Marcus Alonzo Hanna.
Marcus Alonzo Hanna, one of the most prominent figures in national republican affairs, was born September 24, 1837, at New Lisbon (now Lisbon), Ohio. His father was a grocer in that village. Young Hanna was educated at local schools, and in the Western Reserve college and Kenyon college, Ohio. When not in school he was helping his father in the latter’s store, and cut short his academic course in order to clerk for his father, who had decided on opening a place of business in Cleveland. Until he was twenty he thus worked, receiving a small salary for so doing. In 1861 his father died, and young Hanna became heir to the business, which he continued to run until 1867. During that year he sold out and laid the foundations of the vast fortune which he now possesses. Mr. Hanna is interested in banks, railroads, mines of many sorts, especially coal, steamship lines, etc. At a comparatively early age he became interested in political questions, into the solving of which he threw himself with characteristic earnestness. For many years he has been chairman of the republican national committee, and in that capacity he secured the nomination of the late President McKinley, as well as obtaining a second term for him. Mr. Hanna is United States senator from Ohio, having been elected to that office in 1897. In his own words, his success may be explained thus: “I was never penniless, because I always saved. I was never hopeless, because I would not be discouraged, and I always felt assured that present endeavors would bring forth future fruit.”