Fifty Years of Public Service / Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

by Shelby M. Cullom

From the very first Mr. Hanna took rank as one of the foremost leaders of the Senate. Of course, he had everything in his favor. He had nominated and elected McKinley; he had been Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and it was known that he stood closer to the President than any other man in public life.

But notwithstanding this, he had the real ability naturally to assume his place as a leader. He assumed a prominent place more rapidly than any Senator whom I have ever known. He took hold of legislation with a degree of skill and confidence that was remarkable, and carried his measures thorough apparently by his own individual efforts and energy. He changed the whole attitude of the Senate concerning the route for an interoceanic canal. We all generally favored the Nicaraguan route. Senator Hanna became convinced that the Panama route was best, and he soon carried everything before him to the end that the Panama route was selected.

During the first McKinley campaign, Mark Hanna was probably the most caricatured man in public life. He was made an issue in the campaign and was usually pictured as being covered with money-bags and dollars. But it is very strange how public sentiment changed concerning him. Before the first McKinley Administration was over, Mark Hanna enjoyed quite a degree of popularity; but it was not until he entered the campaign of 1900 that he really became one of the popular figures in American politics.

Some one, I do not know who, induced him to go among the people and show himself, and try to make some speeches. His first few efforts were so successful that it was determined he should make a speech-making tour. Senator Frye, of Maine, one of the oldest and most experienced and finest orators in the country, accompanied him on his tour. Senator Frye told me that he prevailed upon Senator Hanna to make short campaign speeches first. He requested him to try a fifteen-minute speech, then extend them to thirty minutes. Before their tour was ended, he was making just as long and just as good a speech as any old experienced campaigner. During this campaign, there were more calls on the Republican National Committee for Senator Hanna than there were for any other campaign speaker. Everywhere he went he made friends, not only for President McKinley, the nominee of the party, but for himself as well. Mark Hanna became one of the most popular leaders in the Republican party, and I have never for a moment doubted that he could have been the nominee of the party for the Presidency in 1904, had he consented to accept it. He told me in a private conversation had been gratified when he had seen his great personal friend, Mr. McKinley, twice elected President of the United States, and now that he had passed away he had no particular ambition on his own account.

Mr. McKinley promptly proceeded to call a special session of Congress, which convened March 15, 1897, and in which Mr. Reed was elected Speaker of the House. This session was called for the purpose of enacting a law for the raising of sufficient revenue to carry on the Government; and on March 31 the Dingley Bill passed the House. The bill was debated in the Senate for several weeks, and after eight hundred and seventy-two amendments were incorporated, it passed the Senate July 7, 1897. The conference report was agreed to, and the act was approved July 24, 1897. The country was in such condition then that we heard no complaint concerning the high protective tariff. The Republicans were united in advocating such a protective tariff as would enable the mills and factories to open, thereby affording employment and restoring prosperity.

From the election of President McKinley and the enactment of the Dingley Law I do not hesitate to say that we can date the greatest era of prosperity, and the greatest material advancement, of any period of like duration in our history.

Toward the close of the Cleveland Administration and all during the first part of the McKinley Administration, conditions were leading up inevitably to the Spanish-American War. The enthusiasm of some Senators, especially Senator Proctor, of Vermont, and my own colleague, Senator Mason, of Illinois, became so intense that war was brought on before the country was really prepared for it. Mr. McKinley held back. He knew the horrors of war and, if he could avoid it, did not desire to see his country engage in hostilities with any other country. He acted with great discretion, holding things steadily until some degree of preparation was made; and I have no doubt at all that the war would have been averted had not the Maine been destroyed in Havana harbor. The country forced us into it after that appalling catastrophe.

The entire Nation stood behind the President, and so did Congress. One of the most dignified and impressive scenes I ever witnessed since I became a member of the Senate was the passage of the bill appropriating fifty million dollars to be expended under the direction of the President, in order to carry on the war. The Committee on Appropriations, of which I had long been a member, directed Senator Hale to report the bill. It was agreed in committee that we should endeavor to secure its passage without a single speech for or against it. Some of the Senators who seemed disposed to talk, were prevailed upon to desist, and it was passed without any speeches. The ayes and nays were called, and amid the most solemn silence the bill was passed. The galleries were crowded; a great many members of the House were on the floor, and it reminded me of the days when the great Reconstruction legislation was being enacted, in the sixties. It was a demonstration to the country and the world of our confidence in the President, and the determination on the part of Congress to do what was necessary to uphold the dignity and honor of the United States. The vote for the bill in the Senate was unanimous.

The war came on immediately afterwards. The history of it is yet too fresh in the minds of the people to need repetition here. It was soon over, and with its conclusion came new and greater responsibilities. Whether it was wise for the United States to assume these new responsibilities, I am not prepared to say. Time alone can determine that.

I have always had great sympathy for General Russell A. Alger, of Michigan, who was in President McKinley's Cabinet as Secretary of War. It was not his fault that conditions in the War Department were as they existed in 1897, when he assumed office. We must remember that the country had enjoyed a continuous period of peace from 1865 to 1898. We were unprepared for war, and in the scramble and haste the Department of War was not administered satisfactorily, the whole blame being laid upon General Alger. It had been the policy of the Democratic party in Congress to oppose liberal appropriations for the maintenance of the War Department and the Army. Many Republicans thought that the best means of limiting appropriations was in cutting down the estimates for the War Department. They seemed to think that we would never again engage in a foreign war.