HON. WILLIAM McKINLEY.
(Copyright, 1896, by F. Gutekunst.)
William McKinley (b. January 29, 1843) became a leading champion of the doctrine of industrial protection at an early period in his congressional career. In 1883 Hon. W. D. Kelley said of him: “He has distanced all his colleagues in mastering the details of the tariff.” The Tariff Act of 1890 came to be popularly known as the “McKinley Bill.” Elected President in 1896, his administration was signalized by that humanitarian interference in behalf of struggling Cuban patriots, which culminated in the Spanish-American war, and the most unprecedented triumph of modern times. It had the added distinction of rounding out the nineteenth and introducing the twentieth century.
Warriors.—Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I.), soldier, statesman, and Emperor of the French (b. August 15, 1769; d. May 5, 1821), was the greatest of the world’s masters in the art of war. His numerous campaigns, conducted with a brilliancy never before equaled, had for their object the humiliation of the countries of Europe, and the establishment of an imperial policy in which France should be supreme. This he came very near to effecting, in spite of closely combined and persistent opposition. None of the frequent coalitions formed to thwart his ambitions and stay his martial progress proved absolutely effective till that of March 25, 1815, was formed, which put an army of 700,000 men in the field against him. It was a part of this army that he met at Waterloo, June 18, 1815, where defeat awaited him, together with the eclipse of his gigantic influence and phenomenal genius.
GRANT’S TOMB, RIVERSIDE DRIVE, NEW YORK CITY.
Ulysses Simpson Grant (b. April 27, 1822; d. July 23, 1885), graduated at West Point and had a brief military experience in the Mexican war. On the breaking out of the Civil War he reëntered the Federal service from civil life, and by exceptional fertility of resource achieved a series of victories in the West which led to his command of all the Union forces, with the specially conferred title of lieutenant-general, a title subsequently raised to that of general. By the brilliant, persistent, and simultaneous campaigns he carried through in the East and West, he further clinched his title as one of the world’s greatest generals, and ended the conflict with honorable peace. He was honored twice with the presidency of the nation, and through the trying period of reconstruction his wise statesmanship cemented the Union his sword had preserved.
Arthur Wellesley Wellington of England (b. May 1, 1769; d. September 22, 1852), attained his first real military distinction in the campaigns of the English in India. He further added to his fame in the campaign against France in the Spanish peninsula. But his greatest glory as a warrior was reached in 1814, when, with the aid of the Prussian marshal Blücher, he defeated Napoleon at the decisive battle of Waterloo. He was afterwards honored with a seat in the House of Lords, and as Prime Minister of the Tory party, but his statesmanship proved to be of an inferior and unpopular order.
DUKE OF WELLINGTON.