. There are thousands of people who have been tried and convicted of either failing to file a tax return, tax evasion, or tax fraud. Many of those people were sentenced to jail, myself included. But what if the speculation is true and the 16th Amendment is somehow tainted? What if that fact was known from the moment Philander Knox declared the amendment “in effect”? It’s no secret that our government keeps secrets. Sometimes it’s in our best interests that things remain hidden. But other times the cloak of secrecy is used for nothing more than political advantage or to hide mistakes. Lyndon Johnson tried that with Vietnam. Nixon with Watergate. Reagan during Iran-Contra. Of course, all of those attempts failed and the truth was ultimately revealed. What will history say of the 16th Amendment? Is all that has been said all that will be said? Or is the final chapter yet to be written? Only time will tell.
Her phone buzzed.
She’d set it on vibrate so as to not draw attention, though the lounge surrounding her had become sparse on people. The LCD display indicated it was Cotton. Finally. She stood, walked to a far corner, and faced the papered wall. “I’ve been waiting.”
“It’s a mess.”
Not what she wanted to hear.
“We have a multitude of problems,” he said, “all of them bad.”
FORTY-ONE
CROATIA
Isabella sat in the cell with Luke Daniels. Two hours had passed since they’d been brought inside from the rain. During that time she’d said little. Neither had Daniels, who appeared unconcerned, lying on another steel bench, eyes closed. Rest was the farthest thing from her mind. Getting out of here and back on the trail, that was what mattered.
She’d asked when they first arrived to use her cell phone, but the locals refused. From the abbreviated call in the car, Malone had most likely realized they were in trouble. So hopefully he’d send help. Never had she been in this kind of situation before, so its resolution was not all that clear. Apparently, Daniels harbored no worries.
She stood, walked over, and shook him awake.
“What the—” he said, rousing from his snooze.
“You’re snoring.”
He sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. “I don’t do that.”
“If you say so.”
He checked his watch.
“You have to be somewhere?” she asked.
“No, Your Highness. It’s just that things should be happening about now.”
“Care to explain?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not really.”
“You being Speed Racer got us into this mess.”