View source for Frank Knox

{{short description|47th Secretary of the Navy of the United States (1874–1944)}}
{{for|the cricketer|Frank Knox (cricketer)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Frank Knox
| image               = FrankKnox c1943 g399009 (cropped 3x4).jpg
| caption             = Knox, {{circa}} 1943
| office              = 47th [[United States Secretary of the Navy]]
| president           = [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
| term_start          = July 11, 1940
| term_end            = April 28, 1944
| predecessor         = [[Charles Edison]]
| successor           = [[James Forrestal]]
| birth_name          = William Franklin Knox
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1874|1|1}}
| birth_place         = [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1944|4|28|1874|1|1}}
| death_place         = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.
| resting_place       = [[Arlington National Cemetery]]
| party               = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
| spouse              = Annie Reid
| education           = [[Alma College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
| allegiance          = {{flag|United States|1912}}
| branch              = <!-- EDITORS NOTE: Please do not add the Army flag adopted by the U.S. government in 1956 (12 years after Knox's death), as it would be historically inaccurate. Thank you. -->[[United States Army]]
| rank                = [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]]
| serviceyears        = 1898<br />1917–1919
| battles             = [[Spanish–American War]]<br />{{*}}[[Battle of Las Guasimas]]<br />{{*}}[[Battle of San Juan Hill]]<br />[[World War I]]
}}

'''William Franklin Knox''' (January 1, 1874 – April 28, 1944) was an American politician, soldier, newspaper editor, and publisher. He was the [[History of the Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[Vice President of the United States|vice presidential]] candidate in 1936 and [[United States Secretary of the Navy|Secretary of the Navy]] under [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] during most of [[World War II]].

Born in [[Boston]], he attended [[Alma College]] and served with the [[Rough Riders]] during the [[Spanish–American War]]. After the war, he became a newspaper editor in [[Grand Rapids, Michigan]], and state chairman of the Republican Party. He was a leading supporter of [[Theodore Roosevelt]], the Progressive candidate for president in 1912. He advocated U.S. entrance into [[World War I]] and served as an artillery officer in France. The [[1936 Republican National Convention]] nominated a ticket of [[Alf Landon]] and Knox, and they were defeated by [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] and [[John Nance Garner]] in the 1936 election.

After World War II broke out in 1939, Knox supported aid to the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]]. In 1940, Roosevelt appointed him as Secretary of the Navy in hopes of building bipartisan support. Knox brought in [[James Forrestal]] as the under secretary. They presided over a massive naval buildup but were dissatisfied by the confused chain of command in Hawaii. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Knox brought in a much more aggressive admiral, [[Ernest J. King]]. Roosevelt worked closely with King and largely neglected Knox. During the war, Knox continued his supervision of the ''Chicago Daily News,'' while Forrestal expanded his role and supervised the nonmilitary aspects of the department in terms of contracts and recruitment.<ref>Lobdell, 1980.</ref> Knox served as secretary of the Navy until his death in 1944, when Forrestal replaced him.

==Early life==
William Franklin Knox was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were both [[Canadians|Canadian]]; his mother, Sarah C. (Barnard), was from [[Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island]], and his father, William Edwin Knox, was from [[New Brunswick]].<ref>J. Ernest Kerr, ''Imprint of the Maritimes'', 1959, Boston: Christopher Publishing, p. 123</ref> When he was nine, his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where his father ran a grocery store. He attended Alma College in Michigan, where he was a member of the Zeta Sigma fraternity.  He left in his senior year to join the [[US Army]] for the Spanish–American War. He later supplemented his studies with additional readings and coursework, and the college's board of trustees awarded him a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree as a member of the class of 1898.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fuller |first1= George Newman |last2=Beeson |first2=Lewis |date=1986 |title= Michigan History |volume= 70–71 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=NNpKAQAAMAAJ&q=%22frank+knox%22+%22alma+college%22+%22specified+readings%22 |location=Lansing, MI |publisher=Michigan History Division, Michigan Department of State |page=36}}</ref>

He served in [[Cuba]] with Theodore Roosevelt's famous Rough Riders, the First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment.<ref name=KnoxFellowship>"Who is Frank Knox?", Harvard University.</ref> He was a member of Troop D commanded by Captain Robert Huston. As a member of D Troop, Knox fought in Cuba at the [[Battle of Las Guasimas]], and the [[Battle of San Juan Hill]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.bartleby.com/51/ad.html |title= Troop D Muster |access-date= 2012-11-14 |author= Theodore Roosevelt |year=1899 |publisher= Charles Scribner's Sons}}</ref>

== Newspapers and politics ==

[[File:Harold Stark & Frank Knox in UK, 1943.jpg|thumb|Admiral [[Harold R. Stark]] and Secretary Knox reading on a train in England in 1943]]

After the war, Knox became a newspaper reporter in Grand Rapids, which was the beginning of a career that included ownership of several papers.
He changed his first name to Frank around 1900. He was state chairman of the [[History of the Republican Party (United States)|Michigan Republican Party]].  In 1912, he was a key organizer for the presidential ambitions of Theodore Roosevelt.<ref>Geoffrey Cowan, ''Let the people rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the birth of the presidential primary'' (WW Norton & Company, 2016) pp. 50, 127–133.</ref><ref>Steven Macdonald Mark, "An American Interventionist: Frank Knox and United States Foreign Relations' (University of Maryland, College Park ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1977.7730543)  pp 32–55.</ref>

In late 1912, Knox helped found the ''Manchester Leader'' in New Hampshire. It was financed by Governor [[Robert P. Bass]], a member of the [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|Progressive or Bull Moose Party]]). The newspaper was so successful that Knox bought out the [[New Hampshire Union Leader|Manchester ''Union'']]. The two newspapers merged under the banner of the Union-Leader Corporation July 1913. Both papers espoused a moderate Republican, probusiness stance.

During [[World War I]], Knox was an advocate of U.S. military preparedness and then of participation in the war. When the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917, he rejoined the Army. He reached the rank of Colonel and served as an artillery officer in France. After the war he returned to the newspaper business.

In 1931, Frank Knox became publisher and part owner of the ''[[Chicago Daily News]]''. In the [[1936 U.S. presidential election|1936 election]], he was the Republican nominee for [[Vice President of the United States|vice president]] under [[Alf Landon]]. Landon, Knox, and former President [[Herbert Hoover]] were the only supporters of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 who were later named to a Republican ticket. They lost in a landslide, winning just [[Maine]] and [[Vermont]] against the [[Democratic Party (U.S.)|Democratic]] ticket of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President [[John Nance Garner]].

== World War II ==
[[File:Navy Secretary Frank Knox sworn in July 11, 1940.jpg|thumb|Supreme Court Justice [[Felix Frankfurter]] administers the oath of office to Knox as Secretary of the Navy at the White House, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt looks on. (July 11, 1940)]]
During [[World War II]], Knox again was an advocate of preparedness.<ref>Herman, Arthur. ''Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II,'' pp. 125–127, 141, 143, 155, 241. New York: Random House, {{ISBN|978-1-4000-6964-4}}.</ref> As an internationalist, he supported aid to the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] and opposed [[isolationism]]. In July 1940, he became [[secretary of the Navy]] under Roosevelt with [[Henry L. Stimson]] as Secretary of War, part of the Democratic president's effort to build bipartisan support for his foreign and defense policies following the [[Battle of France|defeat of France]]. Knox carried out Roosevelt's plan to expand the [[US Navy]] into a force capable of fighting in both the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] and the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] oceans.  Knox was mentioned by name in [[Adolf Hitler]]'s speech of December 11, 1941, in which Hitler  stated a [[German declaration of war against the United States]].

When a new naval officer on Knox's staff told him, "I'm no [[New Deal]]er," Knox replied, "I fought the President with every resource at my command. But now I've squared my politics with my conscience and I'm proud to serve under such a great man. At that," Knox added, "it's a good thing to have a couple of fellows around here who ''aren't'' New Dealers!"<ref name="gunther1950">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/rooseveltinretro00gunt |url-access=registration |title=Roosevelt in Retrospect |publisher=Harper & Brothers |author=Gunther, John |year=1950 |page=[https://archive.org/details/rooseveltinretro00gunt/page/35 35]}}</ref> He traveled extensively to Navy installations worldwide. Knox also supported the continued [[racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Right to Fight: African-American Marines in World War II (Basic Racial Policy) |url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/npswapa/extcontent/usmc/pcn-190-003132-00/sec1.htm |access-date=2024-06-24 |website=www.nps.gov}}</ref>

===Internment of Japanese Americans===
Knox had called for the [[internment of Japanese Americans]] as early as 1933,<ref>Robinson, Greg. ''By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 77.</ref> and he continued to do so in his new position. Shortly after the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], he visited [[Hawaii]] to investigate the sabotage that he believed to have taken place there. Upon his return, he issued a public statement that "the most effective [[Fifth Column]] work of the entire war was done in Hawaii with the exception of Norway," and he accused Japanese Hawaiians of impeding US defense efforts in a report to the President. Although the FBI and military intelligence later disproved those claims, Knox continued to push for the internment of Japanese Americans and barred them from service in the Navy during the war.<ref>{{cite web|last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Frank%20Knox/ |title=Frank Knox |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=2014-10-29}}</ref>

==Death==
Following a brief series of heart attacks, Secretary Knox died in [[Washington, D.C.]], on April 28, 1944, while still in office.  He was buried on May 1, 1944, at [[Arlington National Cemetery]], in [[Arlington, Virginia]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ancexplorer.army.mil/publicwmv/#/arlington-national/search/results/1/CgRrbm94EgVmcmFuaw--/ |title=Burial Detail: Knox, Frank (Section 2, Grave 4961) |work= ANC Explorer|publisher=Arlington National Cemetery |id=(Official website)}}</ref>

==Posthumous honors and memorials==
The {{sclass|Gearing|destroyer|1}} {{USS|Frank Knox|DD-742}}, commissioned in December 1944, was named in his honor.<ref name=NHC>"Frank Knox (1874–1944)", ''Online Library of Selected Images'', NHC.</ref><ref name=USNships>"USS ''Frank Knox''", ''USN Ships'', NHC.</ref>

On May 31, 1945, he received posthumously the [[Medal for Merit]] from President [[Harry S. Truman]].<ref>Sec. of War Henry Stimson's diary and papers May 31, 1945 – June 6, 1945</ref> He also received the [[Spanish Campaign Medal]] and the [[World War I Victory Medal (United States)|World War I Victory Medal]] for his previous military service.<!-- The {{sclass-|Knox|frigate|1}}s of the U.S. Navy are named after him. (USS ''Knox'' (FF-1052) was named after Commodore Dudley Wright Knox -->

In 1948, his widow, Annie Reid Knox (1875–1958) endowed the [[Frank Knox Memorial Fellowships]], which allow scholars from [[Australia]], [[Canada]], [[New Zealand]], the [[Union of South Africa]], and the [[United Kingdom]] to pursue graduate study at [[Harvard University]], or by recent graduates of Harvard to travel and research in the countries of the British [[Commonwealth of Nations]].<ref name=KnoxFellowship />

Frank Knox School on the grounds of the [[Patuxent River Naval Air Station]] was named for him.

==See also==
* [[List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines|List of U.S. political appointees who crossed party lines]]
* [[Ed J. Davenport]], handled public relations for Frank Knox, 1929–32

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
:''This article incorporates text in the [[public domain]] from the United States [[United States Department of the Navy|Department of the Navy]].''
* Beasley, Norman. ''Frank Knox, American: a short biography'' (1936) [https://archive.org/details/frankknoxamerica00beas online]
* Jordan, Jonathan W., ''American Warlords: How Roosevelt's High Command Led America to Victory in World War II'' (NAL/Caliber 2015).
* Lobdell, George H. "Frank Knox, 11 July 1940–28 April 1944." in Paolo E. Coletta, ed. ''American Secretaries of the Navy, Volume II, 1913–1972'' (1980) pp.&nbsp;677–728
* Lobdell, George Henry Jr. "A Biography of Frank Knox" (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1954. 0009101).
* Mark, Steven Macdonald." An American Interventionist: Frank Knox and United States Foreign Relations' (PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1977. 7730543).
* O'Sullivan, Christopher D. "Frank Knox: Roughrider in FDR's War Cabinet" (2023) Palgrave-Macmillan Publishers.

==External links==
* {{cite web
|access-date=2007-12-29
|url=http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-k/f-knox.htm
|title=Frank Knox (1874–1944) – 47th Secretary of the Navy, 11 July 1940 – 28 April 1944
|work=Online Library of Selected Images
|publisher=Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy
|archive-date=3 March 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303101701/http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-k/f-knox.htm
|url-status=dead
}}
* {{cite web
|access-date=2007-12-29
|url=http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-f/dd742.htm
|title=USS Frank Knox (DD-742, later DDR-742 and DD-742), 1944–1971
|work=USN Ships
|publisher=Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy
|archive-date=2009-04-22
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090422015232/http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-f/dd742.htm
|url-status=dead
}}
* {{cite web
 |access-date  = 2007-12-29
 |url         = http://www.frankknox.harvard.edu/who.html
 |title       = Who was Frank Knox?
 |work        = The Frank Knox Memorial Fellowships
 |publisher   = Harvard University
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20071218073242/http://www.frankknox.harvard.edu/who.html
 |archive-date = 2007-12-18
}}

{{Commons category}}
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{{s-ttl|title=[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets|nominee]] for [[Vice President of the United States]]|years=[[1936 United States presidential election|1936]]}}
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{{s-ttl|title=[[United States Secretary of the Navy]]|years=1940–1944}}
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{{USSecNavy}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Knox, Frank}}
[[Category:1874 births]]
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[[Category:Candidates in the 1936 United States presidential election]]
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