The choice encountered criticism from the right-wing of the party when rumors about it began to circulate in mid-December. Hughes was criticized by the party establishment as being too much of an internationalist and too much of an independent. Hoping to pressure Harding against this choice for secretary of state, Senator Philander C. Knox, himself a former secretary of state, visited Harding in Marion on Decenter 30, and expressed both his and fellow Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Boies Penrose's opposition to both Hughes for secretary of state and Herbert Hoover for secretary of commerce.Henry, p. 162
