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.”
The Coinage Act of 1873.
The enactment of the Mint Law of 1873 marks an era in the Mint Service of the United States. Prior to this, the Director of the Mint at Philadelphia was the Director of all the Mints—the institution at Philadelphia being regarded as the “Mother Mint,” and the others, at San Francisco, New Orleans, etc., were called Branch Mints. Each branch had its Superintendent, reporting direct to Philadelphia. But the authors of the Act of 1873 regarded the Mint Service as so large and important a part of the Government, that it should be constituted a separate Bureau of the Treasury, with the Director located at Washington. One of the promoters of this Act was the Hon. John Jay Knox, late Comptroller of the Currency, and now President of the National Bank of the Republic, New York. The following sketch of the origin and history of the new law may prove of interest. It was originally published in Rhodes’ Journal of Banking, July, 1884. Referring to Mr. Knox, the author says:
“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 method adopted in this codification was, first, to arrange in as concise a form as possible the coinage laws then in existence, with such additional sections and suggestions as seemed valuable. The proposed bill was then printed upon paper having a wide margin, and transmitted to the officers of the different Mints and Assay offices, and to such other gentlemen as were known to be conversant and intelligent upon the subject of the coinage, with the request that the printed bill should be returned with such notes as experience and education should dictate. In this way the views of many gentlemen who were conversant with these subjects were obtained, with but little inconvenience to such correspondents. This correspondence was subsequently published by order of Congress, in H. R. Ex. Doc. No. 307, XLI. Cong., 2d Sess. Having received these suggestions, the bill, which comprised within the compass of eight or ten 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—was prepared and submitted to Congress. This bill, with but slight amendments, was subsequently passed, and was known as ‘The Coinage Act of 1873;’ and the Senate Finance Committee, in recognition of the services of the Comptroller of the Currency, by an amendment, made that officer 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. Upon his suggestion the coinage of the silver dollar was discontinued, and the paragraph in the report upon this subject was as follows:
“The coinage of the silver dollar-piece, the history of which is here given, is discontinued in the proposed bill. It is by law the dollar unit; and, assuming the value of gold to be fifteen and one-half times that of silver, being about the mean ratio for the past six years, is worth in gold a premium of about three per cent., its value being $1.03.12, and intrinsically more than seven per cent. premium in our other silver coins, its value thus being $1.07.42. The present laws consequently authorize both a gold dollar unit and a silver dollar unit, differing from each other in intrinsic value. The present gold dollar-piece is made the dollar unit in the proposed bill, and the silver piece is discontinued.”