MR. KELLOGG TO RETIRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 562, 15 January 1929, Page 9

MR. KELLOGG TO RETIRE

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE A BRILLIANT LAWYER (United P<A. — By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Reed. 11.7 a.m. WASHINGTON, Mon. Mr. Frank B. Kellogg, the Secretary of State, announced to-day that he wiil retire on March 4. He is 72 years of age. Mr. Frank Billings Kellogg. American Secretary of State, whose plan for the abolition of war is still being debated in the United States Senate, became Secretary of State in 1925. His people “went West” to Minnesota when Frank Kellogg was still a small child, and he was brought up in that State. lie was admitted to the Bar when only 21 years old. Almost at once he attracted the notice of the big business men, and soon became a corporation—or, as we would say, a company—lawyer, acquiring considerable wealth from his large and lucrative practice. Gradually he improved his position until he became almost a national figure, and he had the great honour of being elected president of the American Bar Association, which includes all the lawyers of the nation. It seems strange that a man who all his life had been associated with great companies should be chosen to make war on the Standard Oil when that company was engaged in a great struggle with the United States Government, but he took on the job, and the ruthlessness with which he pursued it earned him tli« title of “the trust-buster.” His fee in connection with the case is said to have been the largest ever paid to counsel. For some years Mr. Kellogg was senator for his State, but he was beaten at the senatorial election by a Radical farmer candidate. Never a. member of Cabinet, he was never far away from it, being a confidant of those inner circles where politics are so often unofficially shaped. At the end of December. 1»2.>, Mr. Kellogg was appointed United States Ambassador at the court of St. James, but he returned to America in 192» and became Secretary of State, his work in that office during the Mississippi floods bringing his name into still greater repute. Now. despite his advancing age, he has shown that he still retains that flair for the movements of politics wnicn. marked his earlier years.