Kenesaw Mountain Landis

American judge and first commissioner of baseball (1866–1944)

Kenesaw Mountain Landis (/ˈkɛnɪsɔː ˈmaʊntɪn ˈlændɪs/ ; November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944) was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death in 1944. He is remembered for his resolution of the Black Sox Scandal , in which he expelled eight members of the Chicago White Sox from organized baseball for conspiring to lose the 1919 World Series and repeatedly refused their reinstatement requests. His iron rule over baseball in the near quarter-century of his commissionership is generally credited with restoring public confidence in the game.

Landis was born in Millville, Ohio . Raised in Indiana, he became a lawyer, and then personal secretary to Walter Q. Gresham , the new United States secretary of state , in 1893. He returned to private practice after Gresham died in office.

President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Landis to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 1905. Landis received national attention in 1907 when he fined Standard Oil of Indiana more than $29 million (approximately $980 million in 2025) for violating federal laws forbidding rebates on railroad freight tariffs. Although Landis's action was reversed on appeal, he was seen as a judge determined to rein in big business. During and after World War I , Landis presided over several high-profile trials of draft resisters and others whom he saw as opposing the war effort. He imposed heavy sentences on those who were convicted, although some of the convictions were reversed on appeal, and other sentences were commuted.

In 1920, Landis was a leading candidate when American League and National League team owners, embarrassed by the Black Sox scandal and other instances of players throwing games, sought someone to rule over baseball. Landis was given full power to act in the sport's best interest, and used that power extensively over the next quarter century. Landis was widely praised for cleaning up the game, although some of his decisions in the Black Sox matter remain controversial: supporters of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and Buck Weaver contend that he was overly harsh. Others blame Landis for, in their view, delaying the racial integration of baseball . Landis was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by a special vote shortly after he died in 1944.

Early life and pre-judicial career (1866–1905)

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Boyhood and early career (1866–1893)

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The five Landis boys in November 1882; Kenesaw (second from left) was almost sixteen years old.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was born in Millville, Ohio , on November 20, 1866, the sixth child and fourth son of Abraham Hoch Landis, a physician, and Mary Kumler Landis. The Landises descended from Swiss Mennonites . Abraham Landis had been wounded fighting in the U.S. Army at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia, and when the new baby's parents proved unable to agree on a name, Mary Landis proposed that they call him Kenesaw Mountain. (At the time, both spellings of "Kenesaw" were used, but later "Kennesaw Mountain" became the accepted spelling of the battle site.)

Abraham Landis worked in Millville as a country physician. When Kenesaw was eight, the elder Landis moved his family to Delphi, Indiana , and subsequently to Logansport, Indiana , where he purchased and ran several local farms—his war injury had caused him to scale back his medical practice. Two of Kenesaw's four brothers, Charles Beary Landis and Frederick Landis , became members of Congress .

Kenesaw (second on left) in 1908 with his four brothers, two of whom served in Congress

As "Kenny", as he was sometimes known, grew, he did an increasing share of the farm work, later stating, "I did my share—and it was a substantial share—in taking care of the 13 acres ... I do not remember that I particularly liked to get up at 3:30 in the morning." Kenesaw began his off-farm career at age ten as a news delivery boy. He left school at 15 after an unsuccessful attempt to master algebra . He worked at the local general store and then as errand boy with the Vandalia Railroad . Landis applied for a job as a brakeman, but was laughingly dismissed as too small. He then worked for the Logansport Journal, and taught himself shorthand reporting, becoming in 1883 official court reporter for the Cass County Circuit Court. Landis later wrote, "I may not have been much of a judge, nor baseball official, but I do pride myself on having been a real shorthand reporter." He served in that capacity until 1886. In his spare time, he became a prize-winning bicycle racer and played on and managed a baseball team. Offered a professional contract as a ballplayer, he turned it down, stating that he preferred to play for the love of the game.

In 1886, Landis first ventured into Republican Party politics, supporting a friend, Charles F. Griffin, for Indiana secretary of state. Griffin won, and Landis was rewarded with a civil service job in the Indiana Department of State. While employed there, he applied to be an attorney. At that time, in Indiana, an applicant needed only to prove that he was 21 and of good moral character, and Landis was admitted. Landis opened a practice in [Marion

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