Illustrated history of the United States mint / with a complete description of American coinage, from the earliest period to the present time

by Unknown

HON. JOHN JAY KNOX.

Late Comptroller of the Currency, now President of the National Bank of the Republic, New York City, we are indebted to The Financier, August, 1885, for the following biographical sketch:

Hon. John Jay Knox was Comptroller or Deputy Comptroller of the National currency for seventeen years. He was born in Oneida county, New York, March 19, 1828. His ancestors were Scotch Irish, and came originally from Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1759. He received his early education at the Augusta Academy and the Watertown Classical Institute, and was graduated from Hamilton College in the Class of 1849. Among those in college with him were Senator Hawley of Connecticut, and Chas. Dudley Warner. After leaving college he became teller in a bank at Vernon, of which his father was President, at a salary of $300 a year, where he remained from 1850 to 1852. He spent some time in the Burnet Bank at Syracuse, and was afterwards cashier of the Susquehanna Valley Bank at Binghampton. He and his brother, Henry M. Knox, established a banking house at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1857, shortly before that State was admitted into the Union.

The first steamboat launched on the Red River of the North, establishing a most important communication for the business interests of Minnesota, was transported in the dead of winter across country on runners, from Sauk Rapids to Breckenridge, and Mr. Knox was one of the few who paid the expenses of the enterprise.

In the financial discussions which preceded the establishment of the National banks, Mr. Knox took a prominent part, and made many valuable suggestions on the currency question. He advocated a safe and convertible currency, the issue of a uniform series of circulating notes to all the banks, and the guarantee by the Government of circulation secured by its own bonds.

In 1862 he was introduced to Secretary Chase and the Hon. Hugh McCulloch, then Comptroller of the currency. The attention of the Secretary had previously been attracted to the financial articles of Mr. Knox, published in Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine.

He was shortly afterward appointed to a clerkship under Treasurer Spinner, and was subsequently transferred to the office of Mr. Chase, as disbursing clerk, at a salary of $2,000 a year. After three years in this position he became cashier of the Exchange National Bank at Norfolk, Va., but finding the southern climate uncongenial, after a year he returned to Washington. He was commissioned by Secretary McCulloch to examine the mint at San Francisco, and to select a site there for a new one. His report upon the Mint service of the Pacific Coast was printed in the Finance Report of 1866, with a complimentary notice by the Secretary. The site selected was purchased from Eugene Kelly of New York for $100,000.

He subsequently visited New Orleans and discovered a deficiency of $1,100,000 in the office of the Assistant Treasurer. He took possession of that office, and for some weeks acted as Assistant Treasurer of the United States.

The promotion of Mr. Knox to the office in which he was able to do himself the most credit, and perform those services to the country which are part and parcel of its financial progress, occurred in 1867. At this time a vacancy was brought about in the Deputy-Comptrollership of the Currency, and Secretary McCulloch appointed him to fill it. Until May 1, 1884, he remained as Deputy or head of the Bureau, his terms of office being as follows: Five years as Deputy-Comptroller, from 1867 to 1872; five years as Comptroller, from 1872 to 1877, appointed by General Grant; five years, second term as Comptroller, from 1877 to 1882, by President Hayes, on the recommendation of Secretary Sherman—the reappointment being made without his knowledge, before the expiration of the preceding term, and confirmed by the Senate without reference to any committee. He was again reappointed, by President Arthur, April 12, 1882.

In 1870 he made an elaborate report to Congress (Senate Mis. Doc., No. 132, XLI. Cong., 2d Sess.), including a codification of the Mint and Coinage laws, with important amendments, which was highly commended. The bill which accompanied the report comprised, within the compass of twelve pages of the Revised Statutes, every important provision contained in more than sixty different enactments upon the Mint and Coinage of the United States—the result of eighty years of legislation. This bill, with slight amendments, was subsequently passed, and is known as “The Coinage Act of 1873;” and the Senate Finance Committee, in recognition of his services, by an amendment, made the Comptroller of the Currency an ex-officio member of the Assay Commission, which meets annually at the Mint in Philadelphia for the purpose of testing the weight and fineness of the coinage of the year.

Through his official reports, twelve in number, and his addresses on the currency question, Mr. Knox has indirectly exercised great influence in financial legislation, and he took an active, though quiet and unassuming part, in the great financial coup d’etat of the resumption of specie payment.

In April, 1878, he accompanied Secretary Sherman and Attorney-General Devens to New York, and arranged a meeting between these two members of the Cabinet and the officers of ten of the principal banks of the city at the National Bank of Commerce, with the view of negotiating the sale of $50,000,000 of 4½ per cent. bonds, the avails of which were to be used for resumption purposes. The Presidents of the banks, who were present, gave Secretary Sherman no encouragement as to the purchase of the bonds at the rates proposed by him. Upon the return of the Secretary and Comptroller to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in the evening, they were met by August Belmont, who had a cable dispatch from the Rothschilds, authorizing a purchase of the whole amount at a premium of one and one-half per cent. for the account of the syndicate. Upon the following day the Secretary and the Comptroller returned to Washington, after an absence of three days, and the success of the negotiation was announced, much to the chagrin of some members of the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, who were then bitterly opposing the scheme proposed by the Secretary for the resumption of specie payments. This negotiation was the first of a series of brilliant financial transactions preceding and following resumption on January 1, 1879.

Subsequently he arranged a conference, which was held in the Treasury at Washington, in the evening, between leading bank officials of New York and Secretaries Sherman and Evarts, which resulted in the admission of the Assistant Treasurer as a member of the clearing house, and the receipt by the banks of legal tender notes on a par with gold; and in 1881, by request of President Garfield, he attended a conference in New York between the leading financial men of the city and Secretary Windom and Attorney-General McVeagh, which resulted in the issue and successful negotiation of three and one-half per cent. bonds.

At the time of his resignation, Mr. Knox was the oldest officer in term of service in the department. One of the leading financial writers in the country, in noticing his retirement, in the Nation said:

“The retirement of Mr. John Jay Knox from the office of Comptroller of the Currency is a loss to the public service of no common kind. The intelligence which he has brought to the complicated duties of his office has never been surpassed in any similar station, and has not been equalled in the particular station which he has so long filled. The National banking system owes much of its present carefulness in detail management to his mastery of all the facts and principles of sound finance. His annual reports embrace perhaps the most complete and satisfactory arrangement of information needful to the business-man, the student, and the legislator that has ever been furnished in this country on any economical subject. Mr. Knox resigns the Comptrollership to take the Presidency of the National Bank of the Republic of New York City.”

In a speech before the Merchants’ Club of Boston, in February, 1885, Mr. Knox alluded to the subjects of civil service reform and the coinage of silver in the following trenchant language:

“The platforms of both parties in the late campaign contained nothing but platitudes upon the silver question, which should have been the burning issue. The candidate of the Republicans seemed to avoid the issue in his letter of acceptance, rather than to express the sentiments of the best men in his party. The candidate of the Democrats said nothing. Yet I am told by good authority that Governor Cleveland is earnest in his desire to stop the coinage, and that nothing would please him more than to have a clause inserted in an appropriation bill which would repeal the law which was passed in the interest of silver miners when the whole production is not equal, according to Edward Atkinson, who is an authority upon such subjects, to the production of eggs by the hens of this country! If Governor Cleveland has the bottom and pluck to carry out these two reforms, his administration will be one of the most memorable in the annals of the country. It will elevate not only every branch of the civil service, but will greatly improve the character of the representatives sent to Congress from every State of the Union, and will serve to lift the depression which now burdens every industrial interest. It will require some intellect to work out these reforms. But it will require more bottom than brains, and if he has the grit to stand by his pledges, he will have the united support of all intelligent, upright, and honest men everywhere without distinction of party.”

Mr. Knox has written a valuable book, which is justly popular, entitled “United States Notes.” It is published by the Scribners, and republished in London, and is a history of the various issues of paper money by the Government, and is said by George Bancroft to be “a clear, thorough, able, accurate and impartial work on United States Notes.”