Attorney-General
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Attorney-General. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a legal officer of high rank. In England the term is applied to an officer of the crown. The attorney-general of the United States is the fourth member of the president's cabinet. He has general supervision over the attorneys and marshals of all the districts in the United States and territories. A similar officer in each state of the Union has general charge of the legal business of the state. In case an officer of the government is in doubt, the attorney-general's interpretation of a law is binding until the courts have ruled otherwise. A treasurer, uncertain, for instance, whether the law directs him to pay out certain moneys, may do so with full authority if advised by the attorney-general that such is, in his judgment, the proper interpretation to be placed upon the legislative act in question. A similar officer is called the county attorney.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a govern-- mental law officer. In the United States the Department of Justice is presided over by the Attorney-General, whose duty it is to furnish all legal advice needed by Federal authorities and conduct all litigation in which the United States is concerned. He is also called upon to recommend persons to fill the places of judges of the United States Circuit and District Courts. There is an Attorney- General in each State whose duty it is to furnish legal advice to the Legislature; he represents the State in suits at law, and aids in prosecuting offenses against the State. In England the highest legal functionary permanently retained, on a salary, to take the part of the crown in any suits affecting the royal ( by which is really meant the public) interests. In precedence, he ranks above the Solicitor-
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's in 1910 called the attorney-general simply the fourth member of the president's cabinet, supervising district attorneys and marshals, and Collier's in 1921 added that he recommends candidates for federal judgeships. The office has since become one of the largest and most contested in Washington: the Department of Justice that Collier's mentions in passing now employs well over 100,000 people and controls the FBI, the federal prisons, the drug and firearms agencies and every United States Attorney. That power made the post a political battleground -- John Mitchell went to prison after Watergate, Elliot Richardson resigned rather than fire the special prosecutor in the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, and confirmation fights over the job are now routine. The one point that still holds is Aiton's odd-sounding rule that an official may safely act on the attorney-general's reading of a law: formal opinions, now written by the Office of Legal Counsel, still bind the executive branch until a court says otherwise.
Written for this edition, 2026.