“He was an enormously popular Republican, a successful war president, a man of seemingly amiable, unthreatening demeanor, and a middle-class Mason and Methodist who most nights read the Bible to his wife” (Phillips, p. 143).
No offense to William McKinley or anything but I am heartily sick of the presidents! Not only have I already read 24 biographies and countless other books about the presidency but all these one-termers were beginning to wear on me mentally. It doesn’t help that Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland and Harrison have, in my mind, already lost their individuality and are currently melding together into one big presidential olio. Sigh. This slow ebbing of presidential distinctiveness means I’m already looking greedily ahead at the big fat Teddy Roosevelt bio waiting for me at my friendly neighborhood library. It’s the little things that make me happy apparently.
However, without unduly skipping ahead to the Rough-Riding cowboy, there are a couple of things that make me marginally excited about McKinley. Actually, “excited” is too strong a word—let’s just say McKinley makes me smile wanly. Anyho, what gives me a little joy about McKinley is that he was elected to two (consecutive!) terms and that he died in office. I don’t mean to imply that I am glad he was assassinated but I have to admit, on a readability level, assassinations are thrilling. Of course, I can only make this assumption after a good century has gone by. Other than that and other than what I’ve garnered about him from the Harrison and Cleveland bios, I don’t have much of a clue about McKinley and so I turn to William McKinley: American Presidents Series by Kevin Phillips (New York: Times Books, 2003).
William McKinley Jr was born on January 29, 1843 in Niles, OH. The family was up-rooted nine years later when they all moved to Poland, Ohio and there William was placed in a private academy. In 1859, he graduated from the academy and was baptized at a camp meeting. In 1860, William went on to Allegheny College in Pennsylvania but dropped out after only one term. There is no evidence as to why McKinley left college but the author believes it was due to depression. He moved back home and did various jobs such as teaching and working at a post office. While he was home, McKinley became the president of the Canton YMCA.
When the Civil War did not end after a couple months as most in the North thought it would, McKinley, in June 1861, volunteered as a private in the Poland Guards. His troop was sent to West Virginia where he was made a clerk in the quartermaster department. The very next year he was promoted to quartermaster sergeant and after Antietam, he was promoted again. After a particular act of bravery, McKinley became a captain and then became a brevet major. In 1864, he voted for the first time in a presidential election.
After the war ended, McKinley moved to New York to attend Albany Law School. Like his other college experience he only stayed one term and then moved to Canton, Ohio to read law under Judge Charles Glidden. Soon he had passed the bar and had his own law practice. In 1869, he was elected as the Stark County Prosecutor and in 1871, he married Ida Saxton, the daughter of a prominent Canton family. Unfortunately, after a hard pregnancy in which the baby died only a few months later, she “developed convulsions that suggested brain damage. She became an epileptic with seizures” (p. 25). Ida would remain this way the rest of her life so William made changes to spend more time with her and to take care of her himself. His lifelong devotion to his wife was something that most contemporary peers admired about him.
In 1876, McKinley won his first seat in Congress in the House of Representatives and he would keep his seat for nearly 15 years. His district was strongly Republican and he could always count on being returned to Congress. “Cautiousness, refusal to explain or discuss unpleasantness, and a skill in pleasing people were traits McKinley learned during these years and would display through his political career” (p. 26). In 1889, he ran for Speaker of the House but lost. Instead, he was appointed to chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee and he became the Republican floor leader. He also took a vigorous interest in congressional financial matters and even put his name on the McKinley Tariff of 1890.
The Democrats did not like the way that McKinley was continuously elected to the House so they redrew his district. Thus, in 1890, he lost his congressional seat but in an odd quirk of fate, won the governorship of Ohio instead. As governor during this time, McKinley faced the Panic of 1893, miners striking, and tariff questions besetting his own state. He was elected to two terms as governor but he also played an increasingly important role in the Republican Party. For the 1880 election, McKinley was a representative to the Ohio state convention and in 1884 and 1888, he was delegate from Ohio to the national Republican convention. “Watching McKinley’s skilled 1884-96 ascent of Mount Nomination is impressive, a bit like seeing a first-rate climber move across a particularly challenging rock face. No other nineteenth-century Republican ever advanced so methodically, but careful preparation was a McKinley talent dating back to his wartime staff work” (p. 67).
One of the reasons that McKinley did not, in fact, run for a third term as governor was due to some legal and financial difficulties. McKinley co-signed a business deal with his friend Walker when, under the Panic of 1892, Walker went bankrupt. In the end, McKinley ended up owing, on behalf of his friend’s defunct business, $130,000. He was quite upset and even threatened to resign his final term as governor so that he could resume his law practice and pay back the amount. In the end though, his friends, specifically Mark Hanna, helped out. “Instead, they [Hanna, Herrick, and others] raised the money from private contributors, mostly in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, and paid off the cosigned notes so that McKinley—by now, the next president—did not need to go back to practicing law” (p. 68).
“Much of McKinley’s success in the presidency came from the rare strength and sophistication he showed in winning it” (p. 57). McKinley was nominated on the very first ballet at the Republican convention and was surprised to find himself opposite to the Democratic dark horse, William Jennings Bryan. McKinley, during the campaign, promised a ‘full dinner pail’ to help the nation recover from the economic chaos of the Panic of 1893 and won the presidency handily. He became the 25th President of the United States of America.
As president, McKinley, domestically, was dealing with an era of economic prosperity which totally aided the successes of his first term. He was a proponent of bimetallism and dealt with the gold and silver standards. There were also tariff issues that simply would not go away and of course, the rise of corporate trusts. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act had been recently passed by Congress, but McKinley did very little to wage war against the trusts. He also was a very socially conscious president, giving a voice to the voiceless. “McKinley was also far ahead of TR in supporting the franchise for women, black voting in the South, and direct election of US senators (which he backed in the House of Representatives” (p. 129).
The foreign policy arena was basically monopolized by the Spanish-American War, during McKinley’s first term, and it all began with the Maine mysteriously blowing up in Havana harbor. The US had a running issue with Cuba not only because it was very close to our borders but also because it was a bastion of Spanish power in the vaunted Western Hemisphere. One of the Republican platforms for the 1896 campaign had been Cuban independence and when the American warship exploded, killing several hundred Americans, McKinley could no longer look the other way. “He had hoped, through moderation and diplomatic attention to Spanish punctilio, or pride, to convince the government in Madrid that aroused US public and government opinion left Spain no alternative but to withdraw from Cuba” (p. 94). On April 24, 1898, only months after the Maine affair, a declaration of war was passed. The Rough Riders won several battles in Cuba itself and the American navy neutralized the Spanish fleet near the Philippines in several strategic battles.
By late July, only 113 days after the war began, Spain sued for peace and a treaty followed the next fall. “Hostilities were to conclude on the following terms: Spain was to free Cuba and cede Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and the United States was to occupy Manila pending the peace treaty’s final disposition of the Philippines. No other war declared by the United States has been shorter” (p. 96-97). The US also picked up Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba as a navy refueling station.
After a successful American victory against the Spanish and all that economic prosperity, it was really a foregone conclusion that McKinley would be re-nominated by the Republican Party. However, in 1899, the vice president, Hobart, had died in office and so this position needed to be filled. Theodore Roosevelt, the young, wildly-popular governor of New York was nominated as the vice presidential candidate. In the election of 1900, McKinley again faced off against William Jennings Bryan and won again.
As the first real Progressive Era president, McKinley was also very excited about
Pan-Americanism and the end of American isolation. Thus in September of 1901, he and Ida attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. While he was shaking hands with a crowd, McKinley was shot twice by Leon Frank Czolgosz, a disaffected anarchist on September 6, 1901. Doctors were able to extract the bullet from his shoulder but the other bullet, the one that went through his stomach and kidney, they were unable to locate through surgery. He seemed to be getting better but on September 14th William McKinley died of gangrene from the wounds. On October 29th Czologsz was executed by electric chair.
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