WILLIAM MCKINLEY | 1897-1901
At the 1896 Republican Convention, in time of depression, wealthy Ohio businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination William McKinley as "the advance agent of prosperity."
Born in Niles, Ohio, on January 29, 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. A private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He studied law, opening an office in Canton, Ohio.
At 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress. His attractive personality, exemplary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly. He was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican tariff expert, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The next year he was elected governor of Ohio, serving two terms.
When McKinley became president, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history. In this friendly atmosphere, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by "Nursie" Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as "dangerous conspiracies against the public good."
Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon McKinley for war. He delivered a message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba. In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.
Undecided on what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba. McKinley toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. In 1900, Democratic nominee Willliam Jennings Bryan inveighed against imperialism; McKinley quietly stood for "the full dinner pail."
His second term, which had begun so auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.
