Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination / An Authentic and Official Memorial Edition, Containing Every Incident in the Career of the Immortal Statesman, Soldier, Orator and Patriot

by Marshall Everett

GIVES BLAINE CREDIT.

“In furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you are performing an important part. This exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated with the Pan-American movement, which finds this practical and substantial expression, and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the Pan-American congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico.

“The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will disappear, this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight, but their influence will remain to

“Make it live beyond its too short living

With praises and thanksgiving.

“Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this exposition?

“Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world’s good, and that out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship, which will deepen and endure.

“Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth.”

SECRETARY OF STATE, JOHN HAY.

THE U. S. CAPITOL BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.

CHAPTER X.
WILLIAM McKINLEY’S BOYHOOD.

William McKinley was born in Ohio, his ancestors having emigrated to the United States from County Antrim, Ireland. In that ancestry, also, was mingled some of the sterling blood of the Scottish race, and it seems the child who was destined to become twenty-fifth President of the United States combined in his nature the choicest qualities of both races, enriched and broadened by generations of American life. His great-grandfather, David McKinley, was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, and was born in Pennsylvania the year before peace with England was declared.

After the independence of the United States had been achieved, this David McKinley was brought by his soldier father from York to Westmoreland County, Pa., and the lad himself, as he grew to manhood, chose the new State of Ohio as a place of residence, and established there the fortunes and the hopes of the McKinley family.

His grandson, William McKinley, the father of the President, was the second child in a family of thirteen, and was born at New Lisbon, Ohio. He was engaged in the iron and foundry business, and resided successively at New Lisbon, Niles, Poland and finally Canton. It was while engaged in the iron industry, then in a primitive stage of development, at Niles, Ohio, that William McKinley, the elder, met and married Miss Nancy Campbell Allison, daughter of a well-to-do business man in the growing Ohio town. And there was born, on January 29, 1843, William McKinley, subject of this biography, and a third martyr President of the United States. The father was at that time manager and part owner of an iron furnace. But seeing greater possibilities in the newer region about Poland, he disposed of his interests at Niles, and removed thither, where he again established a forge.

Surrounding the rising town of Poland lies a fine agricultural country, and in the healthful environment of rural scenes and labor’s activities the earliest years of the life of William McKinley, Jr., were spent. Through his mother’s family he traced his lineage back to the substantial middle classes of England. And this excellent woman must have possessed in mind and soul and bodily frame the better qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race. Her influence upon this son was pronounced from the beginning; and it seems that an almost prophetic power was given her, for if the whole of the future had been revealed to her she could have guided him no more wisely, could have laid with no more sagacious skill the foundations which his career as statesman and as man required.

And no mother was ever more devotedly loved by son than was this American matron by William McKinley. Throughout her life he made her comfort his own care, and maintained with an increasing tenderness the gentle bearing which, as a child, had been part of his life. In her age, when she had lived to see her son elevated to the chiefest office in the Nation, the beauty of that filial attachment appealed to the people, and untold thousands proved their appreciation when they lovingly bestowed upon her the title, “Mother McKinley.”

One of the reasons for the elder McKinley’s removal to Poland was that his children might have the advantages of the better schools which—oddly enough—flourished in the younger city. An academy had been established there; and when young William passed through the preparatory years, he was admitted to that institution. As he passed from childhood to youth’s estate, he filled the months of vacation in productive labor. At times he worked upon the farms which surrounded the growing, thriving town. At other times he engaged as a clerk in one or other of the stores. But he was never apt at a trade, and really had not the faculty to “buy, and sell, and get gain,” as had his younger brother Abner. And as a consequence he maintained that attitude of balance which left him free in his development, and permitted that ripening and broadening of his mind in all directions which the early adoption of a mercantile life would almost certainly have prevented. And it was proof of still another virtue on the lad’s part that he preferred, of all the industries that came to his hand, the heavy labor of the forge and foundry. Those years of healthful life, when native powers were developed by bodily industry, when regular hours, plain but abundant food, and long hours of restful sleep were adding to brain and brawn, when the wise mother was guiding him so gently in morals and manners—in those years the character of the future President, the statesman, the soldier and the American patriot, was formed.

As he acquired more of the learning which the academy placed within his reach, young William employed portions of his vacations in teaching school. Not only did this occupation furnish him admirable discipline and training in the process of his development, but it provided him with rather more money for the further prosecution of his studies.

For it was one of the characteristics of the “McKinley boys” that they PAID THEIR WAY. Although the father might have provided them with all needful books and clothing, paid all their school expenses and provided them with spending money, thus encouraging them in idleness, the wise plan of the iron founder, and of that “Mother McKinley,” whom a nation has delighted to honor, did not contemplate such a system. They did plan to encourage independence and self-reliance in their children; and they succeeded in achieving that end.

The first term of school taught by William McKinley, Jr., was in the Kerr District, about four miles from Poland, where he presided over the studies of nearly half a hundred pupils through the winter months of 1859–60. With the money secured he not only assisted in defraying the expenses of his sisters and brother at the academy, for which they were by this time prepared, but he was enabled to enter Alexander College, in the autumn of 1860. Two years before that date he had united with the Methodist Church, and had been received into full communion with the society of that denomination in Poland. And through all the years of his life, to the very end, he maintained that relation. In his later years he had been a regular attendant at the forms of worship, a frequent guest at the conferences of his church; and his counsels have been continually at the service of those high in the management of the affairs of Methodism.

It is told of him with a good deal of interest that in the years following the revival at which his conversion was confessed, he was at once a consistent Christian and a happy young man. He delighted in healthful sports, in games which tested muscle, skill and endurance, and took the heartiest possible interest in life. Those were the years under the calm guidance of the wise mother, when stores of power were laying up against the day of need that should come as manhood brought its duties. He was passing through his formative period under the most normal and healthy conditions possible. And that was the best preparation for the broad requirements, the heavy burdens which the future was to lay upon him.

His brother Abner has said that William was a general favorite; that he had no enemies. And one can well believe it, for throughout his adult life he has gone with friends. No one ever hated him. No one ever received an affront at his hands. There is a foolish adage that a man is weak and inconsequential who makes no enemies; that such a character can not be positive, yet that would be a perverse or an ill-informed man who would say William McKinley was either weak or of the negative type of life. And as he has been in manhood, so he was in the early days about the town of Poland. He knew all the workmen in the iron mills, and all the farmers for miles around. He understood them perfectly, and the bond of sympathy for them which was planted in his breast while yet a lad was one of the guides by which he shaped legislation when he came to be a man. His boyish frankness and simplicity and generosity remained permanent traits in his character to the end.

William McKinley, Sr., was a whig, and one of the thousands who marched from that old party into the ranks of the Republicans. Young William had read a great deal. His youthful fancy had been stirred with the stories of California gold, and the Overland Trail. His home was fairly supplied with such reading as is good for a boy, and a part of it dealt with the adventures and the activities of Colonel John C. Fremont. That “Pathfinder,” as his friends called him, was a hero to young William. More impressive far than the stories of wealth in the mines were the reports of Fremont’s expeditions. More attractive than the magnet which drew adventurers to the new Eldorado was the unspoken yearning to become a member of one of Colonel Fremont’s bands of explorers.

And so it is small wonder that his heart glowed with enthusiasm when Fremont was made the nominee of the young Republican party in 1856. He was thirteen years old then, and a stout, healthy boy, with a healthy American boy’s appetite for politics. So he shouted the campaign cries of the party, and sang the songs which lauded Fremont to the skies—as well as those less amiable songs which had for their motive the prophesying of defeat for Buchanan.

The result of the election in 1856 was never much in doubt, except to the sanguine youths who mistook their own earnestness for “indications.” But the defeat of his champion did not weigh heavily on the lad’s heart; and before the next national election came around he was almost man grown, with something of education, with four more years of activity and helpfulness for his family. But it would be impossible for a lad to enter with more earnestness into a cause than he gave to the hosts who were rallying to the support of Lincoln in 1860.

Young William had already taken an active interest in politics. He had “supported” Fremont because that explorer, traveler and soldier had won his honest admiration through many deeds of heroism. But he gave his allegiance to Lincoln because he had read, and because he understood the issues of the day, and believed the “Railsplitter of Illinois” was right. He could not vote for Lincoln that first time, but he could give the aid which politicians know is of value in campaigns. And so he was a member of the circles that marched and sang for the candidate—for freedom’s champion.

And he was given to debating, even in those early days. He was naturally a public speaker. He could arrange his argument, marshal his points and present them; and he could thrill his hearers with the genuine eloquence which is not learned, but comes spontaneous from the lips that have been touched with the wand of genius.

He was a reader at all times. And one of the books that made an indelible impression upon him was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It came in his most impressionable years, and did much to fill his soul with a hatred of human slavery—did much to prepare him for the services of those later years, when he seconded to the limit of his powers the work of the Great Liberator. He had followed the fortunes of Uncle Tom and of Eliza, and regarded them as types. And he was quite certain the horrors of human slavery were fairly depicted in the story.

Among the few but excellent books in his father’s possession was one called “Noble Deeds of American Women;” and the reading of it in that period of his youth impressed upon him vividly the struggles and sacrifices of the maids and matrons of the earlier day. The book had not many companions, for libraries were not large in those days; and it will be remembered that the house where William McKinley’s boyhood was spent was the home of a workingman.

It was a foreman of workingmen, to be sure, and one who had from time to time an interest in the modest business which he conducted. But yet it was a home where actual toil was by no means unknown; where the mother was the housekeeper, performing with her own hands much of the domestic labor, and where not one of the family was brought up with a contempt for industry.

In those years of transition from boyhood to youth, young William McKinley passed through a period of ill health. It interfered a good deal with his labors at home, and was the cause of cutting short his attendance at the college in Alexandria. It is by no means an unusual phase of a young man’s life, and it vanished as he advanced to the years of maturity. Throughout his life, with that exception, he has been a healthy person; and the season of delicate health at the threshold of manhood left no harmful consequences.

In 1896, when one of the enterprising publishers was hurrying to issue a “Campaign Life of William McKinley,” he sent a writer into Mahoning and Stark counties, and elsewhere throughout that portion of the Buckeye State, with instructions to find some record of the boyish escapades of young William. The writer found a number of men who had known the nominee in his boyhood, and asked one of them:

“Was he never in mischief—like robbing orchards, or stealing watermelons, or carrying away gates on ‘Hallowe’en?’”

The old man thought for a moment, apparently passed the lad’s life in review before the judge that abided in his memory, and then he said:

“I don’t remember that William was ever in any scrape of any kind.”

Then he waited for a moment, filled his pipe, lighted it reflectively and added as he pinched out the flame before throwing the match away:

“And if I did I wouldn’t tell it.”

The incident proves one of two things. Either young William had all his life the studious regard for the rights of others which has marked his manhood, or he had unconsciously enrolled this staunch old man among the friends who could not possibly be induced to “tell on him.” And either view shows the subject of their conversation in a very creditable light.

From infancy until he had attained the age of ten years, the family lived at Niles. The removal from there to Poland, where the Academy could offer better educational advantages to the children, was the last breaking up of home the boy knew. He retained the latter city as his home until after his return from the army, until after the completion of his law studies, when he cast about for a location that promised best for the life he had planned for himself.

But about the old town of Poland are still resident many men and women who knew him as a child, who watched him grow up to sturdy boyhood, and who learned to love him through the years that were adding to his stature and his wisdom. Those friendships he held to the very end. And there is no place in the United States where the blow that came with the news of his assassination fell more heavily than in the boyhood home of William McKinley.

CHAPTER XI.
McKINLEY AS A SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR.

William McKinley was but eighteen years old when the war of the rebellion began.

His enlistment was in every way typical of the man, and representative of the motive and action of the American volunteer. With his cousin, William McKinley Osborne, now United States Consul General at London, he drove to Youngstown, Ohio, in the early summer of 1861, to watch a recently enlisted company of infantrymen at their drill, preparatory to marching away for the field of battle. William McKinley, Sr., was a union man, a Republican, and had been a supporter of both Fremont and Lincoln at the polls. Of course the son had voted for neither, as he still lacked several years of that age at which American youth may exercise the elective franchise. But no man, of any age, had taken a more intense interest in the progress of affairs. He felt the need of supporting the President, and the necessity of preserving the integrity of the nation in all its borders. Nothing could exceed the avidity with which he watched the swiftly accumulating clouds of war and disaster. The love of human freedom, of personal liberty and loyalty to his country were cardinal virtues in the young man’s composition. And when war really began he felt a strong desire to give his labor and even his life, if necessary, in the cause which he was certain was the right.

The streets of Youngstown were filled with people, who had gathered to watch the soldiers at their drill, nearly the entire company had been recruited at Poland, and young McKinley personally knew every one of them. After the little band of recruits had gone through their evolutions, and had marched away from Youngstown to the state rendezvous, young William and his cousin Osborne returned to Poland, sobered and inspired to a heroic deed.

The former stated, calmly but firmly, that he felt his duty was to enlist.

“It seems to me the country needs every man who can go,” he said, “and I can.”

He laid the matter before his mother, and she did not oppose him. That wise woman understood the nature of her son too well to thwart in this day of his greatest experience that advance which she herself had so notably assisted him in making.

So that he, with his cousin Osborne, went to Columbus, as soon as they could set their little affairs in order, and at Camp Chase—named in honor of a man whose genius had already made him famous and powerful—they enlisted in Company E, of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. When one reflects how promptly Ohio sprang to arms in response to President Lincoln’s call for troops, it will be observed that William McKinley embraced a very early opportunity to serve his country. For he enlisted July 30, 1861.

W. S. Rosecrans was the first Colonel of that Twenty-third Ohio, and it had such men as Rutherford B. Hayes and Stanley Matthews on its roster.

Here in the camp, on the march, and in battle young William found the value of his earlier training. His splendid strength, his calm self-control—which made him capable of controlling other men; his better education, and his manly, honorable bearing were all elements in the guaranty of his advancement. At the very first he was chosen a corporal. And at the time of the battle of Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862, he had been promoted to the position of sergeant, and had received the added honor of selection to have charge of the commissary stores. So high an authority as General Rutherford B. Hayes, later Governor of Ohio, and still later President of the United States, has left the following tribute upon record:

“Young as he was, we soon found that in business, in executive ability, young McKinley was a man of rare capacity, of unusual and unsurpassed capacity, especially for a boy of his age. When battles were fought or service was to be performed in warlike things he always took his place. The night was never too dark; the weather was never too cold; there was no sleet, or storm, or hail, or snow, or rain that was in the way of his prompt and efficient performance of every duty.”

The bloodiest day of the war, the day on which more men were killed or wounded than on any other one day—was Sept. 17, 1862, in the battle of Antietam.

The battle began at daylight. Before daylight men were in the ranks and preparing for it. Without breakfast, without coffee, they went into the fight, and it continued until after the sun had set. The commissary department of that brigade was under Sergeant McKinley’s administration and personal supervision. From his hands every man in the regiment was served with hot coffee and warm meats, a thing that had never occurred under similar circumstances in any other army in the world. He passed under fire and delivered, with his own hands, these things, so essential for the men for whom he was laboring. General Hayes, then a Lieutenant Colonel, was himself wounded at Antietam, and went home on sick leave to recover. While there he related to Governor Tod that circumstance illustrating the cool courage and genuine heroism, and said to the Governor: “Let McKinley be promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant.” And it was done without a moment’s delay. When Colonel Hayes returned to the field he assigned Lieutenant McKinley to duty on his staff, and the young man looked back at eighteen months of active service in the ranks as of the greatest possible value to him.

McKinley was still on General Hayes’ staff when the battle of Kernstown, July 24, 1864, was fought. Crook’s corps had been expecting an easy time when it appeared that the enemy was in force at Kernstown, about four miles from Winchester, where Crook’s troops were. There had been some misinformation regarding the Confederate General Early’s movements, and the force about to be met was that of Early, which outnumbered Crook’s corps three to one. When the battle began one of the regiments was not in position, and Lieutenant McKinley was ordered to bring it in. The road to the regiment needed was through open fields and right in the enemy’s line of fire. Shells were bursting on his right and left, but the boy soldier rode on. He reached the regiment, gave the orders to them, and at his suggestion the regiment fired on the enemy and slowly withdrew to take the position where they were assigned. It was a gallant act of the boy soldier, and General Hayes had not expected him to come back alive.

He distinguished himself for gallantry, for good judgment, and military skill at the battle of Opequan. He had been ordered to bring General Duval’s troops to join the first division, which was getting into the battle. There was a question of which route to take, and upon the choice depended the very existence of General Duval and his brave men. Lieutenant McKinley weighed the chances swiftly, decided instantly, and on his own responsibility pointed out the direction as he gave his superior officer’s command to move. The troops followed his instructions, and came up gallantly and in excellent style, with the smallest possible loss or injury. His own regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio, was less skillfully directed, and suffered the very severe loss of 150 men and officers.

The work accomplished on that day marked young Lieutenant McKinley as both modest and brave.

Early in 1863, William McKinley, Jr., was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, but was retained on staff duty, as his superior ability, coolness and rare judgment made him invaluable to the regimental commander. That year the regiment saw service almost exclusively in West Virginia, engaged in the scouting duty which alone preserved that territory from falling into the possession of the enemy. It was a wearying year, trying on the men without giving them opportunity to share the glory that more active soldiering would have brought. They were marched east and west, north and south. It was a year of inaction, so far as achieving results were concerned. And in this severer test Lieutenant McKinley proved himself a soldier of the best ability. He kept up that esprit du corps throughout the regiment, without which it would have been ill prepared for service when the time for action came.

This hour—this opportunity—came in late midsummer, when Morgan’s raiders swept that terrifying march to the north of the Ohio river—that raid which struck the great North with the shock of a war experience which they had so happily escaped. The Twenty-third was just near enough to hear the summons and fly to the confronting of Morgan and his men. And it was his engagement with McKinley’s regiment at Buffington’s Island, Ohio, which so crippled the raiders as to completely disarrange their entire plan of campaign, and pave the way for that hopeless march from which they never returned. In that engagement the young Ohio officer bore himself with all bravery, and won a generous share in the honor of crushing the advance of a force which was seriously affecting the moral tone of the whole loyal North.

In the spring of 1864 the Twenty-third marched to Brownstown, on the Kanawha river, where it became a part of the force of General Crook, who was then preparing for his celebrated raid on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The expedition differed little in experience, in danger and in hardship from the everyday service in West Virginia through the previous year. On June 20 the rear of the Union forces, consisting of Hayes’ brigade, held Buford Gap against the enemy’s advance, and then made a hasty night retreat for the van, supposed to be at Salem. But Hunter was not at Salem. The enemy had attacked and cut off his trains, and had forced him beyond the city. Crook’s rear guard was in a manner surrounded, and it was only by rare strategy and brave fighting that he extricated his command from the dilemma. There can be no question the service of Lieutenant William McKinley that day saved the little army, and prevented, in a time when reverses were costly, the recurrence of a Confederate victory.

The retreat before a superior force was kept up without opportunity for rest, and with an insufficient supply of food and ammunition till June 27th, when a safe spot was reached on Big Sewell Mountain. It had been a continuous fight and march for nearly 180 miles. It need not be recited here how General Early’s success in the Shenandoah Valley at this time emboldened him to carry his invasion to the very front of Washington, and to challenge a fight for the national capital. It was all too plain that the Union forces under command of Hunter in the valley were unable to cope with the augmented forces of Early. So General —— sent two corps from the James River country to the rescue of the capital. And it was on that trip that William McKinley, Jr., got his first glimpse of the city of Washington, the capital of the country for which he hoped and prayed, for which he cheerfully imperiled his life.

But Lee had withdrawn from Early’s support a body of reinforcements, and the dashing commander of the threatening force was compelled to retreat southward into farther Virginia. It was Lee’s one mistake, for he had the capital captured, and might have watched the stars and bars in temporarily triumphal progress down Pennsylvania avenue had he backed up the advance on the Potomac. And the glance which Lieutenant McKinley had of the capitol dome that morning in 1864 would have been the last; for an army of invasion, checked and forced to retire, finds fighting from cover and the consequent burning of buildings one of the inescapable incidents of war.

After the battle of Kernstown—less accurately known as the battle of Winchester—the young soldier from Poland, Ohio, was again promoted, this time to the rank of captain. The document dates his advance from July 25, the day after his wise and heroic conduct in delivering orders under fire, and in piloting the imperiled regiment to its place in the battle formation.

His last battle of importance, and one in which he fittingly crowned a career of gallantry and devotion to duty, was that of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864. Toward the close of that month the regiment was ordered to Martinsburg. On its march to that point the men voted at the Presidential election. The votes were collected by the judges of election as the column was in march, from among the wagons. It was there McKinley cast his first vote. An ambulance was used as an election booth, and an empty candle-box did duty as a ballot-box. At the same time and place Generals Sheridan, Crook and Hayes cast their ballots, and it was the first vote ever cast by Sheridan or Crook.

Early the following spring the Twenty-third returned to Camp Cumberland and on July 26, 1865, a little more than four years from the time of enlistment, the regiment was mustered out and the scarred veterans who had experienced four years of dangers and hardships returned to their homes.

The records show that William McKinley, Jr., enlisted as a private in Company E of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry on June 11, 1861; that he was promoted to commissary sergeant on April 15, 1862; that he was promoted to Second Lieutenant of Company D on September 23, 1862; that he was promoted to First Lieutenant of Company E on February 7, 1863; that he was promoted to Captain of Company G on July 25, 1864; that he was detailed as Acting Assistant Adjutant General of the First Division, First Army Corps, on the staff of General Carroll; that he was brevetted Major on March 13, 1865, and that he was mustered out of service on July 26, 1865.

“For gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Opequan, Cedar Creek and Fisher’s Hill,” reads the document commissioning young McKinley as Brevet Major, signed “A. Lincoln.”

This is the brief statement of four years of such activity as are hardly comprehensible by the sedate citizen in these “piping times of peace;” but they were years which tried and tested the material of which William McKinley was formed, and years in which that symmetrical development of his whole being went majestically on. As it ripened and quickened his judgment, teaching him self-confidence and the power of rallying resources; as it planted deep in his nature the love of country and the sense of sacrifice which proves all patriotism; as it brought him into closer communion with his fellow men in camp and battle, on the march or in the agonies of the field hospital—so it developed the physical powers of the vigorous young man. He has since said, looking at some photographs of himself, taken at the time of his enlistment: “I was, indeed, a raw recruit.”

And he was. The portrait shows him rather slender, and with features which indicate a certain delicacy and refinement which were far from the appearance of the ideal soldier of books—the powerful frame, the flashing eye, the weather-beaten cheeks “bearded like a pard.” And yet he stood that day of his enlistment, a raw recruit, as the type of millions of his countrymen, as the expression of the best that was in the nation either for peace or war. And the four years of his slow advance to a major’s commission was the most necessary and the most valuable process of development that could possibly have come.

And whether for peace or war, it was the work his nature needed for the service of his nation, for the labors of most value to his people. The beardless boy, delicate in physique, grew to be a rugged, powerful man. The outdoor life, the exposure and hardship, the struggles and suffering and self-control, the planning, the quick decisions, the control of other men had all worked together for the development of a splendid citizen. So that he was mustered out of the service at the end of the war with beard on the lips that had been smooth when he took up the musket of a private soldier, and called back to President Lincoln, in the chorus of marching Americans: “We are coming, Father Abraham—three hundred thousand strong!” And his shoulders were broader, and his muscles were harder, and his view of the whole world was essentially that of a man who had been tried by fire and not found wanting.

It is fair and proper in this connection to present the testimony of those who occupied position above him, and who related in after years the impressions which young McKinley made upon them in his army days. For one thing, he was is no sense an ambitious man. Had he been stung with the asp of ambition he might easily have passed those who commanded at the beginning. His was the education, the training of the brain and the body, the judgment and the patriotic zeal out of which great leaders are made. But he was not a self-seeker. He simply accepted his duty when it presented, and discharged it perfectly. Nothing was illy done. Nothing was half accomplished. His task was fully discharged in every instance, and he was never the man to thirst for power, to maneuver for promotion. The advances which marked his soldier life came to him unsought, the well-earned rewards of a merit which none could deny, coupled with a modesty which all could admire.

General Russell Hastings watched him through a number of battles, and at Cedar Creek saw him tried beyond all ordinary measure. General Hastings, then with the rank of captain, was on the same staff with young Lieutenant McKinley, a member of the same regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio. They were close friends through the war, and remained so throughout their later life. They ate at the same mess, slept under the same blanket, and—when they had a tent—occupied the same tent together. It was in 1892, when William McKinley loomed large because of his loyalty to a friend in political life, that General Hastings placed upon record his recollections—forever stamped upon the pages of his memory—of an incident from the soldier life of his friend in that battle which began with “Sheridan twenty miles away.”

On the Union side was only Crook’s corps, some 6,000 strong, while opposed to it was the full force of Early’s army. The odds were too great; so, after some severe fighting, Hayes’ brigade, which was engaged, drew back in the direction of Winchester. “Just at that moment,” says General Hastings, “it was discovered that one of the regiments was still in an orchard where it had been posted at the beginning of the battle. General Hayes, turning to Lieutenant McKinley, directed him to go forward and bring away that regiment, if it had not already fallen. McKinley turned his horse and, keenly spurring it, pushed it at a fierce gallop obliquely toward the advancing enemy.

“A sad look came over Hayes’ face as he saw the young, gallant boy riding rapidly forward to almost certain death. * * * None of us expected to see him again, as we watched him push his horse through the open fields, over fences, through ditches, while a well-directed fire from the enemy was poured upon him, with shells exploding around, about, and over him.

“Once he was completely enveloped in the smoke of an exploding shell, and we thought he had gone down. But no, he was saved for better work for his country in his future years. Out of this smoke emerged his wiry little brown horse, with McKinley still firmly seated, and as erect as a hussar.

“McKinley gave the Colonel the orders from Hayes to fall back, saying, in addition, ‘He supposed you would have gone to the rear without orders.’ The Colonel’s reply was, ‘I was about concluding I would retire without waiting any longer for orders. I am now ready to go wherever you shall lead, but, Lieutenant, I “pintedly” believe I ought to give those fellows a volley or two before I go.’ McKinley’s reply was, ‘Then up and at them as quickly as possible,’ and as the regiment arose to its feet the enemy came on into full view. Colonel Brown’s boys gave the enemy a crushing volley, following it up with a rattling fire, and then slowly retreated toward some woods directly in their rear. At this time the enemy halted all along Brown’s immediate front and for some distance to his right and left, no doubt feeling he was touching a secondary line, which should be approached with all due caution. During this hesitancy of the enemy McKinley led the regiment through these woods on toward Winchester.

“As Hayes and Crook saw this regiment safely off, they turned, and, following the column, with it moved slowly to the rear, down the Winchester pike. At a point near Winchester, McKinley brought the regiment to the column and to its place in the brigade. McKinley greeted us all with a happy, contented smile—no effusion, no gushing palaver of words, though all of us felt and knew one of the most gallant acts of the war had been performed.

“As McKinley drew up by the side of Hayes to make his verbal report, I heard Hayes say to him, ‘I never expected to see you in life again.’”

And when Sheridan galloped along the “good broad highway leading down” from Winchester, shouting his jubilant order: “Face the other way, boys. We’re going back!” the whole of Hayes’ brigade, thanks to young Lieutenant William McKinley, was in position, and ready for that advance which ended in another splendid Union victory.

Rutherford B. Hayes, once his colonel, then his general and later his President, has declared of William McKinley: “At once it was found that he had unusual character for the mere business of war. There is a quartermaster’s department, which is a very necessary and important department in every regiment, in every brigade, in every division, in every army. Young as he was, we soon found that in business, in executive ability, young McKinley was a man of rare capacity, of unusual and unsurpassed capacity, especially for a boy of his age. When battles were fought or service was to be performed in warlike things, he always took his place. The night was never too dark; the weather was never too cold; there was no sleet or storm, or hail or snow, or rain that was in the way of his prompt and efficient performance of every duty.”

In an old note book of the war-time period, kept by General Hayes, is another interesting entry which was given to the world in the course of an address at a political meeting in Ohio in 1891. By way of premise it should be stated that General George Crook in 1862 called Lieutenant McKinley to service on his staff, where he remained through the activities of the summer campaign, and until the Union army went into winter quarters. In the last month of the year General Hayes made that entry which seemed like a prophecy. Here it is:

“Saturday, December 13, 1862.—Our new Second Lieutenant, McKinley, returned to-day—an exceedingly bright, intelligent, and gentlemanly young officer. He promises to be one of the best.”

And he added, while the thousands broke forth in tumultuous applause:

“He has kept the promise in every sense of the word.”

That famous battle of Cedar Creek virtually ended the active military career of Captain McKinley. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted major. In the spring of 1865 the Twenty-third Ohio was ordered to Camp Cumberland, where it was mustered out of service, July 26, 1865, closing a four-year career of war with honor, leaving a host of brave comrades beneath the turf of the battlefields, returning home to receive the congratulations of loyal friends and to enter once more the occupations of peace. The soldier boy of eighteen years was now a man of twenty-two. The private of 1861 was now a major. The education and aspirations of youth had been supplemented by such an experience in the cause of country as few could claim at his age, and such as would meet the most exalted purposes of after life.

JOHN D. LONG, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.

NEW CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY BUILDING AT THE CAPITAL.

CHAPTER XII.
McKINLEY IN CONGRESS.

No man ever approached the gates of public life under circumstances more discouraging than those which confronted William McKinley when, in 1876, his friends suggested him as a candidate for congress. Yet no man ever achieved a more signal triumph at the polls, nor a more glorious career in the halls of legislation. He served fourteen years in Congress. In that time he passed from the modest position of a “first termer”—one of the majority which never returns—to the chairmanship of the Ways and Means committee, a place that has been described as more powerful than that of the President of the United States. Certainly in the effecting of legislation, in the expression of national policy, in raising revenues and shaping the course of government there is no position comparable to it in the United States—probably in any country on earth.

It is interesting to observe in the beginning that Major McKinley’s start in congressional life was in itself a tribute to his popularity. When he first launched into the profession of the law at Canton he won early prominence among his brethren of the bar, and a position of influence in his party. And when the managers of that party came to make up their county ticket in 1868, they selected William McKinley, Jr., as their candidate for prosecuting attorney. The county was strongly Democratic, and it was only on occasion, even through the years of the war, that Republicans could capture a county office. Anything like sagacity on the part of the county Democrats in naming their candidates had been certain to preclude the possibility of electing a Republican. It seemed quite hopeless that young McKinley could capture the office of prosecuting attorney from his opponent—a man of experience and ability.

But in the few years Major McKinley had lived in Stark county he had been constantly winning friends. And one reason he won them was that he deserved them. And the chief reason that he held them was because he deserved their adhesion. For while he was making acquaintances all over the county, widening his circle of acquaintance in the city, always urbane, courteous, affable and yet dignified, he was preparing to discharge the duties they would lay upon him.

It has been stated in another part of this work that Major McKinley won in the election. He became prosecuting attorney, though not another man on his ticket was elected. His victory surprised most of the people; but there were some, both in his own party and in the opposition, who recognized the promise of a man of power, and prepared the way for him.

So, in 1876, when his friends cast about for a congressional candidate, this man who had led a forlorn hope for them in a less notable fight eight years before seemed the man most likely to make a creditable showing.

There was little hope of electing him. The district, the old Ohio Eighteenth, was 1,800 strong Democratic. The Democratic nominee was the then incumbent, and he had made a record which pleased his constituents. Besides, the tariff was largely the issue of the campaign and Mr. Tilden’s slogan: “A tariff for revenue only” was regarded as expressing a popular sentiment. That other slogan, “Tilden and Reform” had lost some of its effectiveness in the light of the Erie canal investigation at Albany; but the tariff had more than taken its place in the popular thought.

Besides, Major McKinley was one of the very few men in the nation who boldly, and without apology or subterfuge, contended for the principle of protection. It has been said elsewhere in this book that he engaged in a debate on the tariff shortly after returning from the army, and before he left his old home town of Poland. He had studied the question even then, and had become convinced that the present prosperity and future welfare of the nation demanded a policy of high tariff, and would for a number of years.

He lost that debate because the judges, smarting under the burden of war taxes, accepted the popular clamor for a reduction—and decided, without regard to the facts presented or argument deduced, that Major McKinley’s opponent had won.

It had been observed in Stark county, since his location at Canton, that Major McKinley held to his daring theory of protection in all his political speeches. Most other Republicans felt the need of trimming, and conceded that protection was bad in policy, if not wrong in morals; and promised the people that it would be abolished.

That was the condition in the Eighteenth District in the summer of 1876, when Major William McKinley was nominated to run against Judge L. D. Woodsworth, a wheelhorse of Democracy in Ohio.

As in 1868, when he was candidate for prosecuting attorney of Stark county, so now, there was little hope of his election. The majority seemed too great to be overcome. But it was overcome. And when the votes were counted it was found that the Republican nominee had a clear majority of 1,300—a change of 3,100 votes from the preceding congressional election.

And it will be remembered that this was in the face of Major McKinley’s contention for the policy of protection. He met every sophistry of his opponents with arguments which showed him a thorough master of his subject, and with a skill in debate which disarmed enmity even among his opposers.

So significant a victory won for the young man the attention of the nation; and the arrival in Washington of this strong, courageous champion of a great public policy was occasion for gratulation among the men who saw beyond the immediate present, and were building for the future of the nation—preparing the Republic for that day when it must abandon its hermitage, and take place among the mighty nations of the earth. And they gave him every encouragement. But even they—even Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania, whose protectionism was less genuine because more a matter of personal interest—found at the very beginning that they could give William McKinley nothing, and that they would shortly be asking favors of him.

Sociologists may interest themselves with speculations on the influences which contributed to William McKinley’s success as a statesman. But it is doubtful if they find anything more significant than the sorrow which came to him at this period. His two daughters were dead. His wife had suffered the blow from which she was never to recover; and this man’s entry upon national legislation was through the gates of a great sorrow. Maybe it refined him, and purified his nature of whatever dross it contained. Maybe it intensified his thought, and added the sense of a sacred responsibility to him as a public man. He had no children. He knew he never again would hear the lisping call of “Father.” And in the holy bereavement of that hour, he must—perhaps unconsciously—have devoted himself to the service of his country. There was no need to “trim,” to—

“Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,

That thrift might follow fawning.”

He had but one ambition now, and that was so to live as a public man that the verdict of the nation might be: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

That first term in Congress was judiciously utilized by William McKinley. He knew, with that prescience which belongs to the truly great, that this was his field, that he would return to it, that no small considerations of oppositions and repeated elections could keep him from the fulfillment of that duty, the discharge of that task, for which all his life had been but preparation.

In the first session he made no speech. He was not even on a committee of importance. But his known position as a protectionist made him a man to be consulted, and his quickly recognized ability made him—a first termer—share in the shaping of legislation.

That was a Democratic Congress, with Samuel J. Randall in the speaker’s chair. And the young man from Ohio waited at the portals of opportunity, making himself ready for the day when they should open and admit him.

He made a speech on the floor of the house. He was little considered by the superficial and unthinking. Yet they confessed in committee the influence of his quiet power. He made himself master of every detail. He knew all that was to be known about the subjects that came before him and his confreres. And in a courteous, dignified but effective manner he said the right word in due season, and every man of them felt the presence of greatness.

His first speech was delivered in the spring of 1878. The question of tariff had loomed large in the eyes of the nation. It had been made an issue. No man could escape it. Seekers for popular applause, for the present profits that might be secured, exhausted themselves coining verbal assaults on the policy of protection. The men on the Democratic side, east and west, were almost a unit for a revision which meant a repeal. The time came later when most eastern Democrats took issue with their brothers from the West, as to the wisdom of protection. But in that day the strongest assault was made by a New York man—Fernando Wood.

He was one of the ablest Democrats in Congress. A sharp, shrewd man, plausible in his address, skillful in his arraignment, and attractive as a debater. He had, in his bill, reflected well the popular clamor of demagogues throughout the country who could not see the demands or the possibilities of the future. And the Wood tariff bill was sailing serene through the lower house, its friends jubilant, its supporters becoming jealous of the lucky New Yorker—when, one day William McKinley, of Ohio, got the floor, and began an argument against the bill. That frightened no one. They wanted some opposition. They wanted the sport of a game fight, since they were sure they could not be defeated.

But when they had listened fifteen minutes they saw this young man, this unconsidered legislator, was master of the province upon which they had entered. He knew far more about the industrial and commercial conditions of the country than did they. He was infinitely better equipped than they in the matter of economics. And he coined his ideas in sentences so impressive that the jealous men were comforted. They were not frightened on account of the bill, for they were confident in the possession of an invincible majority. But they saw Fernando Wood at last had a foeman worthy of his steel.

At the end of half an hour a movement was made to silence him. But other debaters on the Republican side saw an advocate had arisen more powerful than they. They gave him their time and he went on. Friends of the bill tried to badger him with questions. But he met every thrust with a dignity which disarmed and a reply which silenced them.

And when William McKinley sat down, the Wood bill was defeated, and nothing like it was ever again offered in the American House of Representatives.

It was a significant part of his work that day—a characteristic of his labors through life—that results were felt in the future. From that day the free trade army was divided. The West, neither possessing considerable industries nor at the time appreciating their value, found itself divided from the East. From that day no great opponent of protection has come from the East to the halls of Congress. And—what is more to the point—no strong popular sentiment supporting free trade has flourished in the populous Atlantic states.

“A house divided against itself can not stand.” How then shall an army divided against itself hope to march victorious?

But “tariff reform” still looked good as an issue, and the opponents of protection continued their crusade against it. They could not believe they would be defeated. They insisted that three thousand miles of ocean was enough protection for the American manufacturer. They pointed out that the price of each protected article was increased to the American consumer by just the amount of the protection tax. They refused to see that the consumer would, under a national policy which should strengthen industries, be better able to pay the increased price than the lower price under free trade. They were short-sighted. And they were confident the masses of the people were as short-sighted as themselves, and would overwhelmingly sustain them.

So their clamor continued.

So the Republicans in 1882, advised and counselled by Congressman McKinley, provided for a tariff commission which should investigate the whole question and recommend legislation that should settle the national policy once and for all. The commission was appointed by President Arthur, but before it could report the tacit agreement was broken, and William R. Morrison, of Illinois, brought forward, in 1884, his remarkable bill for a 20 per cent “horizontal reduction” of the tariff. The house was again Democratic, but William McKinley, overcoming successive gerrymanders in Ohio, was still in the house, now advanced to a position of influence and importance; and no “horizontal reduction” could take place while he was there, no matter what the political complexion of the House might be. Against a hostile majority, he led the forces of protection’s friends. A part of his address on that occasion is as follows:

“What can be said of the capacity of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means as evidenced by the bill now before us? It is a confession upon its face of absolute incapacity to grapple with the great subject. The Morrison bill will never be suspected of having passed the scrutiny of intelligent experts like the Tariff Commission. This is a revision by the crosscut process. It gives no evidences of the expert’s skill. It is the invention of indolence—I will not say of ignorance, for the gentlemen of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means are competent to prepare a tariff bill. I repeat, it is not only the invention of indolence, but it is the mechanism of a botch workman. A thousand times better refer the question to an intelligent Commission, which will study the question in its relations to the revenues and industries of the country, than to submit to a bill like this.

“They have determined upon doing something, no matter how mischievous, that looks to the reduction of import duties; and doing it, too, in spite of the fact that not a single request has come either from the great producing or great consuming classes of the United States for any change in the direction proposed. With the power in their hands they have determined to put the knife in, no matter where it cuts nor how much blood it draws. It is the volunteer surgeon, unbidden, insisting upon using the knife upon a body that is strong and healthy; needing only rest and release from the quack whose skill is limited to the horizontal amputation, and whose science is barren of either knowledge or discrimination. And then it is not to stop with one horizontal slash; it is to be followed by another and still another, until there is nothing left either of life or hope. And the doctrinaires will then have seen an exemplification of their pet science in the destruction of the great productive interests of the country, and “the starving poor,” as denominated by the majority, will be found without work, shelter or food. The sentiment of this country is against any such indiscriminate proposition. The petitions before the Ways and Means Committee from twenty to thirty States of this Union appeal to Congress to let the tariff rest where it is, in general, while others are equally importunate to have the duties on two or three classes of American products raised. The laboring men are unanimous against this bill. These appeals should not go unheeded. The farmers for whom you talk so eloquently, have not asked for it. There is no appeal from any American interest for this legislation.

“It is well, if this bill is to go into force, that on yesterday the other branch of Congress, the Senate, passed a Bankruptcy bill. It is a fitting corollary to the Morrison bill; it is a proper and a necessary companion. The Senate has done wisely, in anticipation of our action here, in providing legal means for settling with creditors, for wiping out balances, and rolling from the shoulders of our people the crushing burdens which this bill will impose.”

And in spite of a Democratic majority the Morrison bill failed. That thrust—“the invention of indolence”—went home; and the nation resented the slipshod manner in which its public servants had done their work. And the Representative from Illinois brought from the wreck of his losing battle no more than the comfort of realizing that to the end of his life he would be known by the appropriate title, “Horizontal Bill Morrison.”

But the crusade against protection was too attractive to abandon. In 1888, the House being again Democratic, Roger Q. Mills of Texas, was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and he brought in a bill that expressed really all that was best in the opposition’s case. But he made the fatal mistake of presenting a bill prepared by his political associates alone. It was more fair, more broad in its scope, more statesmanlike than anything that had previously emanated from the camp of free traders. But he had invited no Republican member of the committee to its preparation, and excluded all who would advise or instruct him. He might have welcomed them in safety, for he had the votes at his back to defeat every recommendation they might make, and adopt every paragraph that commended itself to him. But he saw fit to refuse audience to representatives of industrial concerns who knew far more of the subject than did Mr. Mills or his advisers, and an opposition suddenly sprung up which could not be overcome. Mr. McKinley made his most telling point against the Mills bill, in these burning words:

“The industries of the country, located in every section of the Union, representing vast interests closely related to the prosperity of the country, touching practically every home and fireside in the land, which were to be affected by the bill, were denied a hearing; the majority shut the doors of the committee against all examinations of producers, consumers and experts, whose testimony might have enlightened the committee. The farmers, whose investments and products were to be disastrously dealt with, were denied an opportunity to address the committee. The workingmen of the country, whose wages were at stake, were denied audience. The Representatives on the floor of the House were not permitted to voice the wants of their constituents. Proposing a grave measure, which would affect all of the people in their employments, their labor and their incomes, the majority persistently refused the people the right of hearing and discussion; denied them the simple privilege of presenting reasons and arguments against their proposed action.”

The report of the minority of the Ways and Means Committee was prepared and presented by Mr. McKinley. He had come to be recognized as the best equipped and most formidable protectionist in Congress, and the report he submitted fully sustained that opinion. From that report the following extract will still be read with profound interest:

“The bill is a radical reversal of the tariff policy of the country which for the most part has prevailed since the foundation of the Government, and under which we have made industrial and agricultural progress without a parallel in the world’s history. If enacted into law, it will disturb every branch of business, retard manufacturing and agricultural prosperity, and seriously impair our industrial independence. It undertakes to revise our entire revenue system; substantially all of the tariff schedules are affected; both classification and rates are changed. Specific duties are in many cases changed to ad valorem, which all experience has shown is productive of frauds and undervaluations. It does not correct the irregularities of the present tariff; it only aggravates them. It introduces uncertainties in interpretation, which will embarrass its administration, promote contention and litigation, and give to the customs officers a latitude of construction which will produce endless controversy and confusion. It is marked with a sectionalism which every patriotic citizen must deplore. Its construction takes no account of the element of labor which enters into production, and in a number of instances makes the finished or advanced product free, or dutiable at a less rate than the material from which it is made. ‘The poor man’s blanket,’ which the majority has made a burning issue for so many years, is made to bear the same rate of duty as the rich man’s. More than one-third of the free list is made up from the products of the farm, the forest and the mine; from products which are now dutiable at the minimum rates, ranging from seven to twenty-five per cent. and even this slight protection, so essential, is to be taken from the farmers, the lumbermen and the quarrymen.”

But it was not until the bill was put upon its passage that he rose to his greatest height as a debater and as a statesman. Men old in public life concede that the speech he made, May 18, 1888, was the greatest ever delivered on a purely economic question in the halls of the American Congress. It did more to fix the policy of protectionism unalterably upon the country than any other one influence. It did more to justify the protectionists of the past, and to pave the way for whatever great policy might come after when new occasions brought new duties, when a subsequent era should arise, than all the campaigning and all the labors in or out of Congress that the nation had known. Here are some extracts from that notable address:

“What is a protective tariff? It is a tariff upon foreign imports so adjusted as to secure the necessary revenue, and judiciously imposed upon those foreign products the like of which are produced at home, or the like of which we are capable of producing at home. It imposes the duty upon the competing foreign product; it makes it bear the burden or duty, and, as far as possible, luxuries only excepted, permits the noncompeting foreign product to come in free of duty. Articles of common use, comfort and necessity, which we cannot produce here, it sends to the people untaxed and free from custom-house exactions. Tea, coffee, spices and drugs are such articles, and under our system are upon the free list. It says to our foreign competitor: If you want to bring your merchandise here, your farm products here, your coal and iron ore, your wool, your salt, your pottery, your glass, your cottons and woolens, and sell alongside of our producers in our markets, we will make your product bear a duty; in effect, pay for the privilege of doing it. Our kind of tariff makes the competing foreign article carry the burden, draw the load, supply the revenue; and in performing this essential office it encourages at the same time our own industries and protects our own people in their chosen employments. That is the mission and purpose of a protective tariff. That is what we mean to maintain, and any measure which will destroy it we shall firmly resist; and if beaten on this floor, we will appeal from your decision to the people, before whom parties and policies must at last be tried. We have free trade among ourselves throughout thirty-eight States and the Territories, and among sixty millions of people. Absolute freedom of exchange within our own borders and among our own citizens, is the law of the Republic. Reasonable taxation and restraint upon those without is the dictate of enlightened patriotism and the doctrine of the Republican party.

“Free trade in the United States is founded upon a community of equalities and reciprocities. It is like the unrestrained freedom and reciprocal relations and obligations of a family. Here we are one country, one language, one allegiance, one standard of citizenship, one flag, one Constitution, one Nation, one destiny. It is otherwise with foreign nations, each a separate organism, a distinct and independent political society, organized for its own, to protect its own, and work out its own destiny. We deny to those foreign nations free trade with us upon equal terms with our own producers. The foreign producer has no right or claim to equality with our own. He is not amenable to our laws. There are resting upon him none of the obligations of citizenship. He pays no taxes. He performs no civil duties; he is subject to no demands for military service. He is exempt from State, county and municipal obligations. He contributes nothing to the support, the progress and glory of the Nation. Why should he enjoy unrestrained equal privileges and profits in our markets with our producers, our labor and our taxpayers? Let the gentleman who follows me answer. We put a burden upon his productions, we discriminate against his merchandise, because he is alien to us and our interests, and we do it to protect our own, defend our own, preserve our own, who are always with us in adversity and prosperity, in sympathy and purpose, and, if necessary, in sacrifice. That is the principle which governs us. I submit it is a patriotic and righteous one. In our country each citizen competes with the other in free and unresentful rivalry, while with the rest of the world all are united and together in resisting outside competition as we would foreign interference.

“Free foreign trade admits the foreigner to equal privileges with our own citizens. It invites the product of foreign cheap labor to this market in competition with the domestic product, representing higher and better paid labor. It results in giving our money, our manufactures and our markets to other nations, to the injury of our labors, our trades people and our farmers. Protection keeps money, markets and manufactures at home for the benefit of our own people. It is scarcely worth while to more than state the proposition that taxation upon a foreign competing product is more easily paid and less burdensome than taxation upon the noncompeting product. In the latter it is always added to the foreign cost, and therefore paid by the consumer, while in the former, where the duty is upon the competing product, it is largely paid in the form of diminished profits to the foreign producer. It would be burdensome beyond endurance to collect our taxes from the products, professions and labor of our own people.

“There is no conflict of interests and should be none between the several classes of producers and the consumers in the United States. Their interests are one, interrelated and interdependent. That which benefits one benefits all; one man’s work has relation to every other man’s work in the same community; each is an essential part of the grand result to be attained, and that statesmanship which would seek to array the one against the other for any purpose, is narrow, unworthy and unpatriotic. The President’s message is unhappily in that direction. The discussion had on this floor takes that turn. Both have been calculated to create antagonisms where none existed. The farmer, the manufacturer, the laborer, the tradesman, the producer and the consumer all have a common interest in the maintenance of a protective tariff. All are alike and equally favored by the system which you seek to overthrow. It is a National system, broad and universal in its application; if otherwise, it should be abandoned. It cannot be invoked for one section or one interest, to the exclusion of others. It must be general in its application within the contemplation of the principle upon which the system is founded. We have been living under it for twenty-seven continuous years, and it can be asserted with confidence that no country in the world has achieved such industrial advancement, and such marvelous progress in art, science and civilization, as ours. Tested by its results, it has surpassed all other revenue systems.

“From 1789 to 1888, a period of ninety-nine years, there has been forty-seven years when a Democratic revenue-tariff policy has prevailed, and fifty-two years under the protective policy, and it is a noteworthy fact that the most progressive and prosperous periods of our history in every department of human effort and material development were during the fifty-two years when the protective party was in control and protective tariffs were maintained; and the most disastrous years—years of want and wretchedness, ruin and retrogression, eventuating in insufficient revenues and shattered credits, individual and National—were during the free trade or revenue-tariff eras of our history. No man lives who passed through any of the latter periods but would dread their return and would flee from them as he would escape from fire and pestilence; and I believe the party which promotes their return will merit and receive popular condemnation. What is the trouble with our present condition? No country can point to greater prosperity or more enduring evidences of substantial progress among all the people. Too much money is being collected, it is said. We say, stop it; not by indiscriminate and vicious legislation, but by simple business methods. Do it on simple, practical lines, and we will help you. Buy up the bonds, objectionable as it may be, and pay the Nation’s debt, if you cannot reduce taxation. You could have done this long ago. Nobody is chargeable for the failure and delay but your own administration.

“Who is objecting to our protective system? From what quarter does the complaint come? Not from the enterprising American citizen; not from the manufacturer; not from the laborer, whose wages it improves; not from the consumer, for he is fully satisfied, because under it he buys a cheaper and better product than he did under the other system; not from the farmer, for he finds among the employes of the protected industries his best and most reliable customers; not from the merchant or the tradesman, for every hive of industry increases the number of his customers and enlarges the volume of his trade. Few, indeed, have been the petitions presented to this House asking for any reduction of duties upon imports. None, that I have ever seen or heard of, and I have watched with the deepest interest the number and character of these petitions, that I might gather from them the drift of public sentiment. I say I have seen none asking for the passage of this bill, or for any such departure from the fiscal policy of the Government so long recognized and followed, while against this legislation there has been no limit to petitions, memorials, prayers and protests, from the producer and consumer alike. This measure is not called for by the people; it is not an American measure; it is inspired by importers and foreign producers, most of them aliens, who want to diminish our trade and increase their own; who want to decrease our prosperity and augment theirs, and who have no interest in this country except what they can make out of it. To this is added the influence of the professors in some of our institutions of learning, who teach the science contained in books, and not that of practical business. I would rather have my political economy founded upon the everyday experiences of the puddler or the potter, than the learning of the professor, or the farmer and factory hand than the college faculty. Then there is another class who want protective tariffs overthrown. They are the men of independent wealth, with settled and steady incomes, who want everything cheap but currency; the value of everything clipped but coin—cheap labor but dear money. These are the elements which are arrayed against us.

“Men whose capital is invested in productive enterprises, who take the risks of business, men who expend their capital and energy in the development of our resources, are in favor of the maintenance of the protective system. The farmer, the rice-grower, the miner, the vast army of wage-earners from one end of the country to the other, the chief producers of wealth, men whose capital is their brain and muscle, who aspire to better their condition and elevate themselves and their fellows; the young man whose future is yet before him, and which he must carve out with his hand and head, who is without the aid of fortune or of a long ancestral line—these are our steadfast allies in this great contest for the preservation of the American system. Experience and results in our own country are the best advisers, and they vindicate beyond the possibilities of dispute the worth and wisdom of the system.”

But the bill passed the House.

There were members enough on the Democratic side of carry it through, though by a perilously small majority.

The senate, however, could not be brought to an approval, and the Mills bill failed there.

That, however, was but the beginning of William McKinley’s victory. So strong a case had he made for protection that in 1888 his party leaders had been roused to appreciate the stupendous interests involved in the issue. They ceased to temporize, to avoid, to “trim.” They had been on the defensive for twenty years. They took in 1888 the aggressive, made protection the issue, named General Harrison as their candidate, and echoing William McKinley’s arguments in every school district of the nation, achieved a splendid victory.

But it was wholly due to the wisdom and foresight, the ability and eloquence of Major William McKinley, of Ohio.

Then came his crowning work. That was the measure which has taken its place in the history of the nation as “the McKinley Tariff Law.” It was adopted in May, 1890, and took effect October 6 of the same year.

There is no royal road to success, no short cut-off to eminence. Whatever is of great worth must cost great labor. William McKinley had put into his preparation for that work all the years of his adult life. He knew the subject as no other man in the nation knew it. And when, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee at last he was commissioned to write a tariff bill, he gave himself wholly and utterly to the task. No laborer in the mills which his policy safeguarded put in so many hours daily as did William McKinley in the preparation of that great measure. He worked all day in Committee or on the floor of the House, consuming nervous force in a manner which would have utterly broken down a less magnificent physique than his own. And then every night he received representatives of various industries from all over the nation—from the farms, from the mines, from the mills, from the stores, from the offices of transportation companies. And they testified a thousand times that he knew their case far better than did they. Yet he heard them patiently, respectfully, discussed the schedules with them, and out of all the information he could gather produced that bill which stands for the highest expression of statesmanship any republic has ever known.

It was characteristic of the man that he should in the very van of his argument place a statement that would challenge the general attention of the public, regardless of party. No reader who recognizes the significance of effective work in debate can fail to catch the value of these calm, deliberate sentences:

“If any one thing was settled by the election of 1888, it was that the protective policy, as promulgated in the Republican platform, and heretofore inaugurated and maintained by the Republican party, should be secured in any fiscal legislation to be had by the Congress chosen in that great contest and upon that mastering issue. I have interpreted that victory to mean, and the majority in this House and in the Senate to mean, that a revision of the tariff is not only demanded by the votes of the people, but that such revision should be on the line and in full recognition of the principle and purpose of protection. The people have spoken; they want their will registered and their decree embodied in public legislation. The bill which the Committee on Ways and Means have presented is their answer and interpretation of that victory, and in accordance with its spirit and letter and purpose. We have not been compelled to abolish the internal-revenue system that we might preserve the protective system, which we were pledged to do in the event that the abolition of the one was essential to the preservation of the other. That was unnecessary.

“The bill does not amend or modify any part of the internal-revenue taxes applicable to spirits or fermented liquors. It abolishes all the special taxes and licenses, so called, imposed upon the manufacture of tobacco, cigars and snuff, and dealers thereof, reduces the tax upon manufactured tobacco from eight to four cents per pound, and removes all restrictions now imposed upon the growers of tobacco. With these exceptions, the internal-revenue laws are left undisturbed. From this source we reduce taxation over $70,000,000, and leave with the people this direct tax which has been paid by them upon their own products through a long series of years.

“The tariff part of the bill contemplates and proposes a complete revision. It not only changes the rates of duty, but modifies the general provisions of the law relating to the collection of duties. These modifications have received the approval of the Treasury Department, and are set forth in detail in the report of the committee, and I will not weary you by restating them.

“We propose this advanced duty to protect our manufacturers and consumers against the British monopoly, in the belief that it will defend our capital and labor in the production of tin plate until they shall establish an industry which the English shall recognize has come to stay, and then competition will insure regular and reasonable prices to consumers. It may add a little, temporarily, to the cost of tin plate to the consumer, but will eventuate in steadier and more satisfactory prices. At the present prices for foreign tin plate, the proposed duty would not add any thing to the cost of the heavier grades of tin to the consumer. If the entire duty was added to the cost of the can, it would not advance it more than one-third, or one-half of one cent, for on a dozen fruit cans the addition would properly only be about three cents.

“We have now enjoyed twenty-nine years continuously of protective tariff laws—the longest uninterrupted period in which that policy has prevailed since the formation of the Federal government—and we find ourselves at the end of that period in a condition of independence and prosperity the like of which has never been witnessed at any other period in the history of our country, and the like of which had no parallel in the recorded history of the world. In all that goes to make a nation great and strong and independent, we have made extraordinary strides. In arts, in science, in literature, in manufactures, in invention, in scientific principles applied to manufacture and agriculture, in wealth and credit and National honor we are at the very front, abreast with the best, and behind none.

“In 1860, after fourteen years of a revenue tariff, just the kind of a tariff that our political adversaries are advocating to-day, the business of the country was prostrated, agriculture was deplorably depressed, manufacturing was on the decline, and the poverty of the government, itself, made this Nation a by-word in the financial centers of the world. We neither had money nor credit. Both are essential; a nation can get on if it has abundant revenues, but if it has none it must have credit. We had neither as the legacy of the Democratic revenue tariff. We have both now. We have a surplus revenue and a spotless credit. I need not state what is so fresh in our minds, so recent in our history, as to be known to every gentleman who hears me, that from the inauguration of the protective tariff laws of 1861, the old Morrill tariff—which has brought to that veteran statesman the highest honor and will give to him his proudest monument—this condition changed. Confidence was restored, courage was inspired, the government started upon a progressive era under a system thoroughly American.

“With a great war on our hands, with an army to enlist and prepare for service, with untold millions of money to supply, the protective tariff never failed us in a single emergency, and while money was flowing into our treasury to save the government, industries were springing up all over the land—the foundation and corner-stone of our prosperity and glory. With a debt of over $2,750,000,000 when the war terminated, holding on to our protective laws, against Democratic opposition, we have reduced that debt at an average rate of more than $62,000,000 each year, $174,000 every twenty-four hours for the last twenty-five years, and what looked like a burden almost impossible to bear has been removed under the Republican fiscal system, until now it is less than $1,000,000,000, and with the payment of this vast sum of money the Nation has not been impoverished, the individual citizen has not been burdened or bankrupted, National and individual prosperity have gone steadily on, until our wealth is so great as to be almost incomprehensible when put into figures.

“The accumulations of the laborers of the country have increased, and the working classes of no nation in the world have such splendid deposits in savings banks as the working classes of the United States. Listen to their story: The deposits of all the savings banks of New England in 1886 equaled $554,532,434. The deposits in the savings banks of New York in 1886 were $482,686,730. The deposits in the savings banks of Massachusetts for the year 1887 were $302,948,624, and the number of depositors was 944,778, or $320.67 for each depositor. The savings banks of nine States have in nineteen years increased their deposits $628,000,000. The English savings banks have in thirty-four years increased theirs $350,000,000. Our operative deposits $7 to the English operative’s $1. These vast sums represent the savings of the men whose labor has been employed under the protective policy which gives, as experience has shown, the largest possible reward to labor.

PRESIDENT McKINLEY WITH HIS G.A.R. POST.

From a photograph taken for and used by courtesy of Chicago Inter Ocean.

“Free trade, or as you are pleased to call it, ‘revenue tariff,’ means the opening up of this market, which is admitted to be the best in the world, to the free entry of the products of the world. It means more—it means that the labor of this country is to be remitted to its earlier condition, and that the condition of our people is to be leveled down to the condition of rival countries, because under it every element of cost, every item of production, including wages, must be brought down to the level of the lowest paid labor of the world. No other result can follow, and no other result is anticipated or expected by those who intelligently advocate a revenue tariff. We cannot maintain ourselves against unequal conditions without the tariff, and no man of affairs believes we can. Under the system of unrestricted trade which you gentlemen recommend, we will have to reduce every element of cost down to or below that of our commercial rivals, or surrender to them our own market. No one will dispute that statement; and to go into the domestic market of our rivals would mean that production here must be so reduced that with transportation added we could undersell them in their own market; and to meet them in neutral markets and divide the trade with them would mean that we could profitably sell side by side with them at their minimum price.

“First, then, to retain our own market under the Democratic system of raising revenue, by removing all protection, would require our producers to sell at as low a price and upon as favorable terms as our foreign competitors. How could that be done? In one way only—by producing as cheaply as those who would seek our markets. What would that entail? An entire revolution in the methods and conduct of business here, a leveling down through every channel to the lowest line of our competitors, our habits of living would have to be changed, our wages cut down fifty per cent. or more, our comfortable homes exchanged for hovels, our independence yielded up, our citizenship demoralized. These are conditions inseparable to free trade; these would be necessary, if we would command our own market among our own people; and if we would invade the world’s markets, harsher conditions and greater sacrifices would be demanded of the masses. Talk about depression—we would then have it in its fulness. We would revel in unrestrained trade. Everything would indeed be cheap, but how costly when measured by the degradation which would ensue! When merchandise is the cheapest, men are the poorest; and the most distressing experiences in the history of our country—aye, in all human history—have been when everything was the lowest and cheapest measured by gold, for everything was the highest and the dearest measured by labor. We have no wish to adopt the conditions of other nations. Experience has demonstrated that for us and ours, and for the present and the future, the protective system meets our wants, our conditions, promotes the national design, and will work out our destiny better than any other.

“With me, this position is a deep conviction, not a theory. I believe in it and thus warmly advocate it, because enveloped in it are my country’s highest development and greatest prosperity; out of it come the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for manly aspirations, with the largest rewards, dignifying and elevating our citizenship, upon which the safety and purity and permanency of our political system depend.”

But the year of his supreme success was also the year of his enemies’ seeming triumph. His congressional district in Ohio, three times vainly gerrymandered with the aim of throwing him out, had finally been so arranged as to make his re-election impossible. It was the end of his career in the House. Yet it was only the vestibule of a greater eminence. The people of Ohio made him their Governor. And when the lighter duties of four years in the state executive mansion had recuperated his powers, the nation made him its candidate for President, and elected him on an issue that meant bravery, progress and wise statesmanship.

This closes the chapter of his life which was concerned in legislation. It is the end of his congressional career. If any man shall ask what was the greatest achievement of those fourteen years, the answer must be: “William McKinley’s triumph for Protection!” He was the champion of that doctrine, the first man to advocate it as a principle to be preserved until the need should pass, the first to put a conscience in the discussions of a tariff. And he was, without exception, the ablest man that ever defended it, the bravest man that ever advocated it, the most successful man that ever supported it. Protection was by no means his one accomplishment. He was active in all legislation, neglectful of none. But his position on the Ways and Means Committee, so long held, made this master issue his chief concern.

CHAPTER XIII.
McKINLEY’S LIFE WAS PROTECTION’S ERA.

It is a curious fact that the public service of William McKinley began with the rise of the protective era, and ended with the passing of that system as a dominant and paramount policy in the history of the American republic.

His life embraces the era of protection to American industry. As he was its most sagacious and successful champion, as he in his labors expressed that thought as the controlling motive in governmental policy, so his death falls in the year when a protective tariff is recognized on all hands as having accomplished its great and useful mission. And the passing of McKinley is the retiring-time of that issue which has, more than anything else, made a mighty nation on the western continent.

It may be fairly said that there was no protective tariff, as such, until the close of the war. Such efforts in that direction as had been made under the leadership of Henry Clay and the earlier theorists among statesmen never rose to the magnitude of impressing a national policy, for the reason that the country was not ripe for them. In that formative period which preceded the election of Lincoln, men might speculate and debate and prophesy about free trade and protection, but the Union as a nation was growing; and it needed the great issue no more than a boy of fifteen needs the book called “Every Man His Own Lawyer.” The nation was growing. It wanted farmers to broaden the plowland area, to lay the wide and deep foundation of agriculture, which must be the first step toward the construction of a great and permanent country.

Of course the Morrill tariff bill was not a measure of protection. It was a war measure. The question of economics was by no means necessary, and by no means invoked in that debate which preceded the enactment of the great tariff measure of 1861, or the supplementary bills which succeeded it in the process of raising revenue for the struggling nation. But when the war was over men of all parties and of every section were face to face with the greatest problem that has ever affected civil government.

The time had come when a burdened people demanded a reduction of taxes. It was no wonder. They had suffered grievously and with a splendid patriotic patience through four years of war; had paid the mighty demands of a government which needed the sacrifices of its people if it were to escape sacrifice itself, and now, in the relaxation which followed a disbandment of the armies, the public expected a lightening of their burdens.

The tendency of thoughtless men was to return to the free trade schedules of that formative period when the God of Destinies helped the farmer and bade the manufacturer “Wait!” There were few men wise enough to see the peril in that transition. Lot Morrill had said the tariff was a war measure, and it was. But free trade would have been a peace measure more disastrous than war. And Major William McKinley, returning from four years’ service for a nation worth saving, knew that protection was none the less the policy demanded by all the best interests of the nation, now no less than when the national expenses were millions a day.

It required a brave man to face the storm of protest against a policy of protection, and an able man to prove arguments for the fortifying of that position. But William McKinley was both brave and capable, and he was hardly home from the army when he was entangled in a debate with a freetrade resident of Poland. It was a public occasion, and the speakers were allowed half an hour each, with a board of judges to decide as to who had won the debate. No election or other observable political significance hung on the issue, but none the less it was a notable night, a stupendous incident in the life of William McKinley. He knew the nation needed a policy of protective tariff for the building up of an industrial empire on the broad and deep foundation of agriculture which three quarters of a century had laid. He knew that the time had come when the mills were important if the nation would grow strong—and that the mills could be summoned into existence only by the adoption of a policy of encouragement and fostering care.

So far as the decision of the judges was concerned, William McKinley lost the debate. Two of the three held to the untaught sentiment that free trade was holy and the tariff a curse. The third saw and apprehended the logic and the argument of Major McKinley; but he was outvoted, and the public decision was that a protective tariff was impolitic and unjust, and should be abandoned.

Probably no event in the life of this advancing young man is more important than that. Probably no night of his life is so crowded with national interest as was this when he gave his mature thought and the rare powers of his young manhood to the discussion of this great question. He could easily smile at the verdict in that little room, in that little Ohio town by two little men who are now dead and forgotten. For he knew that a greater verdict in a greater arena, by a nation that shall never die and be forgotten, would abundantly and triumphantly and gloriously sustain him.

And he worked harder after that, finding support for the position which he recognized as essentially right and wise. He had enjoyed debates in the old days of his boyhood, of his school and college experience; and now he felt the impulse of a national summons to service as sacred as that which led him into the career of a soldier. In the confusion which followed war, men of all parties and from every part of the nation, and of every degree of influence, were either openly declaring or tacitly confessing that the protective tariff must and would be repealed. There was an element wise as McKinley, which recognized the error of the doctrine, but there were very few as brave. And the result was that in the first ten years after the war a public sentiment was formed which led inevitably toward absolute free trade. And even twenty years after the war the courage of this strong young son of Ohio was so largely wanting in the public men of his party that they dodged the issue; that they continued to promise a reduction or a repeal; that they appointed by presidential act, authorized by congressional action a tariff commission which should devise ways and means for the reduction or obliteration of the protective tariff. It is small credit to those men to add that the general motive was delay—temporizing; that they felt the wisdom of retaining the protective feature, and hoped “something would happen” to convince the country without sacrificing the growing industries. Braver men would have faced the truth as William McKinley faced it, and have fought for a high protective policy as a matter of principle.

Meantime, he went to the Albany Law School; for he had resisted the temptation to adopt a military life, and had declined with thanks the offer of a commission in the regular army. And at the Albany Law School he studied with diligence, and fitted himself for the successful career at the bar, and for that wider career as an advocate in the court of the nation, toward which he had been unwaveringly moving from his earliest boyhood.

He came back from the institution which had developed the talents of some of America’s ablest jurists, and looked about him for a good location. He chose Canton, the seat of Stark County, as offering the best opportunities for a young lawyer. And because he had been a soldier, because he was as modest as able, and as industrious as orderly, he received recognition at the hands of that portion of the public which finds litigation necessary.

He had all his life kept up his connection with the Methodist Church, and the denomination at Canton was in a flourishing condition. He was possessed of a pleasing address, and easily made and retained friendships. He was a Republican, and while never fanatical, regarded the success of that party as best for the prosperity of the nation. And as he was in all ways deserving, he won favor in the eyes of Stark County Republicans. The county was Democratic by more than a thousand majority. But when the county convention was held at Canton in 1868, William McKinley, “as a mark of recognition,” was placed upon the ticket as a candidate for prosecuting attorney.

And he was elected. He had a genius for politics, and became a campaigner whom his political opponents recognized as embodying danger to him. So, when he had completed his first term, and was honored by his party with a renomination, the opposing forces perfected their lines, and he was defeated at the polls. That year of 1870 was not a Republican year in Ohio, anyway. It certainly was not a favorable time for a young man of ability, who sturdily held that the policy of a protective tariff was theoretically right and practically a national necessity. So he continued his private practice after the expiration of his term.

In 1871 William McKinley was married. His wife was the young and beautiful daughter of J. A. Saxton, editor of the Canton Repository, a weekly newspaper, who had made enough money out of his business, and out of his talent for trading and real estate speculation, to establish a bank in the thriving and growing town. The daughter, Miss Ida Saxton, had received a good education, had enjoyed all the advantages that a prosperous and generous father could provide, and had traveled abroad, which was an unusual privilege even for wealthy women in the middle west. Two children, both daughters, were born of this union, but the privilege of bringing them up was denied the man who in all else realized the accomplishment of all his purposes. For the children died.

But it was a natural outgrowth of this period of his life that William McKinley should follow with a still more assiduous energy the path opening before him. And in 1876 he had won a place of sufficient prominence in the party to be nominated for congress. It was the old Eighteenth district, and was represented by L. D. Woodsworth, of Mahoning, a strong Democrat and an able man. But his young rival had won a host of friends in Stark County. He could “carry his own party” to the last man. And there were hundreds of Democrats who, on personal grounds, gave him their support. Added to that, Poland was in the second county of his district, and Poland people without regard to politics, had a pride in William McKinley. He had been one of them. He had gone to the war from their town. He had come back there on his furloughs through the four busy years. And he had lived among them after laying down the sword and uniform of a soldier, preparing himself for that wider field to which they knew they must resign him. And so Poland people were for William McKinley; and the Democratic majority of 1872 was more than erased. For William McKinley was elected congressman by a majority of 1,300. And his career as a statesman had begun.

Probably no one thing contributed so much to his success in this instance as the rise and development of manufacturing interests in and about his home. Because of the encouragement afforded by the protective tariff, the mills there had started; and already the impetus of a wise economic policy was felt in his native state. And he had but to point to the smoke from multiplied chimneys, to summon the laboring men who were busy and well paid, to remind the farmers of their better market and higher prices—he had but to present these, his credentials, and his fight was won. He was a young man—a congressman at thirty-three. But he was recognized from the first as one of the best informed and least timid of the advocates of the Republican policies. James A. Garfield was the member of the Ways and Means committee from Ohio, and the younger man was at first assigned to positions of less importance. But there never was an hour from William McKinley’s appearance on the floor of the House at Washington when his counsel was not sought. Fresh from the people, rooted and grounded in the soundest policy, able to express himself in a forcible, convincing and yet pleasing manner, he occupied from the start a position of importance in congressional circles.

So that it was with a sense of genuine loss that his confreres learned he had failed of re-election in 1878. But the Ohio legislature was Democratic at the time, and it redistricted the state, so that Stark County was placed in a district hopelessly opposed in politics; and he could but make a losing fight.

Yet the hope that this rising prophet of protection for protection’s sake was removed from the field of political activity was destined to disappointment. In 1880 he accomplished the impossible, and was returned to Congress, where he resumed his labors, and renewed his march to the very leadership of the greatest legislative body in the world. In 1882 he was re-elected, but by only eight votes. And it will be remembered that 1882 was not a Republican year. The Republicans, on the one great national policy which should have inspired them, were apologetic, defensive, full of excuses and promises. They could not catch the bravery of William McKinley’s policy, nor adopt the frank straightforwardness which seemed to him not only the best policy but the most creditable statesmanship. And in 1882 the Democrats, rising to a courage and vigor hardly to be expected and rarely found in that organization, with a unity of purpose in its assaults on the tariff, had carried the country by storm. Cleveland was made Governor of New York State by the astounding majority of 192,000 against Folger, a consistent Republican of the most unexceptional character. Factional quarrels between the “Stalwart” and “Mugwump” branches of the party had given the opposition its opportunity. Congress was Democratic, and McKinley’s opponent in the campaign of 1882 brought a contest into the house, for the elimination of those eight votes. And toward the end of the session the Canton man was unseated, and his place was given to the Democrat.

But it was the destiny of this man to do a great national work, to correct the national conscience, to fix a national policy of economic truth. And when his party in the Eighteenth district met in congressional convention in 1884 no name but that of “Major McKinley” was thought of. He was elected by the greatest majority ever accorded to a candidate there. He remained in the House through the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses. In 1890 his district had again been gerrymandered with a view to his overthrow, and he was defeated at the polls for the Fifty-second.

But his work in the Lower House was done, and nothing could undo it. He had made a record as the champion of the protective tariff, had called back the leaders of his party to their duty, and had reinspired them with a courage which has never since faltered nor diminished. In his second term he made a national reputation as a tariff debater, and when James A. Garfield was advanced from the House, William McKinley succeeded him on the Ways and Means Committee, the most valuable man on the most important group of men in the nation.

In 1882 he began a systematic movement for the enactment of a tariff law which should be the expression of “the American idea,” and four years later that idea took form and effectiveness in the McKinley tariff bill which went into effect Oct. 6, 1886.

His enemies tried to see the rejection of his policy when he was defeated for re-election, after his bill became a law; but his return to Congress two years later was sufficient answer to that. And the law which he imprinted on the statute books of the nation was the crystallization of his people’s sober judgment as to a national policy, as to the wisest course in an economic system.

Remember that no tariff before that of the bill of 1890 had been openly and frankly advocated and adopted as an expression of the policy of protection to American industries. Every other bill of like nature had been devised with a view to raising revenue simply. Protection, the encouragement of industries, was a mere incident.

But this man stood for the policy which, he was confident, would bring the greatest good to the greatest number; would, both for the present and the future, be of most benefit to the nation.

The two systems are essentially different, though the purpose in each case, both by protectionists and free traders, was, of course, the good of the country. The aim of all men contending in that twenty-year debate was to achieve the best results for the people of the United States. But the forces for which William McKinley spoke held that the era of agriculture had passed, and that, while the farming interests might in no wise be neglected, the period of the factory had arrived. This man recognized the fact that a nation has definite eras in its life, as there are distinctive periods in the life of a man. St. Paul said: “When I was a child, I thought as a child. But now I am a man, and have put away childish things.” The childish things are none the less needful and important IN THAT PERIOD; but when another period comes a different treatment will appeal. And as the ante-bellum era was the era of opening the new land, of reducing the forests and reclaiming the prairies, so now had arrived the era of manufacturing the raw material produced. And for this era of the mills, a protective tariff was an absolute essential.

That bill increased the tariff rate on most articles of foreign manufacture, with a view to discourage their importation and insure a market for the goods of American making. It was prophesied by his opponents that the result of that bill, which went into effect in 1890, would be the instant paralysis of all the industries of the nation, the crushing of labor and the impoverishment of trade. But an exactly opposite effect resulted. Though the McKinley bill was permitted to remain in its entirety through but four years of life, the industrial interests of the nation went forward with an amazing advance, and the material wealth of the country—farming, manufacturing, labor, both skilled and unskilled, together with commerce by both land and sea—was vastly increased. It was the master work of William McKinley’s life. It was the crowning achievement of his labors. It was the expression of his best statesmanship. It stands to-day and it will stand to the end of time as the wisest revenue measure within the possible power of the country’s securing. He had fixed upon the world a recognition of “the American policy.” And the commerce of the world demonstrates to-day the wisdom of that schedule.

It was said at the beginning of this chapter that William McKinley’s public life embraced the whole era of protection. It began with his first election to Congress. It closed with the sudden and lamentable closing of his career by the bullet of an assassin at Buffalo. The existence of the era of protection was co-extensive with his civil service to the nation. It is identified with him, and will so remain forever. When the passing years evolved new issues—when “new occasions brought new duties”—William McKinley was ready for them. He had finished his earlier work, and was ready for the newer demands.

No one who witnessed that session of the House in 1890, when William McKinley was at the height of his congressional career, and no one who followed the published accounts of it can ever forget the great occasion. The sentiment in favor of protection was clearly the dominant sentiment of the nation. But there were conflicting interests. And the man’s masterly leadership was never more signally shown than when he won over all opposition within his party by summoning representatives of each industry, and skillfully guiding them into agreement upon a series of schedules which should be fair to all interests, and just to the people of the country. That essential unity of support having been secured, the McKinley bill became a law. Men said no agreement could be arrived at—that the rival interests were too strong and insistent to be adjusted. But the man who saw in 1866 the justness and wisdom of tariff protection as a national policy, won in 1890 the victory toward which his best abilities had been guiding him for twenty-four years.

Ten years more, and the policy he had supported, defended and glorified with his genius had accomplished its work. And with the transition into another era, this great man laid down his life.

There is something approaching the sacred in that view of the case which marks him as the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the prophet and the champion of “the American system.”

CHAPTER XIV.
McKINLEY AS GOVERNOR OF OHIO.

Major McKinley’s defeat for Congress in 1890 resulted in his nomination and triumphant election as governor of the State of Ohio. The passage of the “McKinley Bill” made the major the target for the vilest abuse from the free traders of the country, and from those whose mental range would never qualify them to judge of statecraft. But at the same time it stimulated his friends in his own State, and they determined not to lose his valuable services. The Republican press of the State clamored for his election as governor, and the Republican papers of other States agreed that no more fitting reward could be bestowed on Major McKinley than to make him chief executive of his State.

When the matter was broached to Major McKinley he expressed his willingness to accept the nomination for the office if it came spontaneously, but declared he would not enter into a contest for the honor. Though Ohio had numerous distinguished sons, many of whom were deserving of reward at the hands of the electors, there was really only one candidate for governor before the Republican convention, which was held in June, 1891. Major McKinley was nominated by acclamation, and he began a campaign that was typical of the man. He proposed that everybody should be informed on the economic questions of the day, and that every argument in opposition to the expediency and justice of the McKinley bill should be fairly met. With this object in view he started on a campaign of education, and during the canvass spoke in 86 out of 88 counties in the State. He made 130 speeches and won the admiration of Democrats as well as the heartiest support of his party-followers.

In one of his speeches, while discussing the McKinley bill, he said:

“The law of 1890 was enacted for the American people and the American home. Whatever mistakes were made in it were all made in favor of the occupations and the firesides of the American people. It didn’t take away a single day’s work from a solitary American workingman. It gave work and wages to all such as they had never had before. It did it by establishing new and great industries in this country, which increased the demand for the skill and handiwork of our laborers everywhere. It had no friends in Europe. It gave their industries no stimulus. It gave no employment to their labor at the expense of our own.

“During more than two years of the administration of President Harrison, and down to its end, it raised all the revenue necessary to pay the vast expenditures of the government, including the interest on the public debt and the pensions. It never encroached upon the gold reserve, which in the past had always been sacredly preserved for the redemption of outstanding paper obligations of the government.

“During all its operations down to the change and reversal of its policy by the election of 1892, no man can assert that in the industries affected by it wages were too high, although they were higher than ever before in this or any other country. If any such can be found, I beg that they be named. I challenge the enemies of the law of 1890 to name a single industry of that kind. Further, I assert that on the industries affected by that law, which that law fostered, no American consumer suffered by the increased cost of any home products that he bought. He never bought them so low before, nor did he ever enjoy the benefit of so much open, free, home competition. Neither producer nor consumer, employer or employe suffered by that law.”

As governor of the State, Major McKinley was animated by the broadest and most patriotic motives. His long legislative experience had equipped him admirably to meet the responsibilities of his office, and to its duties he gave the same painstaking care that marked his career as Congressman. When his first term as governor was drawing to a close, the Republicans renominated him, and after a vigorous and exciting campaign he was re-elected by a majority of 80,000 votes.

During his incumbency as chief executive of Ohio, Major McKinley endeavored to improve in every way the institutions of the State, to accelerate industry, and to conserve in every way the interests of the people. The canal interests of the State were improved; tax reforms agitated, and brought to the attention of the legislature; labor questions received his earnest attention, and through his initiative the State Board of Arbitration was established in Ohio. Laws providing for the better protection of the lives and limbs of those engaged in industrial pursuits were passed during his rule.

His sympathy with the just complaints of the workingmen was further exemplified by his use of the State troops in turbulent periods. Many times during his term of office it became necessary to call out the militia to quell disturbances and to maintain order, but never was any abuse of power permitted. During the great railroad strike, sometimes called the “Debs Rebellion,” which occurred in 1894, the State troops were on duty for three weeks guarding property and protecting citizens. There was at no time on the part of the soldiers any undue display of authority, nor any oppression of the strikers. The governor had long before given evidence of his honest regard for the welfare of the workingman. As early as 1886, when the O’Neill bill for the adjustment of controversies between inter-State common carriers and their employes by arbitration was before the House of Representatives, he said, speaking on the subject:

“I believe in the principle and tendency of the bill. It confers no rights or privileges touching arbitration which are not now enjoyed by common carriers and those engaged in their service. It leaves them where it finds them, with the right of voluntary arbitration to settle their differences through a peaceful, orderly tribunal of their own selection. It only follows the principle recognized in many States of the Union, notably in Ohio and Massachusetts, and gives national sanction and encouragement to a mode of settlement of grievances between employer and employe which is approved by the best judgment of the country and the enlightened sentiment of all civilized people. While the bill does not compel arbitration, its passage here will not be without influence as a legislative suggestion in commending the principle to both capital and labor as the best and most economic way of composing differences and settling disagreements, which experience has uniformly shown, in the absence of an amicable adjustment, results in loss to all classes of the community, and to none more than to the workingmen themselves. If by the passage of this simple measure arbitration as a system shall be aided to the slightest extent or advanced in private and public favor, or if it shall serve to attract the thoughtful attention of the people to the subject, much will have been accomplished for the good order of our communities and for the welfare and prosperity of the people.”

He declared that the bill placed both parties on an equality, in pursuing an investigation, and permitted the humblest and poorest to send for persons and papers “without incurring an expense which very often they can illy bear.” He closed his speech as follows:

“I believe, Mr. Chairman, in arbitration as a principle. I believe it should prevail in the settlement of international differences. It represents a higher civilization than the arbitrament of war. I believe it is in close accord with the best thought and sentiment of mankind; I believe it is the true way of settling the differences between labor and capital; I believe it will bring both to a better understanding, uniting them closer in interests, and promoting better relations, avoiding force, avoiding unjust exactions and oppression, avoiding loss of earnings to labor, avoiding disturbances to trade and transportation; and if this House can contribute in the smallest measure, by legislative expression or otherwise, to these ends, it will deserve and receive the gratitude of all men who love peace, good order, justice and fair play.”

The bill was passed with amendments which made it conform more fully than it did originally to the views of Major McKinley.

It was logical to assume therefore that as governor he would give to workingmen in all their acts the largest license which the security of society would permit. During the trying days of the summer of 1894 it is related that a man who employed a large number of men went to the governor and inquired what he would do about ordering out the militia in case certain contingencies arose. Governor McKinley promptly answered:

“It is needless to ask what a public officer in Ohio will do. He does his duty. The practical question is, what can you do, and what will your employes do, what can we all do properly, to divert the necessity of using force? That is the question for immediate solution, at which I have been engaged for some days.”

The same day, July 17, 1894, there was a meeting, called at his instance, in the governor’s office, between the employer, the State Board of Arbitration and citizens and business men concerned. Before midnight that same day the governor received a dispatch from Nelsonville, the headquarters of the strikers, announcing the end of the great American Railway Union strike on the Hocking Valley Railway.

In 1895 he gave another evidence of his deep concern for the welfare of the workingmen. January 7 of that year the Trades and Labor Union of the Hocking Valley mining district held a meeting at Nelsonville for the purpose of effecting an organization and formulating plans for the relief of the distress and destitution existing among the miners and their families. For months the miners had been at war with their employers, and the continued loss of income had reduced them to a state of great wretchedness. A memorial was adopted at the meeting and a committee appointed to present it to the governor. They performed the duty imposed on them, and the governor, after hearing what they had to say, requested them to return to Nelsonville and ask the mayor to call a meeting of citizens to consider the question of relief. He promised that when advised of the result of that meeting he would take immediate action looking to the carrying out of their wishes. The meeting was called, and the action of the miners at their previous meeting approved. At 11:45 p. m., January 9, the governor received a message from the chairman of the Relief Committee, saying: “Immediate relief needed.” He at once sent messengers to the proprietor of a wholesale grocery, a dealer in vegetables, flour, etc., a transfer company and the officials of the Hocking Valley Railroad Company to meet him immediately at his rooms. The object of the meeting was for the purchase of a carload of provisions and to arrange for the shipment early in the morning. The supplies were purchased and loaded in the car before 5 o’clock a. m., and within nine hours after the receipt of the message the carload of provisions was in Nelsonville ready to be distributed to the hungry.

McKinley not only purchased the supplies, but also assumed the payment of the same. It was not his purpose to ask the people to provide for the payment of this car of provisions, amounting to nearly $1,000, but some of his friends learned that he had assumed the obligation and they at once took the matter in hand and secured from State officers and heads of departments the larger proportion of the amount, which they turned over to him, this being added to his own liberal subscription, thus meeting the obligation assumed by him.

Several times afterwards he was called upon for assistance, and he responded in every instance with alacrity. He was called away from the capital on several occasions during the progress of the relief work, but each time before leaving he gave positive instructions that in the event of appeals being made for help, to see that every demand was met and not allow any one to go hungry. These instructions were adhered to, and the chairman of the General Committee reported at the close of the work that the promptness with which McKinley acted, and the liberal contributions made, prevented hunger and suffering. The result of his efforts, as shown by the report of the chairman of the Relief Committee, was that 2,723 miners and their families had been made comfortable at an expenditure of $32,796.95.

Another marked characteristic of Governor McKinley was his respect for law. He never wavered in his belief in the institutions of his country, and desired always that the law be upheld, and that every man, no matter how humble, or for what, or by whom accused, should have the benefit of all the safeguards that civilized society had erected. This was shown in October, 1894, during a lawless outbreak at Washington Court House. A man accused of a heinous crime had been apprehended, tried and sentenced to undergo the full penalty of the law. He was in jail when a mob gathered for the purpose of lynching him. The militia was sent to the scene under command of Colonel Coit for the protection of the prisoner, and the preservation of order. A conflict ensued between the troops and the populace, and three people were killed. At once a great cry arose against Colonel Coit, the claim being set up that he should not have allowed his men to fire. A court was ordered to inquire into his action, and he was exonerated. The governor sustained him throughout, and said concerning the occurrence:

“The law was upheld as it should have been, and, as I believe, it always will be in Ohio—but in this case at fearful cost. Much as the destruction of life which took place is deplored by all good citizens, and much as we sympathize with those who suffered in this most unfortunate affair, surely no friend of law and order can justly condemn the National Guard, under command of Colonel Coit, for having performed its duty fearlessly and faithfully, and in the face of great danger, for the peace and dignity and honor of the State.

“Lynching cannot be tolerated in Ohio. The law of the State must be supreme over all, and the agents of the law, acting within the law, must be sustained.

“The proceedings and findings of the court of inquiry have been carefully considered by me. I hereby announce my approval of the conclusions of said court, which find that Colonel Coit and his officers and enlisted men of the Fourteenth Infantry, O. N. G., acted with prudence and judgment and within the law, supporting the civil authority of Fayette county, and in the aid of it, and acting in pursuance of lawful orders, and that they performed their duty with singular fidelity, and that through them the majesty of the law and government by law was vindicated and sustained.”

Other mobs were met in like manner by the governor, and it became known that under his administration, at least, there could be no recurrence of such scenes as had been witnessed in Cincinnati ten years before, when an unrestrained mob burned the court house, destroyed much other property, and caused the sacrifice of many lives before order was restored.

WILLIAM McKINLEY AS GOVERNOR OF OHIO.

THE MILBURN RESIDENCE IN BUFFALO WHERE PRESIDENT McKINLEY DIED.

CHAPTER XV.
McKINLEY AS A CAMPAIGNER.

It does not appear that William McKinley, at the beginning of his career as a politician, or at any other time in his life, endeavored to project himself into any sort of leadership. His forcefulness was innate, it is true, but the motive power, always, that surcharged his work was the demand of occasion. When he became a candidate for Congress for the first time, it was because he was needed from his district to do something. That he did earnestly, energetically and thoroughly for his immediate constituents. But, in Congress, the environment of national affairs brought to him national work. It presented itself to him as being the man for that, and he took it up with the same earnestness of purpose and the same commendable self-reliance that possessed his nature in all things. He went at it thinking only of what was needed, his duty in the premises being a matter of course, just as he quietly became a private soldier when the country needed every able bodied and faithful man that it could get to do the work of war.

In the harness McKinley did, simply, always that which was for the best, as he saw it, and always in the strongest and best manner possible to him, and his career has exhibited the fact that what he thought was best, and what he was able to do, was ever valuable to those interests, including himself. In this he exemplified the principle that to do right is to do that which is for the best.

Being in politics on the most commendable plane McKinley was a politician of shrewdness without cunning and he campaigned in the strongest way without descending to questionable methods. His power as a campaigner was of the kind that does its work steadily, unfalteringly and irresistibly, straightforwardly and fairly.

Thus, in 1876, when McKinley was first set forth as a candidate for Congress, he had three rivals from his own county for the nomination, but the choice fell upon him at the first ballot, over all other candidates. Being elected, he was rechosen at each recurring convention and election for fourteen years, and always representing the district in which his county was, though it was not always the same district otherwise, for his opponents, not relishing the prominent and important place that he had taken in Congress, gerrymandered the district three times in that fourteen years hoping thus to defeat him, but in that they failed signally until the last time that game was played, but the defeat was only of a temporary character and was pitifully unsuccessful in keeping McKinley out of politics.

The first attempt to change the McKinley district resulted in the formation of a district that would have naturally presented a majority for the opposition of 1,800. But this McKinley overcame with a majority of 1,300.

In 1882, when McKinley’s party suffered everywhere and especially in his state, this resourceful man managed nevertheless to hold his own quite safely.

In 1884 the opposition gerrymandered the district again, but McKinley was not to be downed, and came to the front with a majority of 1,500.

In 1890, the very year in which the McKinley bill became a law, the district being again gerrymandered, and Stark County—that in which McKinley lived—having been districted with other counties that gave a majority for the opposition of 2,000, and McKinley’s opponent being ex-Lieutenant Warwick, a prominent and exceedingly popular man, in the fierce battle that ensued McKinley was defeated by 363 votes. The figures showed, however, that the vote was the fullest ever cast in the counties that now composed the district, and that McKinley received 2,500 more votes than had been cast for President Harrison in 1888, when Harrison was elected.

This defeat took McKinley out of Congress, but not out of public life. McKinley was thirty-four years old when he entered Congress. At that time Samuel J. Randall was the Democratic leader and Speaker and James A. Garfield at the head of the Republicans. The new Congressman from Ohio soon attracted attention, and when he left the House fourteen years afterwards he was the Republican leader by virtue of his position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The McKinley bill, which in the latter capacity he urged through Congress, at first met with disapproval by the people and was practically rejected at the next Presidential election when Cleveland was successful. Four years afterward, however, the voters saw their mistake and William McKinley was elected President on the identical issue which it was supposed had ended his political fortunes in 1892.

With fair intent, youthful ardor, a large and valuable fund of information on economic problems, painstaking industry, fidelity to political convictions, commanding address, parliamentary and diplomatic tact, dignified demeanor and philosophic turn, Congress was a wide and fertile field for the work of William McKinley. Being always at his best, because of healthfulness of mind, body and motive, he grew rapidly in strength, popularity and respect among the members of that body, and especially among his party associates. The appreciation of his ability and industry was quickly and continuously illustrated by the assignments that came to him of places upon various and important committees. On the floor of the House of Representatives he took rank early in his membership among the ablest debaters, by reason of his sincere interest in public questions, remarkable facility and power in the marshalling of facts, his forceful logic, fascinating rhetoric, fairness to opposition, freedom from excitement and bitterness, readiness and keenness in repartee and a palpable evidence at all times of cool reserve strength. In it all, however, he never spoke without occasion nor without full knowledge of his subject. He ornamented and exhausted the subject matter with which he happened to be occupied. Depth and honesty of conviction were apparent in his earnestness and his expression, lucidity of thought and easy clearness of detail gave delight when he spoke to friend and foes alike.

It was particularly fortunate to Mr. McKinley and the country that upon entering Congress as a young man he was placed upon the Ways and Means Committee that proved congenial as well as specially adaptable to him. Here, under the tutelage of such chairmen as Kelley and Garfield, it was natural that with his bent he should reach the chairmanship of that great committee himself. It was thus that the opportunity came to him for the exercise of his special genius in tariff matters. His first speech in Congress was on the tariff and his last discussed the same theme.

From the beginning of his public career McKinley was the unfaltering, sturdy, consistent and intelligent advocate of the principle of protection to American industries by tariff duties imposed with the purpose of keeping the cheap labor products of European and Asiatic countries out of our vast and desirable American markets. He was not, as was Garfield, for such protection as would lead to ultimate free trade. He believed that free trade is a dream of theorists, which would bring industrial ruin and poverty to the United States if it were put into practice, benefiting no class but the importing merchants of the seaboard cities. He had no patience with tariffs formed to “afford incidental protection.”

Tariff bills, he thought, should aim primarily at protection, and tariff legislation should be scientific and permanent, with a view to the continuous prosperity of the industrial classes. This was the chief aim of the McKinley bill, passed when he was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. No doubt other minds in both House and Senate helped to frame that measure, but McKinley’s thought and work were on every page of it. When the Republican party was defeated in 1892, largely through public misapprehension of that measure and before it had received a fair trial, McKinley was one of the few Republican leaders who continued to breast the adverse current and who never faltered a moment in the faith that the tide would set back to protection.

Others wanted to change front and abandon the high protection principle. He refused, and proceeded to realign his party on the old line of battle. He set out to educate public sentiment anew, and during his memorable stumping tour of 1894 he made 367 speeches and spoke in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. For eight weeks he averaged seven speeches a day, ranging in length from ten minutes to an hour.

In these speeches McKinley addressed himself to the country upon the demerits of the Wilson tariff bill, then on its passage, which had been denounced by President Cleveland, who belonged to the same political party as did its author, and who was of the opposite political party to that of McKinley, as “a product of perfidy and dishonor,” but who permitted it to become a law without his signature. At the same time McKinley spoke in favor of the underlying principle of the act of 1880.

This latter bill, of which McKinley was the father and which bore his name, occupied the entire time of the first session of the Fifty-first Congress, and in all that terrific debate McKinley stood as the special champion of the measure. Its passage was a monument to his ability, patience and endurance, and to his great power as a debater.

By 1884 he had won the title of “Champion of American Protection,” and in 1888 his committee report was delivered, which headed the “Mills Tariff Bill,” and that, with the speech delivered by McKinley at the time, became potent factors in the campaign that followed and in which Harrison was elected President and the political complexion of Congress was changed to one of harmony with the administration.

After his defeat for Congress McKinley remained quietly at his home, where he was again called from its privacy to consider the question of his nomination for the Governorship of Ohio. Governor Campbell had frequently boasted that he had made Ohio a permanent Democratic State, but McKinley dispelled his illusion. The Republican State convention was held at Columbus in June, 1891, and at it William McKinley was nominated Republican candidate for the Governorship, and the following November was elected Governor by 21,000 majority.

It was a typical “campaign of education” that McKinley made at this time and in it he visited eighty-six counties and delivered one hundred and thirty addresses. In all of that arduous campaign, as well as the many others that he made during his political life, McKinley’s speeches were always models of unaffected art. There was never anything that even so much as gave a hint or suggestion of “playing to the gallery.” There were no funny declamations, no pandering to anything or anybody. He stood strong, self-reliant, comfortably poised, well at ease; he spoke with an evenly-modulated and clear voice; his enunciation was distinct and his words short and simple. There was truth in sentences and sincerity in his declarations. Everybody who heard him believed what he said. He had the happy faculty of talking to all manner of persons in a way that commanded respect with awe. He was easily approached—made those who spoke to him feel “at home.” He gave comradeship naturally and commanded perfect respect in such a way that the visitor, the highest or humblest, never felt. Beside his magnetism as a politician and an orator, there was a personal charm about the man that made him as attractive to the many as he was admirable as a leader among his partisans. He won distinction for his uniform courtesy to men and deference to women. He had the same power to win men to him that Napoleon had in making himself the idol of his soldiers. Simple in his tastes, quiet in his manner, firm in his stand for a principle he believed to be right, he was ever the most courteous of men in public life. He made few enemies and held all of his friends. His patience was equal to his physical endurance and he could travel, speak, shake hands all day and yet sit down in the evening and explain to an associate the mysteries or intricacies of a tariff schedule or be a charming companion in a social circle. But in all his sociability there was a purity of speech and thought that made it impossible for even a thoughtless man of rough habits to introduce a suggestion of coarseness, profanity or vulgarity into the conversation.

In all of the trials of his political and official life no moment came when he was not plainly devoted to his invalid wife. All the world loves a noble, true lover, and such McKinley was, tender and gallant to his sweetheart wife, as he ever was before they were married a quarter of a century ago.

Illustrative of this, and exhibiting another phase of his campaigning, was an incident of June 18, 1896.

Major McKinley believed, as did nearly every other person in the United States at all interested and informed, that he would be nominated for President by the National Republican convention, then in session at St. Louis, and he was in close communication with his friends there while seated in his comfortable cottage home at Canton, Ohio. Here were assembled a few close friends, some newspaper reporters, a telegraph operator, with Major McKinley, his wife and mother. The day had passed pleasantly and in happy expectancy. At last came one telegram that brought a sparkle of delight to the eyes of the great man who was most interested, personally. It told of the nomination by an enthusiastic and overwhelming vote of McKinley.

Without a word McKinley took the telegram across the room to where his wife sat, bent lovingly over her and kissed her flushed and fevered cheek, giving her at the same time the pleasant message. She did not speak. Her heart was too full. She who had watched him through so many years in his ever upward course, she who was proud of him as her husband and hero, and whom she had seen cast aside honors, riches and glory, when to accept them would have been to compromise his moral honor and to stain his conscience; she looked all her gratefulness and love, and then found words to say, affectionately, “Thank you, dear!”

The wisdom that had marked McKinley’s entire course in politics was destined to break the way for him to the White House, and now it had already made him the central figure of one of the most brilliant and yet unostentatious campaigns that the republic has ever known.

When his prominent rival announced that he would travel over the country making his campaign of speeches from the rear platform of a railway coach, Major McKinley did not become alarmed, but chose the opposite and more potent course. Although urged to do so, he refused to enter joint debates, not fearing his ability to cope with his opponents, but believing that the best interests of his party would not be subserved thereby. He remained at home and his popularity became so great that large delegations from every walk in life visited him daily, making speeches which evinced their faith in this wise leader and their loyalty to him.

McKinley was, of course, called upon to reply, and then the wisdom of his manner of campaign became palpably evident. The press of the country reported all the speeches of McKinley and his visitors, and Canton became the political center of the United States.

Trainloads of people, delegations from cities and clubs, from organizations of old soldiers, labor organizations, social circles, and all manner of industrial combinations, employers and employed, came day in and day out, through all of the long campaign. These proceeded at once to the McKinley cottage, and all were cordially received by the future President. Such unique scenes have never been witnessed in a political campaign, and have only been suggested by the “Log Cabin Campaign,” of 1840, when “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” was the rallying cry of the elder Harrison’s confident and enthusiastic partisans. Nothing could have more eloquently and earnestly emphasized the faith of the great body of the people in their loyalty and trust in McKinley and the hopeful expectations of the country, than did the Canton campaign, which was carried to a common center rather than scattered abroad, and which was conducted by the voters rather than the candidate.

Many of the speeches delivered on the lawn at the McKinley home have properly taken a place in the records of the nation’s history, because they not only show the earnest trust of the people in McKinley, but from those delivered by him have given him the stamp of the patriot, statesman and orator, and they will be always valuable as edifying and instructive in their dealing with American policies, and brilliantly illustrative of the economics involved.

Three great questions—tariff, currency and pensions—were specially involved as being uppermost in the minds of the people, and McKinley’s exact position, with relation to these important propositions, was a matter of deep concern. No doubt seemed to exist, however, as to his views, because all through his past life the record had shown his loyalty to the cardinal principles of which these questions were phases, shades and details, and his faithfulness now was accepted, his re-indorsement of it all was simply a pleasant campaign ceremony and a reiteration for the benefit of misinformed. The whole affair was another and a greater “campaign of education.”

On the three questions that were special issues McKinley gave forth no uncertain sound. Equivocation was foreign to him under any circumstances, and in these he was at all times earnestly the advocate of a protective tariff, sound money and liberal pensions to the Union soldiers who had responded so nobly to their country’s call when its life and weal were endangered. Upon all questions of national policy McKinley was clear and emphatic, and never in the history of politics has there been a candidate for the exalted place of President who has been accepted with such cordiality and unanimity by his party.

The campaign progressed satisfactorily to the managers of the McKinley interest and the great candidate deeply endeared himself to the public by expressing unbounded faith and unwavering hope in the judgment and good will of the common people. The campaign, however, presented many new and confusing phases and there were obstructing conditions that had never before arisen. Populism had grown formidable and party alignments had become much confused. A feeling of extreme anxiety had grown out of the uncertainties of the business situation. The wheels of industry stood still, and all business was inert, alarmed and awaiting the results of the election and the developments that would follow.

The world was interested, for “Hard Times” was walking with it, arm in arm, and holding it back. Europe preserved an anxious silence, Asia felt the unusual depression of uncertainty, South America was eagerly listening for the result. Election day came and the vast mass of voters in the United States arose early, impressed by the words of William McKinley as to what should be done. Patriotic duty was the thought of the hour. Upon that day a vast majority of the sovereign voters, throwing off all trammels, cast their ballots in favor of industry and against calamity. The day was bright throughout the land, the friends of industrious prosperity took the color of the day, and the noiseless fall of ballots established and stamped the people’s will. The result was quickly known—McKinley and prosperity were elected. The largest popular majority ever given was that by the people for the people, and William McKinley’s power as a campaigner had wrought wondrous good to the republic and the world.

CHAPTER XVI.
GOVERNOR McKINLEY’S FINANCIAL TROUBLES.

One of the sad events in the career of President McKinley was the loss of his fortune in the year 1893. It was during his first term as Governor of Ohio, and was a period of humiliation and anguish to the Governor and his wife, but they met the crisis with that quiet fortitude that ever characterized them, and found friends in abundance to aid them in their distress. This money trouble was not brought about by any wild speculation on the part of the Governor. He had never evinced any desire to seek riches through such agencies, and so faithfully had he applied himself to the people’s interests that, notwithstanding his years of hard work, he was worth not to exceed $20,000, which was invested in securities and real estate.

The difficulty which swallowed up the Governor’s fortune, and that of his wife, resulted from his endorsing notes for a friend. This friend was Robert L. Walker, a capitalist banker and manufacturer, of Youngstown. Mr. Walker was president of the Farmers’ National Bank of Youngstown, the Girard Savings Bank, a stamping mill company, a stove and range company, and was interested in several coal mines in Western Ohio and Eastern Pennsylvania. He was one of the strongest men in the community, was supposed to be worth more than $250,000, and enjoyed the confidence of everybody who knew him.

When Major McKinley returned from the war and was ambitious to become a lawyer, he found the struggle a hard one. His service as a soldier had not enabled him to save anything of consequence, and when poverty pressed him he turned to Mr. Walker for aid. He was not disappointed. Mr. Walker proved a friend in need, and the Major was not the man to forget a kindness. After he entered political life, he again had need of financial assistance. In his first congressional campaign his expenses were heavy, and it became necessary for him to raise $2,000 with which to cancel a mortgage on his wife’s property. Mr. Walker loaned him the money, and it is probable that at subsequent periods other loans were made to the Major. He was constantly under heavy expense, owing to the illness of his wife, and had no regular income save his salary of $5,000 as Congressman.

The first loan was repaid by Major McKinley out of his salary within two years, and it is certain that all of his subsequent financial obligations were promptly met up to the time of the crash.

Under such circumstances it was not strange that Major McKinley, having become Governor, and having become possessed of some money of his own, should be called upon to help out his old friend when he needed a little accommodation. Mr. Walker applied to the Governor to indorse his paper from time to time and the Governor willingly accommodated him, never questioning the amount, nor the circumstances for which the money was required.

These accommodations were spread over a considerable period of time, and it is probable that in the course of his business Mr. Walker took up many of the notes endorsed by the Governor. But his affairs became more and more involved, and early in 1893 Mr. Walker informed the Governor that he was in great need of money and asked the Governor to endorse his notes, which he desired to have discounted. The Governor did not hesitate an instant. The man who had befriended him needed aid, and so far as the Governor could render it he did so. Governor McKinley understood at the time that the notes signed by him aggregated about $15,000. They were good at any bank in Ohio, and no trouble was experienced by Mr. Walker in discounting them.

The Governor gave no further thought to the matter until February 17, 1893, when Youngstown, as well as the commercial circles of Ohio, were startled by the announcement of the assignment of Robert L. Walker. A judgment for $12,000 had been entered against the Youngstown Stamping Company, and inability to meet it caused Mr. Walker to assign. As soon as the fact became known Mr. Walker’s other enterprises began to topple, and the next day all were swallowed up in the crash.

Governor McKinley was on his way to attend a banquet given by the Ohio Society in New York when he was informed of the disaster which had overtaken his friend. He cancelled his engagement in New York by telegraph and immediately started for Youngstown. In the meantime those interested had been figuring, and it was estimated that the liabilities of Mr. Walker aggregated about $200,000. His available assets were figured at about one-half that amount.

At Youngstown the Governor began to receive telegrams from banks all over the state, announcing that they held some of his paper. He had been led to believe that the notes had been discounted at only three banks, and was at a loss to understand the situation, until it transpired that instead of a liability of $15,000, his name was on paper amounting to nearly $100,000! The Governor was under the impression that many of the notes he had signed were executed for the purpose of taking up notes previously given and which had fallen due. It was soon found that the old notes had not been paid, and that the Governor’s obligations amounted to far more than he was able to pay.

The Governor had not a particle of interest in any of Mr. Walker’s properties, and all that he had done for that unfortunate gentleman was done out of pure gratitude. After a conference with his Youngstown friends, in which the true state of affairs was disclosed, the Governor said:

“I can hardly believe this, but it appears to be true. I don’t know what my liabilities are, but whatever I owe shall be paid dollar for dollar.”

At this time Mrs. McKinley owned property valued at $75,000, which had been left her by her father. As there seemed no other way of meeting the crisis, the Governor and his wife, on February 22, made an absolute assignment of all their property to a board of trustees, to be used, without preference, for the equal payment of the creditors. The trustees were: H. H. Kohlsaat, Chicago; Myron T. Herrick, Cleveland; and Judge Day, of Canton, Ohio. Friends urged Mrs. McKinley, at this time, to retain an interest in her property, but she refused to do so, transferring all her fortune to M. A. Hanna, of Cleveland.

This calamity weighed heavily upon the Governor, and he thought of giving up public life and returning to the practice of his profession. To friends with whom he talked, he said:

“I did what I could to help a friend who had befriended me. The result is known. I had no interest in any of the enterprises Mr. Walker was carrying. The amount of my endorsements is in excess of anything I dreamed. There is but one thing for me to do—one thing I would do—meet this unlooked for burden as best I can. I have this day placed all my property in the hands of trustees, to be used to pay my debts. It will be insufficient, but I will execute notes and pay them as fast as I can. I shall retire from politics, take up the practice of law, and begin all over again.”

It was at this time that the Governor’s friends throughout the country began to bestir themselves for the purpose of aiding him financially. The Chicago Inter-Ocean started a popular fund for the purpose, and money began to roll in. Governor McKinley refused to accept a dollar of this money, and it was by his direction returned to the donors, with his thanks for their disinterested friendship. His friends were not to be denied, however, and a number of them decided to subscribe privately to a fund to take up the Walker notes. Among these gentlemen were M. A. Hanna and Myron T. Herrick, Cleveland; P. D. Armour, Marshall Field and H. H. Kohlsaat, Chicago; and Bellamy Storer and Thomas McDougall, Cincinnati. The management of the fund was placed in the hands of Mr. Kohlsaat, who afterwards said of the matter:

“One of the chief reasons why the subscription plan was adopted was because a number of subscriptions were received anonymously and could not be returned. There were over 4,000 subscriptions sent in, and when the last piece of paper was taken up bearing Major McKinley’s name, no more subscriptions were received, and some were returned. No list of the subscribers was kept, and Governor McKinley does not know to this day, with the possible exception of four or five names, who contributed the money.

“When Governor McKinley saw the publication of the subscription scheme he wrote me absolutely declining to receive a dollar. Mr. Hanna and his other friends told him to leave the matter alone, for if his friends wished to assist him they should have the privilege.”

The indebtedness having been satisfied in full, Mrs. McKinley’s property was deeded back to her, and she and the Governor were left in the same position financially they were before the crash occasioned by Mr. Walker’s failure.

It was a graceful and fitting act for the people thus to have relieved the Governor of the burden resting upon him. He had given practically all his life to the public service, and was comparatively a poor man. If he had given to his own interests the same fidelity which he devoted to the interests of the public his financial reward would have been such that he would have had no need of assistance in carrying such an indebtedness. As it was, he did the only manly thing possible. He acknowledged the debt, and made such preparations to pay it as were within his power. He did not consider the hardship he must endure in “beginning all over.” People had paid out their money on their faith in his endorsement, and he did not intend they should lose a penny. It was no stain on the Governor’s honor that he had endeavored to help a friend and been financially ruined in the effort; and he was in no wise to be criticised when he permitted his friends, for whose interests he had so long labored, to bear the burden his generosity had put upon him.

CHAPTER XVII.
McKINLEY’S LOYALTY TO SHERMAN, BLAINE AND HARRISON.

Governor McKinley’s splendid record as a public servant made him a presidential quantity long before he was put forward for the nomination as the “favorite son” of Ohio; but he was ever loyal to his party’s interest, and his party associates, and at no time allowed ambition to blind him to duty. This was clearly evidenced in the Republican National conventions held in 1884 and 1888. It was in these gatherings that Major McKinley’s claims to leadership—or at least to be considered as one of the prominent men of the nation in the councils of his party—came to be recognized. He was a “Blaine” man at this convention. In supporting Mr. Blaine he but represented the overwhelming sentiment of the Mahoning valley; and yet, while he favored Mr. Blaine, he had the kindliest feeling for the illustrious Senator from Ohio, John Sherman, who at that convention was also a candidate for the Presidency. Major McKinley was a strong advocate of the sentiment that all legitimate means should be sought to nominate Mr. Blaine, but if that was impossible, Ohio should cast a solid vote for Mr. Sherman.

The Ohio Republican state convention was held at Cleveland in April, 1884. McKinley went to Cleveland fresh from a tariff debate in Congress, and was made permanent chairman of the convention. The Blaine following manifestly was in the majority at the convention, but the Sherman men had the best organization, and most of the “old-time” politicians of the state were pronouncedly in favor of the Ohio Senator. The great struggle at the convention was on the election of four delegates-at-large. Although it was well understood that Foraker’s first choice was Sherman, the Blaine men generously acquiesced in his election by acclamation as a delegate-at-large. A number of names were then presented for the remaining three places, and a sensation was created when one delegate mounted a chair and nominated Major McKinley.

Major McKinley from his place as presiding officer thanked the convention, but said that he could not allow his name to go before it at that time, as he had promised that he would not allow his name to be used while the names of certain candidates were before the convention. The uproar became tumultuous. A majority of the delegates were plainly in favor of the election of Major McKinley by acclamation, although there was some objection. One of the delegates, assuming the prerogatives of the chair, put the motion, and declared it carried. Major McKinley ruled that the motion had not prevailed. General Grosvenor mounted the platform and the second time put the motion and declared it carried.

Again Major McKinley ruled that the motion had not prevailed and insisted on the vote being taken on the names already submitted, excluding his own. Once more General Grosvenor arose—this time to a point of order. He insisted that Major McKinley had been elected by acclamation, and that the convention had now to elect two more delegates-at-large. The chair overruled the point of order, and amid tumultuous confusion ordered the balloting to go on. A delegate arose and asked the convention to consider Major McKinley as having been put in nomination, despite his declination. At this there were thunders of cheers. From early in the balloting it was evident that Major McKinley was bound to be elected. Counties that had favored other candidates abandoned them and voted solidly for the Major. After between 300 and 400 votes had been cast for Major McKinley and it was recognized by everybody that he had already been elected, a motion was made that he be elected by acclamation. Further contest was stopped, and Major McKinley was elected a delegate-at-large by acclamation.

In the National Convention at Chicago Major McKinley bore himself modestly, but his great quality of leadership came to the front by force of circumstances. He only spoke two or three times from the floor of the convention, but every time he arose he attracted attention, and the influence he exerted was remarkable. At the critical time during the convention his was the voice that rallied the Blaine forces. Three ballots had been taken. Blaine gained on each ballot. The final and desperate effort was made by the other candidates under the lead of the dashing Foraker, in Sherman’s behalf, for an adjournment. There was pandemonium, and there threatened to be a panic.

In the midst of the storm Major McKinley arose. He waved his hand and the tumult ceased. Calm and like granite he stood the master spirit of the convention. His short speech was carried in clarion tones all over the immense hall. As a friend of Blaine, he said, he recognized and respected the rights of the friends of other candidates to secure an adjournment, and concluded:

“Let the motion be put and let everybody favorable to the nomination of Blaine vote against it.”

That settled it. Under Major McKinley’s leadership, assumed spontaneously and boldly, the Blaine men accepted the challenge, the motion for an adjournment was voted down, and the victory was won. It was not defeat that Major McKinley turned aside—the situation was not so serious as that—but in a crisis, when the Blaine men were getting demoralized and the convention was turning itself into a mob, the Major, leaping to the front, by one command marshaled the Blaine men into line and pressed them forward to their already sighted victory. Major McKinley was chairman of the committee on resolutions at that convention, and when he appeared to read the platform he received an ovation that was one of the features of that great event.

Major McKinley’s next appearance at a Republican national convention was in 1888, and this time he came at the head of the Ohio delegation, and in John Sherman’s behalf. At this convention Mr. McKinley conspicuously illustrated his character for loyalty to his friends and his word. No candidate had been able to secure a majority. Sherman, Alger, Allison, Harrison, Gresham, and Depew, all had a strong following, but none was near a nomination. Major McKinley, at the head of the Ohio delegation, instructed to vote his delegation solidly for Sherman, was one of the heroes of the convention. His entrance at each session was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. Day and night he was at work among the various state delegations, laboring to secure votes for Ohio’s great financier. On the sixth ballot a delegate voted for William McKinley, and was greeted by cheers which swelled again and again before silence could be restored. The next state that was called cast seventeen votes for Major McKinley, and again the cheers broke forth. The drift was unmistakably setting toward McKinley like an ocean tide.

Everyone expected to see the Garfield nomination of 1880 repeated. But they were disappointed. The roll call was interrupted by the Major, who, leaping upon a chair at the end of the middle aisle, pale, but calm and determined, uttered a speech which, unpremeditated as it was, has seldom been surpassed for eloquence, candor and unselfish loyalty. In it he declared his inability to be a candidate with honor to himself, and proclaimed his unswerving loyalty to the Ohio chieftain. The tide was turned. On the seventh ballot Benjamin Harrison was named, but McKinley went home to Ohio stronger than ever in the hearts of his fellow men.

Some time before the Republican National Convention of 1892, held in Minneapolis, Minn., June 7, Governor McKinley had privately and publicly expressed himself as in favor of the renomination of President Harrison. Having committed himself, the Governor stood by his declaration. He was elected a delegate-at-large as a Harrison man, and the understanding was that Ohio would vote solidly for the President’s nomination.

The convention elected Governor McKinley its permanent chairman. R. M. Nevin of Dayton was his alternate. Before he took the chair as presiding officer the Governor specifically charged Mr. Nevin to vote for Harrison. Only one vote was taken on the nomination for President. When Ohio was called ex-Governor Foraker said Ohio asked time for a consultation, and after a pause the vote of the state was announced as: Harrison, 2 votes; William McKinley, 44. Chairman McKinley immediately sprang from his seat and shouted:

“I challenge the vote of Ohio!”

A brief and animated debate then ensued between ex-Governor Foraker and Governor McKinley, in which Foraker told the chairman that he had ceased to be a member of the Ohio delegation on assuming the post of presiding officer, and could not be recognized. Finally a roll call of the Ohio delegation was ordered, and this resulted, McKinley, 45; Harrison, 1. The only vote for Harrison cast by the Ohio delegation was that cast by Governor McKinley’s alternate. President Harrison was renominated on the first and only ballot, but the Governor had 182 votes cast for him despite the fact that he was not a candidate. At the conclusion of the balloting Governor McKinley took the floor and moved that the President’s nomination be made unanimous, and the motion carried. The Governor was chosen chairman of the commission that officially notified the President of his nomination.

The result of the campaign of 1892 was a surprise to both the leading political parties. Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, was elected, and both the house and senate had large Democratic majorities. The political revolution was remarkable, and was largely due to the Populist movement, and to fusion between the Populists and Democrats in the South and West. The clamor for the free coinage of silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1, and the industrial depression which set in in 1893, brought Governor McKinley into the public eye as the man calculated to restore prosperity to the country. Meanwhile he adhered strictly to his duties as governor of Ohio.

DR. P. M. RIXEY, PRESIDENT McKINLEY’S FAMILY PHYSICIAN.

GOVERNOR McKINLEY IN HIS LIBRARY GIVING INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS POLITICAL MANAGERS. (1896.)

CHAPTER XVIII.
FIRST NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT.

At no time in the history of the Republican party has there been such an array of brilliant and worthy men before the country named for the honor of Presidential candidates as at that period when the National Republican Convention of 1896 was to make a choice from the shining list. That convention was remarkable and unique, more so than any other convention of this organization, whose first President, a pioneer of universal freedom, a pathfinder across the western wilderness that is now an empire, Colonel John Charles Fremont, who was presented for the suffrage of the people forty years before. That pioneer candidate was defeated because the day of broad thought had not arisen. The rising storm of civil strife swept the next candidate of the party, immortal Lincoln, to the highest place in the nation, from whence he guided the Republic and its destinies through the raging tempest until an assassin’s missile laid him low, and that at the moment when the country could least have spared him, and when it seemed that fate to be just might have been more kindly to both him and his people, for he deserved to enjoy the fruit of his work, and the people would have had pleasure and profit in his presence.

Of no other such conventions is there a more interesting story than that which might be given of the convention at St. Louis in June, 1896, which made William McKinley its candidate, and who is another martyr of the Republic, slain by organized assassination, because the nation had placed him in conspicuous exaltation.

Of the great ones whose personal partisans and whose high places among the people had made them prominent in the premises, Thomas B. Reed of Maine was among the foremost. He was without a superior among that many for intelligence, wit and general ability, and there can be no question that, had he been nominated and elected as Chief Magistrate, he would have given the country a worthy and thoroughly, even distinctly, American administration.

William B. Allison of Iowa, who was a delegate to the Chicago convention of 1860, that nominated Abraham Lincoln, and a Senator, who had made a national and well-deserved fame for patriotic statesmanship, was another, now demanded by a large following, and he had already been a prominent candidate for President before preceding conventions.

Levi P. Morton, ex-Vice-President of the United States and governor of the mighty State of New York, a man of glorious record and accepted ability, who was honored and respected by friends and foes, was also of the array of eligible men whose friends asked for him the nomination.

Quay of Pennsylvania, Alger of Michigan, Sherman of Ohio, Thurston of Nebraska, all of the best kind of “Presidential timber,” and numerous others of more or less distinction, capacity and merit, were warmly and enthusiastically urged by their partisans.

Governor Morton quickly announced that he would not allow himself to be made a candidate before the convention unless a real one, meaning that he must not be placed in such a position as a compliment to himself and his following, or with the idea of using him as the means for securing the nomination of some one else. Hon. Thomas Platt, the shrewd and powerful manipulator of politics and politicians, had secured the pledge of the New York delegation for Morton, and with such an array of 34 electoral votes from such a State, Morton seemed to be a formidable man in the situation, with an endorsement to be proud of and one that would command the deference of that great body.

New England was strong in her pride and confidence in her brilliant son, and had won many promises for Reed, but small revolts here and there made his hold precarious, and the defection of Congressman Manley of Maine at the very moment when his influence and assistance was most necessary seriously and dangerously affected Reed’s chances. Appalled by the mighty array that favored McKinley, the Maine Congressman deserted the New England favorite and dismay and disorganization took possession of their camp.

Much there was of this preliminary skirmishing among the partisans of all the available ones, but in it all a potent fact was staring at the fight, and became so apparent that it was at last candidly acknowledged.

The feeling for Governor William McKinley of Ohio was constantly gathering strength. The pressure from outside was too strong to withstand. For weeks before the convention the Republican public had been shouting McKinley, and in a tone that could not be ignored. The voice and the force of the people pressed hard upon the convention. The newspapers teemed with his praise; his face and record were constantly being presented; buttons bearing his portrait and mottoes that epitomized his principles were seen everywhere, in city, town and country, and thousands who had been, theretofore, but little interested in politics became enthusiastic champions of the man from Ohio.

William McKinley had been before the people, not as a candidate for President, but as the ardent advocate of measures that intelligent persons thought more of national prosperity than of partisan politics. The quick-seeing people had heard and read of his plans for redeeming the country and casting off its burden of distress, “Hard Times,” and this had brought the tide of public favor and endorsement.

With this and all the excellent qualities of the man, in which the people had been instructed, wise, sagacious, far-seeing and powerful friends, adepts in the science of politics, who made no mistakes, took the matter in hand, before the convention had assembled, and then into it, at the proper time, and they kept the front of the fight well aligned and unbroken to victory.

The movement for McKinley was skillfully presented as that of “the masses against the bosses.” In some respects that was what it was. The bosses fought for others in the convention, but the will of the people carried. The pressure of the masses was for McKinley, and though the people stood on the outside the avalanche of popular opinion swept over all. The politicians opposed the “Ohio idea” and fought desperately. Platt, the most adroit of them all, threatened, cajoled, combined and bluffed. Reed’s managers tried tact, diplomacy, compromise and all else available, the opponents of McKinley of all elements held all sorts of “star chamber” sessions time and time again, and on the night before the convention planned together until daylight endeavoring to fix some combination to defeat McKinley, but Mark Hanna, the manager of the McKinley campaign, kept in the even tenor of his way, doing his work as past master of political strategy, smiled and feared not. Certain safety gave him ease, and masterly he held his way with coolness and calculation.

It was evident from the first that there was only one dangerous rock upon which the great convention might split. There were those in the convention from the far West, whose local interests in silver would overcome party fealty and the question of a gold standard of currency or unlimited silver coinage was one that required strong, unfailing nerve to face it. As strong a factor as the tariff always was and always will be, it was temporarily relegated to the background, as there was not a possibility of serious dissension upon the question of protection, for which the party of the convention naturally stood, under any circumstances.

But unquestionably there was a wide variance in many quarters between the “gold” and “silver” men. While the East and the older sections of our country were uncompromising in their demand for gold as the single standard, some of the Republicans beyond the Mississippi insisted upon a plank acknowledging silver, and open threats were made that in case of refusal they would bolt the convention and affiliate with the party representing their views. The question was as to how far this disaffection extended. The pages immediately following will answer that question.

Meanwhile Governor McKinley at his home in Canton, Ohio, gave no sign. The lessons of former candidates who had undone themselves by tongue or pen were not lost upon him, and he remained resolutely mute. He was referred to as the “wabbling candidate,” and some of his earlier expressions were quoted against him; but nothing sufficed to draw him out. He quietly bided his time, and who shall say he was not wise?

It was about half an hour past noon, on Tuesday, June 16, 1896, that the eleventh national convention of the Republican party was called to order by the Hon. Thomas Henry Carter, chairman of the Republican National Committee. The tremendous structure, known as the Auditorium or Convention Hall, is capable of accommodating an immense assemblage, and it is estimated that more than 40,000 visitors had flocked to St. Louis. Fortunately the torrid weather for which the Mound City is noted and dreaded held off, though it gave a taste of its terrible power to smite before final adjournment came.

For the first time in the history of national conventions, the opening prayer was made by an Israelite, in the person of Rabbi Samuel Sale, pastor of the Shaare Emeth congregation. His invocation was devout, and, at its close, the secretary read the call issued by the National Committee for the convention. He was not heard fifty feet away, not so much because of his weakness of voice, as on account of the wretched acoustic qualities of the building. Chairman Carter then presented the name of Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana as temporary chairman. No voice was raised in opposition, and the tall, slender man, with close-cropped beard and mustache, came forward and delivered an address that was frequently interrupted by applause. It was an arraignment of the Democratic administration for its many shortcomings, and an argument that the prosperity of the country at large could be secured only by the adoption of the principles of the Republican party. Sound currency, protection, sympathy for Cuba, and the certainty that the candidates about to be named would be the next President and Vice-President of the United States, were the principal features of Chairman Fairbanks’ speech, which was received with many expressions of approval. At its conclusion the necessary officials of the convention were appointed, the members of the various committees announced, and, after a session of less than two hours, an adjournment was had to 10 o’clock Wednesday.

Between the adjournment and the coming together on the morrow, much effective work was done. While the sentiment of the delegates was overwhelmingly in favor of “sound currency,” or the single gold standard, there was a diversity of opinion in many quarters as to whether the word “gold” should be used in the platform. A considerable number thought the latter was sufficiently explicit without the word, but the insistence of others compelled a yielding of the point: it was decided that the all-potent word should appear. Since adjournment Mr. Hanna has asserted that the gold plank was agreed upon by him or his associates before the arrival of the delegates from the East, who were popularly credited with the formulation of the clause in question.

The convention reassembled at a quarter to eleven on Wednesday, and was opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. W. G. Williams, after which the real work began. The report of the Committee on Permanent Organization presented the name of Senator J. N. Thurston of Nebraska as chairman, made the secretaries, sergeant-at-arms and other temporary officers permanent officers of the convention, and gave a list of vice-presidents, consisting of one from each State. It was accepted and Senator Thurston was loudly applauded as he took his seat.

The address of Mr. Thurston pleased all by its terseness and brevity.

Awaiting the report of the Committee on Credentials the convention adjourned until 2 o’clock, and at 3 that afternoon Chairman Thurston called the body to order. Bishop Arnett of Ohio offered the opening prayer and Mr. Madden of Chicago presented to the chairman a gavel made from timber of a house in which Abraham Lincoln once lived. Another gavel was also presented, carved from the homestead of Henry Clay, “The Father of Protection.”

The Committee on Credentials then presented majority and minority reports, the former of which favored the seating of the Higgins delegates and those at large from Delaware as against the Addicks delegates, and the seating of the list of Texas delegates, which was headed by John Grant. After a warm discussion the majority report was adopted by the vote of 545½ to 359½. This vote was considered a test one between McKinley and his opponents and removed all doubts of the invincibility of the Ohio man.

The full Committee on Resolutions met at the Lindell Hotel in the evening and went into secret session. The proposed platform was read by paragraphs, the agreement being that each paragraph should be voted on separately. There was unanimous accord upon the tariff plank and the sugar plank was accepted. A strong declaration was formulated for a protective duty on wools and woolens and a demand made for the protection of American shipbuilding and the development of American commerce.

When the financial plank was reached Senator Teller of Colorado presented a minority report which declared in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. Mr. Teller, with deep emotion, declared that the time had come when, if the single gold standard was adopted, he should be compelled to leave the party with which he had been associated for thirty-five years. There was much sympathy felt for this able leader, whose association with the Republican party had earned for him the respect of political foes as well as friends. Mr. Cannon of Utah was hardly less agitated when he announced a decision similar to that of Teller, and Mr. Dubois of Idaho declared that, much as he regretted the step, he would follow Messrs. Teller and Cannon. Then, after earnest argument, Mr. Hartman of Montana said that he never would support a candidate upon the proposed platform.

The substitute of Senator Teller received 10 votes, which included the delegates from Colorado, California, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and New Mexico. The substitute was defeated by 41 votes. After further discussion, the gold plank, as it appears in the platform, was adopted by a vote of yeas 40, nays 11, the member from Oklahoma having joined the silver men.

The convention came together on Thursday morning, only five minutes late, with all of the delegates in their seats, and the galleries packed to suffocation, many ladies being among the spectators. Rev. John R. Scott of Florida, a negro, opened with a brief and appropriate prayer.

The first order of business was the reception of the report of the Committee on Resolutions. Senator-elect Foraker of Ohio was cheered as he advanced to the platform and said: “As chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, I have the honor to report as follows:”

He then read the platform, as printed elsewhere, in a clear, ringing voice and with distinct enunciation. He emphasized the endorsement of President Harrison, and was applauded, and when, in a loud voice and with impressive manner, he declared: “The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money,” the applause was greater than ever, it rising to a still more enthusiastic pitch when the pledge to promote international agreement for free coinage of silver was read. Mr. Foraker was compelled to stop reading and the applause continued so long that the chairman rapped repeatedly for order.

The demand for American control of the Hawaiian Islands was warmly approved, but the convention remained mum over the proposed building of the Nicaragua Canal by the United States and the purchase of the Danish Islands for a naval station. If any enthusiasm was felt in that direction it did not manifest itself. But the sympathy of the people found ardent expression when the Cuban paragraph was read, dropping again to zero over the civil service plank. The negro delegates applauded noisily the demand for a free ballot and the condemnation of lynching.

It took twenty-five minutes for the reading of the platform, during which the convention gave close attention, breaking out again into cheers at the close. When the tumult had subsided, Mr. Foraker moved the adoption of the report as the National platform for 1896.

As Mr. Foraker reached the closing paragraph of the report, Senator Teller left his place with the Colorado delegation and took his seat on the platform. He was recognized by the chairman and sent to the secretary’s desk and had read the following minority report: “We, the undersigned members of the Committee on Resolutions, being unable to agree with that part of the majority report which treats of the subjects of coinage and finance, respectfully submit the following paragraph as a substitute therefor:

“The Republican party favors the use of both gold and silver as equal standard money, and pledges its power to secure the free, unrestricted and independent coinage of gold and silver at our mints at the ratio of 16 parts of silver to 1 of gold.”

Mr. Teller then advanced to the front of the platform to utter his “farewell.” The universal respect felt for him was shown by the cordial greeting of the twelve thousand people, who saw that the distinguished gentleman was almost overcome with emotion. It may be doubted whether there was one in that immense assemblage who did not feel a sincere sympathy for the man who was taking the most painful step of his public career.

Mr. Teller asserted that we might as well have two flags in the Nation, if the present money system is to be maintained, for the reason that two flags are not more important than this all-absorbing question of gold and silver money. He declared that he was not actuated by the fact that Colorado is a silver-producing State, but he had come to the earnest conclusion, after twenty years of study, that bimetallism is the only safe money doctrine for the United States and all other countries.

Mr. Teller insisted that a protective tariff cannot be maintained on a gold standard. Then, with uplifted hands, he declared: “When God Almighty made these two metals, He intended them for use as money.”

Senator Teller said that the years of study which he had devoted to this question had brought convictions to him which were binding upon his conscience, and it was because he was an honest man that he could not support the gold money plank. The declaration was received with cheers and hisses, and moisture gathered in the eyes of the speaker as he looked out over the sea of faces and felt that he had at last reached the parting of the ways. Then the tears coursed down his cheeks and his handkerchief went to his eyes. The sight caused a respectful hush to fall over the convention, while more than one friend wept in silent sympathy.

Recovering himself, Senator Teller declared that the best thoughts of the world favored bimetallism, and it was advocated by the greatest teachers of political economy in Europe.

“Do you suppose,” he asked, “that we can take this step and leave the party without distress? Take any methods you please to nominate your man, but put him upon the right platform, and I will support him. I was for free men, free speech, and a free Government. I was with the Republican party when it was born. I have become accustomed to abuse, but I have voted for every Republican candidate since the foundation of the party, and I have been in close communication with its distinguished men for forty years.”

At this point, Senator Teller broke down again. The tears streamed over his face and he was greatly distressed. In a broken voice he added:

“But if I am to leave the Republican party, I do not leave it in anger. I believe that my doctrine is for the good of the people. I believe that the Republican party will see the error of its way, and, although I may never be permitted again to address a Republican National Convention, I shall live in the hope that before I die this great party will come to a thorough understanding of the silver question and treat it solemnly and with the keenest interest in support of all the people.”

The vote to lay Senator Teller’s motion on the table disclosed an interesting state of facts. It was supported by seven friends in Alabama, fifteen in California, his eight delegates of Colorado, two from Florida, three from Georgia, the six from Idaho, and one from Illinois. In addition, his plank received the following support: Kansas, four votes, Michigan, one; Missouri, one; Montana, six; Nevada, six; South Carolina, fourteen and one-half; South Dakota, two; Tennessee, one; Utah, six; Virginia, five; Wyoming, six; and in the Territories: Arizona, six; New Mexico, three, and Oklahoma, one, making one hundred and five and one-half votes in all. The vote for the majority report was eight hundred and eighteen and one-half.

Senator Teller, who was still on the platform, asked permission from the chairman to introduce Senator Cannon of Utah, who desired to read a statement from the silver men. The manner of Senator Cannon was defiant and quickly stirred up impatience. He declared he would bow to the majority in the matter of votes, but would never bow when a question of principle was at stake. He said they would withdraw from the convention, and he predicted trouble in the future for the Republican party. This was greeted with hisses and urgent requests for him to sit down. In the midst of the storm, the chairman turned to Senator Cannon and shouted: “The Republican party do not fear any declaration.”

This threw the convention into a tumult of enthusiasm. Men sprang to their feet, swung flags and shouted at the top of their voices. Senator Cannon calmly awaited the subsidence of the storm, when he continued with his generalities, and read the list of free silver men who would leave the convention. The names of the signers were greeted with hisses, and someone in the rear called out, “Good-by, my lover, good-by,” as Senator Teller and his associates filed out of the hall, marching down the main aisle. The whole convention was again on its feet yelling, waving flags, hats and fans, while the band played patriotic airs and the assemblage sang the chorus, “Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue.”

The silver delegates who withdrew were Congressman Hartman of Montana; Senator Cannon, Congressman Allen and Delegate Thomas Kearns, of Utah; Senator Pettigrew, of South Dakota; Delegates Cleveland and Strother, of Nevada; the entire Idaho delegation of six, headed by Senator Dubois; the whole Colorado delegation of eight; including Senator Teller, the total number of bolters being twenty-one, including four senators and two representatives.

Waiting until the excitement had subsided, the chairman announced in deliberate fashion: “Gentlemen of the Convention, there seem to be enough delegates left to do business. (Great cheering.) The chair now asks that a gentleman from Montana who did not go out”—Cheers drowned the rest of the sentence, and cries were made for Lee Mantle, who was asked to come to the platform, but declined.

On the call of states for nominations for the Presidency, the first response was from Iowa. R. M. Baldwin, of Council Bluffs, nominated Senator W. B. Allison, in a glowing tribute to Senator Allison’s worth and services.

Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, in a speech of characteristic eloquence, nominated Hon. Thomas B. Reed.

Hon. Chauncey M. Depew received a warm welcome as he made his way to the platform to nominate Governor Levi P. Morton, of New York State, which he did in his usual felicitous style of speech.

Then came the call of Ohio. Amid intense interest and expectation Governor Foraker went to the platform, and when silence had been obtained he said:

“Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: It would be exceedingly difficult, if not entirely impossible, to exaggerate the disagreeable situation of the last four years. The grand aggregate of the multitudinous bad results of a Democratic National Administration may be summed up as one stupendous disaster. It has been a disaster, however, not without, at least, this one redeeming feature—that it has been fair; nobody has escaped. (Loud laughter.)

“It has fallen equally and alike on all sections of the country and on all classes of our people; the just and the unjust, the Republican and the Democrat, the rich and the poor, the high and the low, have suffered in common. Poverty and distress have overtaken business: shrunken values have dissipated fortunes; deficiencies of revenue law have impoverished the Government, while bond issues and bond syndicates have discredited and scandalized the country.

“Over against that fearful penalty is, however, to be set down one great, blessed compensatory result—it has destroyed the Democratic party. (Cheers and laughter.) The proud columns which swept the country in triumph in 1892 are broken and hopeless in 1896. Their boasted principles when put to the test have proved to be delusive fallacies, and their great leaders have degenerated into warring chieftains of petty and irreconcilable factions. Their approaching National Convention is but an approaching National nightmare. No man pretends to be able to predict any good result to come from it. And no man is seeking the nomination of that Convention except only the limited few who have advertised their unfitness for any kind of a public trust by proclaiming their willingness to stand on any sort of a platform that may be adopted. (Laughter.)

“The truth is, the party which would stand up under the odium of human slavery, opposed to the war for the preservation of the Union, to emancipation, to enfranchisement, to reconstruction and to specie resumption, is at last to be overmatched and undone by itself. It is writhing in the throes and agonies of final dissolution. No human agency can prevent its absolute overthrow at the next election, except only this Convention. If we make no mistake here, the Democratic party will go out of power on the 4th day of March, 1897 (applause), to remain out of power until God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy and goodness, shall see fit once more to chastise His people. (Loud laughter and applause.)

“So far we have not made any mistake. We have adopted a platform which, notwithstanding the scene witnessed in this hall this morning, meets the demands and expectations of the American people.

“It remains for us now, as the last crowning act of our work, to meet again that same expectation in the nomination of our candidates. What is that expectation? What is it that the people want? They want as their candidate something more than ‘a good business man’ (an allusion to Mr. Depew’s characterization of Governor Morton). They want something more than a popular leader. They want something more than a wise and patriotic statesman. They want a man who embodies in himself not only all these essential qualifications, but those, in addition, which, in the highest possible degree, typify in name, in character, in record, in ambition, in purpose, the exact opposite of all that is signified and represented by that free trade, deficit-making, bond-issuing, labor-assassinating, Democratic Administration. (Cheers.) I stand here to present to this Convention such a man. His name is William McKinley.”

At this point pandemonium was let loose, and the Convention gave up to unrestrained yelling, cheering, horn-blowing, whistling, cat-calling and all the other devices common to such occasions. A number of red, white and blue plumes, which (carefully wrapped up) had been brought into the Convention earlier in the proceedings, were uncovered and waved, while almost every delegate seemed to be wildly gesticulating with either a fan or a flag in the air. The band tried in vain to compete with the ear-splitting clamor, but at last the strains of “Marching Through Georgia” caught the ears of the crowd, and they joined in the chorus and gradually quieted down.

Then a portrait of McKinley was hoisted on a line with the United States flag on the gallery facing the platform, and the cheering began over again, to which the band responded by playing “Rally Round the Flag,” the Convention joining in the chorus.

After at least twelve minutes of this kind of proceeding the chair began to rap for a restoration of order, but without avail.

Senator-elect Foraker stood during all this wild scene smiling his approval. Mr. Hepburn, of Iowa, had in the meantime been called to the chair by Senator Thurston, but just when he had nearly restored order, Mrs. H. W. R. Strong, of California, who had presented the plumes in honor of Ohio’s choice, made her appearance on the floor, waving one of them, and another uncontrollable outbreak of wholesale temporary insanity occurred. During the interval of confusion, a three-quarter face, life-size sculptured bust of McKinley was presented to Mr. Foraker by the Republican Club of the University of Chicago. The portrait was in a mahogany frame, decorated with red, white and blue ribbons, and with a bow of maroon-colored ribbons forming the colors of the university. The portrait was the work of Harris Hirsch, and was presented by Dr. Lisston H. Montgomery, of Chicago, with a letter signed by H. L. Ickes, president of the club. It was accepted by Senator-elect Foraker in dumb show.

After twenty-five minutes of incessant turmoil Mr. Foraker was allowed to resume his speech.

He spoke of the great champions of Republicanism in the past, eulogizing Mr. Blaine particularly, and continued:

“But, greatest of all, measured by present requirements, is the leader of the House of Representatives, the author of the McKinley Bill, which gave to labor its richest awards. No other name so completely meets the requirements of the occasion, and no other name so absolutely commands all hearts. The shafts of envy and malice and slander and libel and detraction that have been aimed at him lie broken and harmless at his feet. The quiver is empty, and he is untouched. That is because the people know him, trust him, believe him, and will not permit any human power to disparage him unjustly in their estimation.

“They know that he is an American of Americans. They know that he is just and able and brave, and they want him for President of the United States. (Applause.) They have already shown it—not in this or that State, nor in this or that section, but in all the States and in all the sections from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf to the Lakes. They expect of you to give them a chance to vote for him. It is our duty to do it. If we discharge that duty we will give joy to their hearts, enthusiasm to their souls and triumphant victory to our cause. (Applause.) And he, in turn, will give us an administration under which the country will enter on a new era of prosperity at home and of glory and honor abroad, by all these tokens of the present and all these promises of the future. In the name of the forty-six delegates of Ohio, I submit his claim to your consideration.” (More applause.)

The high-water mark of enthusiasm was reached when Senator Thurston rose to second the nomination of McKinley, which he did in eloquent and forceful words.

In the midst of cries of “vote,” Governor Hastings placed in nomination Matthew Stanley Quay, at the conclusion of which, amid a profound hush, the Convention began balloting for a nominee for President of the United States.

Alabama led off with 1 for Morton and 19 for McKinley, Arkansas and California following with a solid vote for McKinley. Connecticut gave 5 for Reed and 7 for McKinley; Delaware, its full vote for McKinley; Florida, 8 for McKinley; Georgia, 2 for Reed, 2 for Quay, and 22 for McKinley.

When all of the States had been called, the chairman stated, before the announcement of the result, that application had been made to him for recognition by delegates of the defeated candidates to make a certain motion. He thought it the fairest way to recognize them in the order in which the nominations had been made. He then announced that William McKinley had received 661½ votes.

Before the chairman could get any further, the enthusiasm of the Convention broke all bounds. Every man was on his feet, shouting, hurrahing, cheering, swinging hats and canes in the air, waving flags and banners and the pampas plumes of California, while through the Niagara-like rush and roar were caught the notes of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” as the band played with might and main in its attempt to gain the mastery of the cyclone. The women, if possible, were more frantic than the men. Parasols, fans, opera-glasses, gloves—anything, everything—were compelled to help in the magnificent burst of enthusiasm which swept over and submerged all alike, until it looked as if order could never again be evolved from the swirling pandemonium.

One fancy caught on with wonderful effect. A young man on the platform waved on the point of the national banner a laced cocked hat, such as appears in most of popular representations of the mighty Napoleon. This symbol of enthusiasm was greeted with rapturous applause, to which the booming of artillery on the outside contributed.

Finally, after a long, long time, the chairman gained a chance to complete the announcement of the vote. It was: Thomas B. Reed, 84½; Senator Quay, 61½; Levi P. Morton, 58; Senator Allison, 35½, and Don Cameron 1.

The vote by States was as follows:

	McKinley.	Morton.	Quay.	Reed.	Allison.
Maine				12
Maryland	15			1
Massachusetts	1			29
Michigan	28
Minnesota	18
Mississippi	17		1
Missouri	34
[[1]]Montana	1
Nebraska	16
Nevada	3
New Hampshire				8
New Jersey	19			1
New York	17	55
North Carolina	19½			2½
North Dakota	6
Ohio	46
Oregon	8
Pennsylvania	6		58
Rhode Island	8
South Carolina	18
South Dakota	8
Tennessee	24
Texas	21			5	3
Utah	3				3
Vermont	8
Virginia	23			1
Washington	8
West Virginia	12
Wisconsin	24
Wyoming	6
Arizona	6
New Mexico	5				1
Oklahoma	4			1	1
Indian Territory	6
District of Columbia	1				1
Alaska	4
Totals	661½	58	61½	84½	35½
Necessary for choice, 454. Total number of delegates present, 906.

[1]. Blank, 4, and one vote for Cameron from Montana.

Senator Lodge, rising in his delegation, in a forceful speech moved to make the nomination of Mr. McKinley unanimous. Mr. Hastings, of Pennsylvania, who had nominated Quay, seconded the motion, as did Thomas C. Platt on behalf of New York, Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, and J. Madison Vance, of Louisiana. In answer to loud calls Mr. Depew mounted his chair in the back of the room, where the rays of the sun beamed on his countenance, which itself was beaming with good humor, and delivered a short and characteristically humorous speech.

The chair then put the question, “Shall the nomination be made unanimous?” and by a rising vote it was so ordered, and the chair announced that Mr. William McKinley of Ohio was the candidate of the Republican party for President of the United States.

This great step having been taken, Senator Lodge moved to proceed to the nomination of a candidate for Vice-President; and, although the Convention had been in continuous session for eight and a half hours, the motion was carried, and at twenty minutes past six the roll of the States was called for such nominations.

Mr. Fessenden nominated the Hon. Morgan G. Bulkeley of Connecticut, while Judge Franklin Fort of New Jersey placed the Hon. Garret A. Hobart in nomination. Judge Fort concluded one of the most telling speeches with the following tribute to his nominee:

“His capabilities are such as would grace any position of honor in the Nation. Not for himself, but for our State; not for his ambition, but to give to the Nation the highest type of public official, do we come to this convention by the command of our State and in the name of the Republican party of New Jersey unconquered and unconquerable, undivided and indivisible—with one united voice speaking for all that counts for good citizenship in our State, and nominate to you for the office of Vice-President of this Republic, Garret A. Hobart of New Jersey.”

Mr. Humphrey seconded the nomination of Mr. Hobart in the name of the State of Illinois. Delegate Randolph of Tennessee nominated Henry Clay Evans of that State, the nomination being seconded by colored Delegate Smith of Kentucky, who declared the Republican party “the grandest organization this side of eternity.” Mr. I. C. Walker (colored) of Virginia, put his fellow-delegate in nomination.

By the time the balloting reached South Dakota it was so evident that Hobart was to be the fortunate one that many of the delegates began leaving the hall. The result of the ballot as announced by the chair was: Hobart, 535½; Evans, 277½; Bulkeley, 39; Lippitt, 8; Walker, 24; Reed, 3; Thurston, 2; Frederick Grant, 2; Depew, 3; Morton, 1; absent, 23.

Then at ten minutes to eight o’clock, the eleventh National Republican Convention adjourned sine die.

Six hundred miles away, in the State of Ohio, is the pleasant town of Canton, the home of the nominee of the Republican party for the Presidency of the United States. What an impressive illustration of the wonderful studies in discovery it was, that William McKinley, during the tempestuous scenes we have attempted to describe, sat in his library and heard the cheering, the shouts, the speeches and the whirlwind which accompanied his nomination and kept as close track of the proceedings as if he were sitting on the platform and looking into the sea of upturned faces! Such was the amazing fact, for the telephone to which his ear was turned reported everything almost as faithfully as his own eyes and ears could have done, and he, more than half a thousand miles distant, knew the result as soon as did the excited delegates themselves.

During the stormy week of the Convention that is described in the preceding pages, Governor McKinley was sitting on the porch of his cottage talking to a group of friends, when an old lady was seen approaching the gate.

“That’s my mother!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet and hurrying down the walk to meet her. He gave her his arm and, bringing her to the porch, introduced her to each in turn, saw that she was provided with the most comfortable chair, and to none gave more loving attention than to her.

FUNERAL DECORATIONS IN THE EAST ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

PRESIDENT AND MRS. McKINLEY, SENATOR HANNA, GENERAL ALGER AND THEIR FAMILIES AT DINNER.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE GREAT CAMPAIGN OF 1896.

Long before the National Convention of 1896 was held, the issues which were to be paramount in the campaign had begun to crystallize. Throughout the country there was a wail of distress growing out of the depression of 1893, and the people were thinking, thinking, as to the cause of the trouble which oppressed them. No nation was ever better equipped to intelligently discuss matters pertaining to its welfare than the United States at that period. Theorists had conceived numerous remedies for the economic depression, and right or wrong, had found many adherents.

The Republican National Convention had declared for the first time in the history of the party in favor of establishing the financial system of the country on a gold basis. Protection to American interests, which had long been a cherished principle of the party, also had its place in the platform. The Democrats, on the other hand, adopted a platform demanding the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, and a tariff for revenue only.

As before stated, however, the issues had already been firmly fixed in the public mind. The advocates of the free coinage of silver had been preaching their doctrines for months, and as their arguments were easily comprehended, the masses took to them with avidity. The cry was that the Republicans intended to destroy silver except as a subsidiary coin, and make gold the basic money of the country. It was asserted that there was not gold enough in the world to provide a currency for the wants of trade, hence the volume of money would be contracted, if the policy of the Republicans prevailed. Prices of commodities, already extremely low, would fall lower, because there would be less money for the people to purchase them with, hence the distress would grow apace.

These arguments had been disseminated in a small book the writer of which pretended to hold a “financial school,” and to expound for the benefit of the people, and for the benefit of capitalists especially, the true gospel of finance. Millions of copies of this book had been sold, and people throughout the length and breadth of the land were familiar with its arguments. Those of opposite beliefs had not been asleep during this period. They had formulated arguments in contradiction, and four or five books had been written and printed to offset the influence of the silver campaign document.

The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, as their standard bearer. Mr. Bryan was an ex-member of Congress, and prior to the Convention had not been regarded as a prominent candidate for the Presidency. He was young, and there were wheel-horses in the party to be rewarded. “Silver Dick,” as the Hon. Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, was called, because of his long defence of silver in the House of Representatives as a money metal, was one of the most formidable candidates, and Governor Horace Boies, who had succeeded in winning the Republican State of Iowa for the Democrats, also had a large following. Mr. Bryan came to the Convention as a delegate, a pronounced champion of the silver theory, and a representative of the producing classes of the country. He had already achieved fame as an orator, and during the Convention he took the platform and made a most brilliant speech in favor of the free coinage of silver. The address so electrified the Convention that delegation after delegation voted for Mr. Bryan when the balloting began, and before the roll call was finished it was seen that he was nominated.

Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party committed itself to the money question without a serious fight within its own ranks. When the Republicans declared against silver, an influential section of the delegates, led by United States Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, bolted the Convention, and were, perforce, compelled to support Mr. Bryan as a Presidential candidate. A faction of the Democratic party, led by Senator Hill, of New York, refused absolutely to subscribe to the silver doctrine enumerated by their party, and as a result the Gold Democrats nominated a ticket for President, headed by United States Senator Palmer, of Illinois, and S. B. Buckner, of Kentucky. Mr. Bryan was also the candidate of the Populistic party.

Following the nomination of Mr. Bryan began a campaign the like of which has perhaps never been seen in any country. It was full of spectacular features, and there was more eloquence to the square inch than had ever been known before. Everybody turned speech-maker, and few places were regarded as too sacred, and few moments as improper, in which to discuss the momentous questions. On the streets, in railway cars, on steamboats, in hotels, stores, factories, and at the family board the great question was threshed out. The excitement was intense. On both sides the people believed a crisis had arrived. The Republicans declared the election of Mr. Bryan meant repudiation of obligations, ruin and national dishonor. The Democrats retorted that there could be no repudiation in sticking to the money of the Constitution and the argument was so apparently conclusive that the Republicans became alarmed. It was found that the silver belief was fully grounded—the people of the great West seemed impressed with the idea that more money would make times better, and more money could easily be coined. The Government had practically ceased under the Cleveland Administration to purchase silver bullion. The mines of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and other sections, could produce the metal in abundance, and for the Government to coin it into money would produce the supply of money necessary to relieve the stringency.

Such arguments appealed to those who felt the pinch of poverty, and the Republicans found it necessary to send their best and most eloquent speakers into the field, in order to counteract the influence of the silver advocates. Printing presses throughout the land were set to work to print pamphlets and tracts exploded the Democratic doctrine, and great discs of base metal were cast to show how much silver at the prevailing price would have to go into a dollar, to make it the equivalent of a gold dollar. The bullion value of the silver in a dollar was at that time about 50 cents, and the object lesson had its effect upon certain minds.

As indicative of the arguments used by the leading orators during the campaign, the following examples are given:

Congressman Joseph C. Sibley, of Pennsylvania, one of the prominent Eastern men who supported the doctrine of free coinage of silver, said in one of his speeches:

“Silver is the only stable standard of values maintaining at all times its parity with every article of production except gold. The ounce of silver, degraded by infamous legislation from its normal mintage value of 1.2929 an ounce to about 60 cents, has kept its parity with the ton of pig iron, the pound of nails, and all the products of our iron mills. The ounce of silver has maintained its parity with the barrel of petroleum, with granite blocks, with kiln-burnt bricks. With lumber growing scarcer year by year it still keeps its parity. It is at parity with the ton of coal; with the mower, reaper, thresher, the grain drill, the hoe, and the spade. Silver at 1.2929 and beef at 7 cents per pound in the farmer’s field has kept its parity, and the ounce of silver at 60 cents buys to-day beef at 2 cents per pound on foot. The pound of cotton and the ounce of silver have never lost their level. No surer has the sun indicated on the dial the hour of the day than has the ounce of silver shown the value of the pound of cotton. As surely as the moon has given high tide or low tide, just so surely has the ounce of silver given the high and low tide prices of wheat. The ounce of silver has maintained its parity with your railway dividends, with the earnings in your shops and factories, in all departments of effort.

“If parity with gold is demanded, and the Secretary of the Treasury construes the law to mean whenever demanded to pay gold, then let us maintain the parity by reducing the number of grains in the gold dollar from 23.22 grains pure gold to 15 grains, or to such number of grains as will keep it at parity. While we may wrong by so doing the creditor class, through the increased value of the products of human industry, we much remember that for every one creditor there are a thousand debtors; and we should remember that the aim of the Government is the greatest good to the greatest number, and also the minimum amount of evil. But no such drastic measure is necessary. Parity may be maintained and every declaration of governmental policy fully met by accepting for all dues, public and private, including duties upon imports, silver and paper issues of the Nation of every description whatsoever.

“In all the gold-standard nations destitution and misery prevail. With great standing armies in Europe outbreaks are not of frequent occurrence, and yet one rarely peruses his paper without reading of these outbreaks. In Nebraska and Kansas, the land of wheat and corn, we read of starving households; even in Ohio appeals are sent out for the relief of thousands of starving miners, and yet men have the temerity to tell us that the evils arise from overproduction.

“Men tell us that there is an overproduction of silver, and that its price had diminished in comparison with gold because of its great relative increase. Such statements are not only misleading, but absolutely false. Figures show that in 1600 we produced 27 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1700, 34 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1800, 32 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1848, 31 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; while in 1880 the production of silver had declined until we produced 18 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; and in 1890 but 18 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; and that, instead of the ratio of coinage being increased above 16 to 1, if relative production of the two metals is to determine the ratio, then the ratio should have been diminished rather than increased, and confirms the fact that merely the denial of mintage upon terms of equality with gold is responsible for all depreciation in the value of silver bullion.

“All the silver in the world to-day can be put in a room 66 feet in each dimension, and all the gold can be melted into a cube of 18 or 20 feet. There are to-day less than twenty-five millions of bar silver in all Europe. Mr. St. John, the eminent banker of New York, had stated that there was not over five millions of silver that could be made available to send to our mints. Begin to coin silver to the full capacity of our mints, and we would have to coin it for twenty years before giving to each inhabitant a per capita circulation that France, the most prosperous nation in the world to-day, possesses.

“The struggle to-day is between the debtor and creditor classes. With one-half the world’s money of final account destroyed, the creditor can demand twice as much of the products of your field, your shop, and your enterprise and labor for his dues. In this struggle between debtor and creditor the latter has taken undue advantage and by legislation doubled and trebled the volume of the debt. For example, suppose you had given a note to your neighbor promising to pay, one year after date, 1,500 bushels of wheat. You thresh the grain, measure it into the bin, and notify your creditor that the wheat is at his disposal. He goes to the granary, sacks the wheat, and then brings up your note and states, ‘I have taken 500 bushels, which I have endorsed on your note. I will call on you for the balance when next year’s crop is harvested.’ You say, ‘Why did you not take all the wheat and let me make full payment?’ The note-holder answers, ‘I did take all the wheat, and there were only 500 bushels in the bin instead of 1,500.’

“You fail to understand how that can be possible. You know that you threshed out and measured into that bin 1,500 bushels of wheat. You go to the granary and find that it is true. No wheat is there, but there appears to be an enormous lot of wheat upon those wagons for 500 bushels, and you ask the note-holder, ‘Who measured this wheat? and let me see how you measured it.’ You see something in the form of a measure about as large as a washtub, and you ask him what that is. He tells you that is the half-bushel measure which he measured your wheat; but you reply, ‘My dear sir, that holds more than half a bushel; that measure will hold 6 pecks.’ He answers, ‘Correct, it does hold six pecks, but it now takes 12 pecks to make a bushel, instead of four pecks. Together with other friends who had wheat coming to us we went before the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures and secured the passage of a legislative enactment, that it should require 12 pecks instead of 4 pecks to make a bushel. We have secured this legislation for the proper protection of the holders of wheat obligations, for our own security, and for fear that we should become timid and lose confidence in your ability to pay unless we changed the standard of measure.’ But you reply, ‘Sir, we who have obligations maturing, contracts long standing, have never asked or consented to the enactment of such legislation. Our representatives in Congress never permitted us to understand that any such legislation was pending,’ He replies, ‘Sir, you might have known it had you desired to do so, or had you kept yourself as well posted in legislative affairs as do the holders of obligations calling for products of the soil for payment. We have our representatives in Congress. We reward them for their fidelity to our interests; we punish them for fidelity to yours.’

“This, in my judgment, is not a far-fetched illustration, but depicts the exact condition against which production to-day protests. The debtor’s obligation, true, does not call for wheat in specific terms. It calls for dollars, but by legislation we have made the dollar three times as large in purchasing power or in measuring values as it was before. We talk about gold being the only money of intrinsic value, and attempt to befog and mystify the masses by telling them that it has intrinsic value, when its value is merely the artificial product of legislation.

“Enact a law, to be rigidly enforced, providing that no meat of any kind, whether ‘fish, flesh or fowl,’ except mutton, shall be used for food. What will be the intrinsic value of your beef cattle, of your swine, your poultry, and your fish to-morrow? The mutton-headed monometallists would tell you that the great increase in the value of mutton was because of its intrinsic worth. Let this Nation and the commercial nations of the globe enact a law to-morrow, that neither cotton, nor silk, nor fabric should be used for clothing or covering, forbid the factories of the world to spin or weave aught but wool, and what will be the intrinsic value of cotton or silk thereafter? Wool will be king; its value will be enhanced, but cotton, hemp, and silk will be as valueless as weeds or as gossamer webs.

“With the mints open to free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver there has never been a moment when silver has not maintained its parity with gold, and a ratio of 16 to 1 commanded a premium of more than 3 per cent over gold. And if, by some fortunate discoveries to-morrow, gold should be found in great quantities sufficient to lessen the income of the annuitant, the bondholding, or the fixed-income class, there would arise a demand for the demonetization of gold and the establishment of the pearl, ruby, or diamond standard of values. Whatever standard can bring to grasping hands and greedy hearts the most of the toil, the sweat, and unrequited efforts of his fellowman, this standard will be demanded by the representatives of greed, and must be resisted by those who represent humanity and Christianity.”

United States Senator Julius C. Burrows, of Michigan, in replying to free coinage argument, said:

“Coin silver dollars at the ratio of 16 to 1 or 20 to 1 and you have a dollar intrinsically worth less than the gold dollar, and coin such a dollar as that—permit the owners of silver bullion to bring to the mints of the United States, and have manufactured into dollars, a certain number of grains, worth in bullion much less than after they are coined, is a proposition to which I cannot give my assent.

“But it has been stated and repeatedly asserted that the present silver dollar is the ‘dollar of the fathers.’ That statement is not true. It is not the ‘dollars of the fathers,’ and the fathers if living would repudiate such an assumption as a reflection upon their integrity and sagacity. The silver dollar of the fathers was intended to be and was in fact practically equal to the gold dollar in intrinsic value.

“This contest for the free coinage of silver began in 1874, and it has been prosecuted with unceasing vigor ever since. Why? Up to that time the silver dollar was worth more, intrinsically, than the gold dollar, being worth in 1873 $1.03 as compared with gold.

“Up to that time the coinage of silver dollars in this country had been very limited. One would think from the tenor of this discussion that all at once a great outrage had been perpetrated upon silver, that it had been stricken from our monetary system at a blow, by the force of law, when the fact is that from 1793 to 1805, a period of twelve years, we coined but 1,439,517 silver dollars. From 1806 to 1836, a period of thirty years, we did not coin a single silver dollar. From 1836 to 1873, a period of thirty-seven years, we coined only 6,606,321 silver dollars. In eighty years we only coined a total of 8,045,838 silver dollars. So long as silver remained more valuable than gold there was no clamor for the free coinage of silver, but in 1878, when resumption was an assured fact, and the people had decreed that they would keep faith with their creditors and pay their unredeemed promises, then the champions of cheap money turned their attention to silver finding it had declined in value from $1.03 in 1873 to $0.89 in 1878.

“The battle is now renewed under the plea of bimetallism, and the advocates of the free coinage of silver seek to delude the people by asserting that they are in favor of bimetallism while its opponents are not. We have bimetallism to-day.

“The free and unlimited coinage of silver at any of the ratios named will destroy bimetallism and will reduce this country to a single standard, that of silver, and that depreciated, and I am suspicious that for this very reason some gentlemen are anxious for its triumph. The opening of the mints of the United States to the unrestricted minting for individuals of silver into legal dollars at any ratio to gold less than the commercial value of both metals, under the pretense of aiding the cause of bimetallism or for the purpose of establishing or maintaining bimetallism in the United States, is simply playing upon the sentiment and credulity of the American people.

Mr. Bryan toured the country during the campaign, and spoke in all sections of the country. He went into the eastern States, where the opponents of the free silver doctrine were strongest and made numerous speeches, but did the most of his work in the South and West. His fame as an orator drew thousands to hear him, and under the spell of his eloquence millions were brought to believe with him. When the campaign was well under way, and the Republican leaders had in a measure checked the spread of the free silver doctrine, they put forward again the doctrine of a protective tariff, and declared it to be the real issue before the people, and its maintenance necessary to the renewed prosperity of the nation.

During this stirring period the calm equipoise and splendid intellectuality of Governor McKinley stood him in good stead. He kept to his modest home in Canton, Ohio, and there received millions of people who called upon him. They came from all walks in life—manufacturers, business men, professional men, teachers, mechanics and laborers—and to each delegation he made an apt address, always broad-minded, always touching the peculiar concerns of his hearers, and always breathing a high note of patriotism and fidelity to principle. The speeches made by Governor McKinley on the lawn at Canton during the memorable summer of 1896 rank him as one of the most thoroughly informed men of his generation, and as possessing all the elements of highest statecraft.

When election day came, McKinley was triumphant, receiving 7,061,142 votes, against 6,460,677 for Bryan. In the electoral college, Mr. McKinley had 271 votes, and Mr. Bryan, 176.

CHAPTER XX.
THE SPANISH WAR CLOUD.

There were but very few Americans whose warmest sympathies did not go out to the gallant Cuban patriots who for decades struggled to throw off the galling yoke of one of the most tyrannical governments that ever held despotic sway over a people or devastated their country. The several attempts at revolution were pathetic beyond words and the war for independence that eventuated in American assistance that made Cuba free resembled in many respects the sufferings, hardships and sacrifices of our own forefathers in the dark days of the Revolution.

The atrocious rule of Spain in America, when she once overshadowed all the other nations, caused her colonies, one by one, to writhe from her grasp, until Cuba, “The Queen of the Antilles,” and Porto Rico were the only ones of importance left.

Cuba is a very large island, being 720 miles long with an average width of 60 miles and an area equal to more than one-half of all the other West India Islands together. Being so near to the United States geographically and of such close importance commercially and socially, a widespread feeling had long existed in this Republic, and especially in the Gulf States that the “Ever Faithful Isle” should be associated with this government as a part of the Republic, but as there would have been no excuse for such annexation under international law, without the consent of Spain, of course the matter had never been officially considered.

Nevertheless Cuba became a favorite field for American filibusters, and from 1849 to 1852 three such expeditions were made from this country, incited by Narcisso Lopez, a South American adventurer, who led Governor Dintman of Mississippi and other Southerners to believe that Cuba was ready for revolt and annexation to the United States. All these expeditions failed and Lopez was captured and executed by the Spanish authorities in Cuba.

Many pathetic and dramatic incidents marked these spasmodic attempts at revolution, the death of W. L. Crittenden, son of the Attorney-General of the United States, being one of the most striking of them. Crittenden was a graduate of West Point and resigned a colonelcy in the army in 1851 that he might aid the Cubans in their struggle for liberty. He succeeded in landing on the island and was left with one hundred and fifty men to guard the baggage and ammunition, while Lopez with a larger body of men marched into the interior. Lopez was attacked before he had proceeded further than a few miles, and, being compelled to surrender, his execution followed quickly. An overwhelming assault was then made upon Crittenden and his little force, but after offering the most desperate resistance Crittenden was taken prisoner with all of the survivors of his band. They were taken to Havana, and condemned to death, without trial.

August 16, 1851, an immense crowd gathered to witness the execution. The prisoners were ordered to kneel, facing a stone wall, and with their backs toward the soldiers a few paces away. When the command was given to Crittenden he wheeled about, and, standing in an attitude of defiance, said:

“A Kentuckian never turns his back on an enemy, and kneels only to his God!”

Thus refusing to obey the order, he was shot dead where he stood.

Other filibustering expeditions have since been made to Cuba, and several times the people revolted against Spain, but in every instance she crushed the rebellion with a bloody and merciless hand.

The insurrection of 1895 broke out in February, and the situation became so critical that the home government authorized the Governor-General to proclaim martial law. At the same time Jose Marti and General Maximo Gomez arrived in the island. The former had been nominated by the revolutionary junta to be head of the provisional government, while Gomez was to take chief command of the insurgent forces. There were two rallying points for the insurgents, one in the province of Matanzas in the western end, and the other in the province of Santiago in the eastern end.

At the beginning there was little organization among the rebels, but as time passed, discipline came and the object of the patriots was clearly defined. They had among them a number of skilled officers, who, like many of the privates, had been active in former revolts, and were full of ardor for the liberty of their native land.

One plan of the patriots was to establish free communication among themselves, through every part of the island, and to press as near Havana, the headquarters of the loyalists, as possible. The outlook for success was more promising than ever before, and never was the enthusiasm among the Cubans and their friends at so high a point. Money was liberally gathered in New York, and from many of the leading cities of the United States, arms, ammunition, supplies, and brave men were shipped to Cuba, most of them managing to elude the vigilance of the Spanish cruisers and to join the insurgents, who, in early autumn, had an army numbering fully 30,000 in the field. This was in two divisions, the eastern commanded by General Maceo, while the western, occupying the province of Puerto Principe, was under General Gomez. The Spanish army was more than double in numbers, though the force available was about equal to that of the insurgents.

The Spanish troops were under the command of Marshal Martinez de Campos, probably the ablest general in Spain. His plan was to march eastward from Havana, clearing out the rebels as far as the province of Santiago de Cuba; but insurmountable difficulties interfered with his purpose. The insurgents were familiar with the ground, were skilled in the use of arms, thoroughly acclimated and abounding with patriotic ardor. The Spanish soldiers were neither inured to the trying climate, nor familiar with the rough country through which they had to fight their way.

Meanwhile, Spain was in financial straits, but after a time secured a large loan and announced its determination to crush the rebellion at whatever cost of life and treasure. Reinforcements were sent to Cuba, and it was plain that the home government would never loosen her grip upon the throat of her last American possession until her hand was pried loose.

The Cubans appointed a permanent government in October and adopted a constitution. The President was Salvador Cisnero, Vice-President, Bartolome Masso, with Carlos Roloff secretary of war, Maximo Gomez general-in-chief, and Antonio Maceo his lieutenant-general. In this new government five of the six provinces were represented.

General Campos, being recalled by the home government, was succeeded by General Weyler, characterized as “The Butcher,” because of his cruelty to prisoners.

Spain in 1896 took great offence at the pronounced friendship of the American Congress to Cuba, which was indeed only a reflex of the feelings of the nation. Many members of Congress, indeed, and millions of the people of the country strongly favored interference on behalf of Cuba, with the certainty of war with Spain, but the more conservative only favored the granting of belligerent rights to the insurgents.

The increase of Spanish cruelties in the island and Spain’s arrogant demands upon the United States, became so offensive that in his message to Congress December 6, 1897, President McKinley reviewed in detail the Cuban situation and showed how he had on repeated occasions entered protests against Spain’s uncivilized methods of warfare against the Cuban insurgents. Of the different lines of action open to the United States he rejected recognition of the insurgents as belligerents, and recognition of Cuban independence, and advocated that of intervention on the ground of humanity.

On February 15, 1898, the United States Battleship Maine that had been sent to Havana on a friendly mission, and at all events as a visitor from a neutral power, was blown up in Havana harbor. Instantly the country was ablaze and a just and true course for the administration became difficult. House and Senate both proved impetuous and indulged in heated debates, whose prevailing sentiment was speedy war with Spain, without waiting the results of investigation by either the Navy Department or other commissions.

President McKinley remained calm and retained hope of a peaceful settlement. He was chided by the hot-headed of both parties. It became plain that Congress was bent upon some radical step, and the President took occasion again, April 11, to review the entire Spanish and Cuban situation in a special and deliberate message, and to state that he had now exhausted every obligation imposed on him by the constitution to relieve an intolerable condition of affairs. He therefore left the issue with Congress, with the request that it authorize him to intervene for the purpose of stopping the war in Cuba and securing a stable government for the island by the use of the military and naval forces of the United States.

On April 19 Congress, after exciting debates, passed a joint resolution demanding that Spain relinquish at once her authority in Cuba and withdraw her land and naval forces, and that the President of the United States be empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States, and to call on the militia of the several states to carry the resolution into effect.

On the next day the Spanish minister at Washington demanded his passports, and Spain declared diplomatic relations with the United States ended. A state of war existed, and Sampson’s fleet was ordered to blockade Cuban ports.

President McKinley threw into the war all his personal experience as a soldier, all his energy as a statesman, and all the power and influence of his administration, which last he had so deliberately and happily conducted as to leave it and the country free from the charge of seeking war in a hasty spirit and through selfish aims. It was an unsought war, one rendered necessary only after every honorable means to avert it had been exhausted, one whose existence was justified by every humanitarian principle. But it was nevertheless one to be fought in earnest and to the nation’s glory. So it was fought. The country and Congress reposed the utmost confidence in the President. He had acted wisely in every preliminary step. He had disarmed fear of intervention by foreign powers. Congress voted him fifty millions of dollars to meet preliminary and extraordinary expenses, and on April 23 he called for 125,000 volunteers. The complement was quickly filled, and on May 25 he called for 75,000 additional men. The response was immediate. Transports were provided for the invasion of Cuba, the navy was strengthened by additional ships and Commodore Dewey, in command of the naval squadron at Hongkong was ordered to strike the Spaniards at Manila, and on May 1 occurred the great battle there which resulted in the destruction of the Spanish fleet, and the events that followed to give to the United States the group of islands, known as the Philippines that are so opulent in resource as to be of great commercial value, as well as strategic. These events are matters of history familiar to all readers, or readily available in the records of the war.

Thus from April 19, when a state of war was recognized, to August 12, when the protocol was signed, within a period of 115 days, the United States had swept from Spain her island possessions in both the West and East Indies, destroyed her effective fleets and humbled her in the eyes of nations. Victory was as complete as the war had been brief and brilliant. Congress and the country had stood by the administration as it had stood by them.

As executive of the nation and Commander-in-Chief of its forces, President McKinley had achieved for his country a new place among the powers, and his directing hand was more than ever needed to guide her through the intricate paths of responsibility entailed by signal victory. And, let it be remembered in this connection, that the multitudinous problems of conquest were of a kind wholly within his keeping until Congress could act upon them. As head of the military he alone was responsible for that provisional rule of ceded territory which its holding, its peace, or its disposition under treaty terms required.

In all that affair of the Spanish war President McKinley stood a watch tower and bulwark, a light and a safeguard. His sense of right and justice prevented heedless and harmful complications. His wisdom and patriotism placed the Republic in equity before the nations. His sagacious statesmanship attained the proper war footing when war was inevitable; his soldier experience and general knowledge of war made of him a successful commander-in-chief. His humanity and fairness, the honor and manhood that were his, gave him breadth and the country credit in the clearing up of the situation.

Never until that hour when President McKinley, commissioned by his country and blest by his God, issued the Republic’s mandate to a king, had the United States of America for one hour ventured to take part in the affairs of nations. Singularly strong, admittedly brave and progressive, confessedly full of the vigor drawn from the best blood in all nations, it had never asked for place beside them, nor joined in their age-old contendings for spoil. And never in the century and a quarter of our national life had the kings and emperors of Europe given more than a good-humored credence to the theory that the American Republic was a nation. It was no small matter to so wisely choose the time, so judiciously select the occasion as that America’s entrance into the affairs of the world should meet no united opposition in the conservative courts of the continent. A day too soon or a day too late, a warrant less adequate or a reason more impelling, would have arrayed the world against the Republic, and launched a nation of peace upon a limitless era of war.

But the master hand of this Chief Executive saw the instant under the shadow of the Spanish war-cloud when advance might be sounded; and that moment, well employed, lifted the Republic to the crest of the world, widened her borders and enriched her people, and made substantial peace a certainty.

He proved himself a prophet and statesman in peace, a soldier and leader in war, equally strong in all situations.

Able, fair, fearless, successful was his record in this—as in all things.

CHAPTER XXI.
McKINLEY’S OWN STORY OF THE SPANISH WAR.

In all that has been written of the Spanish war and the way in which it was conducted by President McKinley’s administration, no history can give such a clear and complete account of it as was written by the President himself. President McKinley’s own history of the Spanish war is contained in an official message to Congress sent by him after the war had been brought to such a successful close. It is as follows:

For a righteous cause and under a common flag military service has strengthened the national spirit and served to cement more closely than ever the fraternal bonds between every section of the country.

In my annual message very full consideration was given to the question of the duty of the Government of the United States toward Spain and the Cuban insurrection as being by far the most important problem with which we were then called upon to deal. The considerations then advanced, and the exposition of the views then expressed, disclosed my sense of the extreme gravity of the situation.

Setting aside, as logically unfounded or practically inadmissible, the recognition of the Cuban insurgents as belligerents, the recognition of the independence of Cuba, neutral intervention to end the war by imposing a rational compromise between the contestants, intervention in favor of one or the other party, and forcible annexation of the islands, I concluded it was honestly due to our friendly relations with Spain that she should be given a reasonable chance to realize her expectations of reform, to which she had become irrevocably committed. Within a few weeks previously she had announced comprehensive plans, which it was confidently asserted would be efficacious to remedy the evils so deeply affecting our own country, so injurious to the true interests of the mother country as well as to these of Cuba, and so repugnant to the universal sentiment of humanity.

The ensuing month brought little sign of real progress toward the pacification of Cuba. The autonomous administration set up in the capital and some of the principal cities appeared not to gain the favor of the inhabitants nor to be able to extend their influence to the large extent of territory held by the insurgents, while the military arm, obviously unable to cope with the still active rebellion, continued many of the most objectionable and offensive policies of the government that had preceded it.

No tangible relief was afforded the vast numbers of unhappy reconcentrados, despite the reiterated professions made in that regard and the amount appropriated by Spain to that end. The proffered expedient of zones of cultivation proved illusory. Indeed, no less practical nor more delusive promises of succor could well have been tendered to the exhausted and destitute people, stripped of all that made life and home dear and herded in a strange region among unsympathetic strangers hardly less necessitous than themselves.

By the end of December the mortality among them had frightfully increased. Conservative estimates from Spanish sources placed the deaths among these distressed people at over 40 per cent. from the time General Weyler’s decree of reconcentration was enforced. With the acquiescence of the Spanish authorities a scheme was adopted for relief by charitable contributions raised in this country and distributed, under the direction of the Consul General and the several Consuls, by noble and earnest individual effort through the organized agencies of the American Red Cross. Thousands of lives were thus saved, but many thousands more were inaccessible to such forms of aid.

The war continued on the old footing, without comprehensive plan, developing only the same spasmodic encounters, barren of strategic result, that had marked the course of the earlier Ten Years’ rebellion as well as the present insurrection from its start. No alternative save physical exhaustion of either combatant, and therewithal the practical ruin of the island, lay in sight, but how far distant no one could venture to conjecture.