THE LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY INCLUDING A GENEALOGICAL RECORD OF THE McKINLEY FAMILY AND COPIOUS EXTRACTS FROM THE LATE PRESIDENT'S PUBLIC SPEECHES, MESSAGES TO CONGRESS, PROCLAMATIONS, AND OTHER STATE PAPERS "(A man's best gift to his country is his life's blood" From President McKinley's Speech AT San Francisco, May 33, igoi ILLUSTRATED WITH NEARLY TWO HUNDRED PHOTOGRAPHS AND FOUR FULL PAGES IN COLOR NEW YORK P. F. COLLIER & SON M C M I CONTENTS Introduction . . . • I. — The origin of the McKinley family II. — Boyhood and early youth III. — School days at the Poland Semi- nary ...... IV. — McKinley in the army . V. — From Antietam to the close of the war VI. — McKinley becomes a lawyer — His start in politics .... VII. — The romance of McKinley's life . VIII. — McKinley enters Congress — His great speech against the Wood Tariff Bill .... IX. — In Congress — His work on tariff measures . . . • • X. — More work on the tariff — Unseated by a Democratic House 37 44 60 63 CHAPTER XI.- XII.- XIII. - XIV. - XV.- XVI.- XVII.- XVIII.- XIX.- XX.- XXI.- XXII -The nomination of Blaine — McKin- ley's part in the platform — Varied work in the House -The tribute to Garfield . -McKinley sees through Cleveland . -Sidelights on McKinley . -The fight against the Mills Bill -McKinley's loyalty to Sherman -Last term in Congress — The Mc- Kinley Bill .... -Gerrymandered out of Congress — Governor of Ohio -The campaign of 1896 — McKinley elected President -McKinley as President — The Span- ish War lOi . 1 10 . 114 71 74 76 77 82 92 96 , — The victory over Spain . . — After the Spanish War . ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR WILLIAM McKINLEY TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE— FIRST INAUGURATION SECOND INAUGURATION OF WILLIAM McKINLEY SAILORS AND SOLDIERS CARRYING THE BODY INTO THE COURT HOUSE, CANTON, OHIO FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE President McKinley in the White House . vii Home of Francis McKinley, Dervoch, Ireland 13 At Home — Mr. and Mrs. McKinley at Can- President Cleveland escorting President-elect ton, Ohio, during his first Presidential McKinley to take the oath of office, March campaign . 4> 1897 ^3 iii CONTENTS First inauguration of William McKinlcy, March 4, 1897. Chief-Justice Fuller ad- ministering the oath . . . . -43 M. Jules Cambon, French ambassador, signing the protocol of exchange in presence ot the President and officials of the State Depart- ment at the White House, April 1 1, i 899 . 55 President McKinley and Vice-President Hobart 65 President McKinley and his Cabinet . . 73 National Republican Convention in session June 19, 20, 21, 1900 . . . .81 At New Orleans— President McKinley stand- ing on the deck of the Mississippi stern- wheeler " St. Louis". . . . .89 President and Mrs. McKinley in the library of the White House . . . . -95 Theodore Roosevelt . . . . .103 The funeral at Washington — Hearse entering the Capitol grounds. . . . • i^S Home — The body of the dead President arriving at Canton, Ohio . . . • 1 23 INTRODUCTION IT is so easy to say of a man overtaken by death in the midst of his career that he was fortunate in his end. Since General Butler said of Lincoln, "He died in the fulness of his fame," it has been the fashion thus to describe the ending of public men who leave their careers unfinished. But for once it is true. William McKinley was peculiarly fortunate in his death. For in a measure which astonished even those who had been among his warmest admirers, it revealed the man, it showed forth the great- ness of him for all the world to see, to admire and to marvel at. It avails nothing after death to try to alter the record of life. William McKinley might have lived out his term of office and gone to his end in the peaceful course of nature. The record of his great deeds and the record of the opposition of his antagonists would have lived together. It took the eight days during which he suffered from the assassin's bullet to show how false was one record and how true the other. The vile custom of personal criticism and abuse of public men which has grown to such proportions in this country received a tremendous blow when William McKinley died. The zeal of his political antagonists had led them to lengths beyond the pale of right thinking and right talking. Even in his private life he had been assailed. The religious conviction that was such a factor in his life was the subject of sneers and derision. Hypocrisy and cant are easily ascribed to any one. How unjust was this, the end showed. The long life of personal rectitude, the beautiful devotion shown in his home, the care and fideUty displayed in public office, counted tor little some- times against the malice and wickedness of slanderous political opposition. Gradually, however, the breadth and growth of the man were coming home to the whole people. The faculty of grappling people to him in bonds of unalterable friendship was showing its results. Increase of knowledge of and about the man meant increase of admiration for and fidelity to him and what he represented. Then came the bullet of the murderer. And all the fog of revilement that opponents had been able to cloud his path with was cleared in an instant. In that moment when he had every reason to believe that his life was coming to an end, he had no thought of himself His first words INTRODUCTION after being shot were of warning about conveying the news to her who had been with him for so long, who was all in all to him and to whom he was all in all. That care commended, he turned to think about the wretch who had done him the last great injury one man can do another, and exclaimed: "Let no one hurt him." The mask was down. There was no more cause or use for cant or any smooth talk. If that had been . the desire, the time was past when it would avail. No motive can be assigned to that by even the bitterest of cavillers. It was the genuine thing. And then : "I'm sorry to have brought this trouble on the Exposition." There stood the real man revealed. Unselfish, kindly, thoughtful of others and their interests to the last. What a wonderful thing is a religious belief, a faith, a conviction that can make of human nature such a man as William McKinley. The political side of him was known of all men. His study, his work, his faithfulness to duty, his tireless energy, were matters of common repute. His growth with the growth of the country, his ability to develop new ideas as circumstances changed, as new requirements came, the expansiveness of his nature and the breadth of his mind that enabled him frankly to forsake his own error when he had convinced himself that it was error, these things come back now to tell us that as the world goes William McKinley was a great man. But in his death came the revelation. When, after all the suf- fering, and after the first days of hope, there came the change that told him as well as the world that the end was near, that deep abiding faith sustained him, and he faced it with the calmness of a soul at perfect peace with all the world and with his God. Even the separation from the wife beloved of years he met with the same quiet fortitude, saying — "// is God's way. His will be done, not ours." Amen. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF THE McKINLEY FAMILY IN the one hundred and twelve years since the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of tlie United States nineteen other men have been elected to that great office. William McKinley was the last of these twenty men to occupy the White House by the direct selection of the peo- ple. He was the ninth man who had been hon- ored by a second elec- tion to the Presidency, and his second term was the twenty-ninth quad- rennial period of that ofBce. Four men who have been chosen to the second place have succeeded to the office through the death of their immediate supe- riors, so that when Mr. McKinley was inaugu- rated for the first time on the 4th of March, 1897, he was the twenty- fourth man to become President. It is a striking illus- tration of the predominant c|ualities of British blood that of these twenty-four men only one was not descended from subjects of the Brit- ish throne. This one was Martin Van Buren, the Kinderhook Dutchman. Theodore Roose- velt, the twcnt)'-fifth man to occupy the Pres- idency of the United States, is the second exception to the rule of descent, and he, like the first, is of Dutch ancestry. No descen- dant of a Frenchman or of a German has ever been called to the office of Chief Ex- ecutive of the nation. It is the Anglo-Saxon, rather than his fel- low subject the Scotchman or tlie Irishman, who has sired the ancestors of American Presidents. There was Welsh blood in Jef- ferson, there was Scotch blood in Monroe, there was Scotch-Irish blood in Jackson, there was Scotch blood in Buchan- an, and the lineage of Grant has been traced sometimes to the clan MacGregor and some- times to the purest An- glo-Saxon. With these exceptions, up to the time of McKinley, the chief magistrates of the United States have been of almost pure English descent. Pride of ancestry has not had great place in the life of the average American citizen. It is only within comparatively recent years that the organization of different societies for genealogical and historical research has caused a revival and spread of interest in such subjects among the people generally. rH=. AG-. OF f;ft. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY WILLIAM Mckinley at the time of his enlistment as private IN THE ARMY Nevertheless, the old saying, "Blood will tell," finds its ready adherents, and the man whose forebears fought at Bannockburn, de- creed no surrender at Londonderry, and fol- lowed Washington from Massachusetts Bay to Yorktown, may at least lay claim to hon- orable ancestry. On the paternal side, the ancestors of William McKinley were originally Scotch. According to the most reliable traditions, they bore their part in those stirring events in which the Highland clans, for the sake of their independence or their freedom in re- ligion, cultivated the arts of war more than the arts of peace. They were identified with the Covenanter party m religious and civil affairs, and bore their full share in its stout defence of the faith and its indomitable re- sistance to the Stuart Kings. The most trustworthy genealogical re- search that has lieen made gives as the ear- liest ancestor of whom there is any record Constantine MacDuff, Earl of Fife, who killed Macbeth, immortalized in Shakespeare's trag- edy. The second son of the third earl was called Maclntoch, from whom the clan Mac- intosh descended. In the seventeenth gen- eration there appeared Finlay, from whom, according to the authority of the most recent investigations, the McKinlays were descended. This Finlay fell at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. ffis eldest son, William, was called McKinlay. The family was settled near Callander, Perth- shire, Scotland, about 1600. There, about 1645, was born John McKinlay, whose sec- ond son was named James. It was this James who, because of his feats of arms, became known as McKinlay the Trooper, and to him the ancestry of William McKin- ley is traced directly. The crest of the clan was an armed arm holding an olive branch. The motto was " Not too much." No more faithful representative of the motto or interpreter of the crest ever lived than the last. In the time of Charles II. the McKinleys emigrated to the north of Ireland and joined some of their clansmen who, in Cromwell's day, had settled in the Province of Ulster. It was at this time that the spelling of the name was changed from McKinlay to the form followed by the late President. When the descendants of the clan held their meet- ings at the World's Fair in Chicago, in 1893, Major McKinley, who was then Governor of Ohio, was asked by a lady of the same name, who still kept the "a" in the final syl- lable, to explain the change in the spelling, lie said in reply : "Your ancestors of the McKinlay clan came to this country directly from Scot- land, mine came from the north of Ireland ; but we are all of the same stock." McKinlay the Trooper took part in the battle of the Boyne, acting as a guide to the victorious army of William III. Some time in the earlier half of the eigh- teenth centur\', a McKinley who was prob- ably a son of McKinlay the Trooper, for he was born in 170S in the north of Ireland, came to this country. He had two sons, James, then about twelve years old, and William, who was younger. These boys founded the two branches of the McKinley family in the United States. William settled in Maryland, James in Pennsylvania. One member of the southern branch, John Mc- Kinley, became an Associate Justice of the LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed to that office in 1837 and served until the time of his death in 1S52. Wilham McKinley, who became President, was a descendant of the northern branch of the family. In the archives of York County, Pennsylvania, there is a record filed in 1743 showing that James McKinley uas possessed of a considerable parcel of land. There is also a record of the birth, on May 16, 1755, of David McKinley, who was a son of this James. He was the McKinley of the Revo- lution and was the great-orand father of Presi- dent McKinley. Almost at the outbreak of the Revolution there were organized in west- ern Pennsylvania several companies of mili- tiamen, whose part in active warfare seems to have been concerned largely with home defence or actions relatively close to their own localities. The active service of these militiamen was usually of comparatively short duration, but they were called into the field many times during the course of the war. The official record of the Bureau of Pensions shows that David McKinley en- listed for the first time in June, 1776, as a private from the village of Chanceford. The records show that he enlisted eight different times ; but inasmuch as there was no period of active service much greater than two months, it is probable that what are re- corded as enlistments were really the differ- ent calls to the field, and that his original enlistment covered pretty much the entire period of service. It is certain that he saw more than two years of active work in the field. He was engaged in the skirmishes at Amboy and Chestnut Hill and in the defence of Fort Paulishook. The record shows that at some time in his service he was wounded, but how seriously is not known. David McKinley settled in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, some time before the close of the War for Independence. On December ig, 1780, some time after he had been honorably discharged from his service in the militia, he married Sarah Gray. They lived in Westmoreland County for fifteen years and afterward moved to Mercer M-;S. McKI'lLEY AT THE AGE OF R.Ci! • 'l County. Ten children were born to them. Sarah McKinley died in October, 18 14, and about a year later David McKinley moved to Columbiana County, Ohio. In the mean- time he had married again, his second wife being Eleanor McLean. His children had then grown to manhood and some of them had settled in the Western Reserve. It is probable that he came west to be near some of them. His son James had settled in New Lisbon, Ohio, in i8og. Eleanor McKinley died in 1S35, ^^nd David himself lived five years longer. He was buried in an old cem- etery at Bucyrus, Crawford County, Ohio, in a lot purchased by his grandson William, who was the father of President McKinley. His tombstone records the date of his death as August 8, 1840. It is an interesting fact that, although he was wounded in his Revo- lutionary service, he did not apply for a pen- sion until August 15, 1832, fifty-four years after he was mustered out. He was then seventy-seven years old. When the McKinleys settled in eastern Ohio, that country and western Pennsyl- vania were already becoming famous for the production of iron. Several of the McKin- leys were actively concerned in this business. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY J 1 PORTRAIT OF MR. McKiriLEY lAKEiN lil 1865 James McKinley, son of David the Revolu- tionary soldier, was a furnace worker, or furnace blower, as they were called at New Lisbon. He owned a charcoal furnace, and was thus early an advocate of and believer in a protective tariff. He was one of those who even tlien foresaw that the proper fos- tering of the industry by the government would lead to its development from the crude methods then in service into a great business. While the McKinleys had been thus male-- ing their way from Scotland to Ireland and thence to Pennsylvania and Ohio, and fos- tering and developing their original rugged views of civil independence and religious freedom, there had been a somewhat similar movement on the part of a family of English Puritans who were now to become allied to the McJvinleys and to give to the future President of the United States an added strain of sturdy character. This family was named Rose. They were among those who had fled from England to Holland for refuge from religious persecution at about the time when the McKinleys were struggling for free- dom of belief in Scotland. Andrew Rose was a leader among the English Puritans. He came to America from Holland with William Penn, and received a grant of land encompassing nearly sixty miles where Doyles- town, Pennsylvania, now stands. He was a prominent factor in the early colonial history of Pennsylvania. He prospered in business and became a member of the legislative council of the colony. His son, Andrew Rose, Jr., was a soldier in the Revolution- ary War, but saw comparatively little active service in the field. He, too, was interested in the iron business and was a skilful work- man. After the battle of Monmouth it was decided that he could be of more service to his country in his iron foundry than as a bearer of a musket in the field. So he went back to his shop and throughout the rest of the struggle for independence continued the manufacture of cannon and other ordnance and ordnance supplies for the army. After the war he moved from Bucks County, Penn- sylvania, to Center County, and continued his business as an iron founder. It was at about this time that the Roses and McKin- leys formed an acquaintanceship which re- sulted in several marriages between different members of the families, and which led to business partnerships which have continued practically ever since. Andrew Rose was the father of eight children, one of whom, Mary, became the wife of James McKinley, grandfather of the late President. Large families were the rule rather than the exception in those days. James McKin- ley and Mary Rose had thirteen children, the second of whom was named William. It was natural that, as the boy grew up, he should follow the business in which the families of both his father and his mother were inter- ested, and he became a furnace blower, a business which he continued throughout his active life. In his twenty-second year Wil- liam McKinley, Sr., was married to Mary Allison, who was a descendant, like himself, of Scotch Covenanter stock. The Allisons settled in Virginia upon their emigration from the old country. Later some of them went to Pennsylvania, and it was there that Abner Allison, grandfather of President McKinley, was born. Abner Allison married, in 1798, LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y Ann Campbell, who was of Scotch-German descent. When they migrated to Ohio from Pennsylvania in the early years of the nine- ' teenth century they made the journey on horseback, Mrs. Allison holding her youngest child in front of her. They settled on a farm some eight or ten miles from New Lisbon, Ohio, which was then the home of James McKinley, and there Mary Allison was born, in 1809. She was married to William McKin- ley, Sr., in 1827, and soon afterward they went to live at Fairfield, Ohio. One of the biographers of William McKin- ley has said : " By this mixture of the Cove- nanter and the Puritan and the added slight infusion of the blood of the thoughtful and studious German ancestors, William McICin- ley inherited that love of freedom, that sturdy honesty of purpose, that natural probity, that indomitable will-power which peculiarly fitted his grandparents for entering upon a severe pioneer life in the early part of this century, and which peculiarly fitted him for a notable career. That very pioneer life itself, in the uncultivated lands of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, must have further devel- oped these very same qualities. It was an experience by which men and women were either made great or killed at an early age. The women, no less than the men, were called upon to endure many hardships in providing for the families of those days, which were generally large and surrounded, by force of circumstances, with scanty provisions for their comfort and sustenance. "Engaged in the early iron industries of this country as William McKinley's grand- father and father, and also his great-grand- father, Andrew Rose, Jr., were, William Mc- Kinley inherited strong convictions as to the conditions regarding the development of the business, and one can well under- stand how in his mind were early laid the foundations of those doctrines as to protec- tion to home industries and their develop- ment in this country in thorough indepen- dence of other countries, a doctrine of which he was destined to become the leading ex- ponent among the people. "The readiness also with which several of the ancestors of William McKinley left their farms, their furnaces or their forges and went to the field of battle when there was a call for men in defence of their coun- try, will explain so far as ancestry can the promptness with vv'hich the Ohio statesman, when only a lad of eighteen, persuaded his parents to allow him to shoulder a musket and march to the front in defence of the Union in 1861. The AfcKinleys have always been hard workers and thorough patriots." CHAPTER II BOYHOOD AND E.'XRLY YOUTH IN the later thirties and early forties William Mclvinley, Sr., was one of the substantial men in the iron business in eastern Ohio. He had foundries at Fairfield, New Wilmington and other places, and was managing a furnace near Niles, in Trumbull County. Niles was then a settlement of a few hundred inhabitants. The Mclvinleys lived in a long, rambling two-story frame house, which served both as a store and a MRS. McKIMLEY (fiight), WITH MRS. BARBER, HER SISTER UtandingI, AND MISS GOODMAN, HER COUSIN (left) LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y dwelling. At the front was a wide porch, over which great masses of woodbine chmbed. Here William McKinley, Jr., was born on January 29, 1843. He was the seventh of nine children, three of whom survive him. The McKinleys were regarded by their neighbors as rather above the average in intelligence and were much liked and re- spected. They were substantial, well-to-do MAJOR WILLIAM McKINLEY people, though by no means what would be called rich, even in that country. The young McKinley had no serious struggle with grind- ing poverty in his childhood, nor was he reared m the lap of luxurw Though the tmie of hi.s parents was much occupied with the commonplaces of life, seldom was opportu- nity neglected for the improvement of the mind or strengthening the morals. It was thus in an atmosphere of hard work and at- tention to duty and to opportunity that William McKinley, Jr., spent his early years. With the picture of the little country village, where he was born, in luind, it would be easy to imagine him as a barelegged, happy-go- lucky boy, alive to the sports and amuse- ments which interest the schoolboys of such places, whose hearts thrilled to the sign of two-finger and who spent their leisure hours fishing, swimming, or roaming the fields. Hut William McKinley was not of that kind. His childhood was spent like that of the average healthy, wholesome child of thrifty and intelligent parents in a simple and unpre- tentious state of society. It is not recorded that he displayed any startling precocity, but it is none the less true that he was rather above the average in the mental faculties of observation and in robustness of body. He was a pleasant companion and he was fond of outdoor sports and athletic games, but at the same time, even in his earliest years, there was apparent in him something of that seri- ousness and that studious earnestness which became so marked among the characteristics of the full-grown and developed man. It was when the mother of William McKinley was eighty-seven years old, and when she had seen her son nominated for the first time for the great office of Pres- ident of the United States, that she gave to a newspaper correspondent, at her home in Canton, Ohio, a description of his babyhood and boyhood. .She described the kind of a baby he was, the baby clothing he wore, the cradle he was rocked in, told about his baljy woes and joys, about his life as a boy, his taste for books and games, his pains and his pleasures, and all that went to make the life of the boy, William McKinley, worth living. Then, at the close, when she was asked if she were not proud to be the mother of such a son as William McKinley had turned out to be, she replied : " No, I am not proud ; I am only thankful to the Great Giver that he has bestowed such a blessing upon me." Mrs. McKinley repelled with earnestness the suggestion that perhaps her distinguished son had been a little better or a little worse than her other babies. To her the babies, as such, were all alike, and they were pretty good babies, too. William was what she called a crying baby and naturally received considerable care and attention from his brothers and sisters. Mrs. McKinley was a trreat believer in the use of wool, and was LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y firmly convinced that no baby could be reared successfully without woollen clothinw. Her boys and girls grew up in wool, and it has been suggested since as barely possible that the grown-up McKinley's interest in American sheep was due to his early asso- ciation witli American-grown and American- made wool. According to his mother, William McKin- ley, as an infant, was only middling good. Mrs. McKinley had had a large experience with children, and she asserted that it was not natural for children to be good. Good- ness, she maintained, was a matter of ex- ample and education, with an occasional use HOME, CAriTOrJ, OHIO of the rod. She employed a good old-fash- ioned switch wliich, being laid on earnestly, as occasion demanded, produced anguish of spirit and reform. More than once young William McKinley felt the force of parental authority thus exerted ; but, as a general thing, Mrs. McKinley said, he was dutiful and obedient and gentle. The form of pun- ishment which was commonly used by Mrs. McKinley, and which was most successful, was solitary confinement, and she said that after the boy had been locked in a room by himself for a little time he usually quickly perceived the error of his ways, and it is worthy of notice that he always came out of such confinement penitent and chastened. It was characteristic of the McKinley boys that they were not sulkers, and seldom lost their tempers. They might get angry, but it was not in them to "stay mad." The young McKinley had the usual series of childhood troubles, measles, mumps and whooping-cough, but never any serious ill- ness. One of his mother's most vivid recollec- tions of his very early boyhood was his amaz- ing appetite for bread and milk. Another favorite dish was boiled rice served with butter, milk and sugar, and, when he be- came a little older, there was a certain kind of ginger-snap, the kind that really does snap in breakmg, of which he could eat untold quantities. In those days baby boys made rapid progress to the attainment of their first trousers. Young McKinley got his the sum- mer that he was two and a half years old. By the time he was eight years old he had attained the dignity of long trousers, and having progressed thus far toward man- hood, he was permitted to add coffee to his diet. By this time he was able to take a con- siderable part in the work that was to be done about the house. It fell to the lot of William and his younger brother, Abner, to keep the supply of firewood steady. Wood was the only fuel in use in the household, and a great deal of it was consumed. It came in lengths of four feet, and the two boys had to saw and split it. Mrs. McKin- ley said that William was a steady chopper, muscular and willing, and that he always did his own sliare of the work as quickly and well as he could, but that Abner was a more skilful manager, and occasionally succeeded in getting other boys to help him, after the manner of Tom Sawyer. The habit of sawing his own wood was one that clung to William McKinley throughout his life. As the boy developed, his studious incli- nations increased. He occasionally went fish- ing or played some of the games indulged in by the village boys, but left to himself his preference was for books. He early be- gan to read "The Swiss Family Robinson," LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY MRS. McKlh!L£Y (left). MRS, R. 5. SHIELDS, AND MISS MARY FABER "Robinson Crusoe," and such things, and was devoted to his work at school. lie began to attend the village school at Niles when he was five years old, and from the start made the best of such opportunities wherever he had them. Ilis mind worked logically rather than intuitively and he had to strive for what he got, but when once he had learned a thing it was his. Young McKinley was an affectionate child, and, although he made friends among the children in the village, he greatly pre- ferred his own brothers and sisters as his playmates. Moreover, he liked the girls bet- ter than the boys. There was nothing of the roysterer about him. He was what his mother called "a bidable child." The Mc- Kinley children were not allowed to play about the streets of the village, but were kept at home, where their parents entered into their childish pastimes with genuine pleasure. The custom which was common through- out that section of the country, at that time, of having the family dinner at midday, was never in vogue in the McKinley family. William McKinley, Sr., was too actively engaged in his business enterprises to be willing to give up a valuable hour in the middle of the day to a heavy meal. He preferred to have his dinner after the day's work was done, and he could enjoy the liberty which followed it in the company of his wife and children. In another respect, the McKinley home was unlike many of those which surrounded it. There was a comfortable little collection of books in it. The elder McKinley was studiously inclined and always did all he could to encourage his children in reading. He was fond of employing his own leisure in that way, and it is recorded of him that he spent nearly all of Sunday with his books. His library was made up of the standard histories, such as Hume's England and Gibbon's Rome, and the earlier works of Charles Dickens found their places on its shelves. It was a regular custom in the household that after dinner some one should read aloud to the others for an hour. So far as attend- ance was concerned, there was nothing compulsory about it, but the after-dinner hour, with books or magazines or news- papers, was religiously kept, and seldom did a member of the family voluntarily miss it. A volume of Shakespeare, which is still pre- served in the old home in Canton, was a source of regular entertainment and inspira- tion. ISut perhafis there was no more fav- ored visitor in the way of periodical litera- ture than the New York "Weekly Tribune," MB. McKINLEY IN 1866 LIFE OF W I F L 1 A M M c K I N L F Y uliich Horace Greeley was then making- a power in tlie land. The elder McKinley would often read it aloud to the family, and the boy William there got his first les- sons in politics. He was always closely at- tentive to tlie political utterances of Greeley, and was frequently inspired by them to seek further information from his father. William McKinley, Sr., was much interested in politics, being an active Whig and after- ward a Freesoiler. In later years he was an ardent Republican. The country at that time was beginning to a\N'aken to the in- evitable conflict between the Norlli and the MRS, WILLIAM McKINLEY. PHOTOGRAPHED ON HER WEDDING TRIP South, and the counlry \-iIlages in Ohio were well-known stations on the under- ground road to Canada travelled by escap- ing slaves in their effort to reacli that land of liberty. These family readings and political talks in the home circle undoiibtedi)- had their active part in the political development of William McICinley, Jr. His naturally observ- ing mind was undoubtedly attentive through all the exciting events then taking place in public affairs. One can easily imagine the interest with which the family followed the hot Presidential contest in 1852, and the doings of the Twenty-third Congress which followed, and during which Senator Douglas reported the Kansas and Nebraska bill. Nor is it difficult to imagine the feel- ing in the McICinley household and the talk in the after-dinner reading circle among those lovers of freedom upon such events as the arrest of Anthony Burns, a runaway slave, in Boston in 1S54, the Jerry rescue in Syracuse in 1853. and other contests brought on by slaver)- and the attempt to enforce the Fugitive Slave law. William McKinley, Jr., was twelve years old when Nathaniel P. Banks was elected Speaker of the Thirty- fourth Congress. He was only thirteen years old when President Franklin Pierce sent his special message to Congress recog- nizing the pro-slavery Legislature of Jvansas, and called the attempt to establish a free State government ai-i act of rebellion. He was only thirteen when Charles Sumner was beaten down in the Senate by Preston S. Brooks. It is no wonder that the descend- ant of such ancestors, reared in such a home, amid such stirring scenes, should have been one of the first to respond to his country's call when the time came to save the nation b\- force of arms. In his early boyhooil William McKinley got a practical knowledge of the old pre- cept about early to bed and early to rise. It was one of the inflexilile laws of the household that the little children should be in bed by seven o'clock. They could make up for it by getting out of bed almost as early the next morning as they liked, but with Mrs. McKinley regularity was one of the essentials of good health. It was one of her regrets for the exigencies of the life to which his later prominence subjected her son, that he was compelled by it to deviate froi-n her hygienic standard of life. The McKinley family w-cre Methodists, and the children were brought up in that faith. They were fond of going to Sunday- school, as is i-iatural for children in a little country village where the Sunday-school is a common place of meeting and a recog- nized f(-)ri-n of innocent entertainment. The elder William McKinley, although opposed as a general thing to compulsory rules for the conduct of his children, was nevertheless LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY McKirJLEY BL'l'L , .. ' ■ . McKlflLEY PRACTICED LAW very strict in tlie matter of religious attend- ance. William McKinley, Jr., was thoroughly interested in the teachings of the Sunday- school, and soon grew to acquire a strong religious conviction. The circumstances of his conversion and alliance with the Meth- odist Church when he was fifteen years old were thus related a few years ago by the minister who was conducting the meetmgs. This minister was tiie Rev. Aaron D. Mor- ton, who, in 1858, was a circuit rider and held a series of revival meetings at the vil- lage of Poland, where the McKinleys then lived. " Mr. McKinley was converted at a prayer meeting." said Mr. Morton. "I remember the evening very well. The congregation that night was small, although there had been many largely attended meetings prior to that time, and McKinley had been present at all of them. That evening he sat about the middle of the church. He was a very attentive listener. At my request for those to stand who wished to express a desire to become Christians, he rose. I remember his words very well, he said: " ' God is the greatest of all beings and religion is the best of all things in the world. I have determined by the grace of God to seek for it until 1 find it.' " After his declaration he attended the revival meetings for three or four evenings. At the expiration of that time he said that he found relief and joy in religion. He continued to be very much interested in the meetings and he was very attentive at the services. He pursued a strict study of re- ligion and religious duties. There was only one religious question which troubled the young man. He was puzzled as to whether he should be baptized by sprinkling or by immersion. Both could then be used in the .Methodist Church. In a few months, how- ever, he decided to be immersed with a number of others, and, having been on pro- bation in the interval, he then became a member of the Church." CHAPTER III SCHOOL DAYS AT TIIE POLAND SEMINARY IT needs no extended discussion of such surroundings as those amid which the young McICinley spent his early years, to show how naturally his studious, sober inclinations and his sturdy uprightness de- veloped. He had been in attendance upon the public schools in the little village of Niles for only four years when it became apparent to the keen watchfulness of his father, ever alive to the interests and wel- fare of his children, that there was not pos- sible in that town such educational advan- Flhial PndbGt I trilrtN C-Ur.i^H, ■■/.■■-;tiii Mri. niiu Miib. McKII-JLEY WERE MARRIED LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L F Y CHURCH AND GRAVEYARD AT DERRYKEIGH AN, NEAR DERVOCH, Uon be supplied. Major Hayes did the talking to our company, and I shall never forget the impression of his speech. He said that many of the most decisive battles in history had been won with the rudest weapons. At Lexington, Bunker Hill, and many other engagements of the Revolution, our forefathers had triumphed over the well- equipped English army, with the very poor- est firearms, and that even pikes and scythes LIFE O I- WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y THE PRESIUIiNT'S WIFE AND MOTHER LISTENING TO HIS FIRST INAUGURAL SPEI-CII had done good work in that glorious con- flict. Should we be less patriotic than our brave ancestors? Should we hesitate at the very start of another struggle for liberty and union, for tlic best and freest govern- ment on the face of the earth, because we were not pleased with the pattern of our muskets, or with the calibre of our rifles ? "I cannot at this late day recall his exact words, but I shall never forget his warmth of patriotic feeling and the sound sense with which he appealed to us. That was our first and last mutiny. We accepted the old-fashioned guns, took cheerfully what was ofi'ered, and Hayes held us captive from that hour." Colonel Rosecrans was made a brigadier almost immediately, and assigned to the command of the Department of the Ohio, with his old regiment as a part of his command. McKinley took part in all the engagements of that first campaign. His baptism of fire was at Carnifex Ferry on September lo. The battle resulted in favor of the Northern arms, and it did a great deal for the green soldiers of the Twenty- third Ohio. Long afterward, McKinley said of it : "It gave the boys confidence in them- selves, and faith in their commander. We learned that we could fight and whip the rebels on their own ground." It was after this fight that the regiment went into winter quarters, and then began some of the hardest experiences of its en- tire service. The weather was wet and raw, the men were constantly exposed to the heavy rains and the cold, and there was considerable sickness. Drill and the estab- lishment of discipline occupied much of the time, and there was plenty of active work. It was of this service that the historian of "Ohio in the War" says: " From this point the regiment operated against the numerous guerillas infesting the LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY country in that quarter, performinij many days and nights of excessively hard duty, marching and counter - marching over the rugged spurs of the Ricli mountain range, and drenched by the ahnost continual rains of that season. Thus we find the boys who had left their peaceful occupations and happy homes but a few months previous suddenly plunged into an actual service tliat put to a severe test both their fighting qualities and powers of endurance." After the promotion of I^osecrans, Lieu- tenant - Colonel Matthews had been made colonel of the Forty-first Ohio, and late in October Major Hayes got his first pro- Ti'.L HOME or WILLIAM McKINLE^, CAflTOI.', OHIO motion. James M. Comly, who became distinguished after the war as the editor of the Ohio State Journal, took the place of Hayes as major. So the winter of 1 86 1-2 passed with the Twenty-third Ohio; but if there was not much of great moment occurring with the regiment there was plenty with the North. The Union States were beginning to realize at last the size of the task before tliem. The South, compact, thoroughly united, with a better understanding at the start of the true scope of the struggle, and ready for it, had made great strides toward success. The rage that filled the North had occasionally something of the note of despair in it; but those who could look below the surface knew that the deep, genuine patriotism of the Union people had been reached, and were not without hope, even though Hull Run had had no conspicuous Union victory to offset it, and even though they were say- ing in Europe that the capital was besieged and the Confederacy had already as good as won its fight. As was to be expected, there were many and loud complaints from the men in the field, and there was con- siderable sickness. It is part of the happy self-confidence of the American people, the ready-for-anything spirit which makes them irresistible at the last, that in the time be- fore the crisis they think themselves irresist- ible at the start. It is only when actually called into the field and facing the problems of organization and care of troops in service that they fi)id there really is something more to soldiering than wearing a uniform and carrying a gun. Then when the inevitable sickness comes, and the inevitable hardship of bad clothing, poor or insufficient food and lack of proper shelter, tlie wail of suffering and the burst of angry criticism rise to- gether. So it was in 1S61, and so it was in the beginning of the war with Spain. So it will always be while our system remains what it is to-day. But just as this is in- evitable so is it sure that with a little time the organization is perfected, the men settle down to their work, the complaints disap- pear under improved conditions, and the real irresistibility is approximated. It was just this process that was going on with the troops of the North that hard winter, and it was just this thing that was happening in young McJvinley's regiment. Here it was, too, that he won for himself his first promotion. The care and attention to duty which had marked his career in school were not left behind when Mclvinley marched to the front. Too many men who understand their own responsibility and have regard for it while they are in civil life, are inclined to leave all that to their officers when they volunteer for military service. McKinley was not one of them. His offi- cers soon noted that fact. Jn the minor ways in which an enlisted man could be LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY tried, they saw that he bore his part un- usually well, and that he had capacity for plenty of work, with more than the average of executive ability. So, when the winter was over, and the summer campaign com- ing on again, McKinley was made commis- sary-sergeant. That was on .'Vpril 15, 1862. Two days later the regiment was ordered out of winter quarters, and the advance upon the enemy began. They struck the Southern troops at Clarke's Hollow, on the first of May, and, after an engagement of COPYRIGHT BY J. C. HEHHENT A CHARACTERISTIC POSE minor importance, pushed on to Princeton, West Virginia. The Confederates led the Union troops on by evacuating the town, but soon afterward attacked the regiment with a brigade. Colonel Hayes was forced to retreat, but the retirement was conducted in good order, although there was continual skirmishing throughout it. The enemy suc- ceeded in shutting off the supply train, and the regiment was on short rations for some time. Hayes abandoned the effort to hold Princeton, and fell back on Flat Top Moun- tain, where he went into camp and remained until July 13. Thence he marched to Camp Piatt, on the Great Kanawha. The distance covered was nearly one hundred miles, and the regiment made it in three days. Thirty miles a day, under a broiling summer sun, is the very best kind of marching, and it showed that the regiment had got out of the class of recruits. After a couple of months of compara- tive inactivity, the regiment was ordered to Washington. The Confederates were mak- ing their desperate attempt to capture the Northern capital. Their success would prob- ably mean that Maryland would throw her- self definitely on their side, and the ultimate success of their cause would be practically ensured. This was the problem facing Mc- Clellan and Lincoln, and every effort was made to concentrate troops for the defence of Washington, and to drive the Confed- erates back. The Twenty-third Ohio had been in the capital city but a few hours when the order came for the advance upon Frederick. Maryland. This was the first time Mclvinley had seen Washington, and whatever were his thoughts then, it is fairly certain that he had no premonition of the years he was to spend there in the service of his country, first as a Representative in Congress and then as its Chief Magistrate. Almost immediately after leaving Wash- ington came the battle of South Mountain. In 1893, when he was Governor of Ohio, McFCinley delivered an oration before the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, in the course of which he briefly described this battle. He said : " It was a lovely September day, an ideal Sunday morning. McClellan's army, with Burnside's corps in front, was passing up the mountain by the national road. General Cox's Ohio division led liurnside's corps and the Twenty-third Ohio was in the lead of that division. Hayes was ordered to take one of the mountain paths, and move to the right of the rebels. At 9 o'clock the rebel picket was driven back, and on our pushing forward the rebels advanced upon us in strong force. Our regiment was quickly formed in the woods, and charged over LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y OHIO CITIZENS CALLING AT MR. MiKINLEV'S HOMi; TO CONGRATULATE HIM ON HIS ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY rocks and broken ground, through deep underbrush, under the heavy fire of the enemy at short range, and after one of the hottest fights of the war we drove them out of the woods into an open field near the hill top. Another charge was ordered by Hayes. No sooner had he given the word of command than a minie ball from the enemy shattered his arm above the elbow, crushing the bone to fragments. He called to a soldier to tie his handkerchief about the wound, but, turning faint, he fell, his men passing over and beyond him into the fight, where he had ordered them. When he regained consciousness Hayes found himself under a heavy fire, with the bullets pelting the ground all about him. He feared that his men were retreating, but he was soon reassured, when, on calling out, he was carried safely into friendly cover." There is much in this account by Mc- Kinley to show the bravery of Hayes, but nothing, except by inference, to show that of McKinley. That was always characteris- tic of McKmley. He rarely had anything to say about his personal deeds on the field of battle. His mates had plenty of hard and dangerous work at South Moun- tain, but it does not appear that he person- ally took any conspicuous part in the regi- mental work. lie was then commissary- sergeant, and his place was not on the firing line. The regiment made three suc- cessful charges and the colors were riddled, the blue field of the colors being almost entirely earned away. After Hayes was wounded. Major Comly took command of the regiment. The ground was contested so hotly that frequently wounded men of both sides were huddled in the same shel- ter, and, as seems always to have been the case when they were thus thrown together, they talked over the incidents of the battle and the war in the most friendly manner. It is related that in one of these shelters an officer of one of the Northern regiments was lying wounded. Near him lay a Con- federate officer. North turned to South and asked ; " What regiment do you belong to and where did you come from?" When the Southerner replied that he was a major in a North Carolina regiment, the ^ Northerner said: '■ Well, you came a long way to fight us." "Where are you from?" asked the Con- federate major. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY " I'm from Ohio," answered the Union man. " Well, you came a long way to fight us," exclaimed the Confederate. CHAPTER V FROM ANTIETAM TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR THE fight at South Mountain broke the Confederate strength, and Lee was compelled to retire across the Antietam Creek to Sharpsburg. For two days there was lively skirmishing, and then came the battle of the Antietam, one of the great struggles of the war. Here it was ARRIVING AT THE SOUTHERN HOTEL, ST. LOUIS, WITH W. J. STONE, OCTOBER 14, 1898 that young McKinley got his first chance to distinguish himself, and he made the most of it. Lee's position behind the Antietam was very strong. He occupied a wooded plateau which sloped gradually to the stream, which at that point is deep and swift. There were few fords and tlie main crossings were over three stone bridges. The ground is rugged, and Lee had taken good advantage of all the favorable points to plant his artillery. His reserves were formed behind the hills on which his fighting line rested and could manoeuvre as they pleased without being seen by the Union troops. His line was short and he could reinforce it at any point quickly. At daylight on the morning of Septem- ber 17, General Hooker crossed the stone bridge on the Hagerstown road under a heavy fire, and drove the enemy back from an open field just beyond the creek, through a line of woods, and into a second line of woods beyond. There was a plowed field between the two wood lots, and here the fight raged with tremendous fierceness near- ly the whole day. Just at the close of the day the Union troops were sent forward in a last effort to clear this field. They made a gallant charge, and succeeded in driving the Confederates back, so that night fell with the field in the possession of the Northern men. McKinley's regiment had been in the thickest of the fighting and had suffered severely, as did all the troops, on both sides, that were engaged. The Union casu- alties numbered more than twelve thousand, and those of the enemy were as great. The Ohio men had suffered not only from the bullets of the enemy, but they had gone into action in the morning without breakfast. All day they had struggled without cessation, and there had been no opportunity even to prepare coffee, that chief mainstay of the fighting man in ac- tion. By afternoon the men were in such condition that not even the great excite- ment of the battle could keep them up. Worn out with hunger and exhaustion and thirst, it was but natural that they should be somewhat broken in spirit ; but the at- tack of the enemy was so fierce that none could be spared to go to the rear to bring up food or coffee. It was when things were in such a con- dition that young Sergeant McKinley rose to the occasion. He was in charge of the commissary supplies of his regiment and was witli them about two miles in rear of the fighting line. He gathered together some of the stragglers who, as is the way of stragglers everywhere, had found their way back to the commissary, and organized a force to lake supplies forward to the regi- ment. He filled two wagons with coffee and hardtack, and started forward. Several LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT McKINLEY, WITH ESCORT OF MOUNTED POLICE. APPROACHING ITIE GRAND ARCH AT THE ATLANTA PEACE JUBILEE times he was ordered back by officers who As they came up to the wacron on the rim thought he could never make it, or cared not McKinley was ready, and eacli man got a whetlier he got the suppHes to the famish- handful of hardtack and a can of hot coffee, ing men or not. Hut he kept on in spite of The result was tremendous. It was like obstacles. The mules of one of his wagons putting a new regiment into the fight at were disabled and he had to abandon it, but that critical stage. The men ran back to he stuck to it with the other one and at their work warmed and cheered, and when last reached a point near his regiment where the order for the final charge came they he could serve the rations to the half-starved went at it with a spirit and an energy that men. The men greeted him with such could not be resisted. cheers that General Scammon sent an officer The day closed with the advantage on to see what it was all about. It was al- the side of tlie Union men at most points, most dark and the time was just about at although the battle as a whole has always j hand for the last charge. McKinley's men figured in the indecisive class. At any rate could not leave the fighting line to get their Lee retreated to the left bank of the Poto- ratlons and he could not pass along the line mac and the Immediate danger to Washiiig- with his wagon. So it was arranged that ton was over. Colonel Hayes had gone to the men should fall back in squads of ten. Ohio to recuperate from his wound, and 27 LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y . FORTER, PRiSIDF. RST '-F<: Ri TAR when he heard of McKiiiley's performance he went to the Governor and recommended the promotion of the sergeant. The official record shows that the promotion to a sec- ond Heutenancy was made on September 23, six days after the battle. Wlien, in his first term as Governor of Ohio. McICinley went to Lakeside to deliver an address to the Baptist Young People's Assembly, he was introduced by his old commander, General Hayes, who, in speaking of this incident at Antietam, said : " From his hands every man in the regi- ment was served with hot coffee and warm meats, a thing which 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." Further along in the same speech of in- troduction General Hayes read an entry he had made in his personal diary on the 13th of December, 1862. It said: "'Our new second lieutenant, McICinley, returned to us to-day — an exceedingly bright, intelli- gent and gentlemanly young officer. He promises to be one of the best.' And," said General Hayes, "he kept the promise in every sense of the word. Young as he was, we soon found that in business, in exec- utive ability, he was a man of rare capacity, of unusual and surpassing capacity, espe- cially for a boy of his age. When battles were fought or a service was to be per- formed 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, that was in the way of his prompt and efficient per- formance of every duty. When I became commander of the regiment he soon came to be on my staff, where he remained for one or two years, so that I did literally and in fact know him like a book and love him like a brother." Not long after the battle of the Antie- tam, McKinley's regiment was sent back to West Virginia, with the rest of the Kana- wha division, and went into winter quarters near the falls of the Great Ivanawha. Hayes had returned to his command before his wound had fully healed, having been pro- moted to be colonel for his gallantry at South Mountain. The men built log and plank shelters for themselves. They called it " Camp Lucy Hayes," in honor of their colonel's wife, and the months they spent there, from October, 1862, to July, 1863, when they were ordered to active service again, were not without their pleasures and amusements. In this camp McKinley got his third promotion, and became, in Feb- ruarv, 1863, first lieutenant, assigned to his old company, E, m which he had enlisted as a private. The service wdiich took the regiment out of their comfortable quarters was active in- deed. John Morgan, the raider, had started on his dash through Kentucky and Indi- ana headed toward Cincinnati. Morgan had about 2.500 men. They were all mounted, and as fast as horses gave out they were replaced by others taken from the inhabi- tants along the route of the raid. He made from fifty to sixty miles a day, and left a LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y trail of destruction and consternation behind liis broken force and soon was compelled him. After five days in Kentucky, Morgan to surrender. He was sent to the Ohio reached the Ohio River sixty-five miles be- penitentiary, and the Twenty^liird returned low Louisville. He seized two steamers and to its old camp for another winter, crossed into southern Indiana, whence he It was in this work with Hayes that Mc- pushed on so rapidly and secretly that on Kinley got his first experience of staff duty. July 14 he was only twenty-eight miles from When McKinley enlisted. Lieutenant Hast- Cincinnati. Then Hayes, with his own and ings was attached to one of the companies another regiment and a section of artillery, of the regiment. Hastings rose to be colo- was sent to cut him off. He reached Gal- nel of the regiment, and was brevetted lipolis on July i8, and a little further on brigadier. Speaking a few years ago of caught the raiders. Morgan had no desire McKinley's war service General Hastings to fight, and fled as fast as he could. The said : Twenty-third was sent after him, caught " McKinley was always keen, quick and him the next day and gave him a thrash- alert, and so was naturally fitted for staff ing, capturing about half his men. Hayes service, a fact his superiors soon realized so manoeuvred liis command that Morgan and took advantage of; so that during the was unable to get away with the rest of greater part of the war he served on the LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY WILLIAM R, DAY, WHO SUCCEEDED JOHN SHERMAN AS SECRETARY OF STATE staff of the general officers, one of the most dangerous positions in the army, one which recjuired the utmost readiness of resource and bravery of the higliest order." Tlie next year opened with the tide of war setting sti'ongly against the Confeder- acy. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had marked the turning point of the Southern cause. The campaign of '64 opened early for Mclvinley and the Twenty-third Ohio. The regiment left its comfortable quarters on the 29th of April and moved to a point a few miles above Brownstown, on the Kanawha, to join the division commanded by General George Crook, who was just starting on an expedition to cut the principal lines of com- munication bet^^■een Richmond and the Soutliwest. In his address on the life of General Hayes, delivered in 1893, McKinley said of this expedition: " It was a rough and trying march over mountains and through deep ravines and dense woods, with snows and rains that would have checked the advance of any but the most determined. Daily we were brought in contact with the enemy. We penetrated a country where guerillas were abundant, and where it was not an unusual thing for our men to be shot from the underbrush — murdered in cold blooil. "At Cloyd Mountain the regiment en- countered the enemy, and there was a fierce and desperate engagement. The advance across the meadow, in full sight of the enemy and in range of their guns, through tlie creek and up over the works on the ridge, was magnificently executed, and the hand-to-hand combat in the fort was as desperate as any witnessed during the war. Still another charge was made and the rebels again driven back. On we hurried to Dub- lin Depot, on the Virginia & Tennessee Rail- road, burning the bridges there, tearing up the track and rendering the railroad useless for the transportation of soldiers or sup- plies. Then the New River Bridge was de- stroyed, and then with frecjuent encounters we went on to Staunton, Virginia. We entered Lexington, the seat of the Confeder- ate Military Institute, after a sharp engage- ment, Hayes's brigade in the lead and sus- taining all the casualties which occurred. Then on to Lynchburg, where, overcome by superior numbers, constantly augmenteO oy fast arriving reinforcements from Richmond, the whole division was compelled to retreat. All our commissary supplies were consumed, and, almost without food, we marched and fought our way back, closely pursued by the enemy. " 'After we reached our supply train,' to quote General Hayes himself, 'we stopped MR. MCKINLEY MEETS THE FARMERS AT HIS CANTOIl HOME, AFTER HIS ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT McKLXLEY AND THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE HAVING A CHAT AT THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA and ate, marched and ate, camped about dark and ate all night. We had marched almost continuously for about two months, fighting often, with little food and sleep, crossing three ranges of the Alleghenies four times, the ranges of the Blue Ridge twice, and mai-ching several times all day and all night without sleeping.' " All this was in June. 1864. The retreat from Lynchburg took nine days, and in that time the Twenty-third marched 180 miles, with almost constant fighting. Hayes's bri- gade remained at Charleston until July 18, when it was sent to attack the Confederates under Early at a point about ten miles be- yond Harper'.s I'erry. It proved that Early had about 20,000 men, and the Ohio troops were surrounded. They cut their way through two brigades of Early's cavalry after desper- ate fighting and finally succeeded in joining the main body of Crook's troops near Win- chester. Here, within a radius of compara- tively few miles, the Ohio men had plenty of hard fighting with Early's troops in the next three months before the Confederates were finally driven out of the Shenandoah Valley. Two days after joining Crook came the first engagement. It was a defeat, the first decided one McKinley had known, but it olfered him another opportunity for the display of gallantry of which he did not fail to avail himself. Grant had been informed that Lee had ordered Early to Richmond, and so he with- drew two corps from the valley to assist him before the Confederate capital. This left Crook alone with the Eighth Corps, which had been so depleted by hard ser- vice that it numbered but little more than 6,000 men. But Early had not gone to Richmond. Instead, he halted at Strasburg and there learned that Grant had with- drawn the greater part of his forces. He determined at once to return and crush Crook, who, having no information of tlic real state of affairs, rested serenely at Winchester. Early's attack came on the morning of Sunday, July 24. At first Crook did not believe the reports that were brought to LIFE O F WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y DISTANT LAMDS him to the effect that Early had come back in force. He sent two small lirigades, com- mandeil by Hayes and Colonel Mulhgan, to the hamlet of Kernstown, about four miles souili of Winchester, to head off what he took to be merely a reconnoissance in force. As soon as the fight opened, Hayes saw that they were in a trap, and that they cotild escape only by desperate fight- ing. That was the kind of work the Ohio men could do, and they went at it with a will. The few batteries they had were posted to cover the retreat, and the re- tirement began. It was a lively day for staff officers, and McKinley had his full share. He was serving on the staff of Hayes, but had been borrowed so much by Crook that it was hard to tell for which one he was doing the most work. As the retreat was well under way, it was noticed that Brown's West Virginia regiment, which had been posted in an orchard well in the Union advance, was still holding its ground. It was in great danger of being taken, but apparently the colonel was not going to retreat without orders, and so Hayes sent McKinley to bring it off. The young staff officer's course took him fairly under the fire of the advancing Southerners, but he did not hesitate. Bullets whistled around him, and once he was almost completely enveloped in the smoke of a shell which burst almost under his horse's feet. But he got through unhurt, and gave the order to the persistent colonel, saying : " I should have thought you would have retired with- out waiting for orders." " I was thinking I w ould retire without waiting any longer," replied the colonel, "and now I am ready to go wherever you lead ; but before I go I want to give those fellows just one or two more volleys." "Then let 'em have it quickly," answered McKinley. The regiment jumped up and poured in a hot fire on the advancing Confederates which checked them for a little. Then, fol- lowing McKinley, the West Virginia men started for the rear. McKinley brought the regiment around to the road near Win- chester and to its place in the brigade. When he reported to Hayes again, after it was over, the General said: " I never expected to see you again alive." The retreat led through Winchester, where there were many sympathizers with the Northern arms. An incident occurred there which illustrates the natural kindliness of heart of McKinley. Many of the resi- dents of the town came out into the streets to see the soldiers pass through, and some of them were evidently distressed at the ap- parent reverse. One of them, an old lady in Quaker dress, stood at her gate with tears running down her face as the Union troops passed. McKinley saw her and rode up and saluted, saying: " Don't worry, madam, we are not hurt as much as it seems. We shall be back again in a few days." The retreat continued until after mid- night, with the Confederates harassing the column all they could. The line of march showed evidences in the way of abandoned property that there had been something of LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY MR. AND JIRS. McKINLEY AND MRS. HANNA AT THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA, MARCH 27, iScjt, a stampede in the afternoon. Commissary wagons and other material had been left, and finally four guns and their caissons were found. The wagons had been de- stroyed by fire, but McKinley wanted to save the guns. He asked permission of Hayes, but the General thought it imprac- ticable, considering the exhausted condition of the men. "The Twenty-third will help me," said McKinley. " Well, ask them," answered the General. McKinley went to his old company and called for volunteers to drag the guns. Every man stepped out. The whole regi- ment caught the spirit, and the guns and caissons were hauled off triumphantly. Next night when the tired troops went into camp, long after dark, the artillery captain who had abandoned the guns was found and they were turned over to him. Bravery and work of the kind McKinley showed at Kernstown were not long with- out their reward in those days. The record shows that on the next day after Kerns- town McKinley was promoted to be a captain, and assigned to the command of Company G of the Twenty-third. That was only a technical assignment, for he con- tinued on staff duty and was soon serving with General Sheridan. The regiment con- tinued to have a lively share in the work of Hayes's brigade in the Shenandoah, being engaged in almost daily skirmishes, until on August 23, at Halltown, it " picked up a small South Carolina regiment entire." This work was done so quickly and brilliantly that one of the astonished prisoners ex- claimed: "Who the hell are you 'uns?" The next month brought the hard fight of Opequan, and here again McKinley dis- tinguished himself for quick decision and LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY good judgment. The Twenty-third Ohio was led liy lla\es in an assault on a battery which had been posted on an emi nence. In getting at it the Union men came unexpecledly upon a morass, where Havcs's horse was mired. He jumped oS and floundered through. Forty or fifty men followed, rushed the battery and took it after a liand-to-hand fight, the enemy liav- ing thought it in such a secure position that no infantry support had been given it. McKinley was tlicn on tlie staff of Cien- eral Crook. In tlic early part of the fight THE MliESlD^NT AND MRS. MoKIULEY ^EA,' he took a verbal order to Colonel Duvall, in command of the division of which Hayes's brigade was a part, to move his command quickly to a position on the right. Duvall was uncertain about the topography of the country, and asked : " By what route shall I move my command ? " McKinley had had no definite orders about the way Duvall was to go, but he had observed the country closely as he was moving about, and he replied : " I woidd move along this creek." Duvall did not like it. He wanted to be more certain. " I will not move an inch without definite orders," he said. McKinley rose to the emergency. It was a matter of great importance to have the division execute the mo\'ement at once, and he knew it. "This is a case of great emergency," he said to Colonel Duvall. " I order you, by command of General Crook, to move your command up this ravine to a position on the right of the army." Duvall obeyed, and in a short time got his division into its proper place, where it did effective service in driving the enemy from their works. A few days later occurred the capture of the Confederate position on Fisher's Hill, of which McKinley said: "This was one of the most brilliant of the many brilliant achievements of General George Crook. It was a flank movement through the woods and mountains to the enemy's right. Never did troops advance with greater difficulty, on what appeared to be an impassable route over the mountain side where it seemed the foot of man had never trod. Nothing was more brilliant or decisive during the entire war." The enemy fled in demoralization, and Crook's men pursued for abotn ten miles. Then the pursuit was stop|)ed and the troops were recalled, moving gradually northward. The valley seemed to have been cleared and Sheridan did not think a further expedition practicable. But Early was not yet ready to gi\'e up the .'^henandoah. As Sheridan moved northward he followed slowly, and by October 12 had re-occupied Fisher's Hill. The Union troops were placed m a strong position on the north bank of Cedar Creek, and then Sheridan went to Washington to consult with the President and Secretary of War about the future of the Vallev Campaign. He left General Wright in command. Crook's division, in- eluding Hayes's brigade of Ohio men, was a part of the force. Then occurred the famous fight immor- talized b)' T. Buchanan Read in his poem, "Sheridan's Ride." On the afternoon of October 18, Sheridan got back to Winches- ter, twelve miles north of the position of his army, on his way from Washington, his LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS COME TO SEE HIM plans for the campaig-n having been ap- proved. A courier brought him word that all was quiet at the camp, the enemy was apparently resting at Fisher's Hill, and a strong reconnoissance would be sent out at daylight the next day. .Sheridan spent the night at Winchester and started for Cedar Creek early in the morning. He heard the sound of guns, but thought it was the work of the reconnoissance that had been sent out, and rode at only a moderate pace. But presently he began to meet stragglers and baggage wagons, and then he was in- formed that Wriglit had met with a serious reverse. That set him going at full speed. The road became more and more clogged with the wagons and wounded men, and he had to take to the fields to make speed. Fmally he got back into the road and found It hned with uninjured men who had sim- ply run away, and being now out of danger were sitting down to get their breakfast. Early's men had attacked at 5 o'clock in the morning, taking Wright quite by surprise. At first there was much confusion and the Confederates swept everything before them. But Wright had succeeded in establishing himself in a good place in rear of his old camp and there held tlie atlvance of Early, who had not only suffered considerably in the dayhght attack, but whose men had stopped to plunder the Union camp. Just after this repulse of the enemy, .Sheridan came on the field. Captain McKmley had been working earnestly throughout the fight to keep the men in line and to reform the broken organizations. Sheridan rode up to liim and asked where Crook was, and to- getlier they rode off to find Crook. " down the line 'mid a storm of [luzziis. And the wave of retreat cliccked its course there, because The sight of the master compelled it to pause." It is a familiar story how the Union lines were reformed, and how the troops, inspired by the sight of Sheridan, and, somehow, filled with the infection of his master spirit, drove the Confederates back, and the day which had begun so well for Early ended in his defeat and utter rout. After this, Sheridan withdrew his forces to Kernstown again and established a forti- fied camp there. Mclvinlev was now- serv- ing regularly on the stafi" of General Crook, and went with him back to West \'irginia, where the enemy had been making a cav- alry raid. When Hancock took command of the department, WcKinley served on his staff. His days of hani, active service in the field were over. In the winter he was called to Washington and assigned to the staff of General S. S. Carroll, who com- manded the \'eteran Reserve Corps at the capital. McKinley was made Acting Assist- ant Adjutant-General. There he remained until the close of the war. It was on March 14 that he got his last promotion. LYMAU J. GAGE, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY Ilis commission gave him tlie rank of brevet-major, " For gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Opequan, Cedar Creek, and Fisher's Hill," and it was signed "A. Lincoln." On July 26, 1865, McKinley was mus- tered out and his fighting days in the field were over. In the four years of his service he had borne himself throughout with the same gallantry, steadiness and ability. It has been counted up that Hayes was under fire more than one hundred days, and as HE MEETS THE MECHANIC McKinley was with him most of the time, and was also in engagements where Hayes was not present, owing to wounds, McKm- ley must have been under fire more than that. He was extremely fortunate that he was not hit, as well as in other ways. At Berryville his horse was shot under him, but he escaped without injury. He used to say of this fight, which was continued until well after dark, that it was one of the most spectacular of the entire war. It kept up until the surgeons and burying parties began to move about the field with lanterns, and then the parties from both sides mingled in their work. Speaking of this engagement, McKinley once said : " It will not soon be forgotten. It was a brilliant scene. The heavens were illumi- nated by the flashes of our own and the enemy's guns. Later, when both armies determined to retire, it became my duty to direct a regiment at some distance from the others to move. A stranger, in the darkness I knew nothing of that country. When I started on my mission, some one on the other side was doing just what I was, as I could tell from what I could hear. I had not gone far until I was halted by a sentinel with ' Who comes thar ? ' The distinct Southern brogue was warning and I hastened the other way. Very soon I w as stopped with ' Who comes there?" and I recognized friends. I gave the countersign and soon had the regiment moving." The record young McKinley had made for himself had attracted the attention of many officers of the regular army, and when the volunteers were mustered out he was advised strongly by General Carroll and others to take a commission in the regular establishment and remain in the army. The temptation, no doubt, was great. He had no preparation for any civil occupation, and the military life, now that the war was over, offered all the advantages and none of the drawbacks. But he chose to go back to his Ohio home and make a start for himself in some other way. The record of his service is unusual in that it shows that he never was absent from duty a day because of sickness, and but for the slight reference of Colonel Hayes to his " return " after his promotion to a second lieutenancy, it does not appear that he ever had a fur- lough or took leave. So far from being sick or suffering in health, the hard outdoor life seems to have been of decided benefit to him physically, and he returned to his home life strong and well. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY CHAPTER VI McKINLEV BECOMES A LAWYER — HIS START IN POITTICS HAVING returned to his old home, and determined not to continue a miHtary career, McKinley fronted the future with an open field. He had a strong liking for the law, and the old habit of study that had been interrupted by the war now came back to him. From his pay as an officer he had made some savings which would enable him to make at least a start at the acquirement of a legal educa- tion. It was a decided break from the busi- ness which had occupied all his ancestors in Ohio; but it met with the approval of his father, who was himself an iron man. McICinley's natural fondness for debate and public speaking undoubtedly was a consider- able factor in his decision. He had the ad- vantage of being able to begin his study under the direction of a man who had won a high place in the esteem of the people of that part of Ohio, Judge Charles E. Glid- den, of Youngstown, and whose partner was David M. Wilson. McKinley went at this new study as ear- nestly and vigorously as he had worked at his books in the schoolboy days. The war had been a violent mterruption of the habit J 'iiLL A, A^GER, SECRETARY OF WAR PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND of steady application, but he soon got it back and became as regular a burner of the midnight oil as he had ever been. Two or three times a week he would go to Youngs- town to go over his reading with Judge Glidden. He was too busy with his work to take much part in the social activity of Poland, although his pleasing personality, coupled with the reputation he had won in the war, made him much sought after by the young people of the town. He did not deny himself entirely these social pleasures, but he never suffered them to interfere in any way with his serious work in the law. It was in line with his work that he should take advantage of every opportunity for pub- lic speaking, and when he was asked to deliver the oration on the occasion of the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument he accepted gladly. That was a great day, both for Mclvinley and for Poland. After a year of this sort of hard work his funds began to run low, and it be- came for a time a question with McICinley whether he should try to keep on with his studies until he had completed the prelimi- nary work and been admitted to the bar, or should interrupt his course with some business occupation that would bring a financial return. Law meant not only more years of study without return, but also the first fruitless years of practice, when he L I 1' E O 1' WILLIAM M c K I N L L Y F PRESiDEMr SHOWS HIS FONDNESS FOR CHILDREH could not expect to ijet much ahead, if. indeed, he held his own. At this juncture he was advised again b\' liis elder sister, Anna, who had alwax'S been iiis intimate and confidential friend, and whose advice he had taken on other occasions with profit. She had yone to Canton some time before, and was now teachino- school there. She strongly urged her brother to go on with his studies, and offered to do all she could to assist him if it became necessary. This settled the question, and Mclvinley continued his law work. Soon afterward he went to Albany, where he entered the law school which was consid- ered at that time one of the leading law schools of the country. There for a time he gave himself up to a complete devotion to his studies with such success that he was able to graduate, and was admitted to the bar in Ohio in 1867, two years after his re- turn from the war. The assistance and ads'ice he had received from Ins sister Anna influenced his choice of a place in which to put his newly acquired legal knowledge into practice, for he settled in Canton, her home, which thereafter, to the time of his death, was his home also. His first office there was a small room in the rear of an old building that stood on the site where now the fine Stark County court house stands There he sat down to wait for clients, and with characteristic energy and devotion improved the period of waiting by hard study. The front rooms of the building where McKinley had his office were occupied by- Judge Belden as a law office. The Judge was one of the most prominent lawyers of that part of the country. lie had been circuit judge of that district, and had a great deal of influence. He knew and hked McKinley, who was, in fact, well and favorably known throughout that sec- tion because of his war record. It was Judge Belden who brought McKinley his first ease. One day when the young lawyer was sitting in his office working over a book, Ijecause he had no cases to occupy his time, the Judge came in, complaining of not feeling very well, and threw a bundle of papers on McKinley's desk. " i\Iac," he said, "here are the papers in a case that is coming up to-morrow. I want you to try it. I shall not be able to attend to it." McKinley had had absolutely no practice except two or three little cases of hardly sufficient importance to be designated by that name, in the justice court. This was a replevin ease, on appeal. The papers were extensive, and the case was some- thing more than doubtful ; in fact, Judge lielden had verv little hope of winning ATTORNEY-GENERAL JOHN W. GRIGGS LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y MR. AND MRS McKINLEV LEAVING NORTHAMPTON FOR HOEVOKli, MASS. it. McKinley was surprised, and al first inclined to protest. "I can't take that case, Judge," he said, "it's all new to nie ; I have no cliance to prepare it, and you know I've never tried a case yet." " Well, begin on this one, then," said Judge Belden. McK^inley still demurred, and there was some more talk about it, but he finaliv Nothing was said about his entire rekictance to take the work being caused by his fear of his ability to do it well As soon as Judge Belden left the office, McKinlev set to work at the papers, and all night he studied them. He went clear througli the case in every detail, and when the time came for him to go to court he was readv. The work showed on the argument, and the decision was for McKinley. Some time afterward he saw Judge Belden again. The Judge put his hand in his pocket and drew out some bills, saving : accepted the case, his compensation ; "Well, Mac, so you won the case." With that he held out twenty-five dollars. " Oh, I can't take that," exclaimed Mclvinley, "it's too much for one day's work." "Never you mind about that." replied the Judge, good-naturedly, " I got a hun- dred dollars as a retainer." This case resulted in the establishment of a friendship between McKinley and Judge Helden which continued unbroken until the death of the Judge in 1870. It was not long after this success that the Judge asked McKinley to form a partner- ship with him. It was a fortunate oppor- tunity for the young law\'er, and he was not slow to accept. He gave up the little back office of briefless memory, and moved forward after the manner of his warlike days into the better places in front. Their practice increased steadily, and McKinley's reputation as a good lawyer and a shrewd and skilful pleader grew and spread through- out the district. It was at this time that he 39 LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLFY made the acquaintance of Mark Hanna, an acquaintance which was destined to mean so much for both men. Mr. Hanna was a member of a company that owned extensive coal mines in Stark County. There had been considerable trouble with the miners, which had resulted in acts of violence and the destruction of part of the mining property. Finally some of the company's property was set on fire, and twenty-three of the miners were arrested on a charge of incendiarism. McKinley was retained by their friends to defend them. He had no special aptitude for criminal practice, in fact throughout his active practice he never de- veloped a fondness for any specialty. He had served a term as prosecuting attorney of Stark County, however, and been de- feated for re-election. He took the case of the miners, and went into it with all his enthusiasm and earnestness. McKinley was always a mild-mannered and good-natured man, but his plea on this occasion is said to have been a strong arraignment of the other side, and it gave a description of Hanna with which, probably, McKinley would not have agreed in his later days. He conducted the case with such skill that all the twenty-three defendants but one were acquitted. Hanna used to say, after he and McKinley became such good friends, that the only man of the lot who was innocent was the one whom McKinley was unable to get accjuitted. The manner in which Mc- Kinley handled this case was not forgotten by Hanna. His admiration for the young lawyer increased, and there finally came an opportunity to put it into practical effect. There is a story of AIcKinley's early days in the law that has gone the rounds at almost every campaign in which he was engaged, but which is, nevertheless, too characteristic to be omitted. The late Charles A. Dana once sent up to the com- posing room of the " Sun," to be printed in his paper, a story which he had clipped from one of the exchanges. The reader of his proofs marked the story to be killed, and when Mr. Dana asked why, said that it had been printed in the "Sun" already two or three times. " Oh, that doesn't matter at all, does it?" said Mr. Dana; "it's a good story." So with this about McKinley. He was retained to defend a surgeon who was being sued for malpractice by a patient who alleged that the surgeon had set his broken leg in such a bungling way as to make him bow-legged. The attorney for the complainant was the celebrated John McSweeney, who was considered one of the most brilliant members of the Ohio bar. McSweeney put his client on the wit- CORtiELlUS II. BLISS, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND GUF.STS OF HONOR AT A BANOUET AT BOSTON, FEBRUARY iC, 1899 ness stand and exhibited the broken leg to the jury. It certainly was a crooked leg, and the jury seemed to be much impressed with the bad work of the surgeon. McKin- ley had said nothing, but had been looking the complainant over closely with his ob- serving eyes, and noticed that he wore very wide trousers. So, when the witness was turned over to him for cross-examina- tion, he demanded that the sound leg also should be bared and shown to the jury. McSweeney objected vigorously, but the Court sustained McKinley, and the witness had to show the other leg. To McSwee- ney 's great confusion and the merriment of the jurors, the sound leg was more crooked than the one that had been broken and set by the surgeon. It was apparent that the surgeon, instead of damaging the patient, had helped him, "My client seems to have done better for this man than nature herself," said Mc- Kinley, " and I move that the case be dis- missed, with a recommendation to have his right leg broken and set by my client." It is scarcely necessary to say that Mc- Kinley won, even though his recommenda- tion about breaking the other leg was not made official. It was after he was admitted to the bar that McKinley made his first political speech. He had been interested in national politics before he went into the army, and his war experiences had served to heighten rather than decrease that interest. In the fall of 1867, Ohio voted on the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the national Constitution. McKinley was naturally in favor of the amendments, especially the Fifteenth, giving the ballot to the emancipated slaves. One day, when he was Governor of Ohio, he was talking with a friend about his early experiences and said : "The first political speech I ever made was in favor of that amendment. It was delivered in the village of New Berlin, and I afterward made it all over Stark County," There was to be a big meeting in New Berlin, which was to be addressed by Judge Underbill and one of his judicial associates. At the last moment the other man found LIFE OF WILLIAiM McKINLEY he could not go, and Underhill asked young McKinley to take his place. McKinley after- ward said that he never prepared a speech with greater care in all his life. He went to New Berlin with Judge Underhill. The speeches were delivered from the front yard of Michael Bitzer, an old Pennsylvania Ger- man, who acted as chairman of the meeting. When Judge Underhill introduced McKinley, Bitzer was greatly surprised. McKinley was smooth-faced then, as he always remained, and he looked so young and inexperienced that Bitzer could hardly iningine him mak- SPEAKIiNG AT THE GRANT MONUMENT DEDICATION, PHiLADELPniA, APRIL 27, 1899 ing a political speech. He blurted out his surprise at once in the question : " Can you make a speech ? " The unexpected question almost took Mc- Kinley 's breath away, but on the assurance of Judge Underhill that Bitzer meant no offence he regained his composure and pre- pared to deliver the speech he had written. The rostrum was a drygoods box four feet long, three feet wide and three feet high. It stood just inside the wooden fence surrounding the Bitzer place, within a hun- dred feet of the four corners of the busi- ness centre. That was long before the days of electricity used as an illuniinant, and Mc- Kinley spoke under the flickering glimmer of oil lamps. Mr. Bitzer introduced him simply as " William McKinley, of Canton." He was perfectly self-possessed when he rose to speak, and there was not a sign of emotion about him. But there soon were about the audience. "Could he speak?" said Mr. Bitzer, a little while ago when he was talking about that night. "Well, I should say he could. Everybody was dumfounded. For nearly an hour he talked as never a young man had talked in Stark County before. I told Judge Underhill, after the meeting, that Mc- Kinley did a blamed sight better than he did, and the Judge, too, pronounced him a coming politician. Of course, I only asked McKinley, in a joke, if he could make a speech. 1 spoke to him much as I would to a boy, but I really did have my doubts about such a young man doing justice to the occasion. As I remember him, the same characteristics that have been so notable in his public life, within the last few years, stood out forcibly on that night." It was two years after this New Berlin experience that McKinley really got his start in politics. Stark County was Demo- cratic then, in spite of the fact that the war was but so recently ended. Nominations on the Republican ticket were not worth much but empty honor. McKinley had be- come very jiopular in the county, and whether the Republicans had any hope of electing him or not. they named him for the office of County Attorney. The Demo- crats certainly had no notion that he could win, for they made no special canvass, and on their side there was little work done. But McKinley made as thorough a canvass as if the greatest importance attached to his winning. He stumped the county with a vim and energy that were entirely new to the politicians of both sides. The result was that, to the surprise of his Republican friends and to the astonishment and chagrin of the Democrats, he was elected. At the close of his first term he was renominated by the Republicans. Hut this time the Democrats were not to be caught napping. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY ON THE REVIEWING STAND AT THE GRANT MONUMENT DEDICATION, ITIILADELPIIIA, APRIL 27, iSgg They knew the kind of a campaigner they had to meet, and they got out their vote and succeeded in beating- McKinlev. Canton was then a prosperous little vil- lage of some five or six thousand residents. It was a good town for a sturdy, studious young lawyer like McKinley. It was the centre of a rich agricultural countv, that was also interested largely in mining and in manufacturing. Most of the industrial mterests centred about the production of articles protected by import duties, and the evidence of the growth and prosperity of these concerns was constantly before Mc- Kinley as a reason for continuing the policv of protection. It stimulated his natural bent toward the study of economics and politi- cal science, and he developed a special in- terest in the general subject of tariffs, pro- tection and free trade that bore fruit which astonished both friends and opponents when he came to speak on the matter in Congress. His practice grew steadily and he was recog- nized as one of the solid lawyers of that district. In the san-ie campaign in which McKin- ley ran for County Attorney the first time. General Hayes, his old commander, was the Republican candidate for Governor, having served two terms in Congress. McKinley found time from his own campaign to make an occasioi-ial speech for Hayes. The green- back craze was then swinging to its oreat- est height in Ohio, and the Democrats declared in their platform that the entire bonded debt should be paid in greenbacks. Some of the Ohio leaders were inclined to temporize or deal equivocally with the money question. Stewart L. Woodford, of New York, was sent there to help them out. Woodford was a master campaign speaker. He came out squarely for sound money. He spoke at a big meeting in Canton, and, after he finished, McKinley made a little speech. Then, as always af- terward, McKinley was against fiat money, 43 LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDKXT lIiKIXLKV AND MAYOR STRONG IN THE GRANT MONUMENT DEDICATION PROCESSION, NEW YORK and he pitched into the greenbacks and the greenbackers. General Woodford was delighted with his speech. When he got back to Columbus he told the State Com- mittee about the Canton meeting, and said : "There is a young fellow up there in Canton who is one of the coming men. You ought to put him on the stump." " Who is he ?" was asked. " His name is McKinley," replied General Woodford. The State Committee had heard a little about McKinley before, and now, on Wood- ford's advice, they put him on their list of speakers, and he was never off it afterward while he was free to take part in campaign work. CHAPTER VII THE ROMANCE OF McKINLEv's LIFE WHILE young Mclvinley was fight- ing his way to promotion and fame in the Civil War, there was growing up in Canton the girl who was to share with him the honors of his later life, and whose constant devotion to him, coupled with his love and tender care for her, have constituted a romance known and admired throughout the length and breath of the land — a model of the relations of husband and wife for all peoples and all times. She was Ida Saxton, the daughter of James Saxton, a banker and capitalist of Canton, and one of the prominent men in the affairs of Stark County. The Saxton family had long resided in Canton. John Saxton founded the Canton " Repository " in March, 1815, a paper which has had an uninterruptedly successful existence ever since. Mr. Saxton continued to be its editor for more than half a century. He published an account of the battle of Waterloo and the downfall of the great Napoleon, and lived to publish yet another account of the fall of a Napoleon, known as the Third, after Sedan. His son James, the banker, married Catherine Dewalt of Canton, and Ida Saxton, who married McKinley, was their first child. She was born on June 8, 1847. The little girl grew up under fortunate cir- cumstances. She inlierited from her mother a brightness and cheerfulness of disposition which has remained steadfast throughout her life of unusual suffering and has always been her mainstay. From her father she inherited a practical ability and knowledge of business, and from both parents strength of character. Her early girlhood was spent in cjuiet life at Canton. She attended the public schools there for a time, and then was sent to Miss Sanford's school in Cleve- land. From this school her father sent her I, I F E OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y ABNER Mckinley, president Mckinley's brother to Miss Eastman's Brooke Hall School, at Media, Pa., where slie received the greater part of her school education. She was graduated from Brooke Hall in 1863, at the age of sixteen. Even at that time she was not in good health She was am- bitious in her school work, and on several occasions was in danger of breaking down from overwork, but with constant care and medical attention she was able to complete her course. Upon her return to Canton after her schooling she went to work in her father's bank. Mr. Saxton believed that girls should be able to take care of themselves and should have a business knowledge. It was also his theory that women should be able to take care of themselves. His daughter was a handsome young woman with a bright, lively, attractive disposition, and Mr. Saxton was passionately fond of her. It may be that this very fondness influenced him to some extent also in taking her into the bank with him, to delay a little if he could the inevitable romance which would take her out of his home life. However that mav be, for three years she remained an assistant in the bank, serving through- out most of that time as cashier. She was at work in this capacity' when Major Mc- Kinley came to Canton to visit his sister Anna, just before he went to the Albany Law Scliool, and it was then that they met. In those days the favorite pleasure resort for the young people of Canton was Meyers' Lake, two miles out of town, and that was where Major McKinley was introduced to Miss Saxton. About this time Miss Saxton went abroad with a party of friends for a six months' trip through England and the Continent. Her younger sister was with her, and they were under the care of one of her former teachers. Not long afterward McKinley was grad- uated from the Albany Law School and came to Canton to begin the practice of his profession, How the romance grew and developed is not recorded. Apparently it was in spile of the wish of Mr. Saxton, although he did not really oppose it. A story is told that some one suggested to him the employment of Major McKinley, saying that he was a bright young man and a promising lawyer. " No," answered Mr. Saxton, according to this story, " I have had enough of these young lawyers. I give them an excuse to come here on business, and then they get to running with the girls and that is the end of It." As the affair progressed it is evident president McKinley and senator Fairbanks leaving ex-presideni harrison's house LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRICSIDF.NT AM) MRS, McKIXLFl^' LEAXIXC. Till; Wlimc IIOUSi; (iKOUXUS FOR A DRIVE tliat young McKinley overcame the unwill- ingness of Mr. Saxton to have his daughter married. It should be said that this uiivvill- ingness was never a specific objection to Mc- Kinley, but simply a general unwillingness to part with his daughter. It is related that McKinley made his proposal to Miss Sax- ton on a Sunday afternoon and in the street. She was the teacher of a Bible class in the Presbyterian Sunday-school, in which faith she had been brought up. Her father and grandfather had been contributors to the erection of the church building and were among the prominent supporters of the organization. McKiiiley was superin- tendent of the Methodist Sunday-school. In going to their respective schools they usually met at a certain street corner and fell into the habit of stopping there for a little talk. This went on for several months, until, finally, one Sunday afternoon, McKin- ley said to her : "I do not like this separation every Sun- day, you going one way and I another. Let us change the order. Suppose after this we always go the same way. I think that this is the thing for us to do. What do you think ? " " I think so too," she said. When this was reported to Mr. Saxton, it was evident that McKinley had won his approval completely, for he said ; "You are the only man I have ever known to whom I would intrust my daughter." The marriage occurred on the evening of January 25, 1871, two days after McKin- ley's twenty-eighth birthday. The account of the ceremony published in the Canton " Repository " two days later said : The audience room of tlie Presbyterian Church being nearly finislieil, the lady members resolved, a couple of weeks since, to bave it ready in time for tlie wedding of Major McKinley anil Miss Ida Saxton on the Sotli instant. Promptly at tlie hour, yru long Koforr the 7. oD P.M. named on the invitations, tlie lioiisc \v;is tilled with the cx}ieetant multitude. l"'rofessor Pistei- came in and en- tertained the lirst tiudience that ever filled the cburcli by music upon the organ. Some minutes after he comiueuced to play there was a sensation. Every- body's face was turned toward the door. Many stiff- necked old and young sinners nearly broke their necks at it. At length tliey came. First, up the left aisle, Mr. .tames A. ,'^axton leading the bride, bis daughter. They were followed by Miss Mary Saxton, the brides- maid, escorted by Mr. Abner McTvinlev, sister and brother of the bride and bridegronm. l'|iy the gentleman from Illinois, I trust that the next House will not do what I icnow they will not do, make him Speaker of the House. It should be said here tliat before this tariff bill had been taken up by the House the election for the succeeding Congress had taken place, and McKinley had won by a plurality of only eight votes. The work in this Congress being largely upon the tariff, was especially congenial to Mc- Kinley. His development in such a subject. usually regarded by public men as dry and uninteresting, was already showing the ca- pacity for growth in McKinley, which, in the last years of his life, became one of his most noteworthy characteristics. CHAPTER X MORE WORK ON THE TARIFF UNSEATED BY A DEMOCRATIC HOUSE IT was said at the close of the last chapter that McKinley had won his election to the Forty-eighth Congress by a plurality of only eight votes. For the first time in his Congressional career there had developed in his own party seri- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY ous opposition to his renomination. Among the rank and file of his party in his district he was very popular, but some of the lead- ers were against him. It will be remem- bered that this year of 1882 was the first general election after the great split in the Republican parly caused by the differences between General Garfield and Senator Conk- ling. The Half-Breed and Stalwart camps were bitterly opposed to each other. This was the year in which New York gave Grover Cleveland the phenomenal plurality of 192,000 for Governor over Judge Folger. The Republican split, which was most bitter CHARLES EMORY SMITH, POSTMASTER-GE.NERAL in New York, affected other States as well. Pennsylvania, whicli was a rock-ribbed Re- publican State, strong in support of protec- tion, elected a Democratic Governor. The effect of this split was felt, naturally, with considerable emphasis in Garfield's own State, and McKinley was one of the suffer- ers. His Democratic opponent, Jonathan H. Wallace, promptly filed a protest. The con- test engaged the attention of the Committee of Elections in the House for nearly the entire term. The Democrats had recovered control of the House, and, in the end, McKinley was unseated, but he served throughout practically all of the session, and took part in all the work of impor- tance that was done by the House. Upon the organization of the Forty- eighth Congress, in December, 1883, John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, was elected Speaker over General J. Warren ICeifer, of Ohio, the Republican candidate. Morrison, of Illi- nois, was made Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Judge Kelley was the senior member of the Republican minority of the committee, and McKinley was his principal associate. Judge Kelley was get- ting well along in years and he recognized the ability of McKinley and his knowledge of the subject, so that year, as in subsequent years, the wheel-horse work on the tariff on the Republican side fell to McKinley. Two months after the session began, Morrison introduced his famous horizontal bill pro- viding for a flat reduction of 20 per cent all around, with the added provision that the reduction should not operate to bring the duty below the rate at which any article had been dutiable under the tariff of 1861. McKinley took the brunt of the debate against the bill. It gave him a fine oppor- tunity, which he improved fully, to vent his sarcasm on the subject of Democratic inca- pacity for revenue legislation. He showed by facts and figures how, if the bill became a law, it would develop disputes on nearly every invoice and lead to frequent litiga- tion. He cited one hundred and eighteen cases where articles would pay a specific rate of duty under one section, an ad va- lorem rate under another, and a compound rate under another. Continuing, he said : It is gratifying to know that at last the true senti- ment of the Democratic party of the country dominates the party in wliich it has been so long in the minority; it is gratifying because the people can be no longer de- ceived as to the real purpose of the party, which is, to break down the protective tanfl and collect duties hereafter upon a pure revenue basis, closely approxi- mating free trade. It is well, if this bill is to go into force, that only 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 necessary com- panion. The Senate has done wisely, in anticipation of our action here, in providing legal means for set- tling with creditors, for wiping out balances, and roll- ing from the shoulders of our people the crushing burdens which this bill will impose. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY A CHEERFUL SMILE At.D B'JVV 70 L'.rlL^ u,..- Major McKlnley buised much of his ar- gument against the Morrison bill upon the well-known attitude of the manufacturers generally and the laboring men through- out the country against such legislation, and upon the failure of any interest con- cerned to demand it. It was noticeable throughout all his discussion of the tariff in his long service in Congress that he seemed to be in especially close touch with the business and laboring interests of the country, and especially concerned for them. One of his admirers said recently concern- ing this piiase of his character, that it was the Scotch in him that made him so con- servative of business interests. Toward the conclusion of his speech on the Morrison bill, Mr. McKinley saw, sitting in front of him, Mr. Dorsheinier of New York, and glancing toward him, said : I have been luiable to And any sentiment in the United States except in the ntterances of the Demo- cratic majority in this House and outside of the city of my distinguished friend who sits before me, being the free trade clubs of his and the neighboring city of Brooklyn, any sentiment in favor of tlie passing of this bill. There is wlaere it exists, and it is a remarkable fact that that class of gentlemen "neither sow nor reap nor do they gather into liarns. " Mr. Kasson of Ohio. — And the lilies? Yes, tlie lilies; they are like the ''lilies of the Held, they toil not neither do they spin." Tliey have fi.xed incomes, belong to tlie independent weultliy classes who now buy most of their goods abroad and hope to buy them cheaper if the duties are reduced. A month after this, tiie Morrison bill was defeated in the House, which had a Democratic majority of seventv-seven. This debate upon the Morrison bill oc- curred jusL after one of the most interest- ing incidents of McKinley 's political career, whicli showed the stuff of which he was made and the idea he had of the mean- ing of loyalty. He had gone back to Ohio, from Washington, 'to take part in the I-ie- publican Convention for the election of del- egates to the National Convention which was to nominate a candidate for the Presi- dency. John Sherman was, as ustial, a can- didate for the Presidential nomination, and he naturally had a large following in his own State. McKinley, however, was with the other wing of the Republican party, and strongly favored the nomination of his celebrated friend, James G. Blaine, of Maine. Personally, there was the warmest feeling between McKinley and Sherman, who un- derstood the Major's attitude exactly. McKinley was made permanent Chair- man of the Convention, and made his speech, forcefully presenting the issues of the day. The main contest between the Blaine and Sherman forces came upon the election of the delegates-at-large. The Blaine men agreed to the election of For- aker as one of the delegates by acclama- tion, although they knew he was a Sherman man. Several names were presented for the other tliree places. It was insisted by the Blaine men that, as they had yielded without a fight in the election of Foraker, they were entitled to a similar compliment in the selection of Judge West, the blind man eloquent of Bcllefontaine, who after- ward nominated Blaine in a stirring speech in the Chicago Convention. There was a lively contest over the three places and manv names were proposed. Finally one of the delegates jumped LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT McKINLEY SPEAKING AT THE CAPITAL'S CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION on a chair and nominated McKinley. But McKinley declined to have it. From his place in the Cliair, he announced tliat he had come to the Convention pledged to the support of other gentlemen for the places, and until they had been chosen or defeated he could not consent to the con- sideration of his name. The Convention was in an uproar. A majority of the dele- gates were in favor of Mclvinley. One of them jumped up on the platform, put the motion, and declared it carried. McKinley stood pounding on the table with all his might, and protesting. He ruled that the motion had not prevailed. General Grosvenor came on the plat- form, and, amid tremendous excitement, put the motion again, and again declared it carried. Again McKinley ruled that it had not prevailed, and insisted that a vote be taken upon the names submitted previously. His decision was appealed from, and the Chair was not sustained. McKinley, how- ever, persisted in refusing to admit the validity of the vote on General Grosvenor's motion. General Grosvenor rose to a point of order and declared that, as McKinley had been elected by acclamation, there were only two delegates - at - large yet to be chosen by the Convention. Chairman McKinley overruled this point, and said that it was the business of the Conven- tion to choose three delegates - at - large. This decision was appealed from, and the Convention settled down in an effort to defeat McKinley in his determination not LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLFY to accept the place while his friends might possibly secure it. McKinley begged the Convention to respect his position, but the delegates finally succeeded in wearing him out and elected him. The other two places were then quickly filled, one of them by Judge West. It was not until after the defeat of the Morrison Tariff Bill in the House, that the Committee on Elections filed its report in the contest case for McKinley's seat. The vote was taken on May 27, 1884. It was practically conceded that McKinley was entitled to his seat. Speaker Carlisle was strongly opposed to unseating him, "SQUADRON A" ESCORTING THE PRESiDENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE but the Democratic majority could not re- sist the temptation to oust so forcible an antagonist, even though the important work of that Congress was almost en- tirely finished, and he was unseated. His own speech on the case was one of his most worthy contributions to the Con- gressional debates, and stands as an index to the genuine unselfishness and lofty honor of the man. In part he said : I only ask from this House, the majority of which is opposed to me politically, to administer in this case the law and precedents which they have always ad- ministered in the past. . . . I would not i£ I could retain my seat one hour upon a mere mistake or technicality or inadvertence of the election officers, and I say to this House that if it be necessary, to find that I am entitled to my seat, to throw out the ten votes in Carroll County, which upon the face of the returns appear to he an error in the count against the contestant — if to give me my seat you must invoke those ten votes and deduct tliem from the con- testant, then I do not want my seat in this House. Although there is no legal proof that this is not an error, I desire here to say to the majority and to the minority, if it becomes necessary to deduct those ten votes from the contestant to give me the seat, then I do not want it and will not have it. CHAPTER XI THE N0MIN,\TI0N OF BL.JiTNE McKIKLEv's PART IN THE PLATFORM VARIED WORK IN THE HOUSE IT was at the Convention to which McKinley had been elected a dele- gate -at -large against his will, that James G. Blaine received the Republican nomination for the Presidency. McKinley took a prominent part in that Conven- tion. His reputation as a strong Repub- lican fighter already extended throughout the nation, and it was but natural that so stanch a defender of protection should be chosen to deal with the declaration of the party on the issues on which the fight was to be made. He was made Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions of the Convention, and the platform planks dis- cussing the tariff and the financial question showed the inherent evidences of his au- thorship. He read the platform when the committee reported to the Convention, his great voice and clear enunciation filling the hall to the furthest corner, so that not a word or syllable was lost by the last of the delegates. There was a lively fight in this Conven- tion over the nomination. The Blaine forces at the start were not in such commanding majority as to control the Convention in all its actions. The Sherman men had con- siderable force, and there was more than a little feeling in favor of the nomination of President Arthur to succeed himself. At one time the Convention was almost in a riot, and in the emergency McKinley rose as the man who was able to lead the dele- gates out of the turmoil. Three ballots had been taken, and the lead of Blaine had increased steadily. At that point the LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLFY Sliermaniles, under the lead of Mr. Foraker, and assisted by the friends of some of tlie other candidates, made a determined effort to secure an adjournment. The Blaine men opposed it. They were sure that if the balloting could continue, their candidate would win very quickly. Both sides stood on their chairs and howled, and nothing could be done. In the midst of the excitement McKinley jumped on his chair and began to speak. He was not a man of as commanding pres- ence at that time as he attained in later years, but his smooth face, paled a little with excitement, showed his earnestness, and the dark eyes snapping under his heavy brows indicated the excitement un- der which he was laboring. He waved his hand as if to still the tumult, and his clear voice rang out above the noise and shout- ing. The Convention became quiet almost involuntarily. The master spirit was rec- ognized. Calmly, but with great force, Mclvinle}' made a short speech, in which he said that he recognized and respected the rights of the friends of any candidate or of all candidates, if they could, to se- cure an adjournment. He was for Blaine and against an adjournment. "Let the motion be put, and let every- body in favor of the nomination of Blaine vote against it." This speech had its effect. McKinley was certain that I51aine had a majority of the delegates. The only question in his mind was as to getting them all to under- stand what was the desirable thing to do. They ail understood what he had said, and LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY CAPITOL WITH HIS GUARD OF HONOR came forward in a solid line against an ad- journment, with the result that the motion was voted down, and Mr. Blaine won the day. McKinley at once prepared to take an active part in the campaign work. He ac- companied Mr. Blaine in the totir of Indi- ana and Illinois. But he had work cut out for him in his own district that fall. For the second time since he had entered Con- gress he was called upon to face a Demo- cratic gerrymander. After he had beaten the first gerrymander, and the Democrats had found that they had simply thrown away a couple of thousand votes in the effort to defeat him, they gave it up as useless and restored him to his old district. Now they were trying it again. 13ut again " the machinations of Demo- cratic legislation" were i-endered forceless and McKinley was re-elected. The struggle of 1884 had resulted not only in the election of a Democrat to the Presidency, but a Democratic House of Representatives had been chosen. Upon the organization of the Forty-ninth Con- gress, on December 7, 1885, Mr. Carlisie was again elected Speaker. The fall of 1885 had seen another active campaign in Ohio. At that election the Legislature was chosen which was to elect the successor of John Sherman as United States Senator. Mr. Sherman was a candidate for re-elec- tion, and Major McKinley was one of his most ardent supporters. He made speeches in several parts of the State, the most notable one of which was delivered at Iron- ton, on October i. Much of this speech was devoted to a discussion of the outrages upon the suffrage in the South, a matter upon which Major McKinley had profound convictions. In part he said : Free and impartial suffrage in one part ol the country is ot little va.lue it it be witlilield or denied in another section. It is not wliolly a (piestion of the equality ot tlie white and colored voter of the South, but of the equality of the white voter in the North with the white voter in the South. Shall the vote of a citi- zen of the South, wh.etlier he be Union or Confederate, count twice as much as tlie vote of a citizen of the North ? . . . Either these men are entitled to vote, and to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship to the fullest extent, or else the Constitution and haws are a dead letter, and the Government powerless to protect its citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights. They must have these rights, or we must acknowledge that free government is a failure. Turning to the general issues of the campaign. Major McKinley expressed very htile faith in the professions with which Mr. Cleveland had entered upon his admin- istration. Even at that time he had begun to suspect the Democratic President of the course with which he openly charged him later in the administration, and which was finally disclosed in Mr. Cleveland's last message to Congress during his first term. While working in this campaign directly for the re-election of Senator Sher- man, McKinley found opportunity to put in some good work on behalf of Judge Foraker, the Republican candidate for the Governorship of Ohio. The Ohio election resulted in a Re- publican victory. Soon afterward Major McKinley went to \'irginia to help the Re- publicans in that State, and on October 29, he delivered a vigorous speech in the Acad- emy of Music at Petersburg. In those times every campaign in the North brought out a good deal about the crimes against the suffrage in the South. This was be- LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y SECOND INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY— WHERE THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS WITNESSED THE CEREMONIES IN A DOWNPOUR OF RAIN fore the Southern States had learned how- to disfranchise the negro, under the color of law, by the adoption of constitutional amendments providing- the establishment of educational and other qualifications which the man and brother could not meet. McKinley went into the heart of the sub- ject at the beginning of his speech. lie had chosen for his subject an exposition of what protection had done for the South, but in the beginning of liis speech an in- direct reference to the ballot box outrages and the bloody shirt called forth cries of "Talk about it" from the audience, and talk about it he did, to this effect : It they mean by "waving the bloody shirt" that the Republican party of Ohio has insisted that every man in this country is the equal of every other man politically, then I want to confess before a Virginia audience that we have "waved the bloody shirt." It that is what it means, we have not only -waved the bloody shirt, but the Eepublican party of this coun- try, and the good men of this country of every politi- cal party, -will continue to wave it uniil every citizen of this Republic shall enjoy every right guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States. . . . Make it possible to break down tlie prejudices of the past. Get out from under your ancestral tree. Beo- ognize and give force to the Constitution, permit every man to vote for the party of his choice, and have his ballot honestly counted. Push to the front where you belong as a State and a people. As an indication of the suspicion he already entertained as to the course Mr. Cleveland was going to pursue, may be quoted this sentence from the close of this Petersburg speech . "The President is Democratic, or they thought he w-as, but I do not know how he is going to turn out." CHAPTER XII THE TRIBUTE TO GARFIELD IT was but sl-iortly after this campaign work that Congress met and Mcl-Cin- ley was plunged again into the hard work of a legislative winter in Washington. On the 19th of January, 1S86, he delivered a speech in the House of Representatives which, in the light of his own assassination, is of intense interest. It was an address ac- cepting the statue of General Garfield, pre- sented by the State of Ohio. In July, 1864, Congress passed an act inviting each State to present to National Statuary Hall the statues of two of its deceased citizens, "il- lustrious for their heroic renown or dis- tinguished by civic or military services," LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY worthy of national commemoration. It was as tlie first of her r;ifts to the Statuary Hall that Ohio presented the statue of Garfield. On the occasion of the presentation by Massachusetts of the statues of John Win- throp and Samuel Adams, General Garfield liad delivered an address in which he saiil : As from time to time our venerable and beautiful Hall has been peopled with the statues of the elect of the States, it has seemed to me that a Third House was being organized within the walls of the Capitol, a House whose members have received their high credentials at tlie hands of history, and whose term of ofiice will out- last the ages. Year by year we see the elect of their country in eloquent silence taking their places in the American Pantheon, bringing within its sacred circle fit ; ^ SECOND INAUGURAT.OI! OF PT-iEi.lD t iiT Mcj\I 1. i — ViL E ■P.-:iiSi DE NT- ELECT ROOSEVELT ARRIVING AT THE CAPiTOL tlie wealth of those immortal memories which made their lives illustrious. Ami year by year that august assembly is teaching a deeper and grander lesson to all who serve their brief hour in these more ephem- eral Houses of Congress. It was with the inspiration of such a speech that Major McKinley rose to address the House with a eulogy of Ohio's mar- tyred statesman. He said : By the action of the authorities of the State he loved so well and served so long, and now by the ac- tion of the national Congress, in which he was so long a conspicuous figure, he keeps company to-day with the immortal circle in the old Hall of Representatives, which he was wont to call the Tliird House, where liis strong features and majestic form, representeil in marble, will attract the homage of the present and suc- ceeding generations, as in life his great character and commanding qualities earned the admiration of the citizens of his own State and the nation at large, while the lessons his life and the teachings of his broad rnind will be cherished and remembercil when marble anil statues have crumbled to decay. He was brave and sagacious. He hlled every post with intelligence and fidelity'. Distinguished as was his military career, his most enduring fame, his high- est renown, was earned in this House as a Represen- tative of tlie people. Here he gi'ew with gradual but increasing strength. Here he won his richest laurels. llFre he was leader and master, not by combination (ir scheming, not by chicane or caucus, but by the force of his cultivated mind, his keen and far-seeing judgment, his unanswerable logic, his strength and power of speech, his thorough compreliension of the subjects of legislation. He was not a specialist in statesmanship. The sub- jects which he debated covered all the leading issues of the parties and the political policies of his time. He limited liimself to no one topic and was confined to no single range of national legislation. His thorough- ness upon every question he touciied was marked and habitual. He brought to this wide range of subjects vast learning ami comprehensive judgment. He en- lightened ;uid i^trcngihened every cause he advocated. Great in dcalini: with them all, dull and commonplace in none, to mo lie was the strongest, broadest and bravest when lie s}iokc for honest money, the fuliilment of the nation's promises, the resumption of specie payments and the nniintenance of the puitlic faith. Fi\)]n the stirring scenes at Chicago to the succeed- ing election he boi-e himself like a statesman and a pa- triot lit for the highest trust. He advanced in public confidence, and w^henever he met with or addressed ihe pco}>le he enlarged the circle of his admiring fol- lowers :ind friends. His brief term in the Presidency, sti inigically ended, gave jJi'omise of large usefulness to the country in the realization of the true American policy at home and al)road. His death filled the na- tion witli })rol'ound and universal sorrow, and all lands and all peojiles symjiathized in our overshadowing be- reavement. In General Garheld we find the best representation of the possibilities of American life. Boy and man, he typifies American youth and manhood, and illus- trates the beneficence and glory of our free institu- tions. ... He dill not dash forth as a meteor; he rose with measured and stately step over rough paths and throiigli years of rugged work. He earned his pas- sage to e\*ery preferment. He was tried and tested at every step in his ]Kithw;iy of jn-ogress. He jiroduced his passport at every g;tt,c\v;iy to opportunity and glory. In jiersonal character lie was clean and without re- proach. As a citizen, he loved his country and her institutions, and was proud of her progress and pros- perity. As an orator, he was exce2"}tionally strong and gifted. As a soldier, he stood abreast with the In-avest and best of the citizen soldiery of the Repub- lic. As a legislator, his most enduring testimonial will be found in the records of Congress and the stat- utes of his country. As President, he displayed mod- eration and wisdom, with executive ability, which gave the highest assurances of a most successful and illus- trious administration. How singularly apt, it must occur to every reader, of his own life and his own o 5 o z ^ ~ "A a; u Pi < w D ry) C X LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY death, was this description by Major Mc- Kinley of the life, the growth and the death of that other son of Ohio who went to his tjrave from the high staiion of the Presidency because of an assassin's bullet. It is hardly necessary to change a word throughout it all to make it apply with ecjual, if not greater force, to William McKinley, and if that earlier son of Ohio merited eternal membership in the immortal Third House, liow then shall the verdict of Ohio stand with regard to McKinley? THE PRESIDENT DESCENDS THE CAPITOL STEPS TO THE INAUGURAL STAND CHAPTER XIII McKINLEY SEES THROUGH CLEVELAND EARIA^ in the first session of the Forty-ninth Congress there was introduced in the House a bill looking to the appointment of boards of arbitration in order to provide for a speedy settlement of labor troubles generally, and especially of controversies and differences between railroad companies and their em- ployees. It was to be expected from every public act and speech of Major McKinley that he would have a decided opinion upon such a matter. He was an enthusiastic friend of the measure, and in a speech which he delivered on April 2, 1886, he stated his opinion without reserve, saying : I believe, Mr. Chairman, in arljitration as a prin- ciple. I believe it should prevail in the settlement of international differences. I believe it is the trae way of .settling ditl'erences between labor and capital; I believe it will bring both to a better understanding, uniting them closer in interest, and promoting better relations, avoiding force, avoiding unjust exactions and oppression, avoiding the loss of earnings to labor, avoiding disturbances to trade and transportation. The never-ending discussion of the tariff was promptly revived by the Democrats in the Forty-ninth Congress, witli one of their customary efforts to scale down the reve- nue. Throughout the session the course of the tariff reformers afforded Major McKin- ley repeated opportunities to score vigor- ously against them. By the end of that Congress some of them were quite ready to believe his often - repeated declaration that the making of tariffs is a science. It is a labor requiring long and careful and thorough study. It is a matter not to be undertaken off-hand by any bungler who has theories on the subject, and who, because he happens to have won an elec- tion to Congress, may think it incumbent upon him to air his uncertain views for the benefit of admirmg, but equally uncer- tain, constituents at home. The shiftings and contradictions among the Democrats themselves in the Forty -ninth Congress went far to bear out what McKinley charged them with, that they did not know really what they wanted to do or how to do it. Farly in the session, Colonel Morrison brought forward a bill by which it was proposed to reduce the revenues about twenty-six millions of dollars. The Ways and Means Committee was unable to se- cure consideration of this bill by the House and it died an untimely death, not having lived long enough to have its birth certifi- cate properly registered. It was not long after this that the same Committee, speak- ing through the same Chairman, brought in a resolution which declared that there was not sufficient revenue to pay the pensions of the soldiers. Tliis was an opportunity v/hich McKinley could not fail to take. In LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY SECOND INAUGURATION' OF PKKblDKNT McKINLEY -Willi, li THE RAIN WAS PATTERING DOWN THE PRESIDENT ANNOUNCED THE FATE OF CUBA AND THE PHILIPPINES a speech delivered on the 22d of June, in which he expressed his surprise at the inconsistency of the Democrats, lie said : Now, Mr. Speaker, if we have not revenue enoui^k to meet the demands to-day, then why did you want to reduce revenues twenty-six million dollars last Thurs- day? What has been done with the surphis since then ? . . . If we have no money in tlie Treasury with which to pay the pensions of our worthy and dependent soldiers, let us put some there; let us pro- vide means to increase our revenue. Let us increase taxation. The efforts of the Democratic majority in that House to hit upon some legislation which would enable them to go before the country with a reasonable recjuest for a renewal of power, afforded McKinley not only a great deal of amusement personally, but repeated opportunity to distinguish him self as a good partisan tactician and an able defender of his party's policy. Almost immediately after the introduction of the resolution saying that there was not enough revenue, the Democrats introduced a motion directing the Secretary of the Treasury to use the surplus in the Treasury for pay- ment on the public debt. At the same time. Colonel Morrison endeavored to in- crease taxation by introducing a measure for the imposition of an income tax. Mc- Kinley took up the cudgels on the Treas- ury surplus at once. He showed how, within two years after resumption of spe- cie payments, one hundred and twenty-one million dollars' worth of bonds had been called in and paid off under a Republican Administration. The next year one hun- dred and seventy-three million dollars more were paid off ; in 1883, eighty-six, and in 1884, seventy, but in the first sixteen months of the Cleveland Administration only fifty- eight millions of dollars had been paid off, or about one-third of the average annual reduction under a Republican Administra- tion. Continuing, Major Mclvinley said : This resolution is a ]iroposition to compel tlie President oi' tlie United States and the Secretary of the Treasury to do that which they have always had the power to do. To-day we have, exclusive of frac- tional coin, over seventy-five million dollars. Why does not the administration of Grover Cleveland pay out that balance upon the public debt? There are a hundred and forty million dollars due and payable. The Secretary has the power to do it now, full and complete, by public law. . . Of course we cannot help, I cannot help, no gentleman on this side can help, the Democratic party voting to-day a want of confidence in its own administration. We cannot prevent you from passing a vote of condemnation on the President of the United States and his Secretary, and that is what this resolution means if it becomes a law, and tluat is what you are doing when you vote for it. It was about this time that Major Mc- Kinley said one day in the House: "Some gentleman of the majority, in the confi- dence of the Administration, ought to explain to us why the Secretary does not exercise the discretion given him by the statute and distribute the surplus. There must be some valid reason for it, some control- LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y liny reason wliich those charged with the management of our financial affairs know and realize better than we can." He was more and more confident that his earlv suspicions of the purpose of President Cleveland were correct. He believed that Mr. Cleveland was causing- the surplus to be kept in the Treasury in order to use it as an argument in favor of a reduction of the tariff. It was but a little time until the justification of his view was complete. In the fall of i885, McKinley was easily re-elected for another term. There was no opposition worthy of consideration in his dis- trict, and his own party, which had by the Half-Breed-Stalwart split practically com- passed his undoing in the preceding Con- gress, being now reunited, made his election certain. In the short session McKinley de- livered only one notable speech, which was on the veto of the Dependent Pension bill. CHAPTER XIV SIDELIGHTS ON McKINLEY THE Forty-ninth Congress adjourned in March, 1887, and Major McKin- ley returned to Ohio for the sum- mer. Not being occupied especially in cam- paigning that fall, he found time to deliver several addresses, which give something of a sidelight upon the versatility of his genius and the breadth of his interest. At the dedication of a public school building at Canal Fulton, on August 30, he said : An open scliooUiouse, free to all, evidence.^ tlie liigbest type of advanced civilization. An educated people, governed liy true moral principles, can never take a backward steji nor be dispossessed of their cit- izenship or liberties. The advantages of the school should be sacredly cherished. The time to enjoy them is in youth; if neglected then they are rea,son- ably certain to remain forever unimproved. Few men or women ever acipiire an education after they are twenty-live yeai's of age. There is no time for study when the active, busy, struggling period in every )nau's life sets in. The fight for bread and butter shuts out all inclination for it. We liave no time to waste in this short, hurrying life. The to-mor- rows are too full to be crowded with the yesterdays. We must learn that every day is a new day, with its own distinctive and commanding duties, and cannot atone for the yesterday.s unimproved. , . . Self- earned stations are the best and most secure; self- earned reputations the most lasting. You cannot borrow other men's mental equipment. You can- not make progress with a substitute. Avoid the dangerous tendency of the times to- ward superficial knowledge, which accepts shallow show rather than real acquirement. Exact knowledge is the requirement of the hour. Luck will not last. Labor is the only key to op])Ortunity. One thing essential to getting on in the world is to have a purpose. Drifting will not do. Two weeks later he attended a meeting of the Mahoning Valley Pioneer and His- torical Association at Youngstown, and de- livered a long address before the old settlers. It was the first time that he had attended any of these meetings, although he had been invited on several previous occasions. This brief extract from his speech will suf- fice to show the regard in which he held the early pioneers, among whom were some of his own ancestors : There are two periods in the life of an individual, a community, or a nation- the one of activity, the other of reminiscence; the one is the period of build- ing and construction, the other of pause and retro- spect; the one accompanies youth and sturdy man- hood, the other is tlie companion of well-ripened age, and purpose realized. Our Centennial celebration of 1876 was a national pause; it was a halt and a retro.spect; it was the pic- ture of our beginning: of the little we started with; the much we then possessed and had accomplished; and suggestive of how much more we had yet to secure. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY After all, it was little more than the homage of the jjresent generation to the nation's early pioneers; a generous and hearty testimonial to their wisdom and work. . . . History is only biography enlarged. Every step you have taken is l)ut the confirmation of the wisdom of the fathers. Every advance an ac- kaowledgment of their foresight and direction. Your progress and prosperity is tlieir highest testimonial, their most lasting memorial. . . . You are to be congratulated upon the marvellous age in which you live. We can hardly conceive that the next genera- tion will be so rich in fruitage, so prolific in inven- tion, so marvellous in achievement, so wonderful in its works; but who can tell? There seem to be a brain and a conscience and a manhood ready to rise up and discover at the appropriate moment the forces and the elements necessary in the onward march of mankind. Later in tlie fall, Major McKinley found time to do considerable campaign work for his friends. On the i8th of October, at Dayton, he delivered a speech with llie Cleveland yVdministration as his text. He declared that the free traders and tariff reformers had never been so restless as at that time, and [predicted that in the next Congress another attempt would be made to secure a radical reduction of the tariff, declaring that the bill would come not from the representatives of the people, but from the "summer garden of the President." Six weeks later the new Con- gress convened, and President Cleveland completely justified the predictions Major McKiidey had made by submitting his great tariff reform message to Congress. CHAPTER XV THE FIGHT AGAINST THE MILLS BILL WHEN the Fiftieth Congress was or- ganized, Mr. Carlisle was again elected Speaker, defeating Thomas B. Reed by a vote of 163 to 147. As Major McKinley had predicted. Mills, of Texas, was appointed to the Chairmanship of the Committee on Ways and Means, LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY p;itSiDE:iT Mc:\l.'JLEY's lastwes;eh:j TS.I^-^rART rhOM 7/ASHi:,GrO!l and the committee promptly set to work to deal with the conditions which Mr. Cleveland's message had said confronted the people instead of a theory. Soon after the opening of the new year, Major McKinley delivered one of the best known speeches he ever made upon an oc- casion not directly connected with his work in Congress. It was an address delivered before the Home Market Club of Boston, at its meeting at the Hotel \'endome in that city, on February 9, 18SS. The speech was a clear and widely quoted statement of the Republican position on the tariff question. He said : The President "has emphasized the issue and marked the line of contest. We accept his challenge and ap- peal from him to the people, the only sovereign we tolerate or recognize in the United States, It is left to the President, standing apart from his illustrious predecessors, to frown with contempt upon a national policy which gave us tlio money in large part to carry on the war for the Union to a successful and glorious conclusion, that has enabled us to meet all our obligations in peace, to establish the highest credit in the commercial world, and to achieve a nnxuu- facturing rank second to none. He calls this system "vicious, illogical and inequitable." We could frown back. We could make faces, too; but that would Ijc scarcely decorous or dignified, aye, it would be wholly unworthy a cause whose worth is in its work and to whoso trophies every citizen can point with pride and satisfaction. I would secure the American market to the Ameri- can producer, and I would not hesitate to i-aise the duties whenever necessary to secure this patriotic end. I would not have an idle man or an idle mill or an idle .spiiidle in this country if, by holding ex- clusively the American market, we could keep them employed and running. Every yard of cloth imported here makes a demand for one yard less of American faiu-ication. Let England take care of herself. Let I'rance look after her interests. Let Germany take care of her own people; but in God's name let Ameri- cans look after America. It will be remembered that the Demo- cratic majority of the Ways and Means Committee in the Fiftieth House did not hold open sessions during the preparation of the Mills bill. They worked at it se- cretly, and it was impossible for the Re- puljhcan minority to know what they were doing or what they proposed. This fact gave McKinley much more liberty up to the time of the introduction of the bill, than he would have had if he had been enabled to know what was being done by the Democratic majority of his committee. While Mills and his colleagues were at work, a resolution came up in the House similar to the one which had been defeated in the preceding Congress, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to apply the surplus then in the Treasury, or any surplus which might thereafter accumulate, to the redemption of United Slates bonds. The view of Major McKinley on this question liad not changed, and he made a vigorous opposition to the bill. In a speech which he delivered on February 28 he pointed out that the law on the statute book had been introduced by the official head of Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet, Secretary Bayard, when he had been in the Senate, and that no one had undertaken to cast suspicion on it until Mr. Cleveland had done so by suggesting that it had become a law as a rider upon an appropriation bill. Major McKinlev said that if that fact cast suspicion on the ap- propriation acts of Congress, the President must refuse to recognize as valid nearly one-half the laws, including the one which made his salary $50,000 instead of $25,000. The Mills bill was finally born, like Minerva, full armed and ready for battle. It had been completed and printed without the knowledge of the Republican minority. It was introduced by Chairman Mills on LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY April 2, 1888, in a speech which rehearsed the arguments of the Cleveland message at the beginning of the session. Under the circumstances of its construction, it was a difficult matter for any one to pre- pare an adverse report, or to find out any- thing about how the bill would work. The task fell to McKinley, and his report is acknowledged to have been one of the best tariff documents ever submitted to Congress. It was not, however, his final declaration on the bill. The general de- bate began on April 17 and continued for one month. McICinley had prepared an elaborate speech, which he delivered on the last day of the general debate. Judge Ke\- ley, the veteran Republican leader, opened the debate, and it had been expected that Mclvinley would close it for the minority ; but Mr. Haskell, of the Kansas delegation, who was also a Republican member of the Ways and Means Committee, desired that honor, and Judge Kelley persuaded McICin- ley to yield to the Westerner. Samuel J. Randall, then in the last term of his service in Congress, was the Demo- crat who preceded McKinley. The great protectionist was naturally opposed to the bill, even though it was fathered by his party. He had been brought from a sick bed — which not long afterward proved to be his deathbed— to make this last argu- ment in behalf of his profound belief in protection. The task at times was almost too much for him, and his voice became almost inaudible ; but he still labored on, and before he had finished what he desired to say his time had expired. Throughout the House there were cries of " Go on ! " and Randall asked for an extension, but Mills strode down in front of the Speaker's desk and shouted, "I object." Randall sank into his seat with an ex- pression of disappointment on his face. I3ut as he sat down, McKinley arose. "Mr. Speaker," he cried, "I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, out of my time, all that he may need to finish his speech on this bill." SPEAi\i|:G PROM THE TRAifJ AT C The great crowd in the galleries broke into cheers, and even on the floor of the House there was applause. It was no wonder that when Randall had fin- ished his speech and Mclvinley rose to make his argument, that he was greeted with tremendous applause. It was to be expected of McKinley that he would make a great argument ; but he surpassed himself, and excelled anything that had been deliv- ered in the House of Representatives in the way of a speech against a redaction of the tariff. He was the master in information on the subject of any man on the Demo- cratic side, and he held the bill up in its specific features and pointed out absurdities that could not fail to raise a laugh against Mills and his colleagues. Discussing the inconsistencies of the great advocate of raw material, he held up a piece of wire rod as an illustration, and said : " Here is a piece of rod drawn from steel billets, which finally goes into fencing. This is dutiable LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y ROAKOKK. VIRrTlNIA aL 45 per cent under the bill. And the steel from which it is made is dutiable at 63 per cent. What do you think of raw material for our manufacturers?" It was another of the contentions of the Democrats tliat the passage of the Mills bill would give cheaper clothes to the laboring man. One of the free traders in the House, Leopold Morse, was a Bos- ton clotliing merchant. lie was present while McKinley was speaking, and fell into the trap laid for him : The expectation of clieaper clothes is not sufficient to justify tlie action of the majority (said McKinlev). Nobody, so far as I have learned, has expressed dis- satisfaction with the present price of clothing. It is a political objection, it is a party slogan. Certainly no- l)ody is nnhappy over the cost of clothing except those who are amply able to pay even a higher price than is now exacted. I represent a district compris- ing some two hundred thousand people, in which a large majority of the voters are workingmen. I have represented them for a good many years, and I have never had a complaint from one of them that their clothes were too high. Has any gentleman on this floor met with such a complaint in his district? Mr. Morse. — They did not buy tliem of me. Mr. McKinley. — No! Let us see. If they had bought of the gentleman from Massachusetts it would have made no difference, and there could have been no Gomphiint. Major McKinley produced a bundle, wliicli he opened and from which he took a suit of clothes, which he held up to view. Turning to Mr. Morse, he continued : Come now, will the gentleman from Massachusetts know his own goods ? We recall that the Committee on Ways and Means talked about the laboring man who worked ten days at a dollar a day, and then went with his ten dollars wages to buy a suit of clothes. It is the old story. It is found in the works of Adam Smith. It has served many a free triider. It is the oUl story, I repeat, of the man who gets a dollar a day for his wages and believes he can buy his suit of clothes for the ten dollars he has earned in ten days. ]5ut the robber manufacturers have been to Congress and have got one hundred per cent put upon the goods in the shape of a tariff', and the suit of clothes he hnds can- not be bought for ten dollars, but he is asked twenty dollars for it. And so he has to go back to ten days more of sweat, ten days more of toil, ten days more of wear and tear of muscle and brain to earn tlic ten dol- lars to purchase the suit of clothes. Tiien the Chair- man gravely asks, "Is not ten days entirely annihi- lated ?" Now, a gentleman who read that speech or heard it was so touched by the pathetic story that he looked into it and sent me a suit of clothes identical with that described by the gentleman from Texas, and he sent me also the bill for it; and here is the entire suit, rob- ber tariff's and taxes and all, and the retail cost is just ten dollars. So the poor fellow does not have to go back and work ten days more to get that suit of clothes, lie takes the snit witli him and pays for it just ten dol- lars; but in order that there might be no mistake about it, knowing the honor and honesty of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Morse), he went to his store and bought the suit. I hold in my hand the bill. Mr. McKinley proceeded to read the bill, which substantiated what he had said, that Mr. Morse's store had sold the suit for ten dollars ; and then he continued : And now, Mr. Cha.irman, I never knew of a gen- tleman engaged in this business who sold his clothes without profit, and there is the same ten dollar suit described by the gentleman from Texas that can be bought in the city of Boston, in Philadelphia, in New York, in Chicago, in Pittsburg, anywhere throughout the countr}'-, at ten dollars retail, the whole suit, coat, trousers and vest, and forty pec cent less than it could have been bought in 1860 under your low tariff and low wages of that period. LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y CROWDS LISTENING TO THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH AT DECATUR, ALAPAMA One more illustration g-iven by Major McKinley served to close his argument on the bill. The Missouri Glass Company — he said — was organ- ized several years ago for the manufacture of coarse- fluted glass and cathedral glass. Last November the factory was destroyed by fire. Within ten days the foreign price of cathedral glass advanced twenty-eight per cent to the American consumer, showing that whether you destroy American productions by free trade or by fire, it is the same thing. The prices go up to the American consumer, and all you can do is to pay the price the foreigner chooses to ask. There was another demonstration, both on the floor and in the galleries, when Major McKinley sat down, and from all parts of the House came cries of " Vote, vote." Several members came up to con- gratulate him, and Haskell, of Kansas, to whom he had yielded the honor of closing the debate, leaned over his de.sk and said : " Major, I shall speak last, but you have closed the debate." CHAPTER XVI Mckinley's loyalty to siierman THE strug-gle for the Republican nom- ination for the Presidency in the summer of iSS8 revealed Major McKinley to the nation in a light which seemed to be new, although to those who had followed his course in politics closely, and who remembered his struggle in the Ohio State Convention four years before to prevent his own election as a delegate-at- large to the National Convention, instead of some one else to whom he had pledged his support, it was nothing strange. It will be remembered that in the latter part of the first administration of Mr. Cleveland, Mr. Blaine, who had been defeated in his great ambition four years before, made a some- what extended tour of Europe. He was abroad at the time the Republican National Convention of i8S8 convened in Chicago. There was an undoubted preponderance of sentiment in favor of the renomination of Mr. Blaine. The conditions both in his party and throughout the nation had changed greatly since his defeat, and the record of the Democratic Administration was such that the Republicans were ex- tremely hopeful, if not confident, of suc- cess. But Mr. Blaine was unwilling to take the nomination, and several other candidates had their supporters before the Convention. There was at all times some support of Mr. Blaine, and it was evident, to any one well versed in the ways of conventions, that if he would permit the use of his name he would be nominated. Major McKinley was again a delegate LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY from Ohio to the Convention. lie was pledged to the support of John Sherman, who so many times was a candidate for the nomination he was never able to se- cure. Judge Walter Q. Gresham and Gen- eral Russell A. Alyer were also candidates, as was .Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indi- ana. The first ballot was cast on the 22d of June. Nineteen different men received more or less support, among the most popular being Harrison, Alger, Gresham and Sherman. There was one vote from Connecticut for McKinley. On tlie second ballot there were a few scattering votes for McKinley, and it seemed that there was a growing sentiment for him in pref- erence to the older Ohio statesman. Major McKinley was, of course, widely known throughout the nation, and especially in his party because of his work in Congress, It was apparent from the reception he had from the people as he moved about the Convention that he was already very popular. After the second ballot an adjournment was had over night, and the supporters of the various candidates went to work enthusiastically to see ivhat could be done, each for his favorite. McKinley was one of the hardest workers of them all, exerting himself to the utmost on behalf of Senator Sherman. The Blaine supporters were as enthusiastic and determined as ever. Alli- son, Alger, Harrison and Gresham's head- quarters swarmed with their supporters. All that night and during the next dav the struggle went on ; but there was more and more suggestion of McKinley, and more and more he seemed to be the solution of the problem. Telegrams were received from all the Republican Congressmen in Washington urging his nomination. As the balloting continued, more and more votes turned to him. There began to be talk of the Garfield episode at the Chicago Con- vention in 1880. The excitement in the Convention was tremendous. As the third roll call of the day was going on and more and more votes came to McKinley, T.;E ARC-: OF COTTON BALES AT VICKSBURG, MISS. he sprang up from his place at the head of the Ohio delegation and demanded recog- nition from the Chair. Instantly the uproar of the Convention was stilled. Every dele- gate and every spectator in the vast gal- leries was looking at the Ohio man. Then in a voice that rang through the hall and carried to its furthest corner. Major McKin- ley said : Mr. President and Gentlemen — I am liere as one of the chosen re|iresentatives ot niy State. I am here by rc.'iohition of the Repntilican State Convention, passed witliont a single dissenting voice, commanding nie to cast my vote for .John Siierman for President, and to use every worthy endeavor for his nomination. I accepted tlie trust, becanse my lieart and judgment were in accord witli the letter and spirit and purpose of that resolution. It has pleased certain delegates to cast their votes for me for President. I anr not insensible to the honor they would do tne, but in the presence of the duty rest- ing >ipon nic 1 cannot remain silent with honor. I cannot, consistently with the wish of the State whose credentials I bear, and which has trusted me; I can- not with lionoraljle fidelity to John Sherman, wdio has trusted me in his cau.se and with his confidence; I cannot, consistently with my own view.s of personal integrity, consent, or seem to consent, to permit my name to be used as a candidate before this Convention. I would not respect myself it I could find it in my heart to do so, or permit to be done that which could even be ground !nr any one to suspect that I wavered in my loyalty to Ohhi, or my ilevotion to the chief of her choice and tlie chiel; of mine. I do not request — I demand, that no delegate who would not cast reflec- tion upon me shall cast a ballot for me. There had been nothing like that in a Republican Convention or in any other. It was inspiring, dramatic, effective. There could be no doubt of the absolute sincerity r. I F E OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y AT VICKSBURG, MISS,: "PfllDE, POWER, MUST M 0 f TAINT MOTIVES " of McKinley, and there was no one who did not admire him for tlie position lie had taken. It stopped the turn of the voters toward him, and for the time, at least, he knew that he was not In danger of receiving the nomination he was strug- glinor to give to another. At the close of that ballot the Convention adjourned over Sunday. It became apparent on Sun- day, however, that the seiitiment for Mc- Kinley would not down. Several delega- tions decided to vote for him in spite of himself. As they got further away from his determined renunciation, they seemed more and more inclined to nominate him in spite of himself. McKinley spent the day visiting the different delegations and endeavoring to extract from each a pledge that it would respect his plea. The New Jersey delegation, headed by Garret A. Hobart, insisted on making him its can- didate. Mr. McKinley urged his cause with Mr. Hobart, and at last, raising his right arm, exclaimed : " I would rather suffer the loss of that arm than accept the nomina- tion under the circumstances." The New Jersey delegation was con- vinced and promised not to vote for him. To some one who suggested that he had done as honorable a thing as was known in the history of American politics, Major McKinley answered : " Is it then such an honorable thing not to do a dishonorable thing?" When the Convention reassembled on Monday, McKinley had mastered the sen- timent in favor of himself. lie could not, however, control it for Senator Sherman. Blaine's letter reiterating his refusal to be considered a candidate had arrived in the meantime, and with the Blaine element out of the way, the struggle was soon ended by the nomination of Benjamin Harrison. Major McKinley was then forty-five years old. The men of his experience, of his fitness for the office and of his knowledge of politics, who could have put by so great a temptation have been \'ery few. It was a revelation, as to his character to men of all parties throughout the country. Of course there were not wanting those who cavilled and imputed to McKinley any motive ex- cept sincerity, any purpose except the real one. They said he was too yoimg, and could afford to wait, and that he knew it. However true it may have been that he could afford to wait and realized it, it is also true that the incident revealed the real McKinley, and no greater justification of his action at that time could have been found than his conduct in the last eight days of his life. The first session of the Fiftieth Congress continued during most of that campaign, but Major McKinley's main fight had been against the proposed tariff bill, and he found leisure from his work in Washing- ton to take an active part in the cam- paigning. The interest which he had taken in the development of the industries of the South had made for him many warm friendships below Mason and Dixon's line. He was even then beginning to be known and recognized as the great friend of the South, and he seldom permitted an oppor- tunity to visit any of the Southern States, and especially to deliver a public address LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y PRESIDENT McKINLEY (x) SPEAKING AT VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI there, to go by unaccepted. In the course of this campaign he was invited to deliver an address to the Piedmont Chautauqua Association, at Atlanta, Georgia, on August 21. He was requested to speak upon the subject of Protection in the South. He accepted at once, and the address uhicli he dehvered was one of the most notable speeches made in that notable campaign. The election of 1888 resulted in the com- plete reversal of Democratic policies and the os'erthrow of that party. In the second session of the Fiftieth Congress, a substi- tute for the Mills bill was introduced in the Senate, and a desperate effort was made to pass it. .-\fter it had passed the Senate it was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means in the House as late as Janu- uary 26, when there remained scarcely five weeks of the session. Major McKinley opposed the reference of the bill to the Committee, and was in favor of the appoint- ment, by the House, of a Committee on Conference in the effort to meet the Senate half way and see if an agreement could not be reached. For once he agreed with President Cleveland. " It is not a theory," he said, "it is a condition. If this bill goes to the Committee on Ways and Means, mark my words, no practical legislation will be reached at this session of Congress." The Fiftieth Congress adjourned on the 4th of March and McKinley's prediction proved true. In the preceding campaign he had been elected for his seventh term in Congress without any particular struggle. In the interval between the adjournment of the Fiftieth Congress and the first session LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L F Y AT NEW ORLEANS; ■'rt'ALKlNG HUMBLY BEFORF GOD, DEALING JUSTLY AND MERCIFULLY' of the Fifty-first, Majur McKinlcy fo Lind oc- casion to deliver several si:)eeches in differ- ent parts of tlie country. He liad lonij been known as one of the most pleasing and forceful speakers in public life, and he was in great demand at all sorts of dinners and banquets and society meeting's. One of the most notable addresses of that year he delivered in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, on the evening of Memorial Day, May 30. His audience was composed very largely of members of the Grand Army, and his subject was " The American Volunteer Soldier." He said : Other nations liave decorated theh- great captains and have knighted their illustrious commanders. We not only honor our great captains and illustrious coni- mamlers, the men who led the vast armies to battle, hnt we shower equal honors in equal measure upon all, irrespective of rank in battle or condition at home. My friends, the settlements of that war must stand as the irreversible judgments of battle and the inflex- ible decree of a nation of free men. They must not be misinterpreted. They must not be nuUi lied. They must not be weakened or shorn of their force under any prete.xt whatever, but must be ae(iuiesced in freely in every part of tlie Republic, without reservation or Yoidance or evasion. In the fall of that year Major McKinley entered into the campaign in Ohio with especial energy. Governor Foraker had been persuaded, against his judgment, to run for a third term. There has been much talk at different times of feeling between Governor Foraker and Mr. Mc- Kmley, but it was observable on this oc- casion that Major Mclxinley did his utmost to redeem the work of the State Conven- tion and secure the re-election of the Gov- ernor. In the Music Hall, at Cleveland, on the 5th of October, he delivered a telling speech, which was one of the most effec- tive of the campaign. It started out as a drscussion of protection and revenue, but fjefore it was finished it had covered pretty well the range of subjects then in contro- versy. It was not Mckinley's fault that the Republicans were defeated and Foraker was not chosen for a third term. CHAPTFR XVII LAST TERM IN CONGRES.S THE McKINLEY BILL UPON the organization of the Fifty- first Congress, in December, 18S9, Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, was elected Speaker of the House by a very narrow margin. It is a singular illustration of the recognition of his prominence in the party on economic subjects that there was no suggestion of the appointment of any other Republican to the Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee than Major McKinley. It was certain that there would be tariff legislation. The Republican campaign had been won almost entirely upon that issue, and even before Con- gress was organized work was done toward that end. It will be remembered, however, that the Fifty-first Congress was the scene of the great contest between the Republicans and the Democrats over the adoption, in the House, of what subsequently came to be known as the Reed rule. The Republicans had a majority of but 3, the membership standing 164 to 161. I'hroughout the coun- try there was little hope or expectation that LIFE OF WILLIAM ivIcKINLEY PRESIDENT McKIXLEY ON A MISSISSIPPI PACKET, RECEIVING A REMARKABLE OVATION FROM THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WHO LINED THE LEVEES the Republicans would be able to carry through any important tariff legislation by so small a majority. It was almost too much to expect, even if they were all ab- solutely united on the questions brought before the House, that the attendance of the entire membership could be obtained. It was at this time, and under such circum- stances, that Speaker Reed first laid down his famous rule providing for the counti)ig of the quorum, which was, that any mem- bers of the House who were actually in the House during a session, although they declined to answer in the roll call and re- fused to take any part in the vote, could be counted for the purpose of making a quorum. No one at all familiar with the course of public events has forgotten the angry protest that went up from the minor- ity upon the first attempt to enforce this rule. The Democrats made a vigorous fight against it, but in a subsequent test case the rule was declared to be valid by the Supreme Court of the United States. Major McKinley was at all times in sympathy with Mr. Reed, and working with him to secure the passage of important legislation. He took an active part in the discussion of the new rule, which he supported vigorously. The great work of the Fifty-first Con- gress was the passage of the tariff bill. It is always customary, and has been for a LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY WATCHING THE CROWDS ON THE WHARF AT NiW ORLEANS great many years, to give to a tariff bill the name of the Chairman of the Commit- tee on Ways and Means wliich produced the bilL In this wa-y the bill passed by the Fifty-first Congress has always been known as the McKinley Hill, and for once the ap- pellation was correct. Major McKinley him self rarely mentioned tlie bill by that name. It is probable tliat not half a dozen times in all did he so designate it. It was his custom to refer to it as the Tariff Act of 1890. But it was peculiarl}- a McKinlev bill, for as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee he had gone most exhaustively and thoroughly into every subject which it treated. And to begin with, there probably was not another man in the House on either side who was the equal of McKinley in prep- aration for such work, who had studied the subject so deeply and knew so much about tariffs and the making of tariffs as McKinley. Selfishness, however, was not a trait of his character at that time any more than it was in later years. He did not desire to receive credit that was not his own. He had no thought of trying to make the bill his o«n; m his mind it was to be a great party measure, a triumph of Republican legisla- tion. He always sought and akvays wel- comed co-operation, and not merely the co-operation of his own side, but any as- sistance, or even any criticism of a legit- imate sort, from tlie opposition. " Born uithin the sound of rolling mills, and be- neath the smoke and flame of furnaces, from childhood a student of economic ques- tions, especially as involved in American legislation, McKinley had demonstrated his extensive knowledge not only of the general principles of revenue legislation, but also of the relations to trade and commerce of the smallest articles in the tariff schedules." So said one of McKinley's friends who knew of the work the Congressman had put upon this bill. There is no doubt that in its prin- ciples, in its details, in its phraseology and in its management, the Tariff Act of 1890 was a McKinley bill. In the room in the Capitol building, devoted to the use of the Committee on Ways and Means, or in McKinley's office in the Ebbitt House, any person inter- ested in the construction of the bill, for or against it, might have his hearing. It was no Star Chamber creation. From the begin- ning to the end not a legitimate interest asking to be heard on the bill was denied. It is related that a Democratic manufac- turer called on Major McKinley at his office in the Ebbitt House and said : " Mr. McKinley, I have been to my Mem- ber in the House, who is a Democrat like myself, to have him help me get a hear- ing before your committee. I have been to my Senator, who is a Democrat, and I have been to others, and they have all failed me. I have come directly to you. I have no claim upon you, but I want to ask the privilege of presenting my case." LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY It was after niidnig-ht when the Demo- cratic manufacturer had finished his inter- view with McKinley. The Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee liad listened to his argument patiently, and at last said to the man, who was a complete stranger to him : "Your claim is just. I thank you for bring-ing- my attention to it. We should have erred if we had left this schedule as it is. I will see that it is changed." The work that McKmley put upon the measure during its preparation was not les- THE PRESIDENT'S RECEPTlOri AT PRAIRIE VIEV/, TEXAS sened during the time that it was before the House. It was introduced on April i6, and on May 21 it was passed by a vote of 164 to 140. During all that time Mc- Kinley bore the brunt of the debating. Whenever an attack was made upon any of its features he was the man who rose to reply. There were occasions when he desig- nated some other member who had given special attention to one particular or an- other, but it was nearly always McKinley who made the explanation or the defence. The last great speech upon the tariff made by William McKinley was delivered on that day in May, 1890, when the bill which bore his name came up for its final passage. It was a great day in the House. The galleries were thronged, and many came over from the Senate to hear the great champion of protection make his argument. His speech was not a great oratorical effort, it was a plain, direct statement of the reasons for the bill, and of the principles upon which it had been framed. His speech on the Mills Bill was far more oratorical in effect, but in spite of the matters, ordinarily so dull, about which McKinley was speaking, he was followed with close interest and attention to the end. At the beginning of his speech he said : If any one thing wa.s settled Iiy tlic election of 1888, it was tliat tlie protective policy as promulgated in the Hepuljlican platl'orm aiid lieretofure inaugu- rated and maintained liy tlic lii']iiililir;in |kiti.v slmuld be secured in fiscal legisla.tiiui to lie lia.d liv llic Con- gress cliosen in that great contest and ti]ioii tliat mas- tering issue. I have interpreted tliat victory to mean that a revision o£ the tariff is not only demanded liy 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. He then proceeded to explain the provi- sions of the bill. He went througli it care- fully from first to last, and, with further general argument on the broad tariff propo- sition, said in closing: To retain ottr 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 competi- tors. How could that be done? In cue way only, by prodacing as cheaply as those who would seek our markets. Wliat would that entail? An entire revo- lutiou ill the method and condition and conduct of business here, a levelling down through every chan- nel 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. Talk about depression! We would then have it in its fuhiess. Wc would revel in unrestrained trade. Everything would indeed be cheap, but how costly wlien measured by the degra- dation 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 tlie lowest and cheapest measured by gold, for every- thing was the highest and the dearest measured by labor. We want uo return of cheap times in our own country. We have no wish to adopt the conditions of other nations. Experience has demonstrated tiiat 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. LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L F Y With me this position is a deep conviction, not a tlieory. I Ijelieve in it and thns warntlj advocate it, because enveloped in it are my country's liighest de velopnient and greatest prosperit}-. Out of it come the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for manlv aspi- rations, with the largest rewards, dignifying and elevat- ing our citizenship, upon which the safety and purity and permanency of our political system depend. The bill was reported to the Senate with a few amendments from its commit- tee, and finally passed on September lo. The House did not concur in the amend- ments, and the bill went to a conference. McKinley was one of the House conferrees and succeeded in maintaining his position on all important matters. The conference committees reported finally on September 26, and the bill was passed in both branches. It was signed by President Harrison on October 6, 1S90. There was a provision attached to the McKinley bill which has at times created considerable disctission, especially among the political opponents of McKinley, as to its authorship. It is known as the Reci- procity clause, which was an entirely new- feature in a tariff bill, and gave to the President the authority to establish reci- procity in certain lines of trade with other countries by agreement and proclamation. Credit for the authorship of this new feat- ure was generally ascribed to Mr. Blaine It has been urged at different times that Major McKinley was opposed to such a provision, but his own speeches do not bear out that contention. He himself, in his LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y PRESIDtNT MCKINLEY'S WESTERN TRIP-A W.AVSiDE STOP speech introducing the iiill, said that he would leave the subject of rcciprocitv and the propriety of makingr commercial ar- rangements and treaties to "the illustrious man who presides over the State Depart- ment of this Administration and to my dis- tinguished friend the Chairman of the Com- mittee on Foreign Affairs in this House." It is entirely foreign to any understanding of Major Mclvinley's concern for the busi- ness interests of the country to assert that he was at any time seriously opposed to reciprocity. On the contrary, he always strove to his utmost for any enlargement of American commerce upon a fair and equitable basis. The last speech he ever delivered in Iiis life contained a frank and sweeping declaration in favor of reciprocity. It was after the passage of his bill in the House, and while it was in the Sen- ate, that Major McKinley was called upon to face a great blow in the loss of his sister, Anna ; she who had been his confi- dante and his adviser, and who had had such faith in him throughout his life. She died at Canton, on July 29, 1890. Even while he was occupied so tremen- dously with the provisions of his great tariff bill, and the debate upon it in the House, Major McKinley found time to make clear his public record upon another matter of great importance, that of Civil Service Re- form. In a speech delivered on the 24th of April, 1890, he said : I desire to say that I am o]i|iased to the amendment of tlie gentleman from Tennessee to strike from this l)ill tlie appropriation for the execution of the civil- .serv-ice law. My only regret is that the Committee on Appropriations did not give to the Commission all the ajipropri.ition that was asked for the improvement and extension of the system. CHAPTER XVIII GERRYMANDERED OUT OF CONGRESS— GOVERNOR OF OHIO BEFORE the adjournment of the first session of the Fifty-first Con- gress, Major McKinley found him- self facing a difficult campaign for re-election. The Democrats had obtained control of the Ohio Legislature, and had gerrymandered his district out of all semblance to its for- mer self. In the course of his career in Con- gress his district had been changed several times. Nearly every county within reach of his home which gave a Democratic major- ity had been at some time or other attached to his district, which usually consisted of four counties. In the fourteen years he was in Congress he represented nine differ- ent counties. For the purpose of this gerry- mander there was added to his district the rock-ribbed Democratic county of Holmes, which touched Stark County on the south- west corner. This county had voted over two to one against Grant, and nearly three to one for Tilden against Hayes, an Ohio man. It could always be counted upon for about two thousand Democratic majority. Other changes in the district brought this nominal majority against him up to about three thousand. There was hardly a month between the adjournment of Congress and the election. McKinley accepted the re- LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L F Y PRESIDENT Mckinley, si'XKin'AKv hay and postmaster-general smith at a mine, PHCENIX, ARIZONA nomination in his old spirit, in a speech in which he bitterly arraigned the injustice and partisanship of the Democrats in thus attempting practically to disfranchise a large portion of the voters. Major McKinley's opponent was the Honorable John G. Warwick, who had been Lieutenant-Governor of the State. The contest was recognized on both sides as of national importance. The campaign committees of both parties in the House sent some of their best speakers to the assistance of their candidates. David B. Hill, of New York, and other men of eminence in the Democratic party went to the assistance of Mr. Warwick, and Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, spoke in be- half of Major Mcliinley. McKinley him- self made one of his old-time campaigns as far as the limited time would permit. He went throughout the district making speeches, arraigning the Democrats for their inconsistency, and upholding his great doc- trine of protection. He was handicapped further by the fact that throughout the country the tide was clearly against the Republican party ; but in spite of that fact, and the outrageous gerrymander, he came within 300 votes of winning. No Republi- can had ever received nearly so many votes in the counties composing his district. He received above 1,200 more than General Harrison had had in the preceding Presiden- tial campaign. It was the second and last time that McKinley lost an election. When it was certain that McKinley had been defeated, there was great Democratic jubilation in Canton. The crowds paraded the streets, and swarmed about the Mc- Kinley block, while tlie Major was sitting in his office. The editor of the Canton " Repository " went to McKinley and asked him what should be said about the election in the forthcoming issue of the paper. McKinley picked up an old " Congressional Record " and on the blank back page wrote : Protection was never stronger tlian it is .at this hour, and it will grow in strength and in the hearts of the people. It has won in every contest before the people from the beginning of the Government. The elections this year were determined npon a false issue. A conspiracy between importers and the free traders of this country to raise prices and charge it upon the McKinley bill was successful. But con- spiracies are short lived and soon expire. This one has already been laid bare, and the infamy of it will still further appear. LIFE O 1' WILLIAM M c K 1 N L E Y COPYRIGHT 19D1 BY UNDERWOOD AND UNDERWOOD IriE PRESIDENT SPEAKING AT SAN JOS-, •.-.I , Increased prosjierity, which is sure to come, will outrun the maliuner and vililier. Keep up your eour- afj:e. Strengthen your organizations and he ready tor tlie great hattle in Ohio in 1891, and the still greater one in 1892. Home and country will triumph in the end. Their enemies, whether here or abroad, will never be placed in permanent control of the Govern- ment of Washington, of Lincoln, and of Grant. McKinlcy had given another notable ex- hibition of liis courage and of the faith that was in him. In another way he had done a cliaracteristic thing. This was the first time he had spoken of the Tariff Act of i8go as the McK^inley BilK Now that it was charged, however, that defeat was due to that measure, he was willing to accept the responsibility. He returned to Washing- ton for the short session, but there was little legislation of any special importance to at- tract his attention. On the 28th of Febru- ary he delivered a speech favoring the bill which provided that nothing in the Tariff Act of 1S90 should be held to impair the treaty with the Hawaiian Islands then in force. Just before Christmas he had been the guest of honor at the New England din- ner at the Continental Hotel in Philadel- phia, and liad delivered an address on the subject of "New England and tlie Future." It was evident before McKinley was out of Congress that he would be Ihe candidate of his party for the governorship of Ohio. The Republican State Convention was held at Columbus on the i6ih and 17th of June. McKinley's was the only name mentioned for the head of the ticket. The Democratic Convention renominated Governor Campbell. Major McKinley spoke in the course of the campaign in eighty-five of the eighty- eight counties of the State, delivering in all one hundred and thirty-four speeches. He won by a decisive majority, having made gains throughout the State. In the Presidential campaign of 1892 McKinley was for Harrison. He did all he could to check a movement to nominate himself at the Minneapolis Convention, challenging the vote of the Ohio delega- tion for him. He took an active part in the campaign. There was nothing to disturb the quiet current of affairs during his first adminis- tration as Governor. The State Convention, held in the summer of '93, unanimously re- nominated him, and he was re-elected by the largest majority given for any candi- date, up to that time, in the history of the State, with the exception of one during the war. His second administration was rendered much more difficult than the first by the occurrence of a long series of labor troubles. The Board of Arbitration, which had been established in accordance with legislation passed on McKinley's recom- mendation, saw service during this admin- istration in twenty-eight different strikes, fif- teen of which the arbitrators were able to settle. The first year of the second admin- istration found McKinley called upon no fewer than fifteen times for military aid in maintaining peace or in preventing riots. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY AT DEL MONTE; "A UNION OF HANDS AND HEARTS" In the time of great distress In the Hockiny" Valley mining district, tlie Governor took upon himself tlie responsibility for sending several trainloads of groceries and supplies to the hungry miners and their families. It was at this time that there burst like a thunder-cloud over McKinley's head the misfortune of financial ruin. He had been interested with Mr. Robert Walker to some extent in business, and had indorsed Walk- er's notes for more than $60,000. When the schedules of the failure were filed, it was discovered that McKinley's liabilities aggre- gated about $118,000. McKinley had prop- erty at that time valued at about $20,000. Mrs. McKinley had inherited from her father something like $75,000, which she promptly placed at Governor McKinley's disposal, to the end that every creditor might be paid in full. McKinley's many friends finally persuaded him to turn over his property and obligations to trustees, who settled the entire matter for him. The settlement was complete, and every holder of a note bear- ing McKinley's indorsement was paid in full, without impairment of the little for- tune of Governor and Mrs. McKinley. The summer of 1894 saw Governor Mc- Kinley engaged upon the greatest campaign that, up to that time, had ever been made. Heginning In Maine, in September, and up to the time of election, he was on the plat- form without cessation. lie travelled in a special train, and his work began at day- light and ended long after dark. In all, he made three hundred and seventy-one speeches, forty -six of which were set addresses. CHAPTER XIX THE CAMPAIGN" OF 1S96 McKINLEY ELECTED PRESIDENT THE formal campaign for the nomi- nation of Major McKinley for the Presidency began at the Repub- lican State Convention of Ohio in 1895, when the platform declared him to be Ohio's choice. He had returned to Canton at the expiration of his second term as Governor, and had been living quietly in his old home. It was natural that he should appreciate that the time had come for him to make the race for the Presidency. In 1884 he had been mentioned enthusiastically, when he was a Blaine man, but he would have none of it. In 1888 again, when he was for Sherman, by his vigorous Interfer- ence and his absolute demand that nothing should be done for him, he checked a movement in the Convention which might have resulted In his nomination. Again in 1892 he was for Harrison ; and although many of the delegates to the National Con- vention were really in favor of McKinley, he declined to have anything done for him, and did all he could to secure the renomi- nation of General Harrison. At that time 182 votes were cast for him in spite of his efforts. But after his election to the Governorship of Ohio, he accepted the prophecy of one of his friends in the Min- neapolis Convention that his turn would be next. After the formal declaration by the Ohio LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT McKINLEY POSING FOR A PHOTOGRAPH WITH THE CORRESPONDENTS WHO ACCOMPANIED HIM ON HIS WESTERN TRIP Convention in 1895, the management of the details of McKinley's candidacy were given to his old friend, Mark Hanna of Cleveland. Mr. Hanna had associated with him some of the shrewdest politicians of Ohio, including Major Dick and ex-Librarian J. P. Smith, who were old and close friends of McICin- ley. Mr. Hanna and his associates man- aged the candidacy with great skill. Mr. Hanna had had considerable experience in politics in Ohio, but never before had taken a prominent part in national politics, and his skill as a manager was little known outside his own State. ./Xmong the party leaders in other States the candidacy of McKinley did not find much enthusiastic support. With the people, however, there was a large demand for him, and especially in the South, where he was coming to be more and more regarded as a valuable friend to their local industries. The prin- cipal objection urged against McKinley was on his record on the money question. It was alleged that he was a friend of free silver. There was even unearthed a letter purporting to have been written by McKin- ley to an Ohio farmer, in which he made the explicit declaration that he was for free silver. To all this Major McKinley made no other reply than that he was content to stand by his record. There was no doubt that he had been, in all his public career, in favor of sound money. His first polit- ical campaign found him making speeches against the greenback and fiat money craze then prevalent in Ohio. Throughout his career in Congress he had voted and spoken in accordance with the record of that early campaign, He was undoubtedly in favor of the more liberal coinage of silver, and of the restoration of the white metal to com- mon use as money; but he had early seen the fallacy of attempting free coinage of silver in the United States alone, and had settled down to the advocacy of a policy of international bimetallism, where the ratio between gold and silver should be established by agreement among the great nations of the world. The opposition to McKinley was of no avail and never had great strength. The Re- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY AT DE5 MOIHES ; ■■ OUR DIFFERENCES ARE POLICIES, OUR AGREEMENTS PRINCIPLES " pul)lican National Convention of the summer of 1896 met in St. Louis. Long before the delegates convened, it was apparent to the knowing ones that a majority of them were in favor of the nomination of McKinley. This Convention was one of the most spec- tacular that had ever been held. It resulted in a split in the party on the cjuestion of sil- ver, and the dramatic withdrawal from the Convention of Senator Teller of Colorado, who was one of the old war horses of the party. Several other silver men from the Western States also withdrew. The plat- form which had been adopted reiterated the faith of the Republicans in protection, and came out squarely in favor of the mainte- nance of the gold standard. The opposition to McKinley in the Con- vention had not been able to concentrate upon any candidate. Thomas IS. Reed of Maine was the favorite of several of the New England States. Senator Quay of Pennsylvania had some following, espe- cially in his own State, Levi P. Morton had most of the delegates from New York, and Iowa presented her favorite son, William 15. Allison. Governor McKinley was nominated in an eloquent speech by Senator-elect Fora- ker. When Mr. Foraker reached the point in his speech where, at the close of a dra- matic climax, he named McKinley, there was an outburst of cheering and applause in the Convention which lasted twenty-five minutes. There was but one roll call. McKinley re- ceived 661 j4 votes, more than twice as many as all others combined. Upon the announcement of the ballot, Senator Lodge, the chief of the Reed forces, moved that the nomination of McKinley be made unanimous. Chauncey A-I. Depew, who had headed the fight for Morton, seconded the motion, and the nomination was made unanimous by a rismg vote. Major McKinley was not a oelegate to the Convention. He had remained at his home in Canton, and there waited to re- ceive the news. The house had been fitted with the long-distance telephone and tele- graph instruments, and bulletins were fre- quently received from the Convention Hall. When the time for the making of the nomi- nating speeches arrived, Major McKinley took a place by the side of the telephone oper- ator and frequently listened himself to the applause. When the vote was taken he kept track of it with a pencil and tablet. His wife and his mother, who was then eighty-six years old, were sitting in a room just across the hall, anxiously awaiting the news from St. Louis. When the vote of Ohio, 46 for McKinley, was announced, that made a majority of the Convention and settled the nomination. Major McKinley put down his pad and pencil, walked across the hall, and told his mother and his wife. Just then a cannon was fired so near the house that the concussion shook the walls. His home town had begun the celebration of McKinley's nomination. Then followed the most remarkable cam- paign that has ever been made for the Presidency. Major Mclvinley had demon- strated in other years his phenomenal abil- ity as a campaign speaker, and had made the most astounding tour that had ever been undertaken. 13ut that trip was on LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND SECRETARY TO THE PRESIDENT GEORGE B. CORTELYOU LEAVING THE SCOTT MANSION, SAN FRANCISCO behalf of others. Now that lie himself was a candidate, he decided that it would be undignified for him to undertake such methods of vote-getting", and he deter- mined, therefore, to remain at Canton throughout the campaign and not to make speeches elsewhere. The people, however, were determined and clamorous to hear the Republican candidate speak, and on the very day of his nomination the char- acter of the campaign was determined. As soon as the news came of his nomi- nation, some of his friends began the or- ganization of a parade, Within a very few minutes about a thousand men were in line. Grand Army Posts turned out, badges and banners were produced as if by magic, and the column was headed to the McKin- ley house. When it arrived at the grounds, one of the prominent citizens of the town made a short speech of congratulation to Major McKiiiley, expressing the faith his neighbors had in him, and assuring him of their support. Major McKinley had come out upon his porch to greet his fellow towns- men, and he responded to the address with a short speech of thanks, in which he com- mented upon the non-partisan character of the demonstration and said that for that reason he would not discuss political issues. This was the beginning of a long series of visits of delegations and excursions that came from all parts of the country to Can- ton. When it became apparent that McKin- ley would not leave home, the people decided to go there to see him. Within an hour after tlie announcement of his nomination, special trains were arranged for to take crowds from several of the cities near to Canton. They came all the rest of the afternoon and in the evening, and nearly all night they were parading through the streets of Canton, cheering and shouting for McKinley. A detailed description of the weeks that followed would be little more than a cata- logue of the e-xcursions, and special trains, and delegations that came from far off points to visit and cheer the Republican candidate. The McKinleys were then living in the home in which they had begun housekeeping after their marriage. An ofEce was fitted up for. Major McKinley, where he had two secretaries busy all the time with his work and his mail. The Canton people LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ESCORT 11, FH S , ,UM THE DAY BEFORE THE ASSASSIHATION soon took ihe measure of the summer's work, and made effective arrangements to take care of it. A troop of horsemen was organized to receive delegations and escort them to the McKinley house. An arch was constructed from curb to curb at the foot of the street which led to the McKin- ley home. It was adorned with electric lights and a portrait of McKinley, and un- der it the visitors were led in their march to the lawn in front of the candidate's house. It was the custom of Major McKin- ley to come out on his front porch to greet these visiting delegations, and there, stand- ing sometimes on a chair, sometimes on a box, and sometimes just on the porch, he would address his visitors. It will be remembered that not long after the Republican Convention adjourned the Democratic Convention met in Chicago. It was already apparent that the nominee of that Convention would be pledged to the support of free silver. Major McKinley was inclined to believe that the Democratic candidate would be Mr. Bland of Missouri, who had long been an outspoken advocate of free coinage of silver in Congress. But that was the Convention which was cap- tured by William Jennings Bryan, a young lawyer from Lincoln, Nebraska, with the famous speech in which he exclaimed — "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." The nomination of Mr. Bryan at once set- tled the main character of tlie fight. The principal issue was whether there should be free and unlimited coinage of silver without the consent or assistance of any other nation, or whether the United States should maintain their place upon the single gold standard. Major McKinley had already defined his po- sition. Among the first of the delegations which called on him that summer were sev- eral composed of delegates to the National Convention who were returning to their homes in the East. In the latter part of June, the committee appointed to make the formal notification of his nomination visited McKinley at Canton. In his reply he said : " The dollar paid to the farmer, the wage earner and the pensioner must con- tinue forever to be equal in purchasing and debt-paying power to the dollar paid to any Government creditor." Here was a fair declaration of his oft- expressed belief in sound money. As the campaig)! developed and the summer waned, and more and more delegations came to Canton, McKinley delivered a very remark- able series of speeches. It is an unusual thing for a candidate for public office to make such a number of speeches without saying something which can be picked up by his opponents and used to his disadvan- tage. That never happened to McKinley, however. He discussed the two great issues of the campaign — protection and free coin- age of silver — with equal certainty and with equal frankness. While the people were thus coming to the home of the Republican candidate in never- ending procession, the Democratic candidate was travelling about the country in special trains, and making a campaign of such vigor as that made by McKinley in the fall of 1894. The campaign resulted in a split in LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT AND MRS. McKINLEY ARRIVING AT TIM" l.Xl'l jSITION GROUNDS, BUFFALO, ON THE MORNIN(.; OF SEPTEMBER 5, THE DAY BEFORi; THE PRESIDENT WAS SHOT each party. There was a reorganization all along the line. There were free silver men in the Republican party and gold men among the Democrats. The battle was waged with the utmost energy and enthu- siasm. The election resulted overwhelm- ingly in favor of McKinley, both in the Electoral College and in the popular vote. He carried every State east of the Missis- sippi River and north of Mason and Dixon's line. CHAPTER XX McKINLEY AS PRESIDENT THE SP.4NISH WAR THE winter after his election to the Presidency was spent by Major McKinley at his old home in Can- ton. There he was visited at different times by many men prominent in the business or political affairs of the country. There was tlie usual discussion concerning the appoint- ment of his Cabinet, but the formal an- nouncement of the men selected was not made until a short time before the inaugu- ration. President McKinley was inaugurated at Washington on March 4, 1897. At the same time. Garret A. Hobart, who had been elected to the Vice-Presidency, took his place as presiding officer of the special session of the Senate. President McKinley's inaugural address began with a declaration, which was char- acteristic of him at all times throughout his life, of reliance upon and invocation of the guidance of Almighty God. He began almost immediately a discussion of the financial condition of the country, and de- clared himself in favor of the appointment of a commission to study and recommend changes in the fiscal laws. He affirmed his adherence to the proposition made in the Republican platform in favor of interna- tional bimetallism, and declared that it was his intention to endeavor to secure the co- operation of other great commercial powers to that end. Passing then to the subject of LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY PRESIDENT McKINLEY DELIVERING HIS LAST SPEECH, BUFFALO, SEPT. 5; "PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS AND PEACE TO ALL" revenue, he declared that an increase in the receipts of the Government was essential, and that without delay. A surplus in the treasury, as the result of loans, was neither a permanent nor a safe reliance. He hoped and expected that Congress, at the earliest practicable moment, would enact revenue leg- islation that would supply sufficient revenue for the public purposes, and declared it to be the paramount duty of Congress to stop deficiencies by the restoration of protective legislation. He recommended the re-enact- ment and extension of the reciprocit)- princi- ple of the Tariif Act of i8go, and announced that he would call a special session of Con- gress to deal with tariff legislation. On the subjects of trusts, civil service reform and immigration what he had to say was in ac- cordance with the declarations of the plat- form. He declared that Congress should give prompt attention to the upbuilding of the American merchant marine. On the subject of foreign policy he said that it was the intention of the Administration to cultivate relations of peace and amity with all the world, following the policy which had been adhered to by the Govern- ment since the time of Washington. He pronounced in favor of the Treaty of Arbi- tration then pending before the Senate. He concluded his address by congratulating the country upon the complete elimination of the old spirit of sectionalism which had existed for so long as a result of the Civil War. President McKinley's first Cabinet was composed of men well-known throughout the counuy. At its head was his old friend the Ohio statesman John Sherman, who, having made a great reputation as Secre- tary of tlie Treasury, now became Sec- retary of State. Lyman J. Gage, of Chicago, a \\ ell -known banker, was the Secretary of the Treasury. At the head of the War Department McJvinley placed General Russell A. Alger of Michigan. John D. Long, who had been Senator from, and Governor of, iVlassachusetts, was the Secretary of the Navy. For Attorney-Gen- eral, President McJ\!inley went to the Pacific Coast, appointing Judge Joseph Mclvenna, who had been associated with him during his early terms in Congress. James A. Gary of Maryland, who had been an active Republican all his life, but had never held office, was called by President McKinley to the head of the Post-office Department, and Cornelius N. Bliss of New York, one of the prominent business men of New York City, was made Secretary of the Interior. James Wilson, who began life as a farmer in Iowa, and had been elected to Congress after serviiig several terms in the State Legislature, was made Secretary of Agri- culture. In accordance with the announcement made in his inaugural address, President McKinley summoned the Fifty-fifth Con- gress in special session on March 15. The House of Representatives was organized at once by the selection of Thomas B. Reed of Maine as the Speaker. The President's message dealt entirely with the subject of the current expenditures of the Government and the increasing deficit. He said that ample revenues should be supplied at once. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY THE PRESIUKNT AND MR. MILBUKN AT NIAGARA FALLS THE DAY BLEURE MR. McKINLEY WAS SHOT not only for the ordinary expenses of the Government, but for the prompt payment of liberal pensions and the liquidation of the principal and interest of the public debt. The imperative demand of the hour was for the enactment of such a tariff law be- fore other government business was trans- acted. In response to this message, the bill which subsequently became known as the Dingley Bill was introduced in the House, on March 19, by Mr. Dingley, who was Chairman of the Ways and Means Com- mittee. The Committee on Rules provided for rapid action on the bill. The debate on the measure in the House, as well as in the Senate, was voluminous, but almost entirely along the old familiar lines of argument on such subjects. The bill was passed by the House on the 31st of March, only twelve days after it was introduced. After a pro- tracted discussion in the Senate, and the in- corporation of nearly nine hundred amend- ments, the bill was passed on the 7th of July and went to conference. Tlie confer- ence was in favor of a great majority of the Senate amendments. The report was agreed to, and I^resident McKinley signed the bill. While the tariff bill was pending in Congress, several general acts of minor im- portance were also passed, among them bills giving American register to certain foreign- built steamships in order to enable them to carry grain under the American flag to the sufferers by famine in India. Another bill appropriated $50,000 for the relief of Amer- ican citizens who were suffering as a result of the insurrection in Cuba. The insurrec- tion in Cuba had been going on for more than two years, and there was already con- siderable agitation in the United States in favor of armed intervention on behalf of the insurgents. The change of administration brought with it the usual horde of applicants for pub- lic favor. The rush of this work kept Presi- dent McKinley in Washington until long LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO GOAT ISLAND, NIAGARA FALLS, SEPTEMBER 6, 1901 after the adjournment of the special session of Congress. He made a short visit to his old home in Canton, and was back in Washington early in the fall. The situation in Cuba had been steadily growing- more delicate, and the feeling throughout the country was rising. There were also pro- tests from Spain because of the work of the filibusters, who, in spite of the vigilance of the United States authorities, succeeded in getting away several shiploads of mili- tary supplies for the Cubans. The second session of Congress convened on December 6. In his message, the Presi- dent referred again to the growing feeling of fraternal regard among all sections of the country, and then passed at once to a discussion of tlie currency problem, saying that the legislation passed by the special session had eliminated the consideration of the tariff question. After a discussion of the endless chain resulting from the system of redeeming United States notes. the President recommended that thereafter, when such notes were redeemed, they should be held in the Treasury and paid out only in exchange for gold. The President then began a discussion of the insurrection in Cuba, and of the relations of the United States citizens to it. He declared that the civilized code of war had been disregarded by both sides. Of the policy of concentration practiced by Spain, he said that it was not civilized warfare, it was extermination. He told of his repeated protests to Spain against this abuse of the rights of war, and of the securing of the release of twenty-two American citizens who had been arrested illegally in Cuba. General Stewart L. Woodford had been appointed our Minister to Spain. President Mclvinley's message detailed the instructions given General Woodford to press for a solu- tion of the Cuban difficulty on the Spanish initiative. While Woodford was on his way to his post, Canovas, the Spanish Prime Min- LIFE OF WILLIAM M c K I N L E Y JQHr; G. MiLBUh^d, P.^ES.DENT OF THE PAN-AMERICAil EXPOSITlOri ister was assassinated, and tlie new Ministry wliich was organized was more favorable to efforts to prevent an open break with the United States than its predecessor had sliown itself in refusing the offer of the good of- fices of the United States made by Presi- dent Cleveland. The answer of the Sagasta Ministry to General Woodford's propositions was more favorable, and the f^resident told Congress that it was in the direction of a better understanding. It promised to ])ut into effect several political reforms, and that the military operations should be humane and conducted with all regard to private rights. It predicted such amelioration of conditions in Cuba as would end all occa- sion for a change of attitude on the part of the United States. The President said that this Government had never abrogated its right to determine its own course and would not. These meas- ures remained untried ; recognition of bellig- erent rights of insurgents, recognition of the independence of Cuba, neutral intervention to impose a compromise, and intervention in favor of one side or the other. " I speak not of forcible annexation," he said, "for that cannot be thought of." He then pro- ceeded to a long discussion of these untried measures. Closing his discussion of the Cuban-Spanish ciuestion, he said ; " If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty im- posed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilization and to humanity, to intervene with force, it shall be without fault on our part, and only because tlie necessity for such action will be so clear as to command the support and the approval of the civil- ized world." The President proceeded then to discuss the treaty which was then before the Senate, providing for the annexation of Hawaii, and declared that every consideration of dignity and honor recjuired its confiniiation. He announced his appointment of the commissioners to endeavor to secure an in- ternational agreement on bimetallism, and discussed the importance to the country of the construction of the Nicaragua Canal. The discussion of the efforts and failure of the Bimetallic Commission occupied a large part of the message, as did the dis- cussion of the sealing tpiestion, the negotia- tion of reciprocity treaties, the condition of the Indians in the Indian Territory, the gov- ernment of Alaska, the sale of the Pacific railroads, and the civil service. While all these things were of nominal importance, there was only one subject of real interest before the country and Con- gress at that tniie, and that was the state of affairs in Cidja and the possibility of armed intervention on our part. \'arious resolutions were proposed in Congress look- ing toward American interventio)i, but none reached a vote for some time. Meantime, the Administration was endeavoring by all the means at its command to j^revent an actual resort to arms, and to settle the vexed ciuestion, if possible, by some amica- ble arrangement with the Spanish Govern- ment. In the latter part of December, Gen- eral Woodford presented to tlie Spanish Cabinet his answer to the proposals of the Sagasta Ministry. It recognized the fact that time would be rec|uired to establish a just and permanent peace in Cuba, and prom- ised that meanwhile an attitude of kindly LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLE\ expectancy would be maintained by the United States until the fuUire should show whether tile indispensable conditions of peace were possible from the system of au- tonomy which Spain had proclaimed in Cuba. The answer also refuted the Spanish arraignment of the United States on the charge of not preventing filibustering. The measure of autonomy which had been proclaimed late in November was re- jected both by the insurgents, who would accept nothing but independence, and by the Pro-Spanish Cubans, who were against any concessions. Nevertheless, it was in- augurated formally in the beginning of Feb- ruary, 1898 ; but no sooner had it been constituted than diffei'ences arose among the members of the Autonomist govern- ment which made its success almost impos- sible. The military situation at the begin- ning of the year was very discouraging for Spain. General VVeyler, the author of the policy of reconcentration, had been recalled to Spain, and General Blanco had succeeded him. The reconcentration order was re- voked by General 131anco, but it was too late. In January, 1898, the concentration of the United States ships and war material in our Southern waters began. The ex- pressions of the newspapers and of public speakers throughout the country were al- most openly in favor of armed interven- tion and of recognition of the independence of the Cuban Republic. During the winter. Senator Proctor made a more or less ex- tended trip in Cuba, and his speech in the Senate, reporting the results of his observa- tions, created a profound sensation through- out the country. But nothing that had gone before aroused the feeling or excitement in the United States that followed the destruction of the battleship " Maine " in the harbor of Havana. Early in the year, upon the repre- sentation of General Fitzhugh Lee, Consul- General at Havana, as to the increasing excitement in Havana and the danger of riot and destruction of American life and COPYHIOHT 19111 QV THOUnS SMITH MS. AND MRS. McKIMLEY AT THE IllTERMATIOtlAL HOTEL, HIAGARA EALLS, SEPTEMBER 5 property, the Government had notified Spain that It was Intending to resume the friendly visits of American warships to Cuban waters. The battleship " Maine," Captain Sigsbee, was therefore ordered to Havana. Upon her arrival at that port she was conducted to a buoy specified for her mooring by the Spanish authorities. The usual official visits were made, and, on the surface at least, there was the usual feeling of courtesy and good-will ; but on the night of the 15th of February, at twenty minutes before ten o'clock, while most of the men were asleep in their hammocks on the berth deck, there was a tremeiidous explosion, a[)parently under LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY THt PftEb.ULNr ARRIVING AT TH£ TEIvlPLt OF MUSIC the ship, and immediately afterward she sank. Her complement was three hundred and sixty officers and men, of whom two officers and two hundred and sixty-four men were drowned or killed outright by the explosion, and sixty others were taken out wounded. In his notification of the Navy Department of the disaster, Captain Sigsbee requested the suspension of public judgment until such time as the circumstances and facts attending the explosion and its cause could be determined. In spite of this appeal, however, there was such an outburst of feeling throughout the country as made it certain that war was inevitable. A court of inquiry was appointed at once to investigate the loss of the ship. It was charged that the explosion was due to the machinations of Spaniards in Havana, and that, even though it might not be known to Spanish officials, they were in actuality responsible for having caused the " Alaine " to be moored at a berth where such a catastrophe was possible. The court of in- quiry made an exhaustive investigation. It was determined that the discipline on the ship was excellent, and that less than two hours before the explosion the condition of all her compartments had been examined and found satisfactory. The forward part of the ship was completely demolished. The conclusion of the court was that the ship had been destroyed by a submarine mine, the explosion of which caused the explosion of two or more of her forward magazines. The excitement throughout the country- increased rapidly, and there was a general demand for armed intervention in Cuba. On March 28, the President transmitted the report of the court of inquiry to Congress, with a special message in which he detailed the circumstances, and said that he had caused the finding of the court, and the views of the Government upon it, to be communicated to the Spanish Government, and that he did not doubt that the sense of justice of the Spanish nation would dic- tate an honorable course of action. In the meantime, deliberate consideration was in- voked. Congress was disposed to accept the ad- vice of the President, and the "Maine" incident was treated as an incident only. But it undoubtedly had great influence in hastening the national decision on the other question. On April 11, the President sent a special message to Congress, detailing his negotiations for peace, enumerating the evil effects of the war in Cuba, and asking for power to compel the restoration of order and the establishment of a good govern- ment. He rehearsed in great detail the situation in Cuba, and then, quoting from his message of the December previous the paragraph with reference to the untried measures, he discussed the recognition of the insurgents as belligerents and the recog- nition of the independence of Cuba, and showed the inadvisability of both. Forcible intervention to stop the war, however, he de- clared to be justifiable on rational grounds, which were explained. In its concluding paragraphs, the message said — In view of tliese [;ictw, and of these considerations, T ask the Congress to authorize and empower the l^resident to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the government of Spain and the people of Cuba. The issue is now with the Congress. I have exhausted every effort to relieve the intolerable condition of affairs which is at our doors. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY LAST PHOTOGRAPH OF PRE^.;DEI,T McKl.TLEY. TAKEN V^HILE HE WAS GOING UP THE STEPS OF THE TEMPLE OF MUSIC, FRIDAY, SEPT. 6 Yesterday official inforiiiatiou was received that the latest decree of the Queen-Eegent directs General Blanco to proclaim a suspension of hostilities. If this measure attains a successful result, then our aspira- tions as a Christian, peace-loving people will be real- ized. If it fails, it will be only another justification for our contemplated action. It will thus be .seen that the President at last was ready to accept the inevitable. Throughout all the tremendous excitement of the crisis, his management of the affair had been such as to excite the most enthu- siastic admiration, even in his opponents. Throughout the country there was an ill- considered demand for immediate war, which found echo, not only in the col- umns of sensational newspapers, but even on the floors of Congress. In spite of this warwhoop. President McKinley had been able to prevent action by Congress imtil he had exhausted what he considered to be the last resource, and even then, when he had written the message asking for author- ity to intervene by force of arms, he still delayed sending it to Congress, in the hope that the last measure tried by Spain, men- tioned by him just at the close of the message, might possibly bring about a peaceful settlement. In the meantime, the departments of War and the Navy had not been idle. It would have been criminal folly for them not to have acted upon the state of affairs which was then a matter of common public knowl- edge. The Navy Department especially had made extensive preparations. The President's message resulted in the immediate introduction of a resolution grant- ing him the aiUhority he asked. The first resolution came from the Republican major- ity of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the House of Representatives. It simply authorized the President to stop the \Nar in Cuba, in order that a free government might be established there without recog- nizing the so-called Republic of Cuba, which was then alleged to be in existence. This resolution was not satisfactorv to the minor- ity, which submitted a resolution authoriz- ing the President to use the land and naval forces "in aiding the Republic of Cuba to maintain the independence hereby recog- nized." The majority resolution was finally adopted by an overwhelming majority. The Senate Committee on Foreign Rela- tions had meanwhile reported a resolution which declared that the Cubans " are and of right ought to be free and independent," and that it was the duty of the United States to demand the withdrawal of Spain from the island, authorizing the President to use the land and naval forces and to call out the militia to enforce the resolu- tion. After considerable debate, the Senate adopted the resolution which recognized the Republic of Cuba and the independence of the island. In the conference the House Committee succeeded in eliminating from the resolution the recognition of the Re- public of Cuba, so that the resolution as it was finally adopted recognized simply the independence of the people of Cuba, de- manded the withdrawal of Spain from the island, authorized the President to inter- vene to compel Spanish withdrawal, and declared — "That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY over said island except for the pacification tliereof, and asserts ils determination when that is completed to leave the government and control of the island to its people." This resolution was approved by the President on the 20th of April. Inve days later, he sent to Congress a special message asking for the declaratio)i of war. He set forth that upon the communication to the Spanish Minister at Washington of the de- mand in accordance with the previous joint resolutions, the Spanish Minister had asked for his passports. Thereupon General Wood- t W.^. _ r . ■ _ rEf.:PLE OF MUSIC FOR THEIR TURN TO SiiAKS£ TF;E PRESIDENT'S HAND ford had been notified by the Spanish Min- ister of Foreign Affairs that diplomatic relations between the two countries had terminated. The President had thereupon issued a proclamation declaring a blockade on the north coast of Cuba and of the port of Cienfuegos, and had also issued a proclamation calling for volunteers. He now recommended tlie formal declaration of war by Congress. The same day, the Senate and Hmise passed a bill declaring that war had existed since the 21st of April. Tims the formal declaration of war was made on April 25, but on March g there had passed both Houses by a unanimous vote a bill " m.iking appro]iriations to sup- ply urgent deficiencies in the appropriations of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, and for prior years, and for other purposes." The bill with this innocent title appropri- ated a few thousand dollars for printing and binding, a little bit more for a bureau of medicine and surgery in the naval estab- lishment, $100,000 for the naval bureau of equipment, $7,000 for the ordnance bureau, repairs to fire engines, gas and water pipes and such things, and concluded with this paragraph : " For the national defense, and for each and every purpose connected there- uith, to be expended by the President, and to remain available until January i, 1899, $50,000,000." That the country was in condition to undertake a war nothing more completely demonstrated than the fact that this appropriation of $50,000,000 was made payable from sums then in the Treasury. CHAPTER XXI THE VICTORY OVER SPAIN PRESIDENT McKINLEY at once pro- claimed a blockade of certain ports of Cuba, and the North Atlantic squadron, under command of Acting Rear- Admiral Sampson, was ordered to enforce it. A flying squadron, under Commodore Schley, was assembled at Hampton Roads, where it was held until it was evident that the Spaniards would make no demonstra- tion against our own north coast. Then it was ordered south to join Sampson. In the meantiine the Spanish squadron, under Ad- miral Cervera, consisting of four fine ar- mored cruisers, the flower of the Spanish navy, and some torpedo boats, had crossed the Atlantic and taken refuge in Santiago harbor. Sampson had had a little practice with some of his ships in a run to San Juan, Porto Rico, and a brief bombardment of the forts there. The President had called out first 125,000 volunteers, to be composed of the National Guardsmen of the various States. A subse- quent call was for 75,000 volunteers, en- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLF\ listed directly as United States troops. Preparations had beyun for the invasion of Cuba, but had been delayed after receipt of the news of the sailing of the Spanish squadron. It was determined to take care of that scjuadron before sending any large number of troops out in a lot of transports that might be attacked by Cervera. Before the formal declaration of war, Commodore George Dewey had been ap- pointed to the command of the Asiatic squadron, which then numbered five ships ; the cruisers "Olympia" (flagship), " Boston " and " Raleigh," and the gunboats " Con- cord " and "Petrel." The cruiser "Balti- more " was sent to him with ammunition and stores, and reached him at Hong Kong just before the outbreak of hostilities. He sailed from China on April 27 and reached Manila Bay on the morning of May i. His orders were to capture or destroy the Span- ish fleet there under Admiral Montojo, and then to return to the nearest American port. He passed the outer batteries on Corregidor Island, at the entrance to the harbor, soon after midnight, anil was off Manila at day- light. The Spanish ships were at anchor near Cavite. Dewey went after them at once, and by 7:30 o'clock had his victory practically won. He then drew off to re- stow ammunition and let the men go to breakfast. Before 10 o'clock it was seen that almost every ship of the Spanish fleet was on fire or in distress. Dewey returned to the attack to find that the Spaniards had run all their vessels aground and abandoned them. The flagship " Keina Christina" and the large cruisers "Castilla" and "Don Juan de Ulloa" had been riddled by the Amer- ican fire, and were now wrecked and in flames. Seven smaller gunboats and a large armed transport had also been sunk. The Spaniards had suffered severely, losing about four hundred men killed and many more wounded, as well as all their ships. The American loss was practically nothing. Not a man had been killed. Not a ship had been hit seriously. One shell that struck the "Baltimore" exploded some ammuni- tion on deck, slightly wounding two officers and six men. The Spanish ships had been supported by two land batteries on Sangley Point, both of wliich were silenced. The " Petrel " was sent in to the shallow water, where the smaller boats had been grounded, and set them afire. The land batteries were LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY MR. ABNER McKINLEY AND COUSIN LEAVING THE MILBURN HOUSE also destroyed. Afterward the batteries at Corregidor and on El Fraile, a rock in the southern cliannel, near the island, were also destroyed. The white flag flew over Manila all day, but Dewey had no men to land to garrison the town, and could not accept the surrender. Next day the Spaniards had re- gained some of their courage and pulled down the white fiag. Dewey remained off Cavite, blockading Manila, and waiting for troops to garrison the city. He was ready to compel its surrender at any time. The news of this victory set the country on fire. It was the first blow of the war, and it destroyed fully a third of Spain's effective naval strength. Several captures of unimportant vessels were made off the Cuban coast, and there w^ere one or two minor engagements, in one of which, off Cardenas, the torpedo boat " Winslow " was crippled and Ensign Worth Bagley was killed. The second of the three effective blows which were all that were delivered by the United States, was the destruction of Cervera's squadron. Schley took the Fly- ing Squadron south about the middle of May and joined Sampson. He stopped at Cienfuegos, on the south coast of Cuba, and then on receipt of orders from Samp- son, who had had information that Cervera had gone into Santiago, Schley went there and maintained a blockade until the arrival of Sampson on June i. Soon after that the battleship "Oregon," which had made a marvellous run around Cape Horn from the Pacific station, joined the fleet. The block- ade was maintained rigidly until July 3, when Cervera attempted to escape. Samp- son had attempted to bottle the Spaniards up in Santiago by sinking the collier " Mer- rimac" in the mouth of the harbor. But it had not been effective. The four fine armored cruisers " Cristobal Colon," " Maria Teresa," " Almirante Oquendo," and " Viz- caya," with the torpedo-boat destroyers " Plu- ton " and " Furor," came out of the harbor soon after 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning. Admiral Sampson had foreseen such a move, and had given orders as to how it was to be met. As soon as the first sight of the enemy's vessels was had all the ships of the blockading squadron began to close in on them. The Spaniards turned to the west- ward as soon as they were clear of the shoal water at the entrance to the harbor. The American ships swung parallel with them, and in a running figlit soon had three of them disabled. These were the " Maria Teresa," the flagship of /Vdmiral Cervera, the "Vizcaya" and the "Oquendo." They were all badly battered and were run aground. Exploding shells had started fires on each of them, and their crews were in desperate straits. Hundreds had been killed and wounded, others were burned, and some were drowned in attempting to reach the beach after the grounding of the ships. The " Colon " proved to be the fleetest of the Spaniards, and made a desperate effort to get away. She soon outstripped the heavy " Iowa " and " Indiana," which had done good work in the beginning of the fight, but the "Brooklyn," "Texas" and " Oregon " kept up the chase for fifty miles, when the " Brooklyn " and " Oregon " were near enough to bring their heavy guns in range, and the " Colon " gave up. She struck her colors and then ran aground. Meantime, the two torpedo-boat destroy- ers had been taken care of by the converted LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY SECRETARY CORTELYOU GIVING BULLETINS OF THE PRESIDENT'S CON- DITION TO THE REPORTERS yacht " Gloucester," Commander Richard Wainwright. As soon as they cleared the mouth of the harbor Wainwricrht made for them. A shell from one of the battle- ships struck the " Pluton " and she sank im- mediately. The "Gloucester" went on after the " Furor," and so riddled her that she turned for the beach, but struck a reef and sank. Thus the entire Spanish squad- ron was destroyed. More than six hundred men were killed or wounded, and about twelve hundred were taken prisoners, in- cluding- Admiral Cervera, and brought to the United States. The American loss was but one killed and three wounded. Not a ship was seriously injured, and but few shots struck them. This was the most crushing blow that had been struck. It was soon followed by the third, which practically ended the war. While Sampson was maintaining his weari- some blockade, the army, under Major-Gen- eral Shafter, was preparing for the invest- ment of Santiago by land. The Fifth Army Corps, numbering about sixteen thousand of- ficers and men, sailed from Tampa in thirty- seven transports, on June 14. Ten days later they were all ashore, and the advance on Santiago began. The Spaniards had strongly fortified the place, and held the town and outworks with about twenty-four thousand men. Reinforcements of eight thousand men had been ordered to them. The first fighting was at Las Guasimas, on June 24. The next day there was more at Sevilla, and by June 27 the outposts were in position three miles from Santiago. On July I there was desperate fighting at El Caney and on San Juan Ridge. The Span- iards resisted stubbornly, but the Americans would not be denied, and by repeated rushes in the face of terrific fire tliey carried both positions. It was at a sore loss, however, twenty-two officers and two hundred and eight men being killed, and eighty-one of- ficers and one thousand two hundred and three men wounded, witli seventy-nine miss- ing. The Spaniards had fought from be- hind intrenchments or in blockhouses, but they lost within three of six hundred. The rush of the American advance was checked, but they held wliat they had gained, and succeeded in extending their lines so as to envelop the city and pre- vent the arrival of reinforcements. There was considerable fighting on the next two days, but no more general engagements. Meantime, reinforcements were being hur- ried to General Shafter, six thousand men arriving within a week. He demanded the surrender of the city, but the Spanish gen- eral would not accept the terms offered. Meantime Cervera's squadron had been de- stroyed, and the Spanish position was thus much weakened. Finally, on July 17, the city was surrendered with twenty-two thou- sand men. While this was going on, General Merritt had sailed for the Philippines with about ten thousand men. The first expedition stopped at Guam, one of the Ladrone isl- ands, and captured it. By the last of July nearly the entire force was in camp below Manila, and Merritt and Dewey were ready to take that city. Dewey had been in ne- gotiation with the Spaniards, and on August 13 they surrendered, after a little fighting, in which the Americans lost about fifty, and the Spanish half as many. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY VICE-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT LEAVING THE MILBURN HOUSE General Miles had invaded Porto Rico in July, meeting with no resistance. There had been one or two minor engagements, but the fighting was practically over. Peace negotiations began on July 26. The pre- liminarjf protocol was signed on August 12, the day before the surrender of Manila ; but owing to the fact that the cable there had been cut after the fight on May i, news of the cessation of hostilities was not received for a week and the surrender was effective. The terms of peace included the cession of Porto Rico and one of the Ladrone islands to the United States, the evacuation of Cuba by the Spaniards, and the determina- tion of the status of the Philippines by the Peace Commissioners. These commissioners met in Paris on October i. Tlie treaty was signed on December 10. It confirmed the protocol and ceded the Pliilippines to the United States in consideration of the pay- ment of $20,000,000. No pecuniary indem- nity was exacted from Spain. Spain evacu- ated Porto Rico on October 18, and Cuba on January i, 1899. After the surrender of Santiago, as many of the American troops as could be with- drawn from Cuba were brought north as rapidly as possible, and those who had been held in camps in this country were mustered out. There had been great suffering from sickness both in the United States and in Cuba. Regiments of immunes were left to garrison the surrendered territory. A hos- pital camp was established at Montauk Point, on Long Island, to which all the troops were brought from Cuba preparatory to being mustered out. There President McKinley visited them and spent some time among the sick men. Afterward he went to the Peace Jubilee at Chicago, and then went to Omaha, where he made a speech, at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, in which he gave the first public intimation that it would be the policy of the Admin- istration to hold on to the Philippines. Congress had done its share in helping on the war. One of its first measures was that removing the disabilities of the last of the Southerners who fought in the Civil War. It also passed a bill for the reorgani- zation of the army, and a measure to pro- vide war revenues by increasing taxation. The war was not only carried to a glo- rious conclusion with astonishing celerity, it resulted in wiping out the last vestige of the old sectionalism that had resulted from the Civil War. Many men who had fought for the South were in the field now under the Stars and Stripes, and one of them. General Joseph Wheeler, retained his commission and was appointed a general in the regular army. President McKinley was especially rejoiced at this result, and it was one of his favorite themes in public discourses. CHAPTER XXII AFTER THE SPANISH WAR SEVERAL changes had occurred in the Cabinet. Secretary Sherman re- signed at the beginning of the war and was succeeded by Judge William R. Day, who served for only a few months, when he went to Paris as a Peace Commis- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY sioner, and John Hay, who had been Am- bassador to England, became Secretary of State. Charles Emory Smith took the Post- master-Generalship, vacated in April by Judge Gary, and when Cornelius N. Bliss left the Interior Department at the end of the year, he was followed as Secretary by Ethan Allen Hitchcock. Elihu Root suc- ceeded Secretary Alger in 1899. Abroad, President McKinley's diplomacy had been entirely successful. No matters of grave importance had come up with any foreign nation, but on the American initia- tive there had been an agreement providing that the occupation of spheres of influence in China should not prevent all nations join- ing in trade privileges. Thus the " Open Door" was made sure whatever befell in the Orient. The arbitration treaty with England had been defeated in the Senate. Another treaty was negotiated by Secre- tary Hay, looking to the construction of the Nicaragua Canal, but its provisions were also unsatisfactory to the Senate, and it was amended so that it was not accept- able to Great Britain. Before the treaty of peace with Spain had been ratified by the Senate, the insur- gents in the Philippines began hostilities. The first clash occurred on the night of February 4, 1899. From that time on, the insurgents were pushed steadily back until their organization was broken up and they resorted to guerilla warfare. Congress au- thorized the reorganization of the army, and nearly 70,000 troops were sent to the Philippines. The insurgents were completely defeated, and the whole territory, with small exceptions, occupied and pacified. A civil commission was sent out, which has estab- lished civil government throughout the isl- ands. The insurgent leader, Aguinaldo, was captured and armed resistance practically brought to an end. The phenomenal prosperity of the coun- try had not been checked by the war with Spain or the subsequent fighting in the Philippines. The years succeeding the rup- ture with Spain saw this prosperity increase without setback. President McKinley's mes- sages to Congress were taken up with the fortunate state of affairs of the country. When the summer of 1900 came, and the new Presidential campaign was at hand, there was no mention of any other Repub- lican candidate than McKinley. He was re- nominated by acclamation, and Colonel Roosevelt was named for second place on the ticket with him. The Democrats again nominated Mr. Bryan, and the campaign LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLFY TAKINC; THi: CASKKT I'ROM THK HEARSE IN FRONT OF THE CITY HAI.L, BUFFALO was fought out on the old issues of free silver and free trade, with an added cry by the Democrats and a few disgruntled Re- publicans that McKinley was an Imperialist. These people were all opposed to any ex- pansion of United States territory. The result was never in doubt. McKinley won by a much greater margin than had given him the Presidency for the first time. The country was thoroughly satisfied with the result, and for once a Presidential campaign had no especial disturbing effect on the business interests. The President retained his old Cabinet almost intact. Mr. McKenna had been appointed to the Supreme Court, and John W. Griggs had succeeded him as Attorney - General. Mr. Griggs was now succeeded by P. W. Knox. Meantime the government of Porto Rico had been assumed, and affairs in that island were proceeding quietly and satisfactorily. In Cuba the military occupancy still con- tinued pending the adoption of a constitu- tion and the establishment of a stable gov- ernment by the people. The summer of 1900 brought the complications in China vi'hen the Boxers and their allies attempted to drive out all foreigners and to massa- cre the legationists and other foreigners at Pekin. Under McKinley's direction the measures proposed by this Government, after the military situation had been relieved by the joint work of the Powers concerned, re- ceived practically the support of all others, and the United States led in effecting the settlement with the Chinese. President McKinley had been so much occupied with public affairs throughout his long career, that he had been but little about the country. Soon after he was in- augurated for the second time, in March of 1 90 1, he began to plan an extended tour of L 1 1- O 1' W I L L I A Ivl M c K I N L ]{ Y SAILORS CARRYING THE CASKET INTO THE CITY HALL, BUFFALO, WHERE THE PEOPLE VIEWED THE REMAINS the Southern and Western States. The trip began in the latter part of April, in a special train fitted with every convenience for the comfort of the distinguished party. The President was accompanied by Mrs. McKin- ley and by several members of his Cabinet. From the very start lie received one contin- ued ovation. He was called upon continu- ally to make speeches from the rear platform of his car, and at every stop of any length some sort of public function had been ar- ranged for him to meet the people of the locality. The South had learned to know him for the good friend he was to it, and its people turned out most enthusiastically to greet him. He went through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to New Orleans, where he made a stop of a day. Then through Texas to California. While in California Mrs. McKinley was taken ill, and for a time her life was despaired of. President McKinley had contemplated com- ing East by the northern route, and taking some weeks for the journey; but the illness of his wife caused the abandonment of the plans, and as soon as Mrs. McKinley was able to travel again, he took her at once to the old home in Canton. It was in the plans of this trip that at its close the Presi- dent should visit the Pan-American Exposi- tion at Buffalo, but that engagement was cancelled with the others. The engagement was only postponed, how- ever, for the work of the Exposition was in a line in which the President was especially interested. The second date set for his visit to Buffalo was early in September, and Mrs. McKinley having entirely re- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY LYING IN STATE, AT THE CITY HALL, BUFFALO covered her health by that time, the Presi- dential party left Washington on Septem- ber 3, and reached Buffalo at 6 o'clock the next evening. They left their special train at the Exposition grounds and were driven through the grounds, the President and Mrs. McKinley going to the home of President Milburn of the Exposition Com- pany. Everywhere McKinley was greeted by the cheers and applause of thousands of his admiring fellow countrymen. The next day, September 5, the President spent entirely at the Exposition. He drove out to the grounds, and almost immediately after arriving there delivered the last speech of his life, and one of the greatest. An enormous crowd had gathered on the espla- nade to hear him. In the stand near him sat Mrs. McKinley and many members of the Diplomatic Corps who had accompanied him from Washington or were already visit- ing the Exposition. The first part of his speech was devoted to the work of expo- sitions and their place as educators. The " timekeepers of progress," he called them. He said in part: Com]iarison of ideas is always educational, and as sucli iiLStruuts the lirain and hand of men. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial im- provement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high endeavor in all departments of human activity. . . The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly; presenting in its exhibits evidences of the highest skill and illustrating the progress of the human family in the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the earth has no cause for humiliation for the part it has performed in the march of civilization. . . . We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil and struggle, in which every part of the country has its stake, which will not permit of either neglect or undue selfishness. Ko narrow, sor- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLE^ FUXLKAI. TRAIX LEAVING BUFFALO, SFPTEMljER did policy will subserve it. Tlie greatest skill and wisdom on tlie part of manufacturers and producers will he required to liold and increase it. Oar indu,s- trial enterprises, wliicli have grown to sucli great pro- portions, affect the homes and occupations of tlie peo- ple and the welfare of the country. Onr capacity to prodnce has developed so enormously, and our products have so multiplied, that the problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep whiit we have. No other policy will get more. In these times of mar- vellous business energy and gain we ought to be look- ing to the future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial and commercial systems, that we may be ready for any storm or strain. By sensible trade arrangements wliich will not in- terrupt our home production we shall extend the out- lets for onr increasing surplus. A system which pro- vides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. . . . Heciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the do- mestic policy now firmly established. . . . The period of exclusiveness is past. The expan- sion of our trade and commerce is the pressing prob- lem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of goodwill and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Eeciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. If, perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad ? Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New lines of steam- ships have already been put in commission between the Paoifio coast ports of the United States and those on the western coasts of Mexico and Central and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship lines between the western coast of the United States and South American ports. One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that we have but barely touched. Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the conveyance to carry it to the buyer. We must en- courage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They must be under the American flag, built and manned and owned by Americans. These will not only be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go. We must build the Isthmian Canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of Central and South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable can not be longer postponed. In the furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you are performing an important part. . . . 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? . . . This speech attracted world-wide atten- tion. It was another example of the power of growth of McKinley in the advanced position it took on the subjects of reci- procity, ship subsidies, the Nicaragua Canal and the Pacific cable. The spirit of Pan- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY CARRYING THE REMAINS UP THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL Americanism, which had been the theme of some of the speeches at the formal opening- of the Exposition, was here declared again with enlarged emphasis, and both Old World and New heard with quickened thought. Friday, September 6, President McKinley and his party spent, for the most part, at Niagara Falls. In the afternoon he returned to Bulfalo. It had been planned to have him hold a public reception in the Temple of Music at the Exposition grounds. There was, as usual, an enormous crowd to see and greet the President, and by the time the arrangements had been completed in- side the building, there were ten thousand people crowded around waiting a chance to get in. The chairs had been arranged so that only one person could approach the President at a time, and as he stood in the centre of the great building he was surrounded by friends and members of the United States Secret Service. There was also a guard of regular soldiers from one of the batteries of artillery stationed at the Exposition. President Milburn of the Exposition introduced the President to the crowd. When the doors were swung open the people surged forward. The President with the skill of his long practice grasped the hand of each one who passed him, and with a quick shake and kindly word turned to the next. There was in the line a small blond smooth-faced young man who car- ried his right hand done up in a handker- chief as if it had been hurt. As the Presi- LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY BIRD'S-EYE VIEW (JF THE CEREMONIES IN THE ROTUNDA OF THE CAPITOL, (i) PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, (2, 3, 4-1 SECRETARIES HAY, GAGE, AND ROOT, (5) ADMIRAL DEWEY dent reached out to take this man's left hand, apparently mindful of the supposed injury to the other one, the man raised the right hand, and, with a revolver which he had concealed under the handkerchief, shot the President twice. The first bullet struck the breast bone and was deflected, doing no serious damage. The second penetrated the abdomen, and it was seen at once that the wound was dangerous. Instantly a dozen men sprang upon the assassin and bore him down. One of tlie artillerymen was the first to reach him and got the revolver, lie was dragged into a private room so quickly that when the crowd realized that he had shot the President, and wanted to get at him to lynch him then and there, the officers of the law had him in a safe place. The first thought of every one with the President was for his safety, but that was not so with him. As he was assisted to a chair he turned to his secretary and said : " Cortelyou, my wife. Be careful about her. Tell her gently." The doors of the Temple had been shut instantly, and word had been sent for sur- geons and an ambulance. The crowd out- side did not know for a few minutes what had happened, and then there was the wild- est expression of grief and rage. Thousands swarmed about the building, seeking to get in and do violence to the assassin. The arrival of the ambulance from the emer- gency hospital of the Exposition increased the excitement. The wounded President was taken to the hospital at once, and LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY CAKK\I,Mi THE BODY FROM THE .MrKIXI.KY KKSIDKXCE almost immediately there were in attend- ance on him some of the most skilful sur- geons in the country. Dr. M. D. Mann and Dr. Herman Mynter of Buffalo reached the hospital in a few minutes, and word was sent to Dr. Rosvvell Park, who was at Niagara Falls, and he came at once on a special train that had right of way over everything. The first examination of the President showed the surgeons that an operation was necessary to save his life, and they prepared to perform it at once. It was a difficult operation and severe, but it resulted apparently successfully. It was found that the second bullet had perforated the stomach and lodged somewhere in the back. It could not be found. Dr. Park ar- rived just at the close of the operation and concurred in everything that had been done. The wounds in the stomach were sutured, and the incision in the abdomen made by the surgeons closed. Then the President was taken to the home of Mr. Milburn, which was turned into a temporary hos- pital. Meantime, the assassin had been taken to Police Headquarters. There he said he was Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, who had committed the crime because it was his duty. He had had no accomplices of any sort. He was a disciple of Emma Gold- man, an anarchist, and believed her teach- ings, that all rulers should be removed. The fight for the life of the President, that had begun so promptly after he was shot, was conducted with all the skill and care that science could supply. Doctors Mann, Mynter and Park were associated with Dr. Rixey, tlie f-'resident's physician, and with Dr. VVasdin of the Marine Hos- pital Service. Dr. McBurney, a celebrated New York surgeon, was summoned also, and later Dr. Stockton of Buffalo, a spe- cialist in the treatment of the stomach. Vice-President Roosevelt was in Ver- mont when he got the news of the shoot- ing of the President. He started at once on a special train and reached Buffalo the next morning. The members of the Cabinet hurried to Buffalo also with all speed. Senator Hanna and several others of the President's warm friends arrived, and his relatives were notified and came as fast as was possible. His brother, Abner McKinley, was in Colorado and made a record trip to Buffalo. Mrs. McKinley's relatives and LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY CARRYING THE BODY INTO THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH friends also came and assisted to care for her. She bore up wonderfully under the strain, and, to the astonishment of those who knew how feeble and frail she was, did not once collapse. For the first few days after the shooting- the condition of the wounded President seemed to be all that could be desired. He rallied well from the shock of the operation, and the next day was strong and cheerful. His pulse and temperature continued to be high, but respiration and temperature dropped gradually, and every indication seemed to point to his recovery. The doctors gave out frequent bulletins, which reflected their hopefulness, but did not at any time admit that the distinguished patient was out of danger. Military guards were stationed about the house and traffic was stopped in nearby streets. Scores of newspaper men from all over the country were sent to Buffalo to watch the case. They lived in tents just across the street from the Milburn house. Special wires were put in by the telegraph companies, and a constant service was maintained throughout the country. The crime struck the civilized world with horror and amazement. President McKin- ley was the last man in the world one would have dreamed of such a thing hap- pening to. He had no enemies anywhere, personally. All who knew him loved him. The crime was the result of pure anarchism. Thousands of messages of sympathy and condolence were received not only from friends and admirers in the United States, but from every court and capital on the globe. Kings, princes and rulers of every degree sent their personal messages to the stricken President, and in Europe, espe- cially, was there evidence of profound grief. Great Britain mourned as if one of her own royal family had been the victim of the assassin. In the course of a few days the improve- ment of the President was so decided that the Vice-President and some of the members of the Cabinet left Buffalo. Mr. Roosevelt went into the North woods. All were sure that Mr. McKinley would recover. The President himself talked about it. He was very cheerful and wanted to smoke. But on the seventh night after the shooting LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY there came a change for the worse. It was a sinkhig spell from which the Presi- dent seemed to rally slightly, but it became evident the next day that the end was not far off. The most heroic stimulants were used without avail. The doctors were ab- solutely at a loss to know what had caused the change. They were inclined to think that his heart had been injured in some way. The Cabinet members were sum- moned hastily again, and word was got to the Vice-President, who was found deep in the woods, almost on top of Mount Marcy. lie rode all night to take a special train the next morning, but before he could reach Buffalo the end had come. President McKinley was dead. Soon after his arrival in Buffalo the new President took the oath of office in the presence of those members of the Cabinet who had been able to reach that city. Be- fore being sworn in he made the announce- ment that it was his purpose faithfully to carry out the plans of the late President. He regarded himself as the political legatee of William McKinley, and his Adminis- tration would pursue the lines that had marked that of McKinley with such signal success. An autopsy was performed upon the body of the dead President, and it show-ed the medical and surgical world a genuine sur- prise. Gangrene had followed the track of the bullet, and about the wounds in the stomach there was necrosis, the tissue for a space about the size of a half-dollar lieing dead. No satisfactory cause for this condi- tion has been assigned by any of the sur- geons or physicians. They freely admitted that they did not know what had caused it. None of them had ever heard of any such thing before, and the medical books do not record such a case. Many theories have been advanced, but as yet none has been accepted by the scientific world. On .Sunday, September 15, the day atfer his death, brief funeral services were held over the body of the dead President at the Milburn house, and then the body was taken to the City Hall in Buffalo, where it lay in state until 10 o'clock in the evening. Thousands passed m line to view their LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY GUARDING THE TOMB AT WESTLAWN CF-MiniiRV dead President for the last time. Mrs. McKinley had borne up amazingly well throughout the ordeal. She had been sup- ported by her relatives and friends during it all. She had not been able to go down into the room at the Milburn house where the funeral services were held, but sat at the head of the stairs and heard the singing and the service. " Lead, Kindly Light" and "Nearer, my God, to Thee," two of the favorite hymns of the late President, were sung, and there was a short service. There was a military escort for the body in the procession to the City Hall, and a guard of soldiers, sailors and marines was in constant attendance. From Buffalo the body was taken in a special train, the very one that had brought the President to the city, to Washington. The military guard accompanied it. Presi- dent Roosevelt and the members of the Cabinet went by the same train, and Mrs. McKinley returned with her dead to the scene of so many of his triumphs. The state funeral of President McKin- ley was held at Washington on September 17. The body was taken from the White House to the Capitol, where, in the Rotun- da, the final services were held. President Roosevelt and ex-President Cleveland, all the members of the Diplomatic Corps then in Washington, and all officers of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps who could reach the national capital, were in the pro- cession that accompanied the body on its last journey from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol. A great civic and military concourse formed the procession. The members of the Cabinet and delegations from both Houses of Congress, and a throng of men noted in the life of the nation, formed part of the crowd in the Capitol. The rotunda was lined with floral pieces, tributes to the memory of the dead President from friends and admirers all over the world. After the services in the Capitol the body lay in state until 6 o'clock, and thou- sands of men and women passed in line by the casket to look for the last time upon the face of the man who had occu- pied such a place in their hearts. Mrs. McKinley had been unable to leave the White House during the day. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEY At 7 o'clock in the evening the body was removed to the railway station to be taken to Canton for final sepulture. Again the solemn military guard escorted it slowlv through the streets of the capital, and Washington saw the last of the great man who for four and a half years had been its most conspicuous resident. All along the route the people thronged out to see the funeral train, as they had done on the journey from Buffalo to Washing- ton. Everywhere flowers were thrown before the train ; everywhere there was the same evidence of the grief of the people. Presi- dent Roosevelt and the Cabinet officers, with many members of the Diplomatic Corps and ofBcers of the army and navy, accompanied the body to Canton. The funer- al train reached the Ohio home of the dead man the next day, and the body was taken to the Court House, where it lay in state until evening. Then it was removed to the McKinley home. There, in the house to which he had brought his bride, the body of Major Mc- Kinley rested for the last time. Next day it was taken to his old church, and after the services there, with the imposing cere- mony of solemn procession and inilitary accompaniment it was taken to the ceme- tery and placed in the vault. At the last, Mrs. McKinley was too ill and too much exhausted to accompany it. She remained in the old home, tenderly cared for by her friends and physicians. The swift hand of justice was already preparing to strike the miserable assassin. He had been indicted for murder in the first degree. Two distinguished members of the Erie County bar were assigned to defend him, and, at the request of the Bar Association, undertook the disagreeable task. His trial was short, but entirely just. He tried to plead guilty, but the law refuses to accept such a plea in such cases. He was found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair, in Auburn Prison, in the week beginning October 28. The tributes of love and grief that came to Mrs. McKinley from all the world includ- ed personal messages from many crowned heads and other dis- tinguished persons. The King of Eng- land and the Emperor of Germany, the Czar of Russia and the President of France, sent messages which showed that their feel- ing was not the per- functory expression of sympathy and con- dolence, but a genu- ine sense of personal loss. Throughout the United States there was a most remarkable display. Buildings everywhere were draped in the sable em- blems of mourning, flags were half-masted, and on the day of the final services, at half- past two o'clock in the afternoon, there was a general cessation of business of almost every nature for five minutes. The whole country stopped to mourn its dead Presi- dent. It was a fitting tribute to the mem- ory of a great man, great in his life and his deeds, greatest of all in his death. . V/ILLIAM McKINLEY I2S It J