No year ever brought swifter development to a people than did 1898 to the United States of America. Questions of military policy and questions of statesmanship, matters of immediate expediency and matters that looked to the future—all these crowded the hurrying hours of that most immemorial year. It is not curious that even the President was outrun by the speeding conditions. When Porto Rico became a part of the United States it was asked: “Shall her products come in free at the ports of the mainland?” And President McKinley, pressed upon by a multitude of duties, occupied with a myriad cares, filling his days and his nights with most careful watching of details that had multiplied in a twelvemonth, said: “It is our plain duty to give free trade to Porto Rico.” And the word was heralded to the ends of the earth. Then came the practical. If that sound theory should be enforced in actual commerce, a disturbance would arise which would prove lamentable. It were better to preserve the forms of a tariff until such time as revenues of the island would support the government of the island, giving back, meanwhile, every dollar derived from the Porto Ricans by that tariff. The changing conditions had made that the wiser plan.

President McKinley led his fellow countrymen through the changes of the passing years, guiding them always in the way most wise for that peculiar time, and turning to new methods when the new occasion demanded. And in the end we see the magnificent structure which his planning and his labors have perfected. We see the very greatest nation on earth, made great by protection; we see the richest nation, made rich with a sound money; we see the strongest nation, made strong by an actual union; and we see the most potent and influential nation on earth, made so by the foreign policy of William McKinley. Remember—

“For I doubt not through the ages

One increasing purpose runs;

And the thoughts of men are widening

With the process of the suns.”

CHAPTER XXVI.
PRIVATE LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY.

“Mother McKinley” often expressed the keynote of the case when she said: “He was a good boy.”

She by no means meant that young William lacked virile and manly qualities. On the contrary, she used to delight in telling of the mischievous pranks which had made a part of his boyhood existence. But there was a judgment and good sense about his escapades which absolutely prevented them from partaking of the nature of cruelty and saved him at all times from acts which might bring shame in their train of consequences. He was a “good” boy, in the sense that he was not a “mean” boy. And so, while he was always certain to command the respect of his companions—of all that was best in boyhood—he was a loving and a dutiful son. He was never afflicted with the silly theory that a boy need not obey nor respect his parents. For this those parents doubtless deserve a large measure of credit. Besides so measuring their lives as to deserve his respect, they so ordered his life as to insure his obedience. And in his whole life it is said that he never wounded either father or mother with an insolent word.

He was kind to his brother and his sisters. The money he earned he was always willing to share with them, and paid out many a dollar of his hard-earned wages for their education or for little presents which could add to their happiness.